He smiled his very best badass smile. “Good. Because I want you to remember every second of what I’m going to do to you.” He divested her of all her clothes and she lost herself in his caressing hands and demanding kisses.
“I missed you,” he whispered and was just about to slide home when someone rang the doorbell.
“No,” Molly said, trying to get his mouth back on hers. “I’ve been dreaming about this for days. Days, Lucas. I need this. Bad.”
“Mmm,” he said, his voice pure sex. “Tell me all about this dream, slowly and in great detail.” He bent to kiss her again, but before his mouth touched hers, the doorbell went off several times in quick succession, prompting him to blow out a frustrated breath. “They’re not going away.”
“Take your gun,” she said. “Kill ’em quick and hurry back.”
He was laughing as he bent to pull on his pants.
“Don’t forget to hurry,” she said when he left the room.
She was thinking about all the ways she was going to make him stop laughing and start moaning her name when he came back. He stood at the side of the bed with a bag hanging off one shoulder and a baby on the other.
“That was Finn,” he said with a half smile. “Something you forgot to tell me?”
Finn had been behind the bar serving Girls Night, bemoaning that he needed to get Pru away for an overnight all to themselves, and somehow Molly had opened her mouth and promised to babysit for the next twenty-four hours. After all, what could wrong in twenty-four hours? “I’m babysitting tonight! I forgot!” She slapped her forehead. “Shit!”
Baby Penelope focused in on Molly with a toothless grin. A line of drool hit Lucas’s shoulder. “Shhhht,” the little cutie-pie said and bounced up and down in excitement at the sight of one of her favorite people.
Molly froze in horror. “Did she just—”
“Shhht,” the baby said again and laughed her full belly baby laugh.
Fighting a smile, Lucas dropped the bag onto the bed and smiled at Penelope. “Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble . . .”
“This isn’t funny!” Molly cried, sitting up. “Shit can’t be her first word!”
“Shhht!” Penelope cried out again gleefully.
Lucas lost the battle and grinned. He pressed a kiss to Penelope’s sweet curls. “Time for a new word, sweetness, or your mommy’s going to kill the woman I love.”
Penelope tipped her head back and stared up at him in clear adoration as she let out a stream of gibberish syllables.
“That’s right,” he cooed at her. “Who’s my pretty girl?”
Penelope all but melted for him and Molly found her ovaries doing the same. “You look good like that,” she said softly.
He met her gaze, caught her serious expression and cocked his head. “Like what?”
“With a baby.”
He didn’t laugh, didn’t make fun. “You want one,” he said. Not a question.
She’d honestly never given being a mom much thought. But in that moment, she knew she wanted to try. With Lucas.
With a soft smile, he handed her the baby.
“Where you going?”
“A minute.”
He vanished in his closet.
“Lucas?”
“A minute,” he repeated.
She sighed at Penelope and tickled her belly. “Men are from Mars.”
Penelope giggled.
Then Lucas was back, still in nothing but his cargos. Bare chest, bare feet, expression baring his heart and soul as he sat next to her on the bed and handed her a small black velvet box.
“Merry Christmas, Molly.”
She stared at him. “Is this . . .”
On his knees on the mattress before her, he smiled. “I’ve known you were meant for me since that very first night you slept with me.”
She might have rolled her eyes, but her heart was pumping so loud she couldn’t concentrate. Penelope, sensing the attention was off of her, patted Molly’s cheeks. She took the baby’s little hands in hers while continuing to stare at Lucas. “I didn’t think we were going to go there—”
“I wanted to give you time,” he said. “But I also want you to know that you’re my heart. My soul.” He shook his head. “My entire life. I tried fighting it, but I lost that battle a long time ago. I love you, Molly. Will you marry me?”
“Are you asking me so that I’ll give you a baby as cute as Penelope?”
Penelope smiled at the sound of her name, farted, and then spit up down the front of Molly.
Lucas laughed and easily scooped up the baby, handing Molly a towel sticking out of the baby bag. He was good at this, she thought, and opened the ring box.
And gasped at the beautiful diamond solitaire.
“I’m asking you,” Lucas said quietly because Penelope had set her head down on his shoulder and her eyes were drooping, “because I can’t imagine you not in my life. With a baby, without a baby . . . I can go either way. What I can’t go either way on, Molly, is you.”
She felt her eyes go misty and her heart swell at the words as she slid the ring on her finger. “It’s a perfect fit,” she whispered.
Leaning in, Lucas kissed her over Penelope’s head and smiled. “Yes. We are.”
Announcement
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in Jill Shalvis’s New York Times bestselling Heartbreaker Bay series
PLAYING FOR KEEPS
Coming January 2019!
An Excerpt from Playing for Keeps
Alone per usual, Sadie walked through the day spa, shutting down for the night. Her coworkers had left, but even if they hadn’t, they’d just be walking around with their ridiculously expensive teas, talking about how hard this job was.
Laughable, but as the lowest person on the totem pole, she’d managed to keep her opinions to herself. Still, if she was being honest, it was only a matter of time before her mouth overtook her good sense.
As she moved around shutting down the computers and dimming the lights, she dreamed about going home and replacing her daytime yoga pants with her overnight yoga pants. Unfortunately, even after eight hours on her feet, that wasn’t in the cards for her tonight.
When her phone buzzed an incoming call, she glanced at the screen and sighed before answering. “Hey, Mom.”
“Honey, you forgot to call me back. I’ve been trying to discuss your sister’s wedding details with you for weeks now, and . . .”
Sadie tuned her out, wondering if she had time to grab an order of sliders and crispy fries from O’Rileys, the pub across the courtyard, before heading to her other job. Her mouth watered at the thought. Lunch seemed like it’d been eons ago . . .
“Mercedes Alyssa Lane, are you even listening to me?”
“I’m trying.”
“I’ll take that. Honey, you’re not feeling . . . sad again are you?”
“Nope,” Sadie said automatically because she didn’t need the “all you have to do to get over the blues is think positively” speech again, well-meaning as it was. But her mom was winding up for the big finish and Sadie braced herself because in three, two, one—
“Because you know all you have to do to get over the blues is think positively, right?”
“Right.” Resisting the urge to smack her phone into her own forehead, Sadie drew a deep breath and sank into the cushy chair in her station where her clients sat while she applied permanent makeup. This was her bread and butter job, seeing as the love of her heart job—working as a tattoo artist in the Canvas Shop right next door—didn’t pay enough yet. And maybe it was silly and frivolous, but she’d grown fond of eating.
The problem was, all the hours on her feet working way too many hours a day left her exhausted most the time.
And maybe the teeniest bit cranky. “Mom, it’s not that easy.”
“To think positively? Of course it is. You just do it. Your sister . . .”
Whatever came after that, Sadie went back to zoning out. Her perfect sister Clara, blah blah blah, she’d heard it too many times to count.
“Sadie? Yes or no?”
Well, crap. She’d missed a question, but pretending she knew what was going on at all times was her MO. If she couldn’t blow her family away with her brilliance, her plan was always to baffle them with her bullshit. “Sure,” she said. “Whatever you guys decide.”