Page 25 of Close Pursuit

Her breast it was.

She tried unsuccessfully to juggle the baby and her coat and her shirt, until Alex’s big, warm hands slipped inside her coat and took the baby. Awkwardly, she raised her shirt, baring her bra, which happened to be lacy and white and practically glowed in the dark.

“Not very practical lingerie for Zaghastan,” he murmured in amusement.

“My sports bras were dirty. I wore this one today so I could wash the practical ones,” she snapped. “Besides, I wasn’t expecting to show my lingerie to anyone while I was here.”

“So you wear sexy lingerie entirely to please yourself? That’s encouraging.”

“How so?” she blurted. She wished the words back as soon as they left her mouth.

“You struck me as too…virginal…for sexy bras. Glad to see I underestimated you.”

Her gaze narrowed at the faint challenge simmering in his voice. She reached for the edge of her bra cup and slowly, deliberately, pulled it down. Alex’s gaze riveted on her flesh as the swell of her breast and its rosy nipple were revealed. His gaze flared like an arc welder, and her pulse spiked hard in response.

Without comment, he eased the infant to her breast. The baby was too mad or too inexperienced or both to know what to do, however.

“I apologize,” he muttered.

“For what?”

“For this.” He reached in front of the infant’s mouth with his fingers and pinched her nipple. Hard. She jumped and would have squawked were they not in the middle of a war zone. Involuntarily, her back arched into his hand, trying unsuccessfully to ease the sharp pressure.

“Oww!” she breathed.

He let go and made a small sound of satisfaction. “Better.”

She ventured a look down and realized her nipple now jutted out, slightly swollen and fuller.

“Rub it on the baby’s face. Across her mouth,” he instructed.

She did so, stunned at how erotic it was to be doing this in front of him. Without warning, the baby latched on and gave a tug that shot sensations all the way to her groin. “Oh!” she gasped.

One corner of Alex’s mouth curved up knowingly. He reached between her breast and the baby with the IV bag and slipped the pinholed corner into the infant’s mouth. She felt the baby swallow against her flesh.

“It’s working,” she breathed. “Do it again.”

Working together, the two of them got a few ounces of IV fluid down the baby, who fell asleep quickly after that. Alex hooked his finger under the lace edge of her bra and lifted it into place, running the back of his knuckle lightly across her nipple in the process. Damned if it didn’t perk up again, pushing impudently at the lace. And damned if he didn’t stare down at it, his eyes ablaze, until her breath came short and fast.

“Zip up,” he ordered sharply. “I don’t need either of you catching a chill.”

She scowled at his back until it occurred to her that it might have been sexual frustration putting that edge in his voice. Abruptly, she felt much better as she tucked the sleeping baby into her coat and zipped it up. She’d tied the waist string of the coat tightly enough that the baby’s weight rested on it, leaving both her hands free for climbing and balance.

“We need to name her,” she announced. “We can’t just keep calling her, ‘the baby’.”

Alex threw her a startled look over his shoulder. “You do it. But, for God’s sake, don’t name her something native. Pick something American sounding.”

“Why?”

“We’ll need to take her back to the States with us. Which means we’ll need to pass her off as our baby. What would you name our daughter?”

Their baby? The notion was both thrilling and scary to contemplate. “How about Charlene?” It had been her grandmother’s name.

“A slut I went to school with was named that. Try again.”

“Alexandra?”

That earned her rolled eyes and a firm, “No.”

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