Trouble: Rob & Sabrina: Boxed Set Read online

  “Sabrina.” He said my name like he couldn’t quite believe I was real and, frankly, I couldn’t either. I was sure I was dreaming. Celeste smiled and nudged me forward and looking at her just confirmed my suspicion. No one looked like her in real life. No one was that skinny, with teeth that perfect. I had to be dreaming.

  He took the stairs two at a time, like a little kid, and it wasn’t until he kissed me that I dismissed the dream theory. When he pulled me into his arms, wrapped me up in the strength and heat and scent of him, I knew he was real. His mouth moved on mine, soft at first, savoring me, and then grew more insistent. His tongue parted my lips, exploring, and I opened to him, forgetting everything.

  “Sabrina,” he breathed again when we came up for air, nuzzling my ear. My arms were around his neck, my body pressed fully to his. I was dizzy, delighted, flying. “How was your flight? Are you hungry?”

  Such silly, mundane questions. I didn’t need anything so ordinary as food or comfort.

  All I needed was him.

  “You can leave the bag,” Celeste told the driver. Her voice brought me halfway back to earth. I felt like I was looking down on the whole scene from a great distance. “Rob, Daisy will have dinner for you by ten. Everything else you requested is ready.”

  “Thanks, Celeste.” Rob slipped an arm around my waist as he turned to face her. “Did you get a formal introduction? Celeste, this is Sabrina. Sabrina, this is Celeste. She’s my personal assistant.”

  Ah, so that explained the mystery of who she was and what she did. It also helped assuage the jealous voice in my head sniping at me about how gorgeous she was.

  “We met.” Celeste smiled, flashing those perfect teeth again, giving me a little nod. “Enjoy your stay, Sabrina. I’m sure we’ll see each other again.”

  Enjoy my stay? She spoke like I was visiting a hotel. Not that it didn’t feel like that, a little, given the size of the place.

  “Thanks.” I leaned against Rob, feeling his hand squeezing my hip through my dress.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.” Celeste turned, pulling the door open.

  “Oh, a tip!” I remembered as Jesse started following Celeste. I unslung my purse, digging through for my wallet, feeling Rob chuckle beside me.

  “He’s already taken care of,” Rob said, kissing the top of my head as the two of them left, leaving us alone. “So, you didn’t answer me.”

  “The flight was long. And I’m starving.” I turned and put my arms around his neck again. “But not for food.”

  That wasn’t quite true. I hadn’t eaten anything that day except a few saltines when I got out of bed, but I’d been too anxious to eat. Now that I was here, finally here in Rob’s arms, my stomach started growling again.

  “Don’t say that,” he warned. “It’s taking every bit of willpower I have to keep from carrying you up those stairs to my bed.”

  “Your bed is up there?” I eyed the wide, marble staircase. “No way you could carry me up—”

  I squealed when he bent and slid an arm under my knees, sweeping me into his arms. I laughed, arms going around his neck as he started up the stairs.

  “Rob!” I protested. “You’re going to throw out your back!”

  “Nah.” He grinned, climbing.

  “You’re going to kill us both!” I cried, burying my face in his neck as he took the stairs—one at a time instead of two—up, up, up.

  “Trust me.” He reached the top without incident, only slightly out of breath. Damn, he was in shape. “I promise, I wouldn’t ever let anything bad happen to you.”

  “I don’t think you have the power to promise that.” I smiled, running a hand through the short length of his hair. It was soft, like raven’s wings, under my fingertips.

  “My God, I can’t believe you’re here.” He met my eyes as he carried me, not putting me down despite my protests. There was an open area at the top of the stairs with a sectional couch and a giant television, but we passed that as he continued down a long hallway, past open and closed doors. I glimpsed something that looked like a studio, guitars lined up on a rack. Another room was clearly a library, walls lined with books.

  “How big is this house?” I murmured in amazement as we reached the end of the hallway.

  “Eighteen thousand square feet.”

