Page 48 of Hot Irish Halloween

“No, but it is a lot of responsibility. It’s like a baby that never leaves home for university,” he quipped.

Penny was in the middle of gathering her scarf. Pausing, she stared at the soft, black material. Jack had already seen her in it. Would it ruin the sexy to start off with it, or should she wait until he was asleep to put it on? Decisions she hadn’t had to think about in all her years of being single.

“Huh. I guess you never wanted kids, then.”

He paused as if pondering the question. “Honestly?”

“No, lie to me. Women love that.”

The sarcastic comment earned her an equally sarcastic smirk.

“The pendulum keeps swinging on that.”

“Geez, Edgar Allen Poe. What doesthatmean, the pendulum keeps swinging?” she asked with a short laugh.

“It means at times the answer was ‘yeah, sure,’ and other times it’s been ‘no.’ I wanted kids, but when I saw a clip of a woman giving birth when I was eleven, it was ‘hellno.’” Penny snorted. Then she quieted when his voice grew softer. “When I quit the league, and people I thought cared about me disappeared, including my girlfriend at the time, it was definitely ‘hell no.’ Not because I wanted one with her in particular. I was sort of at a lowpoint and I didn’t think I had anything to offer a child or a wife, for that matter.”

Penny’s heart ached for him, even as he looked uncomfortable at having admitted that. “Is that why you opened the gym?”

Nodding, he glanced at her. “I would’ve opened one anyway. Meeting Charlie changed my life. I could give to somebody else’s kids if I couldn’t do it for my own.” He slowed again and took a deep breath. “But then this beautiful, talented, funny woman dropped in out of nowhere, and suddenly, it started looking like ‘yes’ again. Hell yes. If that’s what you want. If it’s a possibility.”

While he talked, she’d run the gamut of emotions from amused to sympathetic to downright hot. Hearing him say he wanted that with her, as nuts as it sounded at this stage, made her pretty much want to jump him right then and there.

“When you said you didn’t give…hima baby, was it because you couldn’t, or you didn’t want to?”

“I wanted kids. The timing for it was never right. We were always busting our asses rehearsing, gigging. Partying. We were so young…I thought there’d always be time. But then, suddenly, he was gone, and there was no more time.”

It was a story so rehearsed she could run the lines in her sleep.

It was Jack’s turn to regard her with sympathy. But at the same time a spark had lit behind those glasses, something hot and determined.

“It’s not too late for us. And there’s no time like the present to get that started.” Having decided, Jack nodded and stood up. His tall frame, those broad shoulders seemed to dwarf everything else in the room. “I’m good with getting help if we need it. Good with adoption, too. Whatever it takes.”

“Yeah, well, you know…we’ve had a few big decisions made today. Can we put that one off for, I don’t know, maybe week two?” she suggested as he came near. He smelled so good. Thatsame scent had been in her nose when she’d been on the ground beneath him. Splendor in the grass, indeed.

“Okay,” he shrugged.

Penny was taken aback by how easily she’d won this one. “Okay? You’re okay if we wait?”

“Of course. I’ve waited forty-three years for you, angel. What’s another six months to get started on our babe? In the meantime, I don’t mind being fucking selfish. I get you all to meself,” he said with a deliciously lazy smile.

“Yeah, so. I’m not on anything right now,” she said. “Pills, shots. Nada. We’ve been running on luck and my reduced statistical chances, but I’m not the luckiest person in the world, so…have you got anything?”

Slowly this time, deliberately, Jack put the phone and his glasses on a nearby table and reached for her. “Nope. And it’s late. There won’t be anything open. I’ll pull out. If you want me to.”

Desire teased and twisted through her body at his words. “If I want you to?” she breathed with a soft laugh.

“Fuck it, angel. I hope you don’t want me to.”

“I thought you gave in too easy,” she whispered.

Jack closed in for a kiss, a hard, sweet kiss that she answered. His lips moved over hers with an urgency that snatched the breath from her lungs. Their clothes were gone in a hurry. Once Jack got her down on the bed and his hands on her breasts, he licked and sucked on her nipples until she moaned, pushing them deeper inside his mouth. That went on for some time, long enough to drive her crazy while she tried to rub her pussy on his thigh. The friction was good but not nearly enough, and he laughed at her frustration.

“Your little pussy is hungry for something? What do you want more, my tongue up inside you or my cock?”

“Both,” she gasped.

“Wish I could give you both at the same time, but I’m not that talented.”

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