Page 60 of A Treasure Worth Seeking

As she nibbled his throat she asked, “Will you take me to Shreveport and meet my mother?” She raised her eyes to his in supplication. “Lance, she doesn’t know about you or the baby. I didn’t want to worry her until I had a reasonable resolution outlined in my mind.”

“And that’s all I am? A ‘reasonable resolution’?” He acted offended, but he was smiling. He toyed with the lace-edged elastic leg of her panties.

“There may be a shotgun wedding when we tell her.” She smiled while outlining his lips with her fingertips.

“I’ve never been gun-shy,” he said and took her mouth in another fathomless kiss.

“My work may involve some travel for a while until I can train others to hold the seminars.”

“I’ll go with you,” she chirped brightly.

“No, you won’t. You’ll stay home and take care of baby.”

“Baby can go with us. I’m not going to be one of those wives who forsakes her husband for the benefit of her children. I’ll go with you.”

He started laughing, and she frowned on his amusement when she was trying to be serious. “What’s so funny?”

“You. I don’t know why I thought you’d grow all manageable and acquiescent after you became a wife. You’ll always defy me.”

She pushed away from him. “I will not!”

He laughed harder. “See! You’re doing it now.”

“I’ll show you defiance, Mr. Barrett!” she shouted and jumped off the couch. Before he could protest, she had stomped upstairs. Moments later he heard a door slam.

“That woman is going to be the death of me,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. He stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. Then a broad grin broke across his face. “But I’ll die happy.” He was whipping off his shirt by the time his foot touched the bottom step.

All the doors upstairs were opened except one. It took him only a minute to do what he had to do before he flung it open. He stood framed in the door like an avenging savage. His nudity was his armor and contributed to his ferocity.

Erin, who was lying on the bed waiting for him, burst out laughing. Their minds had run the same course. She wore only her panties.

His smile was arrogant as he swaggered toward her. The mattress shifted as he placed a heavy knee along her hip and knelt beside her. “You think you’re real funny, don’t you?” he asked.

Her smile was impish as she rolled against him and touched him invitingly. “What do you think?” she taunted.

With an insolent expression on his face, he hooked his fingers under the sides of her panties and eased them down her slender legs. He had intended to continue their teasing, but when he gazed at the body enriched by motherhood, lying beside him, he couldn’t.

He raised his eyes to her and said thickly, “I think you’re beautiful.”

He covered her completely and they marveled again at that harmonizing fit of their bodies which matched them together like pieces of a puzzle.

“How can mere human skin be this soft?” he murmured against the first rib under her arm. His lips foraged their way up her neck and then balanced just above her quivering mouth. Lips and tongues battled playfully before a fusion of their mouths left no room for concentration on anything except the commitment the kiss solemnized.

At last they were breathless, and Lance pulled away slightly to better view her body. The subtle changes in her breasts intrigued him. His caress was gentle as he touched her. “Are they sore?” he asked with concern.

She ran her finger down his long, slender nose. “Not very.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. You’ll relieve me,” she said, cupping the undersides of her breasts and raising them slightly.

His lips made the barest movements against the sensitive flesh. Then his tongue bathed her tender nipples with an exquisite warm wetness. She arched against him and he sought to assuage the throbbing ache in her center with stroking fingers, but it wasn’t enough.

Sliding downward, he lay his head on that part of her body where his baby lay nestled and kissed it reverently. Erin entwined her fingers in the sun-bleached hair and drew him even closer. His mouth planted tiny kisses on her abdomen and nuzzled her until tenderness gave way to passion.

“Lance,” she gasped when his fervent lips paid homage to that mysterious delta that safeguarded his most precio

us treasure.

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