Breaking the Ice

Chapter 28

28

Samantha seized the opportunity and escaped to the back room to straighten up while Nick busied himself with the hot drinks. By the time she joined them again she felt reasonably composed. But that was blown out of the water as she watched the ease with which he held a baby and jiggled a three-year-old on his knee.

For a man who didn’t want kids, he was pretty adept with them.

Her eggs, which had been lulled into a sexual stupor the last few days, woke up and she could hear them saying, We told you so, we told you so.

“I know this is really short notice,” his sister-in-law was saying, “but we need a babysitter tonight. Your brother made arrangements but they’ve fallen through. We could drop them to you and we shouldn’t be too late. Midnight tops.”

Samantha’s clucky eggs roared to life. “I could help,” she volunteered.

Nick and Cynthia turned to look at her. Cynthia’s gaze was pure speculation as she clearly tried to figure them out. Good luck with that one, Cyn.

“Are you sure?” Nick asked.

He was staring at her intently, his gaze full of heat and the hint of delicious possibilities. They had agreed not to meet at night. Daytime was fine, they had some constraints on their activities. Nighttime was different. Too much alone time.

But Cynthia’s children were cute as buttons. Nick with Cynthia’s children was irresistible.

She couldn’t miss out on that!

Nick’s brother Richard arrived that evening moments after Samantha. He knocked on the door, the very one that Nick had her pushed up against the second she’d stepped into his apartment and swept her away to another world where all that existed was his mouth and his hands and the delicious sensations swirling through her body.

The knock startled the hell out of her.

“Later,” Nick whispered and gave her a quick hard kiss before he opened the door and she scooted across to the other side of the room.

Richard looked harried as he plonked a crying Maggie into Nick’s arms and dragged a recalcitrant Thomas behind him. Maggie stopped immediately and beamed a dribbly smile at her uncle. Samantha knew exactly how she felt. She’d been drooling over Nick for months now.

“Sorry,” Richard apologized. “She needs changing and Thomas is tired and cranky and sulking because we wouldn’t let him bring his fish.”

“I’ll change her,” Samantha offered, taking Maggie from Nick and accepting the bulky bag Richard had slung over his shoulder. Nick introduced them quickly and Samantha took a protesting Maggie into the bedroom.

“I know exactly how you feel, little one,” she crooned as she laid Maggie on Nick’s bed, “I never want to leave his arms either. Let’s get you all done and back to your hunky unky.”

Maggie rewarded her with a smile and Samantha’s heart squeezed painfully. Her eggs were positively cooing. She could see the family resemblance looking into Maggie’s sweet young face. What would Nick’s child look like? No, what would their child look like?

She shook her head. Stop it, Samantha!

Picking the baby up, Samantha stopped just outside the living room when she heard her name being mentioned. She knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop but she couldn’t resist either.

“Cyn said she caught you and Sam making out at the shop this morning. Must be serious.”

“Did that wife of yours send you up here to do some digging?”

Even from out in the hallway, Samantha could head the humor in Nick’s voice.

“Cyn said she wasn’t your usual type.”

“I don’t have a type.”

A laugh. Definitely not Nick’s. “Sure, buddy.”

“Tell Cyn I said no comment.”

“Just try not to corrupt the kiddies, okay?”

“I promise I won’t touch her.”

Samantha smiled. She sincerely hoped not. Watching Nick with his niece and nephew for a few hours was going to be her catnip, she certainly couldn’t promise to not touch him.

“Really?” His brother clearly wasn’t buying it. “She’s pretty gorgeous. I imagine that won’t be easy.”

The compliment did wonders for Samantha’s ego. It seemed the Hawke men were all charmers.

“Until after they’ve gone to sleep,” Nick clarified.

Richard laughed and said, “Attaboy,” and then, “I’d better go.”

Which was Samantha’s sign to reappear, handing Maggie to Nick who made the kids wave at their dad before the door closed and they were alone with the children.