  It had been a rhetorical question—I didn’t need an exact answer, not really. The answer was obvious. It was huge. Enormous. Monstrous. How many square feet?

  He pushed open a door, revealing a room I couldn’t believe he slept in every night. A king-sized bed was the centerpiece, with sheer white curtains wrapped like gauze around four oak posters. It was topped with white down bedding and surrounded by lit candles on every surface. That much open flame made me nervous around all those curtains, but I didn’t say anything.

  “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” Rob glanced at a dresser where, I noticed with a little tummy rumble, there was wine and cheese and strawberries.

  “Maybe a little,” I admitted, biting my lip and meeting his eyes. “But I want you more.”

  “I want you so much I can’t see straight,” he admitted, his voice hoarse, mouth inches from mine. Thank God he was carrying me, because my knees never would have held out, I was sure of it. Not under that heated gaze.

  “Just make it to the bed,” I whispered, touching my lips to his.

  He did, barely. We collapsed together, rolling in clouds of softness, our mouths open, slanting. He was already half undressed but I wanted more. Rob did too. He worked the tiny buttons on the front of my sundress, making it to my cleavage before I broke our kiss in frustrated protest.

  “Just let me take it off,” I gasped, struggling with the straps.

  “Yeah.” He rolled to his side, up on his elbow, eyes bright. “Take it off for me.”

  Oh God, those eyes, those dark eyes, black heat with silver flecks in the candlelight, watching me as I sat and slipped the straps down my shoulders. Slowly, I slid off the bed, stepping out of my heels as I shimmied the dress down to my waist, over my hips. Rob let out a low whistle, devouring me with his eyes as I left my dress on the floor.

  “Wait.” His command stopped me when I moved to crawl back up on to the bed. “Take it all off.”

  I hesitated, feeling my face flush as I reached around and undid my bra, letting my breasts fall free. The look on Rob’s face made me feel both shy and sexy at the same time. I hooked my thumbs in the elastic of my panties and slid those down too, slowly stepping out of them and standing there for him, completely naked in the flicker of the candle light.

  “Come here.” He sat, reaching for me as I approached, pulling me between his denim-clad thighs. “My God, you’re something.”

  I shivered as his hands roamed over my hips, up the curve of my waist, cupping my breasts, weighing them. I bit my lip, keeping myself from crying out as he kneaded my flesh, his expression caught between lust and wonder and… something else.

  “Sabrina?” His gaze lifted to meet mine, brows drawing together, and my heart dropped to my toes. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  I stood, frozen, completely naked and vulnerable between his thighs, unable to move or think or talk or even breathe. How could he possibly know? I’d been so careful to keep all the signs and symptoms to myself, which had been relatively easy, considering the time and distance.

  “How—?” I whispered, swallowing hard.

  “I memorized every inch of you.” His gaze swept down to my breasts, still cupped in his hands. “And unless I’m crazy, I’m pretty damned sure… you’re pregnant?”

  He posed it as a question but the look in his eyes told me he knew the truth. I’d hoped to keep it from him for just a little longer, but here it was. I couldn’t deny it, not now. I tried to tell what he was thinking, searching his eyes for some sign. He wasn’t running away screaming—that was something—but that’s exactly what I wanted to do.

  I was so ashamed. I’d been so stupid. Not only ha
d I slept with this man after knowing him for all a few hours—I’d slept with a freaking rock star with no protection whatsoever. I’d been off the pill for years, since my last year of high school, and I hadn’t even suggested a condom, for God’s sake. Yes, there had been two of us, and yes, you would think one of us might have considered the consequences—all of which I had now been tested for but only one of which had happened—but it had all felt like such a fantasy, not real at all. You didn’t think about birth control in a dream.

  You didn’t think about it until you woke up to reality and found yourself—

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of it in my chest. It had been lodged there too long, unspoken. “I’m in trouble.”

