Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet (14 page)

But this was real. It was Leila. And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to remain in control of it.

When another thread of anxiety spiraled up at that thought, Baron pulled away from her mouth and stared up at her, gasping to catch his breath.

She was astride him, and they’d somehow managed to take off her sweater so she was clad in her jeans and an emerald green bra. At the interruption, she grinned down at him, flushed and sincere and utterly Leila. “What is it? Don’t tell me you don’t have any condoms. Because I swear to God I’ll go down the hall banging on doors until I find one.”

A laugh in response took Baron by surprise. Something more than arousal swelling up inside him now, he pulled her down into another kiss. “I have condoms,” he said, each word punctuated by another kiss.

He rolled her over onto her back, adjusting his weight so he could slide off her jeans. Her body was fair and small—but not delicate or flimsy. His erection throbbed in his pants as he stared down at the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips, masked only by a little lace and satin.

“Hey,” she said, tilting his head so he had to look at her face and not her body. “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to stare?”

Baron gave a huff of laughter, realizing that she was actually self-conscious about his looking at her body. “Then you shouldn’t tempt me to stare by looking so incredibly gorgeous.”

She smiled up at him, her hair surrounding her face in messy waves. “Oh. I bought the bra-and-panty-set for you, you know. Glad it wasn’t money wasted.”

The roar of need and desire in his head grew even louder and—having no adequate way to respond to her admission—he leaned into another kiss. This time, when their lips tore apart, he kissed his way down her neck to her breasts.

She gasped and shuddered as he suckled her nipple through the bra. Her fingers clawed at his neck and held his head in place.

Intoxicated by how eager she was, Baron slid one hand down between her legs. The thin satin of her panties was damp, and he caressed her through the fabric as he continued to mouth her breast. Astoundingly soon, her body tightened palpably beneath him.

“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Baron!” One of her legs had lifted and bent until her heel was digging into his back.

His head roared and his vision blurred as he worked her up into climax, pushing her over the edge with a nip of her tightened nipple—prompted more from instinct than any remembered skill.

Her fingernails broke the skin of his neck as she came, shaking and moaning under his fingers and mouth.

“Oh, God, thank you,” Leila said hoarsely, smiling up at him, as genuine as ever, when he finally released her breast. “You’re really good at that.”

Baron couldn’t help but smile back, although the ache of his arousal and the roar in his head made it hard for him to think at all.

Before he could make his lust-fogged mind work enough to respond, she continued, “Now why do you have on so many clothes?”

She quickly took care of this inequity by tugging his shirt off over his head, but Baron distracted her before she could start working on his pants.

He was horribly afraid that, as soon as he took off his pants, he would only have a small window before he would lose it completely.

And he couldn’t lose it too soon. He had to make sure he pleased her enough.

He wasn’t going to ruin his chance with her.

So he kissed her again, managing to unhook her bra and slide off her panties in the process.

“Baron,” she said breathlessly, her hands stroking the bare skin of his back. “I’m ready... we can—” Her words broke off with a ragged cry of pleasure as he nipped at one of her bare nipples.

He nibbled his way lower down her body, kissing her belly as he stroked her thighs, loving the feel of her soft, firm flesh.

“Baron,” she gasped, as his mouth lowered even further, “You don’t have to—oh God!” Her last exclamation was prompted by his flicking his tongue over her intimate flesh.

He slid his finger inside her, amazed by how wet she was, how much she wanted him. Then he used two fingers to stroke her inner walls as he pleasured her with his mouth.

Leila’s responses grew more and more intense as he worked—her body jerking and tensing and her gasps transforming to sounds like sobs. Her responses felt so much more real than anything Baron had ever experienced in bed.

He was used to practiced moves, artificial dirty talk, and vying for control, but Leila was real, sincere, generous, letting herself go with utter abandon.

He’d never experienced anything like it, and his tenuous control threatened to snap. Not just from the scent, feel, and taste of her but from the realization of how much pleasure he was giving her.

