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Je
Ro
Truth be known, Je
Her heart gave a little flip at that, and at the knowledge that he was probably one of the most trustworthy men on the planet.
Gage chose that moment to look up, and their eyes met. She expected him to smile, maybe wink, but instead his expression remained stoically blank.
So much for trying to figure out how soon she could make her excuses and drag him home for some good old-fashioned slap-and-tickle.
Turning back to her drink, she used the tiny swizzle straw leaning against the side of the slanted glass to toy with the yellow liquid.
“Okay, you are entirely too quiet tonight,” Grace remarked.
Je
“Sorry, I was just…”-feeling guilty-“thinking.”
Grace stole a glance over her shoulder. “About Gage the Wonder Stud?”
Heat flared into Je
“Oh, stop!” Grace chastised lightly, wrapping an arm around Je
They both turned their gazes to Ro
“It’s sickening, isn’t it?” Grace asked in a soft aside.
Actually, Je
“All right,” Grace said with a sigh, pulling her arm back and taking a long, strong suck of her quickly disappearing limoncello. “I can see I’m the only one having a down-with-men moment here.”
“I’m sorry,” Je
Grace shrugged a slim shoulder. “That’s okay. I’m getting kind of tired of talking about the cheating louse, anyway. It’s taking up too much of my time.”
She raised a hand to get their waitress’s attention and signaled for another round of drinks. “So tell us what’s been going on with you and Gage. And I sure as hell hope he has been a wonder stud instead of just some damn Shetland pony.”
Je
“Nothing… much has been going on.”
Grace and Ro
“Oh-ho,” Ro
Je
“When last we checked in on Je
She thrust the invisible mike at Je
Grace, of course, had no such qualms. “Howler monkeys.”
“Yes.” Je
“I know why,” Ro
“That’s not-” Je
Without the hope of getting pregnant, either, which had been her original goal and the whole point of molesting him to begin with. How telling was that?
“He insists we use a condom each and every time,” she confided, tucking her head and playing with the straw in her new cocktail, but not bothering to take a sip. “And first thing every morning, he makes me take one of those home pregnancy tests. They’ve all been negative, of course, but he doesn’t seem to believe me when I tell him it’s too soon to find out if I’m pregnant or not. He still insists I pee on those stupid sticks and wait for them not to turn blue.”
Ro
“What?” Je
It was Ro
“Gage isn’t that kind of man,” she told them with a shake of her head. “I should have known better than to think he could just be a sperm donor. He would never abandon a child, even if its conception hadn’t been entirely mutual.”
“So what’s going to happen if you are pregnant?” Grace wanted to know. “Is he going to stick around and help you raise the child, or does he just want to know you’re pregnant before he takes off and leaves you to deal with it on your own?”
“I don’t know,” Je
A few brief seconds passed with only the sounds of the bar filling the silence-raised voices, clinking glasses, a baseball game playing on one television, mixed sports coverage playing on another.
Then Grace diplomatically put in, “All we’re saying is that you and Gage never truly wanted to split up in the first place, and neither of you have ever really gotten over each other. Even you’ve admitted that much.”
Je
“So maybe,” Ro
“And just as not over you as you are over him,” Grace added.
For several long moments, Je
Time and time again, Gage had made it perfectly, crystal, plate-glass clear that he did not want children. On top of that, he’d made no secret of the fact that he was thoroughly pissed that she’d tricked him into possibly getting her pregnant, and now that they were continuing to sleep together, he wasn’t taking any chances. If he could have wrapped them both in cellophane from head to foot and gotten the same tactile pleasure from the act, she suspected he would have done it.