Susan Johnson - Hot Streak

“You don't have to be.”

“I don't want photographers hounding me.”

“I'll see that they don't.”

“Carrie needs a normal life- without terrorists.”

“I'll make it normal. I'll do anything I have to. I mean to keep you this time, Honeybear. I won't lose you again.”

“Just tell me,” she softly pleaded, “I won't be overwhelmed by your business and entourage and threats to our lives. And Sylvie,” she murmured in a whisper, wanting to add “and all the other women.”

“Everything will be reconciled, I promise. I love you and you love me. Nothing else matters. Now tell me you love me. I need to know every five minutes for the rest of my life.”

“I love you,” she whispered, fighting back the tumult of her emotions.

“I love you, Honeybear, more than anything.”

And then she threw up all over the burled walnut dashboard.

Carey held her head as she bent over to empty the rest of her stomach on the plush wool carpeting. When it was over, he helped her sit upright again, silently wiping her face dry with his linen handkerchief. Reaching into the back storage area, he pulled out a bottle of spring water, opened it, and handed it to her.

She smiled her appreciation, took a sip, and rinsed her mouth.

Taking the bottle from her hand, he recapped it, then set it on the floor behind his seat. He slipped a gentle finger under her chin and asked, “Do you have something to tell me?”

Molly looked into his earnest dark eyes, her own expression both bewildered and alarmed. “No,” she whispered, horrified. “You're wrong.”

His dark brows, so dramatic in contrast to his hair, rose in mild incredulity. “Wrong?” he returned very gently. “Again?”

“Absolutely,” she whispered. “Positively.” But there was more than a hint of tentativeness in the last word.

He didn't reply, but his eyes were alight with pleasure. After a moment of silence, he patted her hand, a tender, smoothing caress, and said, “I'll be right back.”

She watched him dodge two cars as he ran across the street, then push through the heavy bronze doors of an elegant hotel. Returning in less than five minutes, he pulled Molly from the car, escorted her into the hotel through the magnificent lobby, and took her in the elevator to the top floor. Still without a word, he unlocked the hotel room door, walked her through a sitting room decorated with hunting prints, through a brocade and gilded bedroom, into a bathroom that would have done justice to Nero. Opening the glass shower door, he pushed her in, followed her and shoved the gold embellished door shut. Taking her by the shoulders, he pressed her gently against the tiled wall. He moved his hands upwards until they rested on the emerald tile, palms down and braced on either side of her head. “You're not getting out of here until you tell me what that little episode in the car was all about,” he said.

“You mean about me running my own life?” she said in a very small voice.

He shook his head.

“You mean about the publicity people?” Sublimation at its finest.

“Hey, I've got all night.”

“I'm going to faint,” Molly whispered.

“I'll hold you up. Now, sweetheart, the question that takes home the grand prize,” he gently posed, his powerful body so close she could feel his warmth. “Are you pregnant?”

“I can't be.”

“Any good reason why not?”

Her eyes were wide. “It hasn't been very long.”

He could barely hear her voice. “It only takes once,” he gently said. Lifting his hands away from the wall, he brushed the silky weight of her hair behind her ears and held her face tenderly cupped in his hand. “And I stopped counting a long time ago.”

“I don't think so.” She felt sick again, as if her body disputed her statement.

“Lord, you're naive, Honeybear. Why the hell can't you be?” he murmured. “It's pretty natural, after all, unless they've changed the rules without telling me.”

Looking up into his gorgeous eyes lit with an inner glow of happiness, she asked in a hushed voice, “Do you think I am?”

“I sure as hell hope you are,” Carey replied, his own brand of raw vitality burning through his deep voice. His pulse raced with an excitement he'd never felt before. “It's time Pooh had a brother or sister, and if I'd known of her existence, I'd have barged into your life long ago and insisted on it-husbands be damned. You've always been mine, Honeybear. We both should have admitted it years ago.”

She touched him then, as if touching him made it all real, her hands reaching up, cool and slender, to rest on his temples and shiny hair. She could feel a warm pulse beneath her palms.

“You're cold,” he said with concern, covering her hands with his.

“I'm happy.”

“I'll keep you warm.” And then his brows drew together in alarm. “Do you feel all right?”

She nodded. “I should have known,” she said quietly, as if thinking aloud, “but I thought my nausea was because of all the… well, frenzy and commotion lately.”

“Instead, it was me and my wanting you so badly that first night at Ely Lake.”

“I wanted you more.”

“We both wanted what we'd missed all those years.”

“And after you-we-found out Carrie was yours…”

He grinned. “Yeah… so what did you expect, Ms. Darian?”

“You don't mind then? I mean, I never even thought…” She blushed. “Although I suppose I should have. But-if I am, do you mind?”

“Mind?” He took a deep breath, then released it slowly, his eyes filling with tears. He'd be here this time for the first smile and the baby's first unsteady steps, for the first soft cooing word and the first day of school-all the precious milestones he'd missed with Carrie. “I thought I'd never have children of my own,” he said in a whisper, “and now, Honeybear, you're going to give me two. Mind?” He swallowed hard and wondered how to fully express the sweeping scope of his joy. “Let me give you the universe wrapped in a silver bow,” he said, jubilation in the rich timbre of his voice.

“I don't want the universe, I only want you.”

“Ask for something.” He was elated, dizzy with rarefied happiness. “Everyone always asks for something.” That he fully accepted. “Diamonds at least or a villa.”

“I don't want to hear about everyone, Carey Fersten.” Molly's lush lapis eyes began smoldering with flashes of heat.

How disarming, he thought, and sweetly cruel to be reminded a portion of the world practiced sincerity. “Retracted love,” he replied, intent on accord, his sensibilities attuned to every nuance, every desire, every whim she might fancy. “The world of sycophants and glitter have jaded my more whole-some instincts. It's been too many years. I forget there are people who aren't always expecting something.”

The incipient anger faded in Molly's eyes, and she saw Carey in a different light. Although he'd meant it as a simple declaration of fact, she hated the thought that people had always demanded something of him. “Let me,” Molly murmured, brushing the strong line of his jaw with one finger, “give you something instead.”

“You have already,” he replied with a quiet intensity. “I need you passionately, desperately.” He inhaled deeply. “Without reason or pride.”

“You have me,” she whispered, touched by his admission. A veil of restless moodiness seemed to descend immediately after his disclosure. He was a man of both reason and pride, formerly untouched by love, and disquieted by this new vulnerability. “And you have Pooh, too.”

He smiled then, the hint of melancholy erased by the sound of his daughter's name.

“And maybe a son next time, so think of it as not only having me to drive you mad on a daily basis, but two more hungry mouths to feed.”