Page 30 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

In less than six months, my life was going to revolve around a hungry, screaming, pooping baby that was helpless without me.

I was okay with that—more than okay, I was so happy it frightened me—but I also recognized that once this baby was born, I wasn’t going to be dating or having sex for months, if not years.

For now, my body was still mine. My life was still mine.

Dammit, I was going to enjoy it while I still could.

I saw Steven’s reflection zip past my open bedroom door while I was giving myself a last look.

I fluffed my knee-length skirt—jeans would have been better on such a cold night, but none of mine buttoned anymore—and tugged at my denim vest, then turned to the side.

I didn’t look pregnant. The denim fabric was thick, the neckline a low V that drew attention to my chest, and the silver buttons down the front disguised my soft belly swell.

Steven’s reflection returned, filling my doorway, arms crossed over his chest, scowling. I shot him a fake, sweet smile over my shoulder. “Can I help you?”

His scowl deepened. “You can tell me why you’re all dressed up.

It’s eight o’clock and you have to be up at five a.m.” He sounded exactly like a dad reprimanding his teenage daughter for sneaking out to meet her boyfriend on a school night.

Or so I imagined. I had been too busy helping raise my younger brothers to earn that lecture.

“I’m going to the Painted Cat.” I slicked on an extra coat of pink lipgloss and pouted at the mirror.

“Why are you going to a bar? You can’t drink.”

“No, but I can fuck, and the Painted Cat happens to be the place people go to find someone to fuck.”

Steven fell out of the doorframe in shock. “What the hell, Chloe? You’re pregnant. You can’t let some stranger put his dick in you. There’s a goddamn baby up in there.”

I stared at his reflection in the mirror, then slowly turned to look at the real thing.

“Steven, you know the baby is in my uterus, right? The uterus has only one opening. It’s called the cervix.

Right now, my cervix is shut tight. Nothing is going in or out.

Not that dicks can reach that far anyway.

” I suddenly remembered what he said about the sonogram wand and my gaze dropped to his crotch. My cheeks felt hot.

“Eyes up here, Chloe,” he barked. “I can’t think straight when you’re salivating for my dick.”

I jerked my gaze to his face. “I am not salivating,” I huffed. “I am considering .”

“Well, don’t. Don’t consider something tonight that you’re going to regret tomorrow.

I can’t…” He raked a hand through his hair and made a noise of pure frustration.

“Dammit, Chloe. I want to be a good man, but I’m still just a man and I’ve used up all my good jacking off in a cold shower every goddamn day this week. ”

God, I would have paid good money to see that. Heat unfurled in my center, winging out in all directions until I was flushed from my cheeks to my toes. “Did you think about me?”

The look he gave me. Hot and dark and dirty, like he was reliving every torrid thing we did in his imagination. I swallowed hard.

“Tell me to go, Chloe.” He came closer. “Tell me to get the hell out of here, lock the door behind me, and make use of that vibrator I’ve heard buzzing all week.”

Impulsively, I captured his wrists, just to see if my fingers could reach all the way around. They couldn’t. A delicious shiver of anticipation ran down my spine. “Now, why would I do that?” I asked.

His eyes met mine, jaw tight with barely leashed restraint. “Because if you don’t, then the only man you’re going to fuck tonight is me, princess, and right now I’m past caring if you hate me for it.”

All the air whooshed out of me on a single word. “Please.” My hands scraped up his arms, my fingernails dragging against the flannel, up over the curve of his shoulders until I looped my arms around his neck. “Please, Steven.”

He was so rigid it was like embracing a rock.

He stood there, not moving, not even breathing, every muscle tense as he fought himself.

I didn’t know what to do with that, so I rolled up on my toes and gently kissed his cheek.

His hand shot to the back of my head like a vise and he held me there, twisting his neck to give me an incredulous look.

And then he slammed his mouth to mine.

It was a desperate, hungry kiss that made me needy for more—more touching, more skin, more of him —but unwilling to release his mouth for even a second to get it.

He arched over me and I arched back to stay with his mouth, and he hooked his hands behind my thighs, boosted me up, and pivoted to the bed, kicking the door shut behind him.

We landed with me beneath him. He hovered over me, all his weight braced on his arms and his knee outside my thigh.

My hips tipped up to his, desperate for friction, and he shifted to lower himself closer, but jerked away again before I got what I wanted.

I slipped my hands to his belt on either side of his hips and tried to tug him closer, growling with frustration when he resisted.

“What if I hurt Radish?” he said against my throat.

“You’re not—” I started but then stopped. I wasn’t a pregnancy expert, and Steven was a big guy. For all I knew, he’d squish Radish like a pancake. I huffed. “Fine.”

I pushed at his shoulders. He rolled to his back, then shifted back against the pillows so he was half reclining, and I scrambled into his lap, straddling him. My skirt floofed out around me.

His gaze skimmed over me. “You look like a treat,” he said, the words tinged with hunger and disbelief, like he couldn’t believe I was here.

Honestly, I couldn’t believe it either, but I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to do it, hopefully before my brain turned back on and put a stop to this nonsense.

I kissed him. The first brush of my lips was almost timid, a mere question of a kiss. But then his lips parted, his hand spasmed on my knee, and a low, aching sound emanated from him as our tongues touched, and it was no longer a question. It was an answer.

I got the top two buttons of his flannel undone but then I was too impatient to do the rest and tugged it off over his head, then sat back a little to take him in.

He looked even better than I remembered, all those hard ridges of muscle impossibly more defined.

I traced the ridges and valleys of his abs with my index finger, my lower lip caught between my teeth.