She came again, even harder than before, her legs tightening over his shoulders, her body arching and shuddering.

He was hot, tense, and desperately hard when her body relaxed beneath him. He wondered if he had enough control left to bring her to one more climax.

“Baron,” Leila rasped, her fingers tightening on his shoulder in an obvious indication for him to raise himself up over her again. “That’s enough,” she murmured, meeting his eyes, “I want you. I just want
you
.”

Baron’s throat ached as he processed the words, realized she knew what he’d been trying to do and wouldn’t have it.

On this recognition, his body reacted in such a way that he wouldn’t have been able to last much longer, even if he’d wanted to.

Together, they managed to take off the rest of his clothes and roll on the condom he fumbled out of his pocket.

He tried to think of something to say as he positioned himself between her legs. He opened his mouth but no words came out.

Leila smiled up at him—her affection palpable, irresistible. He thought she would say something, but instead she pulled him down into another kiss.

He wasn’t used to kissing much during sex, but once he started kissing Leila he couldn’t stop.

So they were kissing as he slid himself inside her. And they were kissing as he started to move his hips with instinctive rhythm. And they were still kissing as he felt the beginnings of a climax building deeply inside him.

He tore his lips away as he realized he was going to come too soon. He tried to slow the pumping of his hips, tried to pull himself back into control.

“No,” Leila gasped, her legs wrapped high around his back, her hips moving to his motion. “Don’t slow down. Please, please.”

Baron groaned and buried his face in the hollow of her neck. His body built back up to the primitive, hungry motion he needed, and he heard himself say thickly, “Damn, Leila. You feel so good. So good.”

She whimpered in response and grabbed his head to pull him up into another kiss. The roar in his head, the throb of his body, and the rhythm of his basest need broke the final threads of his control.

He gave himself over to Leila, to who she was and who he was with her—to all of his needs finding their answer in her warmth and strength and desire for him.

He was able to hold on long enough for Leila to cry out his name and shake beneath him, her fingernails digging lines down his back. Then the rush overtook him, and he was conscious of making a rough, primitive sound of satisfaction as he came.

He felt boneless after the waves of pleasure finally past, and he collapsed on top of her for a moment, gathering her against him. Her hands softened on his back, stroking instead of clawing. She murmured out wordless sounds that were both satisfied and comforting.

Another thread of fear spiraled up as he realized how completely he was under her spell. He dragged himself up, hating how cold his skin felt when it parted from hers and how weak his body still felt.

“Y’okay?” she mumbled, looking rumpled, drowsy, and deliciously sated. She clung to his shoulders as he carefully withdrew from her body.

“Yeah,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “Let me just take care of this.”

He spent longer in the bathroom than he needed, splashing water on his face and trying to pull himself together.

Leila was snuggled up under the covers when he came out. He never got back in bed with a woman. He always just got dressed and left. Even with Molly, with whom he’d had the longest relationship in the past, that was nearly always what he’d done.

Part of him wanted to do that now. It was easier. It was safer. He knew it would hurt Leila, though. It would destroy any chance he had with her.

So, feeling stiff and awkward, he got back into bed.

Leila rolled on her side so she was facing him. She was smiling—her warm, bright, Leila-like smile—and appeared entirely relaxed. “You know what?” she said.

Her natural expression and tone allowed him to relax too. This was Leila. He knew her. They hadn’t suddenly morphed into different people, however unfamiliar this was to Baron. “What?” he asked. He was lying on his back, the covers pushed down to his waist, but his head was turned toward Leila.

“I think this is the only time I’ve ever checked into a hotel just to have sex. Can you believe it?”

The majority of Baron’s sexual encounters had happened in hotels. Safe. Impersonal. Easily cleaned up afterwards. With the exception of that year with Molly, sex had always happened in hotels. “I can believe it,” he told her honestly.

She made a face, teasing but affectionate. Then she scooted over toward him. She curled up at his side, putting her head on his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around her, feeling ridiculous for even hesitating as he felt her soft against him.

