Heidi Betts - Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

Son of a bitch.

She hadn’t drugged him and tied him down just to have fabulous, forbidden sex with her ex. She’d drugged him and tied him down to get pregnant.

Son of a bitch! Fucking son of a goddamn bitch.

The one thing she knew he’d never agree to. The biggest cinder block in the wall that had gone up between them and eventually destroyed their marriage.

Fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, he forced himself to breathe evenly and remain perfectly still. If he moved, it would be to whip around the corner, snatch the phone out of her hand, and shake her until her teeth rattled or worse.

It was the “worse” that kept him rooted to the spot. Because he was afraid if he saw her right now, if he laid a finger on her, he might do serious bodily harm. And no matter how furious he was with her-even now, when she’d betrayed his trust and used his own weak, disloyal flesh against him-he would never truly want to hurt her.

But damn, it was tempting. His jaw ached from holding back a roar of outrage.

Just when he thought his head might explode from the pressure building behind his eyes, Jenna’s voice intruded again.

“Yes, I’m sure. If I need anything, I’ll call.” A beat passed. “I think that’s a great idea. I’m sure they’d love to see you, and then I won’t be the only one who got lucky this weekend.”

Her tinkling laughter filled the room and spilled up the stairwell. Normally, he loved to hear her happy. She had one of those laughs that poured over him like warm honey and burrowed under his skin.

This morning, though, it grated, reminding him that she and her friends had concocted a plan to knock him out and knock her up.

She said good-bye and he heard a small beep as she disconnected. He braced himself, expecting her to round the corner and run smack into him, but instead her footsteps moved in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen.

And she was humming. Humming, dammit, happy as a lark at the little scheme she and her friends had concocted and managed to pull off-brilliantly.

God, he felt like a schmuck.

Oh, sure, I’ll come over and fix your dripping sink.

Duh.

Gee, thanks for the cold beer, it really hits the spot.

Der.

You want to fuck like bunnies even though we’ve been divorced for more than a year? Awesome!

Idiot, idiot, idiot!

A fresh wave of anger hit and he pushed away from the wall, intent on finally facing her and letting her have it. He wouldn’t bruise her, he wouldn’t shake her, he wouldn’t toss her through an upstairs window.

But he couldn’t promise not to shout the rafters down around her ears.

Walking softly, he was careful not to alert her to his presence. She was in the kitchen now, still humming as she moved around, running water for coffee, filling a filter with grounds.

He didn’t let himself notice the snug fit of her cutoff denim shorts or the long, slim legs they left bare. The bright red tips of her toes or the sleeveless white top tied just beneath her breasts to expose her taut midriff.

He didn’t want to see any of that or think about the fact that she looked almost as good in clothes as she did out of them.

Oh, no, not today. He was not going to let his attraction to her get in the way of his fury over her betrayal.

She had her back to him, and it was almost too easy to sneak up on her. When she turned, he was less than a foot away. Her eyes went wide, she shrieked in surprise, and the coffee pot she was holding slipped from her fingers, smashing to the floor in a shower of water and glass.

Gage cursed. He’d meant to intimidate her… and yeah, maybe scare her a bit… but he didn’t want her to hurt herself.

Cupping his wide hands under her elbows, he lifted her straight up off the floor and swung her around, well out of range of the dangerous mess. He set her down on the other side of the kitchen doorway and backed her into the dining room.

Her cheeks were flushed as she gaped at him, her pupils mottled pinpoints of astonishment and wariness. She opened her mouth, but the only sound she emitted was a low, strangled hiss.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart, cat got your tongue? Or maybe you’re just braver when you’ve got me trussed up like a Christmas turkey to your bedframe.”

She swallowed, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “How did you get untied?”

“What?” he asked, his tone sharp. “Did you think you could keep me trapped up there forever? Were you going to fuck me until I was all used up, or just until you were sure you were pregnant?”

If possible, Jenna’s already pale porcelain skin turned even whiter.

“How did you…?”

Her eyes darted toward the hidden stairwell and then to her open handbag, where her cell phone rested on top of everything else she carted around on a daily basis.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” he charged. Despite his earlier determination not to rattle the daylights out of her, his teeth clicked together and he gave her a tiny shake. “That I wouldn’t stop and do the math when your belly started filling out? That I wouldn’t figure out what you’d done? That you’d used me, lied to me, forced me into fatherhood when you know that’s the last thing I want.”

Where a second ago her expression was cautious and wan, a flare of color now bloomed high on her cheekbones. She yanked her elbow out of his grip and took a step back, putting what she apparently considered a safe distance between them.

“Do you want the truth?” she charged, her voice steady and tinged with accusations of her own. “The truth, Gage, is that I wasn’t thinking about you. I didn’t consider your feelings or wishes. I was thinking about me , and what you stole from me, and how I might- just might -get it back.”

His brow crinkled as he frowned. “What are you talking about? What the hell did I ever steal from you?”

She rolled her eyes in what he recognized as a time-honored gesture that basically implied men were obtuse idiots and he was their king.

“You took everything from me, Gage.” The words were spoken softly enough, but carried an elephant’s weight of emotion. “I thought we were happy. I thought we were going to be together forever, but you took all of that away from me. You woke up one day and decided you didn’t really want a wife or children, and expected the whole world to fall in line accordingly.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “We’ve had this discussion before. And it doesn’t change the fact that you drugged me and held me against my will.”

“No, we haven’t discussed this before,” she argued, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and taking a stance that clearly said she was just getting started. “Because every time I tried to talk to you about it, you clammed up. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed and cried and threw pillows at your head. But your mind was made up, and that was the end of the story, as far as you were concerned. You wouldn’t listen to me and refused to understand my point of view.”

“I don’t want kids, Jenna,” he said, standing his ground. “That’s not an opinion that’s going to be swayed by a passionate, well-orchestrated argument.”

“But you did when we got married,” she all but shouted at him, rising on her bare tiptoes in an attempt to meet him eye to eye. “We talked about our future. We talked about having babies and growing old together. You’re the one who changed the rules in the middle of the game and expected me to go along with them.”

She paused only long enough to take a breath, uncross her arms, and poke him hard in the center of his chest with an index finger.

“Well, I do want kids. I wanted them with you in the picture, but you’ve decided to be an asshole, so now I have to switch to Plan B and get them some other way.”