His Secret Baby: The Agent's Secret Baby

When would he have the time? His days were divided between the bookstore and the baby and her.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Adam observed after several minutes of silence had gone by. Despite her arguing to the contrary, had all this been too much for her? She usually wasn’t this quiet. “What are you thinking?”

Not wanting to admit that she’d been thinking about him, that lately, most of her thoughts were centered on or around him, Eve said, “I was just thinking about going back to work at the animal hospital on Monday. Vera has been pretty swamped and she’s had to close the place on Sundays. I don’t like not being available to my patients one day a week.”

He knew her. If she went back, she’d throw herself into her work wholeheartedly. It was easier to watch over her in her house. A lot of people came into the hospital. An assailant could easily slip in.

“You think you’re up to going back full-time?” he asked. “Maybe you should try going back just parttime for now, work your way back up to frantic over the course of a month or two.”

She’d already made up her mind. There was a place for the baby in the back office. She, Vera and Susannah could all take turns keeping an eye on Brooklyn.

“I don’t like just dipping my toe in the water,” she told him. “I like diving in.”

The smile that came to his lips was automatic. “Yes, I remember.”

Her cheeks suddenly turned a fascinating shade of scarlet. Adam did his best to bite back a laugh. As he did, he felt that same strong, breath-stealing stir whirl around his insides, the one he experienced whenever he would look at her, really look at her and realize just how beautiful she was.

Allowing his instincts to govern him, the way he would during a mission, Adam brushed his knuckles against her cheek. He saw a glimmer of desire flash in her eyes. Considering what was at stake, that should have been his red flag, his signal to back away. Now.

But he ignored it.

Ignored everything but this unmanageable yearning that was holding him a veritable prisoner. With one hand gently touching her face, Adam leaned in and lightly brushed his lips against hers.

Though his lips barely touched hers, it still had the same effect as the first time he’d kissed her all those months ago. He felt as if a fist had been slammed into his midsection, knocking all the air right out of him.

Okay, this was where he had to pull back. He’d had his sample, had tasted how sweet her lips still were and had rediscovered just how overwhelmingly susceptible he still was to her. All his questions were concisely answered.

This was where he needed to cut and run, or at the very least, to retreat. There was no way this could lead to anything except for frustration. And the more he allowed this longing, this need, to build up within him, the more frustrated he’d be. There was no recourse but to leave. The woman had just given birth, for God’s sake. She was literally in no shape to give him what he so badly craved—and that was a good thing because, deep in his soul, he knew she was a habit he needed to kick.

For her sake.

He had nothing to offer her except for bits and pieces of himself and a life that was forever being lived on the edge. If she were part of his world, really a part of his world, she’d be in danger all the time. And he would be worried about her all the time, her and the baby. The first thing he’d been taught was that an operative with a split focus was a dead operative.

He couldn’t let himself go, for her sake more than for his.

So, with supreme effort, Adam drew away, his adrenaline racing through his veins as if he had his back to the wall and was facing down an entire squadron of drug dealers, every last one of them intent on slowly vivisecting him.

Stunned, Eve blinked. Oh, no, he wasn’t going to do this to her. He wasn’t going to stir her up, making her, in the space of hardly a few seconds, mentally forsake each and every one of the promises she’d made to herself just to pull back.

Was he trying to prove something to himself? That he could walk away from her at any time? Or was there more to it? Was he showing her that he still had power over her? That he could still press her buttons, make her need him more than she needed the very air to breathe?

Well, she would be doing the showing, not him.

Very deliberately, Eve wove her arms around his neck, her eyes more than her arms holding him in place. The next moment, she brought her mouth to his. Brought her soul to his, kissing him as if the very world would be doomed if she didn’t.

Damn it, Eve, why are you making this so hard?

Pulling his head back, Adam gently but firmly removed her arms from around his neck. “We can’t,” was all he said.

She put her own interpretation to his words, praying she wasn’t being the biggest fool the world had ever seen. That he wasn’t just toying with her because he could.

“I’m all right,” she whispered, her eyes on his. “The doctor told me that I could … be with you if I wanted to.”

Be with you. What a tenderly innocent way to say it, he couldn’t help thinking. Maybe, just maybe, if he could just have this one last time to make love with her, that would somehow sustain him. He knew all too well that making love with her wouldn’t quench the fire, but at least it could dowse it for a small space of time, allowing him to reapply himself to what he really needed to concentrate on. With any luck, the worthless piece of trash he was dealing with would slip, giving him the name of the head supplier and the department could move in for the kill.