“Don’t let me go to sleep,” she said. “I don’t want to get home too late.”

“All right.” He stroked her tangled hair and heard her sigh with pleasure in response. He realized then that she wanted this, wanted to be close to him. And he would have been unforgivably selfish if he’d pulled away from her as he’d been tempted to earlier.

She deserved so much better than him.

“I’m not any good at this,” he admitted, reflecting his thoughts rather than the conversation.

“Well,” Leila murmured provocatively, “after three orgasms and probably the best sex of my life, you’ll understand if I beg to differ.”

“I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” she interrupted, her tone shifting into something that matched his own mood. “And I’m not sure anyone is really good at it.”

They were silent for a long stretch of time. Then Leila gently kissed his bare chest, as if in response to everything he’d been struggling with this evening.

And she murmured words he needed to hear. “Baron, you’re doing just fine.”

Nine

Leila felt rather hassled as she frantically chopped vegetables, trying to pull something decent together for supper while also picking up the living room and helping the girls with their spelling words.

Baron was coming over for dinner in about ten minutes, and she wasn’t even close to ready for him.

After their first night together, Leila finally started to believe that it wasn’t too dangerous to invest in the relationship for real, to not hold back as much as she could. So the last month had been a whirlwind as she tried to grow accustomed to dating Baron James.

“When will he be here, Mommy?” Charlotte called from the living room.

Leila laid down her knife and walked into the other room, picking up some books and a doll-shoe from the floor as she did. “Pretty soon,” she told the girls, who were kneeling on the floor beside the coffee table, working on their spelling sheets. “Try to finish up your homework so you’ll be done when he gets here.”

Leila preferred for the girls to eat early, since it made the evenings easier and allowed plenty of time for them to be ready for their bedtime. But Baron couldn’t get away from work that early, so everything had been pushed back.

“I’m almost done,” Jane informed them, her eyes never straying from her paper.

“Good. Charlotte will be done soon too. Then we can eat with Mr. Baron.”

Leila grabbed a coffee mug from that morning from a side table and swept a bunch of random papers into a pile that she stuffed in a drawer. Then she hurried back into the kitchen. She stared at her pile of chopped peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, garlic and tomatoes and then grabbed a big pan and put it on the stovetop to heat. She’d already put pasta on to boil, and she’d bought some fresh bread and a bottle of wine on her way home from work.

So all she needed was some sort of sauce to make the vegetables work with the pasta.

Leila stared desperately into her pantry, hoping inspiration would materialize out of the chaos of bottles and boxes.

She really should have planned ahead.

As she was mulling over her problem, she heard a knock on the front door. Then a squeal and the scamper of feet told her that Charlotte and Jane had gone to let Baron in.

Closing her pantry in disgust, she peeked into the living room to see the girls giving Baron a hug. He still looked a little stiff at this sign of affection, but he was slowly getting used to it.

Leila’s chest ached with tenderness as she watched. It was so incredibly sweet how Baron was learning to relate to the girls.

He glanced over Jane’s fair head to meet Leila’s eyes. He smiled and his dark eyes softened.

Leila smiled back rather foolishly. She was still amazed that he would appear so happy to see her.
Her
. Leila.

Nothing special in any way.

“I’m a bit of a mess today,” Leila told him, “but I’ll have things together in a few minutes.” Her voice changing, she added, “Girls, finish your homework. Then you can hang out with Mr. Baron.”

The girls responded with the predictable grumbling, but they didn’t stage a revolt. So, as they went back to their work on the coffee table, Baron followed Leila into the kitchen.

As she opened up the pantry again, he slid an arm around her and leaned into a soft kiss. “Hi,” he said with a smile.

Leila smiled back at him, conscious that her expression must be overly fatuous. “Hi.”

Baron glanced around her messy kitchen, his gaze noticing every detail and flawlessly putting the pieces together of her hurried preparation and half-orchestrated attempts at meal planning. “You seem to have a lot going on in here.”

Leila groaned. “It’s a mess! I know. And I don’t even know what kind of sauce or dressing to make for the pasta.”

