A Little Dare - Brenda Jackson [24]
She quickly turned around. “Follow me,” she said over her shoulder, wondering how she was going to handle being alone in the house with him.
Following Shelly was the last thing Dare thought he needed to do. He tried not to focus on the sway of the backside encased in denim shorts in front of him. He was suddenly besieged with memories of just how that backside had felt in his hands when he’d lifted it to thrust inside her. Those thoughts made his arousal harden even more. He suppressed a groan deep in his throat.
He tried to think of other things and glanced around. He liked the way she had decorated the place, totally differently from the way her parents used to have it. Her mother’s taste had been soft and quaint. Shelly’s taste made a bold statement. She liked colors—bright cheery colors—evident in the vivid print of the sofa, loveseat and wingback chair. Then there were her walls, painted in a variety of colorful shades, so different from his plain off-white ones. He was amazed how she was able to tie everything together without anything clashing. She had managed to create a cozy and homey atmosphere for herself and AJ.
As they entered the kitchen, Dare quickly sat down at the table before she could note the fix his body was in, if she hadn’t done so already. But he soon discovered that sitting at the table watching her move around the kitchen only intensified his problem. He was getting even more turned on by the fluid movements of her body as she reached into a cabinet to get their coffee cups. The shorts were snug, a perfect fit, and his entire body began throbbing in deep male appreciation.
“You still like your coffee black and your Danish with a lot of butter, Dare?”
“Yes,” he managed to respond. He began to realize that he had made a mistake in dropping by. Over the past couple of days when they’d been together there had been other people around. Now it was just the two of them, alone in this house, in this room. He had to fight hard to dismiss the thought of taking her right there on the table.
He inhaled deeply. If Shelly knew what thoughts were running through his mind she would probably hightail it up the stairs, which wouldn’t do her any good since he would only race up those same stairs after her and end up making love to her in one of the bedrooms.
That was something they had done once before when her parents had been out of town and he had dropped by unexpectedly. A slow, lazy smile touched the side of his mouth as he remembered the intensity of their lovemaking that day. That was the one time they hadn’t used protection. Perhaps that was the time she had gotten pregnant with AJ?
“What are you smiling about?”
Her question invaded his thoughts and he shifted in the chair to alleviate some of the tension pressing at the zipper of his pants. He met her gaze and decided to be completely honest with her, something he had always done. “I was thinking about that time that we made love upstairs in your bedroom without protection, and wondered if that was the time you got pregnant.”
“It was.”
He regarded her for a second. “How do you know?”
She stared at the floor for a moment before meeting his gaze again. “Because after that was the first time I’d ever been late.”
He nodded. The reason they had made love so recklessly and intensely that day was because he had received orders a few hours earlier to leave immediately for an area near Kuwait. It was a temporary assignment and he would only be gone for two months. But at the time, two months could have been two years for all she cared. Because of the danger of his assignment, the news had immediately sent her in a spin and she had raced up the stairs to her bedroom so he wouldn’t see her cry. He had gone after her, only to end up placing her on the bed and making frantic, uncontrolled love to her.
“What did Jared have to say yesterday?” Shelly asked him rather than think about that particular day when they had unknowingly created their son. Straightening, she walked over to the table and placed the coffee and