Playing by the Baby Rules. Michelle Celmer

I don’t know…”

      Jake laughed. “Marisa, I was joking. If you want to make yourself feel good, go right ahead. Maybe, to make up for my torturous two weeks of celibacy, you’ll let me watch you.”

      She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He had to be joking. He didn’t really expect her to—

      Oh my God, what if he did? Maybe he was used to that kind of thing.

      “Marisa, relax, I was kidding.”

      She let out a shaky breath. “Sorry, I guess I’m just a little nervous about all of this.”

      “Don’t be. We’re good friends. We’ve done practically everything else together. Do you get nervous when we have a picnic in the park, or go see a movie?”

      “Of course not.”

      “Then try to think of this as one more thing we’re doing as friends.”

      Friends who have sex?

      Well, she’d never had a friend like that before. What kind of sex did friends have, anyway? Going-through-the-motions, let’s-get-this-over-with sex, or pulse-pounding, mind-blowing passionate sex? And suppose he wanted pulse-pounding sex, but she didn’t know how to pleasure him? She didn’t want him to be disappointed, or after two whole weeks of waiting walk away unsatisfied.

      Worst of all, what if he looked at her body and was completely turned off?

      Jake sat down next to her on the couch and draped an arm over her shoulder. She tried not to tighten every muscle in her body as the weight of his thigh pressed against her own and sent little tingles up and down her leg. He’d sat this close lots of times and it had never made her tingle before. Not in the past ten years, anyway.

      No. She refused to let herself blow this out of proportion. Forcing herself to relax, she let her head drop on his shoulder. There, that was nice.

      Hmm, very nice.

      “Is that it?” he asked, taking the legal pad from her.

      “I think we covered just about everything. We can always add to it later.”

      “We have seven rules. Maybe that’s lucky.”

      Yeah, maybe they would get lucky and conceive in the first month. “Jake, I want you to know how much I appreciate this.”

      “I know you do.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I think it’s going to work out real well.”

      “Me, too.”

      “Although I do have just one more question.”

      “What’s that?”

      He looked down at her with a grin that could make a woman forget her own name. “When do we get started?”

      Jake leaned over the console in the control room, wincing as his crotch bumped the hard metal edge.

      He’d been daydreaming about Marisa again—more to the point, making love to Marisa. Since she’d begun testing for ovulation every afternoon, he’d thought about little else.