Page 74 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
“James,” I whisper. “Don’t make me wait any longer. Please.”
His rumble of laughter is quiet and kind and amused and aroused. “Impatient, are you?”
I push at his shirt, slide my hands over his hard muscles. “Yes, James. I am. I’ve waited and waited for you. Before I knew it was you, I was waiting for you.” I get his shirt off, scour his torso with greedy hands. “We’ve gotten so close. It’s like getting a taste of what you want, and not being able to actually have it.”
He cups a breast over the bra. “I know, Nova. God, I fuckin’ know.” A fingertip brushes the lace over my core. “You don’t even know how bad I need you.”
I gasp at his teasing touch, and reach for his zipper. “I might have an idea,” I say, grinning into his kiss.
He hooks a finger into the waistband of my underwear, and I’m eager for them to be gone, to be bare to his touch. “I’ve been holding on to a razor’s edge of control with you, Nova.” He tugs them down. “That shit is gone, sweetheart.”
“Oh good,” I whisper. “Show me.”
And, in the instant before his touch finds my wet, waiting core, his phone rings. “Goddammit,” he snarls. “Not fuckin’ now.”
“Normally I’d tell you to answer it,” I say. “But this time? Let it ring.”
Only, my phone starts ringing, too. James removes his hands from me, reluctantly, as if to do so requires digging deep into a reserve of self-control he isn’t sure he has.
“What do you think the chances are of us both getting calls at the exact same time?” he murmurs.
I shake my head. “The odds are against that,” I say.
James digs his phone out of his back pocket, and I trot into the kitchen to grab mine out of my purse just as it stops ringing—only to start up again.
The caller ID says it’s Audra.
“Audra? What’s up?”
“Imogen—” Audra sounds more shaken than I’ve ever heard her. “She—she went into premature labor.”
It takes a moment for the impact of that to hit me. “But she’s—she’s barely thirty weeks.
Is she at the hospital?”
“On the way now. She called Jesse, and he and Franco raced over and picked her up. Franco called me, and he’s calling James too.”
“I know. He’s with me.”
Such is the seriousness of the situation that Audra doesn’t comment on this. “Get to the hospital.”
“Ten minutes, max.”
I hang up, and James is already tucking his phone back into his jeans pocket. His eyes meet mine. “Best get some clothes on,” he says. “This ain’t good.”
The laundry basket full of clean clothes is at the foot of my bed; I throw on the first things I can find: a set of scrubs. James is already dressed, so I shove my bare feet into a pair of tennis shoes and grab my purse. James still has my keys, and I don’t even think twice about getting into the passenger seat so he can drive.
We reach the hospital in less than five minutes, reaching the elevator at the same time as Laurel and Ryder. Being in scrubs puts me in a position of authority, subconsciously, and both Laurel and Ryder glance at me as we ride up to the maternity floor.
“Will she be okay?” Laurel asks.
“Thirty weeks is…viable. It depends on why she went into labor so early. She seemed healthy.” I shrug. “But I’m not an L-and-D nurse.”
The four of us jog from the elevator to the maternity waiting room, where we find Franco and Audra sitting side by side, holding hands, looking identically worried, as are all of us.
I don’t even realize until Franco’s eyes go to our hands that James and I holding hands. He says nothing, however; his eyes go next to James’s face. I follow his gaze, and realize that James is tensed, jaw locked, brow furrowed. His hand is all but crushing mine.
And I remember, then, how his wife died: just like this.
I squeeze his hand. “James.” His eyes flick down to mine. “She’ll be okay.”
“She has to be. He can’t lose her the way I lost Renée.”
“No one is losing anyone,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.”
He juts his chin in the direction of the nurse’s desk. “You work in the hospital. Can you go back and see what’s going on?”
That’s not really how things work, generally, but I’m not about to argue with him. It’s worth a shot, anyway. I head to the desk, and the nurse behind it is someone I know—I did rounds with her when we both first started here.
“Jeanine,” I say. “I’m here about Imogen.”
Jeanine is a small, neat, compact, efficient woman with a severe brown bun. “Imogen Irving?”
I nod. “About to be Imogen O’Neill.”
Jeanine taps at her computer and reads. “Premature labor—thirty weeks. She’s in the OR right now.”
