Page 158 of Merciless Desires

“Does a baby really need all of this?” I follow him down an aisle where he grabs nearly one of everything. “Darragh, stop.” I seize the edge of a crib on display and double over.

“Ana!” Sophie rushes to my side.

“I’m okay, Sophie.” I take a deep breath, blow it out, and smile at her. “Just got a little scared. I’m sure your mom was, too.”

Mentioning her mother makes Sophie freeze and Darragh go rigid.

“Right, she was.” He plays it off and braces me to help me stand up straight.

“You were kept in a dirty motel room,” he whispers to me. “That’s not normal. You should have been seeing a doctor. Taking prenatal classes sooner, and meeting other moms. You were denied all of that.”

Yet, Sophie’s mom wasn’t, and she left.

“Come on.” He shows me everything in the cart and explains what they’re for.

After a while, it all makes sense.

“Much of this is for the first month or two, and then you don’t need it. Babies are incredibly easy so long as…” He lifts his eyes to me. “The baby is healthy.”

“The ultrasound said so.”

“Right.”

“Why would the baby not be healthy?” Sophie asks, holding a stuffed bear she claimed the minute we got to the store.

Because I did drugs for a few months and your uncle smoked pot in the room until the day we got arrested. I don’t say that, obviously.

“The baby will be healthy.” Darragh continues down the aisle, and I detect him smiling. He likes this, likes going through all this again.

We pick out blue-themed bedding, infant onesies, and a wardrobe of tiny outfits with cars, trucks, and bears on them.

Walking to the register, he spots an infant Seahawks jersey and snags it. Because, of course, a boy baby needs one.

Everything is rung up, and I close my eyes at the total cost. But Darragh is completely comfortable paying for it all. I tell myself he brought me here. He chose for me to be here. Plus, like my father, he has plenty of money.

Sophie yawns loudly in the back of the car on the ride home, and as soon as we get there, Darragh brings her up to bed.

I’m rinsing out cups at the sink when hands close around my waist, not my stomach. Darragh has an amazing way to make me feel like a woman and not a pregnant whale.

“Now. I need to taste your pussy right now,” he rasps in my ear, heady, needy.

“In the kitchen?” I turn in his arms.

Darragh is so big. He’s got that wide, hulking, O’Rourke build. He kisses me, and I forget everything.

“You taste so good. This mouth. I think about this mouth all damn day. But you have another set of lips I want to taste.” He drops to his knees and lifts my skirt. “No panties after eight p.m. That’s a new rule, baby.”

He drags my panties off, a plain cotton pair this time, but it matters none. They’re gone, shoved into his pocket. “Spread your legs for me.”

We’re on the other side of the island, Darragh completely out of sight if Sophie were to wander in. She’d just see me leaning with my head thrown back, groaning.

Worse comes to worse, I can fake a contraction, if needed.

But when Darragh pushes my legs apart and runs a gorgeous hand up my thigh, I can hardly think about anything but what he’s doing.

“Show me,” he says in a husky voice. “Show me what’s mine.”

I lift one leg, exposing myself, and he immediately buries his face between my thighs. He inhales me deeply and flicks a tongue with one sensual and flirty stroke. Next, Darragh’s beautiful mouth is on my clit, his velvety tongue lapping at me with intense pressure. The feeling is incredible, the kind of incredible I’ve been hungering for.

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