The Rancher's Christmas Baby. Cathy Thacker Gillen

      She let out a shuddering breath as she tilted her face up to his. “We’re not going to stop.”

      “Exactly.” Gently, he scored his thumb across her lips. “So now’s the time for second thoughts….”

      Defiantly, she held the challenge in his eyes. “I don’t have any. Don’t want any.”

      “Amy…”

      Yearning welled up inside her. Not just for a baby now. But for him. Amy went up on tiptoe, wreathed her arms around his neck. She pressed the softness of her body against the hard length of his. “Kiss me, Teddy. Kiss me the way you did the other night.”

      Their lips met halfway in a fierce explosion of heat and need, want and passion. She put everything she had into the kiss, fitting her lips to his, adjusting her head to just the right angle, experimentally touching his tongue with hers. She expected gentleness, acceptance. Instead, his lips were hard and hungry, his tongue hot and wet and unbearably evocative. Taking command, he kissed her again and again, until she was lost in the taste and touch and feel of him, lost in the ragged intake of his breath and her own low, shuddering moan. And suddenly the idea of making hot, wild love with Teddy McCabe was every bit as enticing as the sight of him, clad in nothing but a towel.

      Teddy hadn’t expected Amy to take him up on his challenge. But now that she had…now that she was in his arms, kissing and holding him like there was no tomorrow, he could no more walk away from her than he could have not married her.

      Maybe they didn’t love each other in the usual head-over-heels way, Teddy reflected, dropping his towel and divesting Amy of her bra. But they did have a connection between them that was as deep and enduring as anything he had ever dreamed. Excitement building inside him, he sifted his hand through the silky texture of her hair. Her body shuddered and softened against his, and he let all he wanted come through in another deep, searing kiss. He wanted to be a husband to her in every way, and as he undressed her and drew her slowly down to the bed, she seemed to want it, too.

      Sensing the need pouring out of her, he cupped the soft weight of her breasts in his hands, bent his head, loving her with mouth and lips and hands. She clung to him wordlessly, arching her back, moving restlessly beneath him. He stretched out beside her, catching her by the waist. Shifting her onto her side, he pressed his hips against hers, kissing her again and again, until she was in a frenzy of wanting, murmuring her need low in the back of her throat. Wanting her to have everything she deserved, he made his way down her body, engaging every sense, until there was only the driving need, and the throbbing of his body and hers.

      He slid upward, capturing her lips in another kiss.

      “I want you,” she whispered, taking him in hand.

      Her breath hitched as he filled her.

      Yielding to him with the sweet surrender of a woman who should have been his long before, she clasped his shoulders and trembled as he kissed her and possessed her again and again. Their bodies took up an age-old rhythm, until there was no doubting how good this felt, how good they were together, and would always be….

      Teddy slid his hands beneath her, lifting her to him, driving deep. Together, they soared toward a completion more stunning and fulfilling than anything he had ever felt. More incredible for him than the feel of her beneath him, her arms and legs wrapped around him, was the thought that at this very instant…they might be making the baby they both wanted so very much.

      AMY HAD NEVER BEEN A particularly sexual person, never imagined she could feel this way about the lifelong “friend” who was now her husband, but Teddy’s lovemaking had made her feel white-hot. As if she was not just capable of conceiving the child they yearned for, but was all woman, too. As capable of giving…and receiving… emotional comfort and physical ecstasy.

      “That was incredible,” she whispered in Teddy’s ear, wanting him to know just how wonderful he had made her feel. She could see now she shouldn’t have worried about the lack of traditional romance in the making of their baby. What she had just experienced was one of the most powerful and compelling—not to mention unbearably tender—moments of her entire life.

      Teddy chuckled, pressing his lips against her neck in a series of hot kisses. “Tell me about it!”

      Still shuddering with reaction, she rested her head on his shoulder. She liked the unexpectedly sexy turn their relationship had taken as much as the sound of his low, husky voice. With a sigh of contentment, she splayed both hands across his chest. “Who knew?”

      He found her lips with his. His kiss was tender and sweetly coaxing. “I guess we should have.”

      Aware that she had waited a lifetime to feel like this, Amy searched his eyes, needing somehow to put a label on this, so that it wouldn’t all ease away, as quickly and unexpectedly, as it had occurred. “What does this mean?” Were they married now—in their hearts? Or was this the friends-with-benefits scenario he had once proposed?

      Teddy smiled and gave her a lazy once-over, seeming every bit as contented as she now felt. “It means,” he said, gently disengaging their bodies and rolling so that she was on top of him, “that we’re every bit as compatible—in a marital sense—as we first thought.”

      Not exactly the declaration of undying love she had hoped to hear. Amy lamented softly, “Except that so far we fight about everything.”

      Teddy stroked a hand down her spine, eliciting tingles of delight that made her want him all over again. His slow smile was as enticing as his touch. “Maybe not making love is what we’ve really been fighting about.”

      She tensed as his manhood pressed against her inner thighs, hot and hard. “You think?”

      He shrugged, making no effort to hide the fact that he wanted to make love with her again every bit as much as she wanted to tenderly explore him. “I feel a lot more at peace with things now.” He tunneled his hands through her hair and captured her bare lips with his. “How about you?”

      Amy let him shift her onto her back once again. “Definitely.”

      “There’s only one problem.” He draped one leg over hers.

      “What?” Amy’d never felt so warm and safe. Never believed anyone could desire her with such ferocity.

      Teddy smiled, his eyes glowing with a determined sensual light. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to want to get out of bed again.”

      Chapter Six

      It seemed to Amy that she and Teddy had just gotten to sleep after their night of marathon baby-making, when the alarm beeped. With a groan, Teddy shut it off.

      Amy struggled to sit up, saw it was six o’clock.

      Teddy pressed a kiss on her bare shoulder, ran a caressing hand down her spine. “You should try to get some more sleep if you can.”

      “I wish I could.” Amy yawned, not sure when she had felt that well-loved. Every inch of her tingled with the memory of his touch. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she rested her face on her upraised knees. She watched appreciatively as Teddy stretched, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and reluctantly rolled out of bed.

      He picked up the clothes he’d left on the floor and carried them into the bathroom, where he put them on top of the overstuffed hamper.

      Amy stood and pulled on a robe. She picked a brush up off the bureau and ran it through her hair. “But I’ve got to get going, too.”

      Teddy set the full hamper next to the hall door, for transport to the laundry room, then went back to his closet where only a few pairs of jeans and two clean canvas work shirts remained.

      “Getting down to the wire there, aren’t you, cowboy?” Amy teased.

      Teddy grinned at her. “I’ve got a couple days left before I have to do laundry.”

      “Like to wait till the very last minute, do you?”

      He shrugged