Her thoughts emptied one by one, her body replete and satisfied, her skin sticky in the hot night air.

They lay still, together, until her eyes started to drift and she knew she was in danger of falling asleep. “I guess I should head back to my room,” she murmured, to be polite and give him an out if he didn’t want her there.

“Stay,” he said, shifting a little so she oozed off his chest and down onto the bed. “Sleep with me, Mandy.”

“Okay.” Tucking her hands under her chin and turning her nose away from the tickling hairs on Damien’s arm, the word was barely out of her mouth before she was asleep.

Chapter 12

Damien stared at the ceiling, watching an insect flutter ecstatically around the light on the ceiling fan.

He hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to Mandy’s baby.

Sure, he’d felt that odd sensation of her stomach spasming beneath his hand.

Yes, he could see the small bump growing below her belly button. And he appreciated her breasts, which were full and tender, but he’d never seen them before her pregnancy, so most of the changes in her body meant nothing to him.

Intellectually, he’d seen the worry on her face on the beach, the hurt that dickhead Ben had offered her money to leave him alone. He’d heard her talk about her fears, her need for day care, her desire to be a good mother.

But he hadn’t really thought the whole thing through. In a few months Mandy would be walking around looking like she’d swallowed a basketball, then she would have a baby in one of those chest parachutes women used to carry their babies around, and her whole world would revolve around that child.

He’d known, but he hadn’t gotten it, and he still wasn’t sure he did. But when she had started to tumble forward onto him, some instinct he hadn’t even known he’d had had leapt to the surface and reminded him she was carting around precious cargo.

Mandy slept deeply next to him, her ankles crossed, legs drawn up, her breath warming his arm, and he understood her fears. Suddenly he was terrified.

What the hell had he done here? He had slept with a pregnant woman. A mother.

Way to be uncomplicated.

He couldn’t have just found an acquaintance willing to have a carefree night of fun. No, after three years of abstinence, he went and had sex with a woman pregnant with another man’s child. How did they say dumb ass in Spanish?

Damien shifted on the bed, curling his hand behind his head. He supposed he could have slept with another woman, someone confident and independent, who just wanted commitment-free sex. He’d had a few offers like that in the last couple of years and had turned them down.

That wasn’t what he wanted.