Page 41 of Prognosis Baby Daddy

Katya adjusted their placement so Ben’s was snuggled close to the baby’s activity. It was kicking a lot and they both stared down at her stomach and smiled at its antics.

‘How can you walk away from him, Katya?’ Ben asked after a minute had passed and the show seemed to be over.

Katya closed her eyes and sighed. She stood and Ben’s hand dropped away. She walked over to the railing, watching the moon bathe the coast in a silvery shimmer, her back to him. She ran her hands briskly up and down her arms, the evening getting cooler as each minute passed. She was in jeans and a top but the night air had penetrated, goosing her skin and beading her nipples.

Ben rose, removing his jacket from the back of the chair. He joined her, placing it around her shoulders. Katya felt the warmth instantly and was enveloped in a snug, Ben-smelling pheromone cloud. His jacket smelled so good and she knew if she buried her face in his neck he’d smell the same, only better.

She turned to face him. It was time for honesty. He had opened up to her a little tonight and she wanted him to understand why she couldn’t stay.

‘When I was eleven, I was changing Leo’s nappy when my sister Sophia pulled the heater down on herself and her clothes caught light. She was very badly burned. She nearly died. To this day, she has these really horrible scars down her side and arm. Scars that I’m responsible for.’

Katya was surprised to discover tears had built in her eyes as she recounted the story. ‘I’m not fit to be a mother, Ben.’

‘Katya,’ Ben said softly, aching for the frightened eleven-year-old he’d just caught a glimpse of. He could only begin to imagine how terrible she must have felt. ‘Cara, you were eleven years old. You were a child.’

She shook her head as a tear squeezed out and tracked down her cheek. ‘I was in charge.’

Ben saw the guilt in her eyes and it clawed at his gut. He wiped the tear away gently. ‘How old were your siblings when it happened?’ he asked softly.

‘Leo was one, Sophia was two and a half, Marisha was four and Anna was five.’ They’d all been so young. So dependent on her and she had let Sophia down.

Ben shut his eyes and dropped his forehead gently against hers. ‘Sophia’s accident wasn’t your fault, Katya. It was your mother’s fault.’

Not according to Olgah. Katya still remembered her mother’s rage when the hospital had finally tracked her down.

‘I can’t do it, Ben,’ she said, shifting back from him slightly, his soft words very persuasive. ‘I can’t risk being careless and having this baby get hurt. Sometimes as I’m drifting off to sleep I hear Sophia’s screams, I can smell her burnt flesh.’

Ben stroked his hand down her spine and Katya shivered. She wanted to step closer into the circle of his arms, where he was warm and male and tempting, but she had to make her point.

‘I don’t know how to be a good mother, Ben. I had a lousy role model and my sister nearly died because I failed in my duty of care to her. And I’m petrified something terrible will happen if I’m left in charge again. I just can’t do it.’

Ben nodded. Her conviction was obvious. What had happened with Sophia had obviously had deep, long-lasting effects. She truly believed she couldn’t be trusted with her own baby. Another tear trekked down her face and before he could stop himself he leaned forward and gently kissed it away.

Katya sighed and gave in to the desire to lean against him. His chest was broad and he smelled like man, like the scent that pervaded her pillow and her sheets. Suddenly the atmosphere turned sexual. The moonlight glowed on the Med to her left, stars winked down at them from above, and in front of her was a gorgeous, sexy man, holding her close.

Suddenly it all seemed terribly inevitable. Fated, even.

Katya lifted her head and got a brief impression of square jaw and dark stubble and hooded eyes and then Ben’s mouth was shutting it all out. His body surrounded her, pushing her back against the railings. Nearer, closer, harder. Her head spun as her senses filled with his heat and his smell and his touch.

His mouth left hers and tracked kisses down her neck and she gasped for air, her heart beating frantically. He moved with her, walking her backwards away from the terrace. Her fingers grasped his shirt for stability until a wall pressed firmly against her back. She had a vague notion he had her up against the doorjamb where the French doors separated the villa from the terrace but they could have been floating high above the Med for all she knew.

Then he was helping her out of his jacket and she was stripping off his loosened tie and unbuttoning his shirt and finally, finally laying her hands on his naked chest. His skin was hot and he moaned against her neck. The mat of hair covering his bulky pectorals trailed down his flat abdomen and felt springy and tickly against the palms of her hands. His muscles twitched and reacted to the path of her hands and it emboldened her to undo his belt buckle.

‘Katya,’ Ben gasped, and reclaimed her mouth as his hand trailed down from her face to claim one firm breast.

She moaned and his erection surged but it wasn’t enough for Ben. He was half-naked and she was still fully dressed. Her clothes looked fantastic, tight in all the right places, but he knew they’d look better crumpled in a heap on the floor. ‘I want to look at you,’ he groaned against her mouth.

Katya laughed. It felt good to be finally letting go, her head spinning from the pleasure rocking her body.

Ben cut off her laughter with a deep searing kiss, stripping off her top in one swift movement. Her jeans zip followed and she wriggled her hips as he pushed them down, stepping out of the denim with relative ease.

He pulled away and got his first look at her near naked body. The light from the lounge room and kitchen illuminated her body enough for him to know it was just as he remembered. Petite and feminine. Her stomach still flat despite her twenty-week pregnancy. Her skin milky.

Her hips looked slightly rounder, though. And her breasts were considerably fuller. He stared at their lushness spilling out of her bra.

‘Ben,’ Katya begged, the look in his eyes, the roving of his gaze pure erotic torture.

‘Shh,’ he teased, ‘I’m looking.’

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