aside.
“Let me take care of you. Of them.” Wandering hands found her shoulders, slipped underneath the thin straps of her dress. She burst to life, pressing into him with a new urgency. A want and need so unfamiliar to her.
As he kissed her, he rocked her back and forth. The scent of earthy cologne seemed to grow stronger. Demanded more of her attention...
“Erika?” a deep voice called, a man’s voice.
Gervais.
Opening her eyes, she had a moment of panic. This was not the hotel room.
As the suite came into focus, she realized where—and when—she was. This was Gervais’s house, his guest bedroom. She wasn’t in London, but rather in Louisiana. Still, the memory pounded at her mind and through her veins.
She wanted to go back there now. To her dreamworld in all its brilliant simplicity.
But Gervais himself stood in the doorway of the guest suite.
His square jaw flexed, the muscles in his body tensed, backlit from a glowing sconce in the hall.
“Erika?” He crossed the threshold, deeper into the room, his gaze intense as he studied her. “I heard you cry out. I was worried. Are you okay? The babies?”
The mattress dipped as he sat beside her, stirring heated memories of her dream.
“I am fine. I was, um, just restless.” The sensuality of her dream still filled her, making her all the more aware of his hip grazing hers through the lightweight blanket. The electricity between them was not waning. If anything, she felt the space between them grow even more charged. More aware.
“Restless,” he repeated, eyes roving her so thoroughly she wondered what she looked like. Her hair teased along her bare shoulder, her silk nightdress suddenly feeling very insubstantial, even though the blanket covered her breasts.
Images from her dream flitted back into her mind, and she bit her lip as her gaze moved down his face, to his hands reaching up to her exposed shoulders. Looking back at him through her eyelashes, she could tell he sensed the charged atmosphere, too. But his hands didn’t move. Not as she’d expected—and wanted—them to. There was something else besides hunger in the way he held her gaze. Something that looked a bit like worry.
“Gervais, I truly am all right. But are you all right?”
He ran his hand through the hair on top of his head, eyes turning glossy and unfocused. “I called my dad tonight to tell him about the pregnancy. Not the twin part. Just...that he’s going to be a grandfather. I didn’t want him to hear it in the news.”
She thought of how the day had gone so crazy so fast simply because she passed out. “I wish we could have told your family together.”
“You didn’t include me when you told your family.”
She looked away, guilt stinging her. And didn’t that cool the heat that had been singeing her all over?
“You’ve told your family, haven’t you?” he asked, his eyes missing nothing.
“I will. Soon. I know I have to before it hits the news.” She wanted to change the subject off her family. Fast. “What did your family have to say? Your brothers were quiet at the emergency room.”
“My brothers are all about family. No one judges. We love babies.”
Erika raised her eyebrows, unsure how to take the casual tone of what felt like a very serious conversation. She noticed he didn’t include his father in that last part.
“That is all?” she asked, knowing she had no right to quiz him when she hadn’t shared much about her own family.
“That’s it. Now we need to tell your parents before they find out.”
“I realize that.”
“I want to be with you, even if it’s on the phone in a Skype session.” His jaw flexed in a way she was beginning to recognize—a surefire sign of determination. He slid his arms around her and said, “I want to reassure them I plan to marry their daughter.”
“You have forgotten we have no plans to get married. I have plans—other plans. Our plans are in flux.”
Erika pulled out of Gervais’s arms so fast he damn near fell off the bed. He wasn’t sure why he’d raised the issue again, other than not wanting to be like his father, and certainly the timing of his proposal hadn’t been the smoothest. But the least she could do was consider it, since they hadn’t taken time to seriously discuss it that first night.
Time to change that now. He shifted on the bed so they were face-to-face. And promptly remembered how little she must be wearing under that blanket. A bare shoulder peeked above the fabric, calling his hands to rake the barrier down and away.
To slide between those covers with her.
“Why not even consider?” he ground out between clenched teeth, determined to stay on track with this talk. “We have babies on the way. Even if we have a civil ceremony and stay together for the children’s first year.” From the scowl on her beautiful face he could see he was only making this worse. “Erika?”
“I came here to tell you about being pregnant, see if you want to be an active father, and then make plans from there. I didn’t come for a yearlong repeat of our impulsive weekend together.”
He swallowed. Had his carnal thoughts been that obvious? No sense denying that he wanted her.
“And what would be so wrong with that?”
“I have a life in another country.”
“You’re out of the military now. So work here. You have more job flexibility than I do.”
Red flushed into her cheeks, making her look more like a shield maiden and less like a delicate princess in need of saving. “You are serious?”
The more he thought about it, the more it felt right. A marriage of convenience for a couple of years. He stroked her hair back and tucked it behind her ear, the silky strands gliding along his fingers. “We have amazing chemistry. We have children on the way. You’re already staying in my home—”
“For two weeks,” she said, finality edging her voice.
“Why not longer? Things have changed now with the twins. Two babies at once would be a lot for anyone to care for.”
He needed to be involved. A part of his children’s lives.
“I have plans for this fall. A commitment to my career. You are thinking too far into the future.” She shook her head, a toss of silvery-blond hair in the moonlight. “Please slow down.”
She angled an elbow against a bolster pillow, reclining even as she remained seated. And damn, but he wanted to be the one she leaned against, the one who supported her incredible body through the upcoming months while she carried this burden for them.
“We don’t have that option for long. And you yourself said you were concerned about the babies being boys and being caught up in the family monarchy as next in line. If they’re born here and we’re married here in the States...” He wasn’t exactly sure what that would mean for the monarchy, but it certainly would slow things down. Give them time to become a family. And to figure out how everything would work together.
She clapped a hand over his mouth. “Stop. Please. I cannot make this kind of decision now.”
The magnolia scent of her lotion caught him off guard. He breathed in the scent, enjoying the cool press of her skin on his lips. Would have said as much if he hadn’t noticed the glimmer of tears in her eyes.
A raggedy breath before speaking. “Can we please think about our future