  Chapter Two

  I’d never seen the ocean before. I stood there in wonder that first time, when Rob opened the French doors off his room, onto a patio, and I saw a dazzle of moonlight on the Pacific in the distance. The house wasn’t right on the ocean, but it made up for it by sporting an endless, “infinity” pool that surrounded the whole house, like a moat around a French fortress. We could look down on it all from our patio perch.

  We went down a curved flight of stairs to sit near the pool to talk, me wrapped in a silk robe Rob plucked from a hook in the bathroom—I wondered, briefly, how many women before me had worn it—and Rob still barefoot and shirtless, wearing just jeans in the warm California night air. Even as close as we were to the city, the stars were plentiful, and we sat together on one of the outdoor couches, his arm around me, my head tucked under his chin.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” That’s what he kept asking, like the fact I was carrying his child was irrelevant, or maybe just not quite real. But keeping something from him? That seemed far the worst sin.

  “I was scared,” I admitted, which was the truth.

  I’d spent most of my teen years terrified of getting pregnant until I had a talk with my mother about my “irregular menstrual cycles” during my freshman year of high school, which she understood as code for, “I’m sexually active,” and took me to her obstetrician to put me on the pill. But I’d gone off it just before college because it messed with my hormones too much—Katie said I was Bitchzilla during my periods when I was on the pill—and relied on condoms from there on out. Besides, I reasoned, they were far safer when it came to all the other terrible things that could result from sex, aside from pregnancy.

  And of course, I’d always seen pregnancy as a bad thing. I loved kids, of course—I wouldn’t have gone into elementary education if I hadn’t—but my own kids? That would be far in the future, when I had fallen in love, gotten married, settled down.

  But I am in love.

  One out of three.

  Rob stroked my hair, sending goose flesh down my arm, and I knew it was true—I did love him. The moment I saw him again, face to face, the instant his lips met mine, I knew all the waiting had been worth it. I was in love with this man, had fallen increasingly in love with him, despite the distance, in the past two months, and was still head-over-heels for him now. I couldn’t deny that, as much as my practical side would have liked to.

  So here I was in love—not married, not settled—but most definitely pregnant. Now what? I’d been asking myself that same question for a month as my body started changing, as morning sickness hit in the middle of class as I had to grab the trash can before I puked. I knew I had to tell Rob. Katie had suggested I “take care of it,” and never let him know, but that wasn’t an option for me. I wanted him to have a say, whatever that looked like.

  “There’s still time.” I said the words slowly, closing my eyes against it.

  I hadn’t decided, not fully. I didn’t want to make up my mind without him, without his input, so I’d tried to stay Switzerland about the whole thing. And aside from the occasional nausea and my growing, tender breasts, I could pretty much stay in denial if I wanted to. And I’d wanted to, until now.

  “Time…” he murmured softly, stroking my hair, puzzling out the word, like he didn’t quite understand. And then, all at once, he did. He sat up straight, jarring us both out of position. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “You were perceptive enough to guess I’m pregnant, but you can’t cipher out the secret code for abortion?” The words were so cutting, I couldn’t even believe they’d come from my mouth.

  We looked at each other in the moonlight, the ocean breeze lifting my hair, blowing it back from my face. He looked truly shocked, like the idea had never even occurred to him. But how could that be possible?

  “Sabrina…” He shook his head slowly, his eyes pained. “I know I’m supposed to do the P.C. thing here and say it’s your body, your decision, something like that. But… I can’t do that.”

  “Okay.” I swallowed.

  “I know what I want.” He slid closer, turning my chin up to look into my eyes. “But I’m not sure that matters.”

  “It does,” I insisted.

  “Does it?” His thumb moved along the line of my jaw. “I don’t know.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t.” I didn’t have to say it, but he knew. Things could have gone Katie’s way. I could have just done something about this “problem” and never said a word.

  He nodded. “What do you want to do?”

