Page 58 of The Catcher
“Stop!” I demanded. “You can’t kill him. I don’t want you to go to jail.”
He paused, tossing Dex down. “Is that so, baby doll?”
I gasped, realizing I had given my feelings away at last, but not caring.
Tanner walked toward me. Tall, lean, predator. But this was my predator, and the sliver of fear I felt at the look in his eyes was drowned out by the rush of lust and desire I felt.
“You love me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
“I love you,” I agreed.
“Put that brick down,” he said. “What were you planning to do with that?”
“I thought you might need help,” I said, and he tossed it aside, pulling me into his arms and kissing me.
I tasted the blood from his cut lip in my mouth, iron and metal and fire and it was Tanner Courtenay over and over again, his mouth claiming me, his cock digging into my belly, and I submitted to his fingers and his tongue and his hands with a moan.
EPILOGUE
Ipracticed my patterned breathing.
Pant-pant-blow
PANIC
Pant-pant-blow
PANIC
Dr. Jansen had promised he would make it to my baby’s birth but when I called to tell him I had gone into labor unexpectedly early at 37 weeks, he had sent a message back through his secretary to say he regretfully could not make it.
There was a roar from the TV, the only thing keeping me company at the moment, and I looked over to see a now fiancée-less Tre fan the opposing batter, striking him out in only three pitches. With Tre’s broken arm, the Phoenixes had lost Game 5, so this season it was Tre’s job to win the fans back. Tanner’s contract had been extended for seven more years and his jersey was the best-selling one on the team.
My husband had left in the middle of the inning when I texted him, and it shouldn’t have taken him this long to get to the hospital.
What if he had gotten in a car accident? What if he was lying dead in a ditch?
I twisted my moonstone ring around my finger and tried to be calm.
Pant-pant-blow
PANIC
Pant-pant-blow
PANIC
Suddenly, the door to my hospital room exploded open with a bang, and Tanner was there, holding Dr. Jansen in one big hand, dangling the poor man so his feet could barely reach the ground. The doctor was wearing Hawaiian shorts and flip-flops and I paused in my breathing.
“What did you do, Tanner?” I shrieked.
“Dr. Jansen said he was going to deliver our baby, and he is going to fucking deliver our baby,” Tanner said, shaking the other man so hard his visor that said HANG LOOSE fell off.
“I was at the beach,” Dr. Jansen said, trying to muster some dignity. “I could have you arrested for this.”
“Fucking do it then,” Tanner said, his hand around Dr. Jansen’s throat now. “I paid for you to be here during my wife’s labor. You can go on vacation when she’s done.”
“All right, all right,” he rasped.