Baron eyed the contents of her pantry, his mind immediately focused on the problem at hand. He was lean and gorgeous, with his dark head and business suit. His sophistication and cool efficiency looked woefully out of place in her sloppy kitchen, but he calmly grabbed the balsamic vinegar and a collection of herbs and spices from her pantry as if it were something he did every day.

Leila just watched mesmerized as he sautéed and glazed the vegetables with the balsamic vinegar and then tossed them together with the pasta.

Feeling a swell of amused affection, she gave him a sloppy kiss on the jaw as he stood to admire his creation. “Sometimes,” she murmured, “you drive me absolutely insane.”

He turned to her with surprise and then saw that her expression was teasing. “Same to you,” he said.

Then he kissed her again.

They were interrupted by giggling from the entryway of the kitchen.

When Leila pulled away from Baron and turned, she saw Charlotte laughing openly and Jane trying to hide her giggles behind her hand. “Yes, we were kissing,” Leila said matter-of-factly, straightening her glasses, although she was honestly a little embarrassed about being caught. “Big deal.”

The girls just giggled again.

“Did you finish your spelling sheets?” Leila asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Yes,” Jane said earnestly. “I finished mine first. Mr. Baron, do you like to kiss Mommy?”

He blinked. “Evidently.”

“Daddy used to kiss Mommy,” Charlotte chimed in, looking incongruously angelic in her pink knit dress and pink ribbons in her ponytails.

“We talked about this, girls, remember?” Leila said, hoping they weren’t going to create a scenario where Baron would feel awkward.

“Yes,” Jane said with a patient sigh. “Mr. Baron and Mommy are dating. We don’t know what will happen later. So we have to take things slow.”

“That’s right,” Leila affirmed, her cheeks warming at having her carefully measured conversations with the girls laid open this way.

“Do you like to take things slow, Mr. Baron?” Charlotte inquired.

Talk about being put on the spot. Leila opened her mouth to run interference, but Baron answered before she could. “Everyone likes to take things slow sometimes.”

The girl frowned. “Not me.”

“Sure you do,” he replied. “Remember last week when you were learning that new game?”

“Chess,” Jane piped up. “Yes, Charlotte was very slow at playing chess.”

Before Charlotte could express her indignation over this comment, Baron went on, “Everyone takes it slow if they’re not sure about the rules or if they don’t know how to do something well.”

The girls meditated on this truth as Leila hurriedly set the table. “Let’s sit down, girls. Supper's ready.”

Dinner went well, the spontaneous meal a success, although Jane turned up her nose at the mushrooms and Charlotte refused to eat the zucchini. The conversation transitioned to school—as Baron expressed surprise over their having homework to do at their age. Jane explained gravely that only little girls didn’t have homework. Since they were big now, they sometimes had sheets to fill in at home.

Then the girls asked Baron about his work, and Leila had some private giggles as he tried to explain business dealings at a six-year-old level.

When they finished, Leila got up to make the sundaes for dessert. At first, she was too distracted to listen to the conversation at the dinner table. But then a stray comment caught her attention, so she listened in as she worked.

“But the army couldn’t get into the castle, could it?” Jane asked breathlessly.

“Sometimes it could,” Baron replied, his voice mild and non-condescending. He still spoke to the girls like they were on his level. “Armies might have enormous machines—battering rams—to break down the gates. Or they might be able to climb over the walls. But it was hard because the soldiers of the castle would fight to keep them out.”

“So did they give up and go home?” That was Charlotte.

“Only if they were a weak army. If they couldn’t get through the castle walls, then sometimes they would surround the castle and camp out—bivouac—for weeks and months, so the people inside couldn’t come out to get any food or supplies.”

“So they’d starve!” Jane gasped.

“Well, if the ruler of the castle was smart, he would have a lot of supplies already inside the walls, so his people could live inside even with the other army outside.”

“How did they get water?”

“They would have wells inside the castle. But sometimes the invading army would lay siege for too long, and the castle would have to come out and surrender, because they ran out of supplies.”

