For Baby's Sake (Harlequin Romance) Read online

  He felt Alicia’s heart skip a beat, then speed up to match the rhythm of his. “Please, Allie, let me make you love me again,” he whispered as he let his mouth move to the pulse in her neck. “Nothing has changed, not since the first night I made love to you.”

  “You still want me now? Like this?”

  “Uhmmm.” He didn’t let enough space between their lips to answer with words. “You fill my every thought, every longing, every fiber of my being with desire for you. There isn’t room for any thing else, Allie. Not when I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s a good thing breathing is automatic,” he added, only half jokingly. He saw the beginnings of a tremulous smile. He forced his advantage. “I’d be in trouble if I had to quit thinking about you long enough to do that.”

  She sighed as his mouth closed the minuscule gap again.

  “Oh, Dan, I do love you. And I almost did what your mother did,” she said in awe a little while later. “I almost pushed you away and into someone else’s arms when all I ever wanted was you.”

  He thought over what she had said for a moment. “That’s how my parents messed up their marriage?”

  She nodded. “She condoned his affairs. She was afraid of getting pregnant again. You never knew?”

  “It isn’t something a kid talks over with his father,” he said. “But it bothered me a lot,” he admitted. “I thought my father was a saint. I wanted to be just like him. I could never rationalize the way they treated each other.”

  “She was frightened,” Alicia explained. “Like me.”

  “What were you frightened of?” he said, tightening his grip around her, wanting more than life itself to make her feel secure.

  “Of loving you too much. Of pain if you didn’t love me back,” she said. “Of feeling at home only to have it taken away.”

  “And on that note, I think that’s where we should go. Home,” he whispered against her velvety smooth skin. “I can’t guarantee that you’ll never have any pain. But I can guarantee that I’ll do my best to kiss it and make it better if you just let me know where it hurts.” He kissed her somberly, both eyes, the tip of her lightly freckled nose.

  “It hurts all over,” she said.

  He laughed. The quicksilver way she could make him smile was one thing more he loved about her. “And I’ll be glad to kiss it better—just as soon as we get home.” The park around them seemed deserted, but the barren trees didn’t hide much from the view of the surrounding houses. “What I have in mind now is definitely not for public viewing.”

  She laughed softly again and he heard the happy lilt that hadn’t been there for a long, long time. Far too long.

  He started walking backward toward the car. He couldn’t release her long enough to even go that short distance without holding her. Progress was too slow. He was too impatient. He gave up and swung her up into his arms.

  “I thought you didn’t want every one to see—”

  “I don’t want anyone to see what comes next,” he emphasized.

  “It’s going to be good, huh?” she teased, her voice full of awe.

  “It’s going to be great!” he managed to answer. “Without a shadow of a doubt.” And he took her home to prove it the only way he knew how.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-6993-4

  FOR BABY’S SAKE

  First North American Publication 1997.

  Copyright © 1996 by Vivian A. Thompson.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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