He backed her across the bathroom to the open door; then his palm went to her belly, still blessedly flat thanks to her watching every single thing she put into her mouth. No coffee. No Brie. No fish. No food dyes. No preservatives of any kind…Mostly she ate organic fruits and veggies, while making sure she was taking her vitamins as the doctor ordered.
“Doc said a rock concert isn’t going to be bad for the baby,” Asher said, his warm palm moving from her stomach to her breast. “This is our kid we’re talking about. He’s going to attend a lot of rock concerts if I’m his old man.”
“I know.” She offered a pout.
“I wouldn’t recommend you join the mosh pit in the front or anything…”
“A mosh pit,” she said, her tone flat and disbelieving. “At Evergreen Cove’s Starving Artist Festival.”
“It could happen. I’m that good.” Cocksure and sexy and yeah, he was that good.
“Billboard Top 100 good,” she agreed.
Last summer, “Fated,” the song he’d written for her, shot up the charts like a rocket set to Mars. Then there was the tour—which had included Broderick since he’d pulled his head out of his ass. Then a wedding—Gloria and Asher’s—and then they had taken it easy over the winter and spent it lounging on their red sofa in front of the new fireplace Donny built for them as a wedding gift.
When she found out about the bun in the oven, Asher decided to focus on his children’s book career because he didn’t want to miss a single second of Gloria’s pregnancy. He’d been especially excited about the ultrasound—they both had. Seeing that heartbeat…the baby they’d created. It was one of the most amazing moments of her life. Their lives.
“We have a few minutes before we have to pick up Hawk.” Hands on his hips, his eyes went dark and molten the way they did before he stripped her bare and made her scream his name. Pregnancy hadn’t changed that. If anything, it’d increased his chances. She had enough hormones to rival an entire bus full of teenagers.
He lowered her to the bed and she complied, but not before issuing the challenge of, “What if a few minutes isn’t enough?”
“Then we’ll be a few minutes late.”
She wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and gave in to the happy. She’d been doing that a lot lately. After fighting it for so long, she figured she was due a little wallowing. He made it easy to wallow, to get wrapped up in what they were doing and completely lose track of everything but the two of them.
They were a few minutes late to pick up Hawk, but Asher hit the stage on time. He sang “Fated” directly to Gloria, while she and Hawk sang it back to him as loudly and badly as they possibly could. There was a moment Ash broke in the middle of the song and laughed through the verse, and that was a moment Gloria tucked into her heart to keep there for all eternity.
Because this? This was what mattered.
Not the past. Not old barrel couches. Not the hurt that people dealt out when they didn’t mean to. Just Hawk’s small hand warming hers and the promise of a new life and many sleepless nights in her belly. And Asher, of course. Without him, she’d have a radically different—and much emptier—life.
Asher Knight, who stood in front of a microphone on a plywood stage in the center of Evergreen Cove. Asher Knight, who strummed the last note of “Fated,” grinned ear to ear, and sent Gloria Knight his patented rock-god wink.
A Recipe from
the Desk of Jessica Lemmon
Asher Knight’s Green Rock God Smoothie
Because sexy rock gods can’t survive on whiskey and gummy bears alone.
Ingredients:
? green apple, cored and cubed
1 banana, peeled and cut into slices
1 rib of celery, cut into chunks
2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice
2 handfuls fresh spinach
water
honey, to taste
Directions:
Blend apple, banana, celery, lemon juice, and enough water to make the shake smooth.
Add spinach to the blender a handful at a time, adding more water until you reach desired consistency.
Add honey to taste.
Enjoy.
Also by Jessica Lemmon
The Love in the Balance series
Tempting the Billionaire
Can’t Let Go (novella)
Hard to Handle
The Millionaire Affair
The Second Chance series
Bringing Home the Bad Boy
Rescuing the Bad Boy
A Bad Boy for Christmas
ACCLAIM FOR
JESSICA LEMMON’S NOVELS
A BAD BOY FOR CHRISTMAS
“A terrific read for any time of the year. With charismatic characters, stirring situations, and enough sexy to fill an entire town’s worth of stockings, this latest in Lemmon’s Second Chance series is 400-plus pages of Christmas magic.”
—USA Today
“Connor and Faith are strong and complement each other, and their chemistry is explosive. Lemmon is an expert at the modern-day romance.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Sexy and well-constructed…Likable and realistic characters with believable emotions, and the right balance of fantasy fulfillment, make for some good holiday heat.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Sometimes a book has all the elements that make it a perfect romance…Playful, fun, sensual, emotional, and sexy all describe this book and I truly can’t wait to sit down and read it again.”
—GuiltyPleasuresBookReviews.com
RESCUING THE BAD BOY