Leila smiled sappily as she listened to this earnest, informative conversation. If things worked out for her and Baron, the girls would soon become experts in history.

She could think of a lot worse things for them to be.

She brought the sundaes out, and the girls shared with her everything they’d learned about castles. They also informed her that they needed to have a water well inside their castle, and much effort was spent in deciding how best to add this feature.

Before Leila could believe it, it was after nine o’clock. And Leila had to tell the girls that they needed to get ready for bed.

“I brought a book for you,” Baron said, before they could expression their deep disappointment about being sent away from all the fun. “If you get ready for bed quickly, then I can read it to you.”

This was all the prompting they needed. Leila and Baron cleared up the dishes while the girls got in their pajamas, washed their faces, and brushed their teeth.

The book was a gorgeous hardback about a dog who lived in a castle, with incredibly detailed drawings and a fun story. They all piled on the couch to read it, and then Leila took the girls into bed.

She was tired but absurdly happy when she shut the door to their bedroom softly and went back into the living room to find Baron.

He was still sitting on the sofa, staring at a message on his phone.

His expression was stoic, unreadable, but she knew something was wrong. His mood had changed, even in the time it had taken her to get the girls to bed.

She sat down next to him on the couch. “What is it?” she asked, putting on hand on his knee. Her giddy mood dissipated in concern over the defensive set of his shoulders and the frozen look in his eyes.

He didn’t respond. It took him a long time to even turn his eyes away from the screen of his phone.

“Baron, are you all right?” Her chest ached in sympathy, since she could see so clearly that he was hurting. She wanted to hug him but was afraid he’d pull away.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and put his phone back in his pocket. “I’m fine.”

She didn’t believe him, and she knew only one thing that could abruptly transform his mood like this. He was often stressed by work, sometimes so stressed she was sure it was unhealthy, but he’d been relaxed this evening, enjoying himself and interacting easily with the girls.

Something must have happened with his brother.

Unable to resist comforting him somehow, she scooted over on the sofa to press herself against his side, folding up her legs as she did. She stroked his belly, leaned her head on his shoulder, and forced herself not to ask for details.

If she pushed, he would just withdraw.

After a long stretch of silence, Baron turned his head to press a kiss into her hair. Then he adjusted to wrap an arm around her.

She relaxed against him, something easing in her chest at this sign of his accepting her comfort. He was warm, and strong, and he smelled absolutely delicious. But sometimes he was as impenetrable as a marble statue.

“The girls wanted to know,” Leila murmured, breaking the tension with a change of subject, “what kind of food they should stockpile in their castle in case of invasion by a bivouacking army. They thought bread, peanut butter, jelly, and ice cream should be the fundamentals.”

Baron chuckled, a little distractedly. “Always good to be prepared.”

He idly stroked her thigh with his fingers, and she cuddled against him and squeezed his side. She didn’t ask, didn’t push for what she was dying to know.

“I can’t—” Baron’s voice broke slightly so he started again. “I can’t seem to find a way to come out ahead with my brother.”

Leila kept her body relaxed, made no sign of surprise or relief or reaction to his admission—even though it meant so much to her. “In anything in particular?” she asked softly.

Baron let out a hoarse sigh, almost a groan. “In anything, I guess. But right now he’s contesting the will.”

“
What
? On what grounds?” She was unable to keep her voice from reflecting her surprise.

“Undue influence.”

“But that’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t have a case.”

“Not to win, no. No one thinks he can win. But he can try. He can hold up everything indefinitely.”

“Does he want into James Coffee?”

“No. He wants nothing to do with the company. He never has. He wants a share in the rest of Dad’s assets.”

“And you don’t want to give it to him?”

“I offered money and a share of the company just after Dad died. Dad and I were trying to find him and get him to come back home last year, and then a few months ago I tried to…to connect with him again. He completely refused. He doesn’t want to be family. I really wonder if he’s just doing this to be spiteful, rather than because he really hopes he can win.”