When I met his gaze, I found him watching me with a big ole smile on his face. Not smug. Happy . It stole my breath. “What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I’m just…glad you like it.” He gestured to his abdomen. “I’ve been doing core work every morning. Just in case.”

“In case of what?” I asked.

“In case of you,” he said. He swallowed and looked away, suddenly shy. “Not that I expected…I didn’t even really hope for it. I just wanted you to like me.”

I felt like I was melting inside. I turned his face back to mine and kissed him again. “I do like you, Steven. I like you a whole lot and only a little bit of that is because of your abs.”

The truth of it knocked the breath out of me. I genuinely liked him. It shook me to my core. Now was not the time to catch feelings for my roommate. I was pregnant. My friends hated him. It was the worst possible timing, and Steven was the worst possible man.

And right now, I didn’t care about any of that.

All I cared about was that he kissed me with my face cupped in his hands like I was something precious.

The way his fingers gently skimmed down my throat, traced the vest’s deep v neckline, calloused fingertips rough against the soft skin of my breasts, and met in the middle at the top button.

“Still yes?” he murmured against my mouth.

“Yes,” I breathed back.

“Thank fuck,” he said, and popped open the first button.

He tilted his head to kiss the base of my throat, then laved his tongue down my cleavage while his quick fingers undid the rest of the buttons.

I gasped and panted, my nipples tingled, and I arched my chest into his face.

He nuzzled closer, not seeming to mind that at all.

I felt his lips curve in a smile as he maneuvered me out of my vest.

He pulled back to look at me. “Interesting. I had you pegged as a fancy lingerie kind of girl. But I like this.” He tugged at the strap of my plain white cotton bra.

“Cotton is all I can wear now,” I confessed. “My breasts are too sensitive for anything else.”

His hands stilled. “Good sensitive or bad sensitive?”

I liked that, that he cared about what felt good for me and what didn’t. “Good sensitive.” If you like walking around permanently horny . “I could probably come just from you playing with my nipples.”

“Really?” He eyed my breasts speculatively. “Let’s find out.”

He dipped his head and licked over my nipple through my bra in one broad stroke. The sound that came out of me was unholy.

His head snapped up to look at me, his eyes nearly black. “Jesus, Chloe.”

And then his mouth was instantly on me again, hot and hungry.

He circled my nipple with slow, sucking kisses while I writhed on his lap, caught between agony and pleasure.

When he finally drew my nipple into his mouth, I nearly sobbed with relief.

His hot tongue toyed with me through the fabric until it was damp and clinging to my skin and then shifted to my other breast.

My core turned to molten liquid. I could actually come from this. Just this. Just his mouth on my breasts and my fingers digging into his scalp.

He pulled back and stared at my nipples, peaked and rosy through the translucent white cotton. “Look at you,” he whispered, rubbing his thumbs over the wet spots. “Fuck, princess, look at you.”

“Don’t stop,” I panted, pushing on his temple to urge him back down.

With a low laugh, he complied. He snaked one hand behind my back and unclasped my bra and tossed it aside. My hips rocked as he took my breast in his mouth again. I couldn’t stop the noises I made, the low moans and wanton gasps.

He tore his mouth from my nipple on a groan as his hands frantically worked at his belt.

If I hadn’t been every bit as desperate as he was, I might have laughed.

I had never seen him clumsy before. The instant he freed himself from his jeans, my hand wrapped around him, my fingers not quite meeting, and squeezed.

He froze.

“Still yes?” I teased, sure of the answer.

“No,” he gritted out.

I reeled back. “What?”

“I don’t have a condom.” He thunked his head against the headboard. “I mean, I do, but about a thousand feet away in my bedroom.”

Oh. Thank god. “I can’t get more pregnant than I already am, and I had the battery of STI tests. I’m safe.”

“But I might not be. It’s been several months since I’ve been with anyone, but I haven’t been tested in a year.”

I dragged my mouth up his throat, sucking at the pulse point beneath his jaw. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

He laughed hoarsely and clamped his hands around my hips, stopping their movement. “Chloe, it is not fine. Please don’t tempt me, princess. I would do anything to keep you safe, but my brain is operating on a very low blood supply right now.”

I whimpered with frustration. “So go get a condom. I’ll wait. I promise I won’t change my mind while you’re gone.”

A growl rumbled in his chest. “No one’s going anywhere until you come.” He pushed his hand between us and situated his cock against the gusset of my cotton panties. “Use me.”

I couldn’t think straight. My nervous system was on overload. “What?”

He bent to my breast again, craning his neck to look up at me with half-shut eyes as he lapped my nipple. “Use me, Chloe. Keep your panties on and ride my dick.”

I shifted my hips, then shifted again, searching for exactly the right angle. When I found it, we both shivered. I rocked my clit against his length, hard, again and again while he played with my breasts, biting, licking, kissing. My movements became clumsy as I got closer.

“Don’t stop,” he muttered around my breast. “Don’t you dare fucking stop, Chloe.”

I didn’t. I couldn’t. I edged closer and closer to the brink and then suddenly I was there.

I cried out, sinking my nails into his scalp to hold him to me as waves of pleasure wracked my body.

Just before I went limp, he stiffened beneath me.

His hands spasmed on my breasts and he buried his face into my cleavage on a deep groan as his orgasm pulsed between my thighs.

We stayed that way for a long moment, neither of us moving except for the air sawing in and out of us as we tried to catch our breath.

His forehead dropped to the crook of my neck. “I feel like I should apologize for making a mess, but you know what? I’m really not sorry,” he mumbled.

I laughed and held him closer. “Neither am I.”

For any of it .