He wasn’t naive enough to think that once this present head of the cartel was captured that would be the end of it. Like a hydra monster, if one head was cut off, one if not two more would suddenly pop up in its place. But with luck, there would be some downtime and maybe, the department could further clean up the streets.

With effort, they might make it more difficult for a new foothold to form in the high schools currently being supplied with narcotics. Any respite was better than none and who knew, maybe in that small time frame the users would see the upside of even partially regaining control over their lives. Maybe they would think twice before abdicating it again, allowing powders, pills and drug dealers to govern them.

But right at this moment, Adam had to admit that he had a great deal of sympathy for addicts. For the first time in his life, he could see things from their perspective because he was addicted to Eve. Addicted to the rush she created in his veins. Addicted to the memory of what was and to the incredible draw of the promise of what could be.

He needed her and could think of absolutely nothing else.

Was she losing the battle? Or was Adam trying to be strong for reasons she couldn’t grasp? Eve didn’t know. All she knew was that she needed him. Badly. It was as if their lovemaking had taken place in another life, a life she needed to get back to.

She raised her eyes to his, silently entreating him. And then, when he made no move to take her back into his arms, she finally put it into words, quietly saying, “Adam, don’t make me beg.”

Her voice was low, but the need she felt pulsated throughout her entire being.

“No begging,” he promised, his own voice husky with longing.

The next moment, Adam covered her mouth with his own, kissing her deeply. In less than a heartbeat, he became lost within her.

Sealed by that physical act alone, they were instantly one. Nothing mattered right now to Adam but this overwhelming, screaming need inside of him, this need that demanded satisfaction, some sort of an outlet before it completely tore him apart.

The moment he silently surrendered control, it was as if someone had suddenly fired a starter pistol in the air, signaling the beginning of this explosive interlude. Adam found himself hardly able to remember how he got from one stage to another. Couldn’t actually recall how his clothes had disappeared from his body. One second, he was dressed, the next, he wasn’t. Had he done it, or had she? He was unclear as to the steps. Similarly, he wasn’t even sure if his hands had urgently tugged her dress from her while she had been similarly engaged with his clothes, or if they simply divested themselves of their own clothes.

He was only aware of movement and shedding. Through it all, his mouth remained urgently sealed to hers as if his very life depended on it. In a way, it did.

And just like that, she was nude. Her flesh was tender and pliant beneath his hands. He felt as if he was on fire just touching her, sliding his palms along her soft, soft breasts, caressing her supple curves and recommitting them to memory.

This was only the second time he’d made love with her, and yet every touch, every pass, teased forth a memory from within him. Her body was oh-so-familiar to him even though, as he trailed his hands along her curves, he felt on the brink of an exciting new adventure.

Over and over again his mouth slanted over hers, kissing the sensitive area along her throat, seeking out the hollow of her neck, the dip in her now-flat belly. Her moan of pleasure in response to his questing tongue set him off the way Adam thought nothing ever could, making his head spin.

She had never told Adam that he was her first lover. It wasn’t the kind of thing a woman broadcasted, even though, in her case, she had never met anyone she’d wanted in her bed. In her heart, however, Eve was certain that someone with Adam’s experience would know. She, on the other hand, had nothing to compare except perhaps the first time that he’d been with her. What she vividly recalled was that she’d been utterly, hopelessly lost in ecstasy.

This time around, the ecstasy had doubled itself so that she could hardly contain the wild feelings rushing through her. It was as close to an out-of-body experience as she would ever hope to have.

She didn’t want it to end.

Something told her this would only be a onetime thing. Last time, there’d been no encores because she’d discovered his secret life. This time around, she had a feeling that the cause for the lack of encores would be his.

But if it came to that, she wanted this isolated moment in time to last as long as possible.

Eve bit down on her lower lip as the first climax suddenly exploded over her, a depth charge coming from oblivion and targeting her. There’d been almost no warning. One moment, there was deliciously mounting pleasure, the next moment, fireworks.

Bucking, raising her hips to absorb every ray of heat, every movement of his mouth over her inner core, she cried out his name and something more. With lightning flashing through her brain, Eve couldn’t even say for certain what it was that she had cried out.