Brenda Harlen - The Prince's Holiday Baby

His hands were on her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh. She could feel the tension in him and knew he was fighting against the instinct to drive into her. He was bigger than her, stronger, and they both knew she was only in control at the moment because he wanted her to be, but still, the sense of power was exhilarating.

She continued to tease him, taking him a little bit deeper inside, then drawing back again. His eyes were so dark they were almost black, and they were intently focused on her. Watching her as she watched him.

Watching her as his hands skimmed up her sides to her breasts, as his fingers toyed with her nipples, circling, stroking, squeezing.

Desire curled like a fist deep in her belly, tight, tighter, until she cried out with her release.

It was the signal he’d been waiting for, and his hips jerked off the mattress and he buried himself deep inside of her in one powerful thrust that had her crying out again at the shock of the next climax that ripped through her, leaving her weak and breathless and shattered.

But Eric wasn’t finished with her. He held himself perfectly still until her body had stopped shuddering, then he flipped her over, so that she was on her back and he was stretched out on top of her, pressing deep inside of her.

He whispered to her, speaking softly in Spanish. She didn’t understand all of the words, but his tone was as sensual as a caress, and just as arousing. He began to move. Slow and deep strokes that touched her very core. Then hard and fast thrusts. Harder. Faster.

She’d thought she was sated. He’d made certain she was satisfied before he’d pursued his own pleasure, and yet, she could feel the desperate, achy need building inside of her again. Her heels dug into the mattress, her nails bit into his shoulders, and her hips matched his frantic rhythm as her desire escalated again until the world dropped away and there was nothing to hold on to but each other.

He collapsed with his head on her pillow, his arm wrapped around her, and his heart beating against hers.

They made love twice more before exhaustion finally overrode passion, and Molly fell into a deep and blissful sleep in the warm comfort of his arms.

She woke up in the morning, cold and alone, and found herself regretting not the hours she’d spent with Eric but that he was already gone.

“Pregnant?”

Molly stared at the doctor for a minute, then laughed as she shook her head.

“I think you’re going to want to run that test again.”

Dr. Morgan looked at her with both understanding and compassion in her deep green eyes. She’d been Molly’s doctor for more than twenty years, long before her dark hair had become so liberally streaked with grey and the faint lines around her eyes and mouth had multiplied.

“I’ll rerun the test,” she told her. “If you can look me in the eye and honestly tell me that you haven’t had sex in the past two months.”

Molly’s fingers curled around the edge of the examining table, her damp palms sticking to the paper. “Not unprotected sex.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Dr. Morgan said. “But you know there isn’t any method of contraception that is one hundred percent effective.”

She could only stare at her as the reality of what the doctor was saying began to sink in and her heart began to hammer out its panic against her ribs.

“It was one night,” she whispered.

One night after four years of going to bed alone.

“That’s all it takes,” the doctor said gently.

Molly shook her head, still unwilling to believe what the doctor was saying. “But I don’t feel pregnant. I don’t feel any different—just tired.”

“That’s often one of the first signs.”

“I haven’t been sick.”

“Not every woman experiences morning sickness. You might be one of the lucky ones.”

Lucky? Molly was too stunned to really know how she was feeling, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t lucky.

“That’s assuming you want to continue with this pregnancy,” Dr. Morgan continued gently. “It is still early and—”

Molly shook her head again. She knew what the doctor was going to say—she was going to tell her there were options. She knew what those options were. She also knew there was only one choice for her—and it was the same choice her own mother had made thirty-one years earlier.

“I’m going to have the baby,” she said.

“Do you know the father?” Dr. Morgan asked gently.

Her cheeks burned with shame as Molly realized she probably should have kept her “one night” comment to herself, but she managed to choke out the lie, “Of course.”

She knew his name—his first name, anyway. And she knew he was from a country called Tesoro del Mar. And she knew that he kissed like there was no tomorrow and made her feel as no man had ever made her feel before. Beyond that, she knew almost nothing at all.

“If you’re going to have this baby, the father should be told,” Dr. Morgan said. “This isn’t something you should have to go through on your own.”

She nodded, because she knew it was true. She also knew that if she somehow managed to track him down, Eric wasn’t likely to be thrilled to learn that he’d knocked up some woman he picked up in a bar. And that was the tawdry truth of what had happened between them, even if, at the time, it hadn’t seemed tawdry at all.

But the soul-deep connection she’d been certain she’d felt in the darkest hours of the night had been illuminated as to what it really was in the bright light of day—a good healthy dose of lust that temporarily overrode common sense—and a passion that was apparently stronger than latex condoms.

Molly walked from the doctor’s office to Celebrations by Fiona. The exclusive boutique was ten blocks from the medical arts building and she was more than halfway there before she questioned the wisdom of undertaking such a stroll in low-heeled sling-backs and ninety-degree heat. But she’d needed some time to think about the news she’d been given and she knew that when she got to Fiona’s, she wouldn’t have a minute to do so.

Her cousin had established a reputation as one of the premier event planners in Texas and her services were sought by everyone who was anyone in the state. She’d planned the island nuptials of a Cowboys’ quarterback, personally oversaw every detail of the small garden wedding for an Oscar-winning actress and coordinated the renewal of vows to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the governor and his wife.

But it turned out that her most challenging assignment and most demanding client wasn’t a celebrity or politician, it was herself. And her mistake, in Molly’s opinion, was in not hiring someone else to oversee the details of her own wedding—a wedding at which Molly would be the maid of honor the following month.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that Molly had been shopping for dresses and bouquets of flowers, dreaming of “happily ever after.” She’d been so full of hope for her future, eager to marry the man she loved, looking forward to raising a family together.

Though that engagement had fallen apart, she’d still believed that someday she would find someone special to share her life and build a family with. Now she’d skipped over the marriage part and was going straight to motherhood—definitely not her childhood dream but a reality that she would have to deal with it.

First, however, she had to tackle the issue of a bridesmaid dress.

Fiona was hovering just inside the door, waiting for her, when she finally arrived.

“Goodness,” she said, noting her cousin’s flushed cheeks. “You look like you just finished running a marathon.”