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“No. The salary gets paid and I’ll pay your student loans off. I’ll make sure your donations are enough to pay staff and buy state-of-the-art equipment.” He crossed his arms in front of him, his face like granite.
They were negotiating, but Maddie felt like every time she opened her mouth he wanted todo more. “Why are you doing this? Really?”
“I’m doing it for you,” he replied, his eyes boring into her. “And partly for myself,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Are we signing contracts?” she asked, wanting to know she’d be legally protected. She wanted to believe that Sam was sincere, but she’d never be taken in by him again. One massive heartache was more than enough. He’d taken her trust once and smashed it to bits, making her suspicious of anything he offered.
“No. Not if you accept my entire offer,” he rumbled, his voice husky.
“What else is there?” What more could he possibly offer?
“I want to get you pregnant,” he said harshly. “You’ll be in a position to have a baby and I want to be the one to do it. I don’t want another man’s seed inside your body.”
Maddie gasped, her heart racing. Was the guy crazy? “You want to be my sperm donor?”
“Hell, no. Or yes…I do…but we do it the old-fashioned way. I’m willing to try for as long as it takes. Every day. Five times a day. Or until you beg for mercy, and even then I’m still not sure I’ll stop.” He pulled her into his body and unbound her hair, spearing his hands into the mass of curls possessively.
Maddie’s mind whirled in confusion, her heart thudding against the wall of her chest so hard she swore it was going to burst through her sternum. “That takes having sex. A lot of sex. Unprotected sex.” Oh, hell no. “I don’t like sex and you’re a man-whore, Sam. You couldn’t go a week without another woman. I won’t be enough for you. And I definitely don’t want to share diseases with your lady friends.”
Not happening. Having Sam Hudson as a father for the child I want so desperately has “complicated” written all over it.
“I’m clean. I’ll give you my health records.” Pulling back, he drilled her with those emerald eyes. They were tumultuous and stormy, as though he were holding himself in check.
“I can’t. I trusted you once. I can’t do it again. Especially not with a possible child involved,” she answered sadly, her eyes starting to fill with tears. Incredibly, she almost wanted to agree. What would it be like to hold Sam’s baby,their baby, in her arms? Need slammed into her so hard that she swayed. Not only did she want a baby, but she wanted Sam. Her problems with sex had nothing to do with her physiology. It all boiled down to him, to Sam. No other man had been Sam, so she hadn’t wanted anyone else. When it came to sharing something that intimate, it only felt right with one person, a man who had broken her heart so many years ago.
I must be crazy, a freaking masochist, to feel this way.
“I haven’t been with a woman in months. I fucking couldn’t. Before that, I only slept with women who had red hair, curvy bodies and who didn’t mind that I called out your name when I came,” he snarled. “Women who only wanted money or material things, because I had nothing else to give them.”
“Sam, you’re with a different woman every week—”
“Friends who go with me to various functions. I don’t sleep with them. I have no desire to sleep with a tall, skinny blonde. I’m too fucking obsessed with a petite redhead who hates me.” He laughed, a humorless, self-deprecating laugh.
Oh Lord, was it really true? Still, he had cheated on her when they were dating. Like the proverbial leopard that couldn’t change its spots, Sam couldn’t have changed that much, could he? “I can’t. It will never work. I can’t sleep with you, get pregnant and walk away.”It would kill me!
“If you fucking walked away, I’d come after you.” His nostrils flared as he looked down at her with so much intensity that she could hardly hold his gaze.
“Then why did you even suggest it?” she asked curiously.
“I don’t think you understand, Madeline. I’m not asking to just knock you up or fuck you, although God knows I want that too.”
“What do you want?”
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, his whole body tense. “I want you to fucking marry me. I’m not asking for a few months of wild sex. I’m asking for forever. You, me, a family. Everything. Everything we should have had but didn’t. I don’t deserve you, but I fucking want you. So much it’s killing me.”
Sam took another deep breath…and waited.
Sam held his breath, watching Maddie’s expression change to one of incredibility, as her mind tried to absorb what he’d just said. Shock. Disbelief. Horror. All of those emotions reflected back at him from her hazel eyes. Christ! He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to sayanyof it, except for the proposition to help her make her clinic a full-time paid venture to make her life easier. But then he’d seen those damn papers, and he’d completely lost it.
No man is planting his seed inside my woman, artificially done or not. If she wants a baby, I’ll give her one or happily die trying.
Rampant, possessive emotions rose inside him until his vision blurred, his fists clenched with need to own the woman in front of him, a woman he’d wanted for what seemed like forever. The last time he had walked away from her, he had done it because hethoughtshe’d be better off without him.Fuck it. He wasn’t doing that again. She obviously wasn’t happy, some guy had treated her like shit, and she didn’t have the family she had always wanted. She was alone. Or, shehadbeen alone. Now, Sam was determined that she would havehim.Forever. Even if she hated him, he would treat her better than another man could, take better care of her, meetallof her needs until she begged for mercy.
Bullshit…she doesn’t like sex!She had just never had a man who wanted to please her. Maddie was a firecracker that he wanted to set off. Hell…he wanted to do an entire fireworks display with her, one orgasm after another, until she begged him to stop, her body limp and sated.
Sam never saw the palm coming toward his face, his fantasies and desires so potent that he was lost in them. Thesmacklanded hard enough to jerk his head to the right, and it was loud enough to be heard echoing through the kitchen.
“How could you? How could you play with me like this? You bastard, what did I ever do to you to deserve this?” Maddie hissed, her eyes furious and filled with tears. “I don’t want to play your stupid games, Hudson.”