She wasn’t even close. As much as she craved his touch, she was unable to summon the energy to climax. It was enough to know he wanted her.
In the aftermath, he moved them onto their sides and held her gently, stroking her hair and feathering kisses over her eyelids and cheekbones.
“I remembered this,” he said quietly. “In Sudan. When things got bad. Sometimes we lost babies who should have lived. Mothers, too. It ate me up inside. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I would imagine you in bed with me. It helped. It anchored me.”
“But you didn’t come home the first time.” She heard the note of accusation in her own voice. “That sounded angry,” she added quickly. “And I wasn’t. I’m not.” What she had been was devastated.
He sighed, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. “I was going to,” he said. “I had every intention of coming back to Royal when my first tour was over. But...”
“But what?”
“You and I had ended things on a difficult note. I wasn’t sure there was any reason to come home. And the need in West Darfur was overwhelming. You were so damn young when we broke up. It occurred to me that I was probably someone to experiment with...someone unsuitable you could toss in your parents’ faces to prove you were a grown woman.”
Simone flinched, incredibly hurt. “It wasn’t that. It was never that, Hutch. I adored you.”
“But not enough to beg me to stay.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I knew you were ambitious. I knew you wanted to be successful. You had life in the palm of your hand. It’s not surprising that my life and yours didn’t mesh.”
“I was trying to do the right thing,” she said bitterly. “For once in my life, I was being unselfish.” And look where it got me...
He sighed. “Why don’t we agree to let the past stay in the past? Neither of us handled the relationship well.”
“And now?”
“What do you mean?” His question held a tinge of wariness.
“Are we handling this well?”
“How the hell should I know? I’m an obstetrician, not a shrink.”
Simone was shocked when he rolled away from her and left the bed. “Where are you going? It’s still dark out.”
“I need to clear my head,” he said gruffly. “Go back to sleep.”
* * *
Hutch didn’t wait to see if she obeyed his command. Her scent was on his skin. The sound of her voice echoed in his head. His heart pounded as adrenaline surged through his veins. He either wanted to run or to fight or to climb back into his lover’s bed and stake a claim.
It was easy to pretend that Simone was the same woman he’d left behind. Easy, for now. When her pregnancy began to show, all bets were off. Every time he looked at her, he would be reminded that she had made a choice to be a single mom. It still made no sense. Simone was the quintessential career woman. Not only that, she was far too young to worry about her biological clock.
He let himself out of the house quietly and prowled the backyard. At this hour, the air was cool and sweet. Janine Fetter was no gossip, but sooner or later, word would filter around town. Simone Parker was pregnant. And Troy Hutchinson was living in her house.
Did he care? That was the million-dollar question. People would make assumptions about Simone’s pregnancy. It was only natural. Undoubtedly, some folks around Royal would believe he had returned from Africa so that he and Simone could pick up where they left off.
If anybody did the math, they would know he wasn’t the father of her triplets. But was anybody going to be following their situation that closely?
For one brief moment, he considered offering Simone a version of what they’d had in the past. Not his heart. That wasn’t up for grabs. Something else instead. She was going to need help. He liked having regular sex with someone he cared about.
There were worse reasons to hook up.
Still, there was no rush. He was here to make sure she took care of herself. In the meantime, he could decide if they were actually compatible. Simone liked to jump in the deep end without pondering the consequences. He was a planner, a cautious man who preferred to calculate the risks.
Maybe it would work. Maybe it wouldn’t. He had time to decide.
* * *