One Tiny Miracle: Branded with his Baby / The Baby Bump / An Accidental Family. Jennifer Greene
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She’d hardly gotten the words past her mouth when a streak of lightning bolted across the sky and sent her leaping backward from the rickety window. Deafening thunder followed and she wrapped her arms protectively around herself as she waited for the sound to subside.
With the door latched as securely as he could manage, Quint walked over to her. Her face was pale with alarm and he instinctively reached out and circled his arm around her shoulders.
“We’ll be fine,” he tried to reassure her. “And the horses are safely sheltered away from the lightning. So we don’t need to worry about them.”
She looked up at him and tried to smile, but he could see her lips were quivering with the effort.
“I’m okay, Quint. I’m not normally afraid of storms. But in this flimsy old building, the force of it just feels closer.”
He gave her an encouraging grin. “Just think of it this way, Maura. This old store has been here for more than a century. Why should it crumble around us now?”
“Why indeed?” she asked, then just as she was trying to laugh at their predicament another clap of thunder rattled the roof far above their heads. “Oh!”
Grabbing her hand, he urged, “Let’s go to the back. The building is studier there. And the coffee is boiling over. I’ve got to get the pot off the stove.”
By the time they rounded the counter, rain was driving against the old walls with a shuddering force. Behind them, water began to pour through the cracks in the roof and pelt the food they’d left lying on the table.
“You stay here by the stove,” he ordered after he’d dealt with the coffeepot. “I’ll gather up our food from the table.”
“No!” she cried, clutching his arm. “Please. Stay here with me. We don’t need the food!”
Seeing she was becoming really frightened, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against his chest. “All right, Maura,” he said close to her ear so that she could hear him above the deafening sounds of the storm. “I’ll stay right here. Close your eyes, honey. Imagine you’re somewhere nice and sunny. Like on a beach. In a bikini. With me rubbing oil on your back.”
After a moment her shoulders began to shake and when he eased his head back and looked into her face, he could see she was trying to laugh through her fear.
“That’s a wicked thought, Quint Cantrell.”
He kneaded her back while the heat of her body snuggled up against his was a damn sight hotter than the crackling fire in the stove. Even hotter than the lightning crackling around the old building.
“Hmm. A very nice one, too.”
Her head tilted back from his chest and as he looked down into her eyes, he felt something sweet and hot and protective sweep through him all at the same time.
“I—The lightning, Quint. A bolt of it hit too close to me once when I was out riding with my brother Brady. I was knocked from my horse and wasn’t breathing. If he hadn’t known CPR—”
She broke off with a shudder and he didn’t ask her to finish. He didn’t have to. He understood her fear and admired her for not falling completely apart.
“I’m not going to let anything hurt you. I promise.”
Her arms slid around his waist and clung tightly, her face buried into his shirt. The fact that she trusted him, that she was seeking him for comfort and security, swelled his chest and touched his heart in a way that it had never been touched.
“I know,” she said, her voice muffled. “Just hold me.”
Quint gladly obliged her request and after a few minutes, the lightning began to subside, even though the rain continued to pour. With the thunder drawing farther and farther away, he could feel Maura began to relax in his arms.
And then everything suddenly began to change. Her hands started to move against his back, her head tilted backward, her lips parted. Something deep and hot and primitive began to beat inside him, and with a needy groan he dropped his head and covered her mouth with his.
Quint didn’t know if the storm had charged the air around them, or if the desire between them was setting off sparks. Either way, the fire inside him had already ignited and he wasn’t about to try to extinguish it.
The kiss he gave her was long and hungry and by the time their mouths finally parted, they were both breathing heavily and staring at each other in shocked wonder.
Finally, Maura lifted her hand to cup the side of his face. “Oh, Quint,” she murmured. “Being with you—like this—is.special. So special.”
Feeling raw and naked and unexpectedly emotional, Quint thrust his fingers into her hair and against her scalp. Then holding her head motionless, he lowered his lips back to hers.
This time he gentled his searching mouth and took his lazy time drinking in her sweet taste, while an ebb and flow of desire rushed through him like a high tide threatening to drown everything in its path.
When he finally broke the kiss and lifted his head, his insides were shaking with a need like he’d never felt before. “I want to make love to you, Maura.”
Apparently his kiss had already told her what he wanted, because there wasn’t so much as a flicker of surprise to be found on her face. Instead, her green eyes were dark and smoldering, telling him that she needed him just as badly. The notion left him drunk with anticipation.
“I want that, too, Quint.”
He didn’t question her a second time. He didn’t want to give her the chance to change her mind, to turn away from him and the consequences this might bring upon them tomorrow. Loving her. Being inside her was all he could think about. It was all that mattered.
Groaning with need, he swept her up into his arms and carried her the few steps over to the cot. After lying her gently atop the blanket, he immediately joined her on the narrow mattress, then reached for her.
With a sigh that was lost in the sound of the rain, she moved into his arms and their lips united over and over in a swarm of kisses that grew deeper and bolder with each passing minute.
Eventually their clothing became an annoying barrier and Quint reached for the buttons on Maura’s shirt. Once it was out of the way, he quickly followed it with her jeans and boots, then stood to deal with his own clothing.
Peeled down to nothing but two lacy scraps of lingerie, Maura sat on the side of the cot and as she watched Quint fumble with the buttons on his shirt, there was only one thing on her mind. And that thought had nothing to do with the right or wrong about making love to this man. Instead, she was wondering what he was thinking as he looked at her.
No doubt he was accustomed to having far younger women than her in his bed. And even though her body was firm and curved in all the right places, she felt self-conscious as his blue eyes slid slowly over her.
She swallowed as his jeans dropped to the floor, then tried to speak as he shoved them and his boots out of the way. He was all long, lean muscle, a man in the prime of his young life.
“I—” Heat bloomed pink on her cheeks as she unwittingly touched a hand to her messed hair. “I must look horrible,” she said huskily. “I’m sorry.”
Groaning, he knelt before her and drew her into his arms. “Oh, hell, Maura. You’re the most sexy and gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Her head twisted back and forth against his bare shoulder. “There’s no need for you to go overboard.”
A low chuckle rumbled from deep in his throat. “I went overboard that first night I kissed you. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since. I’ve been wondering, imagining how it would be to make love to you. And now—”
Cupping her face with both his hands, he looked into her eyes and Maura