Despite her trepidations about how the children would take to her, they had a really good evening. Nick was great with them and they were easy-going kids. At one stage they all ended up at her apartment because Thomas was fretting so much for his fish that Samantha suggested he visit with hers. The little boy, his eyes agog, had stared at the mighty proportions of Godzilla. “What’s wrong with your fish?”

Umm. How did one explain a gland problem to a three-year-old?

“Sam feeds him too much,” Nick said.

“Ahh.” Thomas nodded wisely. “You’re only supposed to feed them a spot,” he lectured Samantha in his small voice. “No more than a spot.”

Nick winked at her. “ A Fish Out of Water ,” he explained. “It’s his favorite book. He’ll have it with him. You guys can read it together.”

And so Samantha read Thomas his favorite story about a little boy who fed his fish too much and it grew and grew and grew and they had to get the fire brigade and house him in a swimming pool. Thomas obviously knew the story word for word and after it was read three times, they had an in-depth discussion about the merits of fish food.

Nick made a big bowl of popcorn and Thomas sat between the two of them on the lounge as they watched Bluey on the TV and Maggie crawled around, inspecting things, occasionally stopping to grin at the animated antics. His hand lay along the back of the couch and he absently rubbed her neck and Samantha smiled at him over Thomas’s head.

Once they’d watched three episodes of Bluey , Samantha fed Maggie her bottle and Nick lay down with Thomas on the single bed in the spare room. And that was how Samantha found him after she’d placed Maggie in the travel cot in the living room.

Her heart stopped at the sight that greeted her. Nick. Big macho, hockey-jock, Nick, curled up with his tiny nephew, his big strong, arm tucked around Thomas’s waist.

And that was the moment. That was the moment her eggs held their breath and she realized she… loved him. Had been in love with him since he’d offered her the job at Birdie’s.

Her eggs rolled their eyes at her belated epiphany.

Great… Now what? Deciding to throw caution to the wind and mess around was one thing but, love ? With a professional hockey player who didn’t want children? Even though she also knew looking at Nick now that she was going to have to give up on the whole baby dream, too. Because suddenly, with love rising in her chest suffocating everything in its wake, she realized she didn’t just want any old baby. She wanted Nick’s baby.

Babies.

And only Nick’s.

God… how was it possible to feel so wonderful and so wretched at the same time? To be falling in love but knowing she could never realize it or even share it with him. Love or no love, their situation was untenable. They were still from two different worlds, on two different paths.

They could never be.

She repeated it to herself over and over as she watched the two males sleep, trying to find a way out of it but coming up empty. There wasn’t a way. All there was, was the now. The time they had left before their real lives called them back.

Refusing to let herself cry or dwell, Samantha pulled herself together with a quick mental shake. So, she couldn’t tell him? So what?

She could sure as hell show him.

Tiptoeing over to the bed she leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on Nick’s neck watching as a slow smile warmed his face and glowed in her chest. She dropped another kiss just near his ear lobe. “Wakey, wakey,” she whispered.

“Samantha,” he murmured.

It was all low and sleepy but somehow possessive all at once and it made her sad knowing that their time together would soon be coming to an end.

He slowly extricated himself from Thomas, and Samantha smiled at him as she led him out of the spare room all the way into his room before turning and reaching for him, meeting his mouth with a carnal intensity. His fingers furrowed into her hair, his groan ballooning around them as she reached for his shirt and pulled it up over his head, breaking their lip-lock.

Lordy… Nick’s chest should be bronzed and mounted in a museum somewhere.

Placing her palm on his sternum, she pushed him down on the bed, his nostrils flaring as he raised an eyebrow. “We seem to be breaking a lot of the rules,” he said huskily.

“Screw the rules.”

He smiled but still, he hesitated. Clearly, he wanted her to be sure. “We don’t have to do this, Sam. I’m fine with doing what we’ve been doing.”

Fine, but she sure as hell wasn’t. Not anymore. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to blow a blood vessel in my brain if we don’t move this along.”

He laughed. “My blood pressure has been a little high.”

And she had the cure for that.

Samantha wasn’t sure if it was nerves or anticipation that had her fingers all a-tremble as she started to undo the buttons on her blouse, but it made the task longer than she’d have liked.