  I wanted to tell him I was scared, that I didn’t know what to do. One minute I was fantasizing about getting married and settling down and having his little rock star baby, and the next I was sure I couldn’t handle being a mother at this age, that I was crazy to even think of having a baby with a man who was not only a rock star but who was also, technically, still married. Was it fair to a child to bring it into the world under these circumstances?

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s true.” It was as close to the truth as I thought I could get.

  “No, it isn’t.” Rob slid closer still, taking me into his arms. “You’re afraid to say it, but you know what it is.”

  “So, you read minds now?” I rolled my eyes, trying to push him away.

  “I read yours.” His words stopped me, and I let myself melt against him, let his arms comfort me.

  “So, you tell me,” I said, meeting his gaze. “What do I want?”

  “Close your eyes,” he urged.

  I shook my head, biting my lip, knowing exactly what he was up to. I remembered the restaurant, in a dark corner of La Fondue, when he’d made me close my eyes and tell him what I wanted, when I’d confessed things I hadn’t ever admitted before, to anyone, even to my best friend. And he was right. I wasn’t just afraid to say it—I was afraid to know.

  “Do it.” He pressed his forehead to mine, his face unfocused, swimmy, forcing my eyes closed. “Now tell me. What do you want, Sabrina?”

  “World peace,” I snapped.

  “That goes without saying.” He snorted. “What else?”

  I swallowed and whispered, “You.”

  “Good. What else?” His hand moved around the curve of my waist, coming to settle low on my belly, below my navel. “What do you really want?”

  I felt tears welling and tried to stop them but couldn’t. They slipped silently down my cheeks. My head screamed at me that this wasn’t right, it wasn’t practical—it wasn’t even rational or smart. I couldn’t possibly want this, and yet…

  “Our baby.” It wasn’t just the first time I’d said the words, it was the first time my mind had even created the concept. “I want our baby.”

  I felt him let out a breath. “I want him too.”

  “Him?” I sniffed, opening my eyes. He was smiling.

  “Or her.” He rubbed my belly. It wasn’t growing yet, at least not that anyone else noticed. Only me and my skinny jeans could tell.

  “Rob…” I swallowed again, trying to come to terms with it. I knew what had escaped my mouth in the moment, but just because it had been the first thing that came into my head didn’t necessarily make it the r
ight course of action. “Are you sure?”

  “I love you,” he said simply. “I want you. I want this. I’ve been telling you that since I met you.”

  “I know but…”

  He leaned in and kissed me to shut me up, and it worked. When I was in his arms, when we were together like this, everything else melted away. It was just the two of us—well, two and a half now, or maybe two and a quarter—and no one else in the world mattered. So, I was a school teacher from Detroit and he was a rock star who had platinum albums and traveled the world. And was still married. What did that matter?

  What in the hell are you thinking?

  My mind screamed, but my body simply refused to listen.

  Rob kissed me and reality, rationality, pragmatism, all of that vanished. Our heat dissolved it, eating away at ‘practical Sabrina’ like acid. She sizzled and faded and was no more. Rob brought out a darker, wilder side of me I hadn’t even known existed before he came along. He ushered in a sort of transformation in me I couldn’t halt, even if I wanted to. It wasn’t anything so slow and easy as caterpillar to butterfly though. It was more like a switch being thrown or being tossed into a fire. I was burned away, consumed, and reborn in his arms.

  So, I didn’t ask him what this meant, this crazy, irrational decision. I didn’t ask him what it would look like, or how it would come about. I didn’t wonder about his job or mine, the fact that we lived two thousand miles away from each other, or that he still had a pesky wife to worry about. I couldn’t think about all of that when he was kissing me, touching, me, making me, as he had from that very first day, completely and utterly his.

  The heat was too much for both of us. We couldn’t wait. There was no build up, hardly any foreplay. It had been too long. We both wanted it too much. I felt his erection through the denim of his jeans, straining against the fabric, and I had to free him. I worked at his button and zipper, distracted when he slipped his hands under the silk fabric of my robe.