Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance by Hazel Parker (fun to read txt) 📗

is now moving in me hard and fast. His hands are cupped beneath my ass, tilting my hips up to meet his thrusts squarely. I push against him, which only inflames him all the more.

His tongue skates across one sensitive nipple, then the other, then back again. I’m already close, close from lack of contact and strength of wanting.

I pant his name into his ear. He comes up onto his knees without breaking contact with me, manipulating my lower body as easily as a rag doll. My lower body is thrown back down onto the bed, helpless against the ecstasy his thrusting is pushing me into.

I’m not sure how much more I can stand when the heat begins to bloom and spread in my lower belly, soon rushing out to all of my limbs. I am positively vibrating with pleasure, clutching desperately at Trent’s arms and screaming unabashedly.

My cries are enough to push him over the edge. He lunges into me one last time, and then I can feel him coming, again and again, deep inside me. I have my arm locked around the back of his neck and am still shaking from the effects of my orgasm.

Finally, we collapse against one another. There are no words at first, only the sound of our labored breathing. I am curled up against him, and he has his arm across my shoulders.

We lay like this for what feels like a long time. Then, at last, we are back under some semblance of control.

“Love me?” I ask, my eyes closed and my cheek pressed against his chest.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Stay with me?” I ask.

“Yes,” he repeats. “Always.”

“You have just over seven and a half months to get used to the idea of being a father, too.”

He kisses the top of my head. “I’m already used to the idea.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“All I care about is that we go together,” he says. “All of us.”

“All of us,” I echo, and begin to drift away into a pleasant sleep.  Dreams can’t compare with the splendor of my reality but are good all the same.

Chapter 30 - Trent

A little over a month later, DuMonde’s had risen from the ashes like a phoenix, looking, as Steph had vowed, better than ever. I can personally attest that some parts of it have been secured with particular care.

On this, the eve of DuMonde’s grand re-opening, Steph is nowhere to be seen, which isn’t surprising. She’s in the kitchen, juggling multiple tasks with her usual skill. I sit at one of the tables in the dining area, knowing that I probably won’t see her.

I am surprised, then, when she appears momentarily, just long enough to give me a kiss on the cheek and an “I love you,” before disappearing into the kitchen again. I smile as I watch her go. She’s radiant, which sounds like a cliché, but I have learned that just because something is cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true.

I lost the bet we had made by a couple of days, but that’s all right—they were days spent wrapped up with Steph, making love and making plans. This pleasant delay had pushed the restaurant over the wagered deadline for being open, but neither of us minded.

Now it is time to pay up, though. I take out my phone and go back to scrolling through various recipes on the screen.

I hope she takes it easy on me. I haven’t cooked anything in…well, I’ve never really cooked anything of consequence. I’m torn between trying something simple that I can’t botch too badly and something that will perhaps come within shouting distance of her standards.

I have learned that Steph most appreciates things that come from the heart and from my own hands. While she works with expensive materials, she doesn’t really have extravagant tastes. That’s also okay by me. It will make my task just a tiny bit easier.

After the baby, Steph has said that she will turn over the head chef duties to Daniel. She has already abdicated the position in both of her remaining two restaurants as her pregnancy has advanced. When I ask her if she ever has second thoughts about relinquishing this degree of control, she shakes her head and places her hand on her gently rounding stomach.

“It doesn’t feel like relinquishing,” she says. “It feels like switching my focus to something else.  I know that sounds like the same thing, but it’s not.”

“Something else?” I ask.

“Someone else,” she amends.

I settle on a dish that is humble enough that I think I can handle it and still exotic enough to be interesting. It’s time for me to go to the car and have Curtis drive me home so that I can get to work in my kitchen.

I leave without interrupting Steph’s work, knowing that Curtis will return to bring her home in a few hours as well, where, hopefully, a meal of my own creation will be waiting for her, just as I will be waiting for her.

“Don’t burn the place down,” she has jokingly told me. We laugh over this and go back to our busy lives, the ones which have opened to allow full and ample space for the most important thing—each other.

Epilogue

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“If the evening went as well as the place looked,” Trent says as I come through the door, “then it must have been a home run.”

“Oh, yes,” I confirm, smiling at him.

“A successful re-opening, then, Ms. White?” Curtis says as he closes the door.  It’s taken me a while to get used to the spaciousness of Trent’s place.  It still feels like wall-to-wall luxury to me, and that includes the attentions of Curtis.  Luckily, he’s so thoughtful and approachable that I’ve been able to make the transition from one home to another pretty well.

“To keep