“Hang on,” he said, raising onto his elbows. “I’ll get the light.”

“No.” She placed a hand on his bare chest and pushed him back down. “I want it on.”

Well, that wasn’t actually the truth. She desperately wanted the cover of darkness, but she was taking a leap of faith here and it was the only way she could think to demonstrate her love without actually saying it.

Getting naked in front of a man with the lights on was the ultimate I love you .

“You don’t have to do this, Samantha.”

“I want to,” she murmured, suddenly very sure. Nick had assured her many times she was beautiful. Maybe it was time she believed him?

Her shirt slid from her shoulders to the floor, revealing her pink lacy bra. Levering up to his elbows again, his nostrils flared as he stared at her like he wanted to tear it off with his teeth which emboldened her to reach for the zipper on her skirt. It, too, slid to the floor with a rustle to reveal matching lacy pink underwear.

He hissed out a breath which said more than any words. As did his dilated pupils, the bulge in his jeans and the raspy sound of his breathing.

The fact that she was doing it to him spurred her on.

Reaching behind, she unsnapped her bra and threw it away. His sharp intake of breath gave her the confidence to step out of her pink lace panties until she was standing completely naked in front of him. The familiar urge to cover herself up was strong but it was fading by the second as Nick’s appreciative gaze lingered on every part of her body.

“ Fuck ,” he whispered as his gaze slowly devoured her every inch.

“You like?” Yes, she was fishing for compliments, but she needed to hear it anyway, because it wasn’t just her body she was baring right now, it was her soul, too.

Their eyes met and he held her gaze unflinchingly. “You are glorious .” He crooked his finger. “Come here.”

Her pulse thrumming through every cell, Samantha covered the short distance between them, going straight into his arms. He nuzzled her neck as he held her tight.

Dear God, she loved him so much.

And then there was no stopping them. Days of heavy petting had primed them for this moment and Samantha rushed at it like a bull at a gate but Nick didn’t seem to care, letting her take the lead, barely getting a condom on before she straddled him, taking him inside her, sinking all the way down on a moan that felt as if it had come from the depths of the earth.

After that, it took barely any time to reach the peak, riding him all the way there as Nick touched her in the right spot at the right time to shatter her into a million pieces, the orgasm eclipsing every other sexual experience of her life. And just when she thought she was done, he flipped her onto her back, driving into her, reigniting the climax, pushing it higher and higher until he found his own release and they fell over the edge together.

Nick roused early the next morning as the first streaks of orange were lighting the sky. Samantha’s head was snuggled into his shoulder, her warm body pressed into his side. He rubbed his cheek against her hair and kissed her lightly on the top of her head.

Apart from a brief hiatus to offload the kids back to their parents, he hadn’t been out of bed all night. And he didn’t want to get out of it now. Two hours’ sleep and a bone-deep sense of satisfaction made the prospect exceedingly uninviting.

But the physio had cleared him to jog at the start of the week and he knew for his knee to get back to full strength, he couldn’t neglect his fitness regime for anything.

Or anyone.

Samantha murmured as he gently extricated himself from her arms and rolled on to her stomach. Her pink mouth was slack in slumber, and just thinking about where it had been last night was enough to cause his dick to twitch.

Her eyes fluttered open in the semi-gloom, taking a lazy swipe up and down his naked body and lingering on his swelling dick – which did not help the situation. “Where are you going?”

“Jog.”

“ Ugh .” Two brows beetled together. “It’s practically still dark out there.”

He grinned at the horror on her face. “I’ll only be an hour.”

She pulled back the covers to reveal her curvy, naked body. “You know they say that one round of vigorous sex burns as many calories as a five-mile jog?”

Nick’s eyes traced the furrow of her spine to the rise of her ass. “I’ve just built up to ten.”

“Well, come to bed and I’ll let you fuck me twice.”

Nick’s heart practically stopped. How could a man resist that? “I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Good to know.” She smiled. “Now, why don’t you come over here and put that cock in my mouth?”

Oh. Holy. Jesus .