Forbidden by Susan Johnson (good books to read for teens .TXT) 📕

of your life. I think of you when I'm trying to work and when I'm trying to eat. I think of you when I see a tall man anywhere, when someone with dark ruffled hair walks by me in the street. I think of you when I see a baby. I think of you a lot when I see babies. And I hate you for making me feel this way." She had run out of breath at the end, her final words finished in a whisper of sound.

"Have my baby," Etienne said, very softly, knowing what she was feeling, for the first time in his life overwhelmed by emotions he couldn't control or rationalize or neatly walk away from.

"Don't say that," Daisy whispered.

"Do you know how many babies were on Bailey's Beach this morning?" he said in a voice taut with consternation. "Do you know I never would have noticed six months ago? I question my sanity at times." He took a steadying breath. "Obsession has never been a part of my life. Until you."

"Circumstances circumscribe our lives, Etienne. Our feelings don't count for everything." She was saying the words with her mind in the practical familiar way habitual to her personality, but the pragmatic sentiments didn't register properly anymore. They didn't register at all, her brain's receptors intent on absorbing the vivid heat of passion coursing through her body.

"Have my baby," he said again, ignoring her words, interpreting her own hesitant uncertainty beneath the logical explanation, feeling the heat of her skin next to his. His hands moved to the buttons at the neck of her dress and he slowly slipped the first one free.

"It's not that simple," she protested, but she didn't stay his hands, the touch of his fingers, the warmth of his palms on her breasts cure for the ache inside her.

"It's simple. This is simple." He smiled then and kissed her lightly on her lips. "The rest is complex."

But complexities were ignored a moment later, and the opposing circumstances of their lives, because their need and desire, their obsession for each other and their love, eluded the practicalities and exposed the weakness in logic.

"If there's a baby," Daisy whispered, recognizable joy in her voice as he slipped her dress from her shoulders, "it's all your fault."

"I'll remind you of that," he teasingly replied, "later, when you're screaming."

She reached up and kissed him then, her arms clinging around his neck, her kisses sweet as candy. And they stood together, their bodies melting into each other for a languid dulcet time of murmured lovewords and warm mouths.

"We should build a monument for this momentous occasion," the Duc teased, between leisured kisses.

"Could you build one that looks like a bed?" Daisy murmured, the curve of her smile tactile pleasure as Etienne's mouth dipped to kiss her again.

Raising his head, he surveyed the limited space, his brows creasing in a mild scowl. "Not exactly pavilions of paradise. I'd envisioned something different for the conception of our child."

Trained by her grandmother as a medicine woman, Daisy understood better than most nature's ways. "You can't be so certain, Etienne, even if you are de Vec. Some things aren't accomplished by fiat."

How could he tell her he had this feeling without sounding adolescent or mad? How could he say he'd never experienced this sensation before because the women he'd dallied with in the past were sophisticated women who didn't wish to add to their families any more than he wished to add a de Vec bastard to some aristocratic family other than his own. He couldn't, so he said instead, "I'll make you a bed." His smile was beautiful and lush. "And then we'll work from there… on the other… things." The interior was moss-covered, floor and walls, even patches of the old tin roof bearing evidence of the tenacious vegetation.

"Are you cold?"

She smile. "Not any more."

He moved to open the door a minimum distance to introduce light but not let in the storm, the stiff old hinges sufficient resistance against the wind. "So I can see you better," he whispered, brushing her cheek with his finger as he walked past her to the corner farthest from the door. Taking off his shirt, he laid it on the soft cushion of moss covering the ground. Lifting his jacket from the floor where it had fallen, he extended the rough bed by spreading the leather wet-side down.

"If I were more temperate," he said, smiling, taking her hand in his a moment later when he returned to her, "I'd wait for better accommodations. But after nine weeks…" His mouth quirked into a broad grin.

"If I were more temperate," Daisy replied, her smile matching his, "I'd make you wait. But nine weeks is…" she ran a gentle hand down his bare chest to the buckle of his belt, "a critical factor."

The smooth leather slipped from the gold buckle a moment later and the Duc drew in a quick breath as Daisy pulled his belt free. "Out of curiosity," he murmured, attuned to her fingers, unbuttoning his trousers, "how exactly would you have made me wait?"

"You say that as if you doubt I could."

"Perceptive of you," he gently said, sliding her chemise strap over her shoulder.

"Size and strength isn't everything in these matters."

"Really. There is additionally?"

"Pain… if necessary."

"Maybe I should do that myself," he said with a grin, taking her hands in his.

Her answering smile was angelic. "In your case, I'm more than willing. Rest easy."

He looked at her for a moment from under half-lowered lashes. "After that threat, I may never rest easy again, darling," he teased. "What a formidable woman for the mother of my child."

"You're obsessed with babies."

"Only with you." Lifting her hands to his lips, he kissed her fingertips delicately, one at a time. "You even taste like the mother of my child," he said a moment later, laughter in the undercurrent of his voice.

"I'm glad." And in those plain words Daisy relinquished all her doubts and fears, her happiness spilling over