Just for tonight, she thought. Just this once.
“Yes.”
Fierce satisfaction blazed in his eyes. Without another word he stepped back, wrapping an arm around her when her legs wobbled.
She hesitated, holding a hand to her hair. “Do we have to go through the ballroom?” she murmured, glancing about them and realizing for the first time that they stood in the shelter of a heavy stone column, out of sight of the other guests.
“No.” He flicked an assessing glance over her and tugged her bodice higher over the swell of her breasts, his fingers reluctantly leaving the soft skin. “There’s a back way.”
He took her through a nearly hidden door at the far end of the terrace that led to a service hallway behind the huge ballroom. Tucked against his side, Allison was soon confused by the maze of corridors they walked through to reach the elevator.
“How do you know so much about this hotel?” she asked as the elevator rose.
“They were robbed two years ago. I prosecuted the case and spent a lot of time walking the halls and studying the layout to understand the system the defendants used.”
She nodded, barely listening to his words, her gaze focused on the movement of his lips as he spoke. She badly wanted his mouth on hers.
“Stop it.” The growled words were thick. When her gaze met his, his eyes were hot. “I’m not going to touch you in here. If I do, we won’t make it to the room.”
Her mouth formed a startled, rounded O. His arm tightened around her shoulder, tension thickening the air, the hard body she was tucked against strung taut with control.
The elevator doors opened silently, and Jorge moved her out and down the hallway with swift purpose. One quick swipe of the card key opened the door, and within seconds they were inside. He backed her against the door and took her mouth, his hands making short work of the zipper at the back of her gown. Allison helped him, wiggling impatiently as he pushed the dress off her shoulders, his mouth leaving hers to find the peak of her breast as the dress pooled around her feet.
She screamed when he tugged her nipple into the hot, wet cave of his mouth and sucked, her hips pressing urgently against his.
He swore and picked her up, crossing to the bed. Within seconds he’d stripped both of them, donned protection and covered her. She welcomed the heavy, hot press of his weight, nearly mindless as he drove her higher with his hands and mouth.
He lifted above her, going motionless, his dark hair tousled, the lines of his face fiercely possessive. “Are you safe?”
Allison could barely understand his words, his voice thick and roughened. What had he said? Was she safe? The answer was yes; she felt safe with a male for the first time in her life. She nodded, unable to speak, and then she forgot all about safety for he surged inside her and sent them both over the edge.
Allison frowned and flipped the page on her desk calendar again.
This can’t be right.
But there was no getting around the fact that the last time she’d scribbled red asterisks on her calendar to mark the beginning and end of her monthly period was over six weeks ago.
Did I forget?
No, she knew she hadn’t forgotten. She never forgot to jot down the dates of her period. She’d been jotting those little red marks on her calendars since the summer she turned thirteen.
She quickly scanned the notations on the days between the last little red mark and today’s date. Halfway in between, she was stopped short by a date, circled in red but without an accompanying note; it was the Saturday night she’d gone to the party with Zoe and Jack—and left with Jorge Perez.
Heat moved through her veins and flushed her face and she squeezed her eyes closed at the flood of memories. They’d spent hours together after leaving the party. I shouldn’t have slept with him. But sleeping had nothing to do with what the two of them had done in his bed.
Allison dropped her face into her hands and groaned.
I’m such an idiot. What was I thinking?
She hadn’t been thinking, she admitted to herself. That was the problem. She hadn’t been able to think rationally from the moment she’d looked across the ballroom and found him watching her. And when he took her in his arms, their powerful sexual attraction drove everything but him from her mind.
It wasn’t until she’d wakened in the gray pre-dawn that she asked herself what came next—and then she’d panicked, slipped from his bed and fled the hotel room. She hadn’t seen him since; but then, she hadn’t expected to. He didn’t know where she lived or worked and in a city as large as New York, it was unlikely that he would find her, even if he bothered to search, which she doubted he would.
She flipped the calendar page to the current month, absentmindedly jotting “six weeks” on the square for today’s date.
I hope I don’t start my period this weekend, she thought idly. She had too much homework to finish and she couldn’t afford to spend a day in bed with cramps.
She stared at the red letters she’d just written on the white square. Six weeks? Of course, she thought, frowning. It had been six weeks. Something about the time frame niggled at the edge of her consciousness. But I’m never late.
Her hand froze, the tip of the fountain pen bleeding a small spreading blob of red ink on to the pristine white paper of the calendar. Allison stared at the red blot without seeing it, horror widening her eyes and shortening her breath.
Six weeks—my period is two weeks overdue. Could I be pregnant?
A swift image of Jorge Perez’s compelling face and the muscled strength of his body pressing hers into rumpled sheets had her groaning with dawning apprehension and shock.
Pregnancy was more than a possibility, she realized. She wasn’t on the pill, nor had she used a diaphragm or any other form of contraception. That night with Jorge was the first time in her life she’d been carried away by passion, and she’d been completely unprepared.
She knew that condoms had a risk factor. She couldn’t even blame Jorge if she’d conceived that night, because he’d used protection. She was the one who’d been irresponsible and failed to add backup birth control.
She dropped the pen on the calendar and sat back, pushing trembling fingers through the thick fall of her hair.
What am I going to do if I’m pregnant?
Her hand pressed against her belly in an instinctive, protective gesture.
Her one night of incredible passion with Jorge might have consequences that would alter her life forever. Not to mention her body.
She tilted her chin down and stared assessingly at her torso. She couldn’t discern any changes—her abdomen was as flat as usual.
But if she were pregnant, the shape of her body wouldn’t stay the same for long. She’d seen lots of pregnant women come and go through the doors of Manhattan Multiples, a care center for mothers expecting more than a single baby, and
