Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance by Hazel Parker (sad books to read txt) 📕

as beautiful as ever, perhaps even more so. She’s changed into a lightweight dress of some thin white material so that I can see every curve on her frame.

“Sure you won’t get in trouble for cutting out early?” she asks, leaning on the door jamb.

“I’m my own boss, remember?” I tell her.

“How could I forget?” she laughs and takes my hand, drawing me across the threshold and into her living room.

I think we are going to sit, but she keeps her feet, looking at me. Finally, she steps up to me, puts her hands on either side of my face, and kisses me. It feels both comfortable and exotic at the same time, like indulging in some rare pleasure after a long period of abstinence.

“I’m not complaining,” I say when the kiss eventually breaks, “but you said we had things to talk about. If you do that again, I can’t guarantee how much talking we’ll do.”

She smiles, puts her hands on my chest. “You’re right,” she says. “I do have things to tell you. I’m just not sure where to start.”

I put my hands on her waist. “I find that sometimes it’s best to just start talking and let your intention come across in its own time.”

“Fair enough,” she says. Still with her hands on my chest, she steps close to me, goes up onto her toes, and puts her lips to the cup of my ear.

She whispers two words.

My whole world suddenly shifts.

She looks at me…how? Expectantly? Joyfully? Fearfully? All of the above.

I put my arms around her and draw her in close for another kiss.

Chapter 29 - Steph

I murmur my secret, or at least one of them, into Trent’s ear and draw back just in time to see his eyes widen and his lips part. It is the look of a man who is not typically surprised by anything, only here and now taken completely unawares.

I step back, watching him, his face, his body language. This is going to tell the tale, how he takes the news. Will he take it well, or not?

He folds me into his arms and kisses me softly. It’s all the answer I need, and I’m sure now that everything is going to be all right.

“And there’s more,” I add.

“More?” he says, incredulous. “Don’t tell me it’s twins!”

“No,” I laugh. “At least I don’t think so. No, this is other news.”

“I don’t see how it can compete with what you just told me,” he says.

“It’s pretty big, at least it is to me.”

He holds up a hand. “You got to go first, so how about I take a turn? I have news of my own, too.”

I look up at him and nod. “Go ahead.”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Steph…”

“Yes?”

Another deep breath goes in and out. Then, “Steph, I love you.”

The words hit me hard, but like pillows. Each of the four syllables lands with a soft, resounding thud.

“I love you,” he says again, “and I’m all in.”

I put a hand to my mouth, trying to hold in the sound there. It’s not quite a sob, not quite a laugh, but a strange mixture of the two.

Without thinking, I reply, “I love you, too, Trent.”

He kisses me again, in a way that I can now think of as loving. I put my arms around his neck and whisper into his ear, “I’ve loved you for a while now, even when you were away. Don’t go away again. Please.”

“Not a chance,” he says. “I’m back and here to stay.”

“Promise?”

He nods. “I promise.”

I can’t believe how in such a short period of time I have gone from feeling so at loose ends to feeling so fulfilled, so complete, so loved.

And I do feel loved. It is a foreign experience, but one which I can and will readily accept. I drink up the feeling like a warm liquid, only to find that there is more there.

This, I realize, is what true love feels like.

“Trent,” I whisper, “I missed you so much.”

“And I missed you,” he replies. His hands are at my waist, and I can feel their strength there. The kiss between us intensifies, and soon we are locked in a passionate embrace, our hands all over each other’s bodies.

In the bedroom, we quickly work our way out of our clothes and fall onto the bed together.

I reach down and take him in my hand and guide him into me. He penetrates me with one long, hard thrust, and I cry out against his shoulder. His hands are in my hair, his mouth on mine, my throat, my breasts.

He is moving slowly inside me, pulling back until he almost slips free, then glides back in with one long, gradual stroke. The teasing is driving me out of my mind. I hook my legs around him and lock my ankles, trying to pull him to me faster and harder. He easily resists, maintaining that same slow, deliberate rhythm.

“Trent,” I gasp. “Trent…”

It’s all I can get out, but it seems to work. Hearing the sound of his name on my lips appears to wear down his resolve, and bit by bit, his pace increases.

Just when I think it feels as good as it possibly can, he changes the angle of his hips so that the length of his hardness scrapes against me, sending huge darts of pleasure through my body. I grab at his shoulders, but they may as well be made of solid rock. I can’t make so much as a tiny dent in the flesh there.

I realize he is holding himself back and put my hands to his face.

“It’s all right,” I tell him. “You won’t hurt me.”

The last of his control goes, and he