When they finally came up for air both were shaking from the intensity of the kiss.

"Kev…" Kat started.

"Shh…" he said putting a finger on her bruised lips. "You don’t have to explain anything. I was a fool not to put it together earlier."

"But…"

"When you left LA… I wanted to kill Nick. I think if we’d ever been alone in a room for more than five minutes I would have torn him limb from limb."

"Nick didn’t do anything!"

"I thought he had. You told me he had."

Kat flushed guiltily. "I was angry… I just wanted to hurt you. And I couldn’t pull Nick into the middle of it. Not really. Guess I failed miserably at that, hunh?"

"No wonder he’s staying away. He got all of the abuse and none of the joy," Kevin agreed.

Kat sighed sadly. "I have to talk to him."

Kevin kissed her, another searing kiss that left her breathless. "Talk to me first."

"I don’t know what to say to you," she said softly. She was quiet for a moment and when she looked up at him again tears were streaming down her face. "How could you leave me?" she whispered.

He groaned at the raw pain in her voice and pulled her from the chair onto his lap, into his arms. "I thought you’d left me. You didn’t come back. You were gone for so long. WE never got to talk. I never got to explain. I tried to so many times. I called but hung up before you answered. I was so afraid. Afraid you’d actually say goodbye to me."

The idea of him, strong Kevin, being afraid shocked her and she shivered in his arms. He saw the movement and pulled her even closer, stroking her back with his large hands, rocking her body gently.

When she stopped shaking he sat back, still holding her firmly on his lap. He brushed her hair back off her face, lightly kissing her tears away, then looking deeply into her eyes. "I DIDN’T sleep with Mindy. I WASN’T going to sleep with Mindy. She was there because I said she could crash there for the night. I was going to stay on the couch in the main suite. What you saw was me getting ready to leave."

"She..."

"I don’t know what she had in mind and I could care less. I was letting her stay but I wasn’t staying with her."

"Nick was offering me a place to stay too. I was the one who asked him for more. I thought you… and then I couldn’t do it. I was going to use his feelings for me against him, and when I realized what I was doing… He thought it was because of Howie and Paul, but it was because of you, and I just ran." She looked away. "And I kept on running. To New York. And then on that tour. Anywhere so that I wouldn’t have to see you with someone else."

He turned her face back to his, kissing her forehead, cheek, lips. His hand brushed across her stomach, his eyes lighting up as he thought of what lay beneath. "How long?"

"About 5 and a half months."

He gaped at her.

"For so long I just thought it was reaction. I barely slept. I couldn’t eat. I felt okay one minute and not the next. I was crying so much." She laughed shortly. "About the only thing I could keep down was water and I was just leaking that out right. Left and centre."

"So long," he said wonderingly, his hands continuing to stroke her belly.

She looked at him. "I tried to leave."

"I know. Howie told us when he made the announcement. And then AJ mentioned being here right after I… and you begging D to let you go."

"Howie!" she gasped and tried to move out of his arms.

"He knows I’m here."

She glanced at the bag of groceries on the desk. "He must have. He’s the one I gave the shopping list to. Why?"

"Mindy was at the studio."

Kat twisted again, trying to get away from him but he held on tight. "Kat! She came on her own! Honestly. I didn’t invite her. She’d heard how erratically I was acting and figured she’d have a chance to get her claws in again. Howie kicked her out."

"Howie?"

Kevin laughed. "You should have seen him. Came blazing out. Both guns blaring. Threatened her. Threatened me. Kicked her out for good and then slapped me upside the head."

Kat chuckled at the image. "I knew it would have to be something big." Kevin looked at her quizzically. "He hates her. You dumped him for her, remember?"

He had the good grace to look abashed. "I’m surprised he told me about you. After all I’ve done to hurt him."

"You weren’t alone in this one."

"No," he sighed. "How is he?"

She shook her head sadly. "He’s not happy. He’s not happy about it at all. I guess his hatred of her overcame his disappointment in me."

"Its me he must hate the most."

"No. No, I don’t think so. I mean you broke his heart, but he kind off expected it. Me; he trusted me. I was there to pick up the pieces and then, after all that, I end up with the one man who hurt him most. I betrayed him in so many ways."

He kissed her forehead again. "Despite it all he loves you. I could tell that. He’s still angry, but he loves you so much. That’s why he told me."

"I’m still surprised he did. I never thought he’d risk it."

"Risk it?"

"Telling you. Running the risk that you’d sweep in and take his son away from him."

"Son? I’m having a son?"

She grinned mischievously. "No, I am."

"A son." He ran his hand over her stomach again. Then lifted her shirt, running his hand over her skin. He leaned her back, not letting her go, but giving him enough room to bend over and kiss the rounding of her belly. She moaned at the touch of his soft lips and the tickle of his beard.

He raised his head, looking at her slightly flushed face, then slid her around in his lap, pulling one of her legs around so that she sat facing him. He leaned her back against his bent legs. He lowered his head again, placing a trail of kisses across her tummy. Wherever his mouth wasn’t his hands were. Touching her, worshipping her abdomen and the child in her womb.

Slowly his hands mover higher, sweeping across her aching breasts. They were rounder now; filling with milk. Her nipples were hard, painfully so, and she gasped harshly as his mouth captured one and then the other. Her hands moved up his back, tangling in his hair, holding his head closer to her as she moaned his name over and over.

He raised his head from her breasts, whispering, "so sweet." He lowered his knees, pushing her down onto the floor onto back, then moved quickly to her side. He seized her lips again with a kiss as deep and as passionate, though not as violent, as their first.

"Kat, I love you. God, how I love you so much," he murmured against her mouth.

"Kevin," she moaned, pulling him in for another kiss. "You. I love you. I only ever want you."

She rolled him over on his back, tearing his shirt away, devouring the flesh of his torso. His smell, his taste was intoxicating and she couldn’t get enough of it. He moaned and twisted under her assault, as she licked, bit, sucked, and fondled him. She could feel his manhood through his jeans, feel him getting harder and harder against her. But that didn’t matter – all she wanted was the flesh beneath her lips.

He was panting heavily now. "Need… you…" he wheezed, head thrashing back and forth as he reveled in her touch. When he couldn’t stand it any more, he rolled her off of him, taking off his pants and hers so fast she barely noticed he was gone. Then, parting her legs, his mouth moved over the juncture of her legs. He darted his tongue out, tasting her and she writhed even at the lightest of touches.

He couldn’t take it. Couldn’t prolong it any longer. He moved up her body quickly and thrust his hardness deep into her core. Both of them screaming their reaction.

He came then and there. Just the feel of her around him was enough to make him orgasm, but he was still so hard he kept going. She came almost as soon as his first one had ended and wasn’t interested in letting him go either.

They continued to move together, thrusting, tightening, stroking, egging each other on with their cries and shouts. Their hunger for each other was so great. The feeling of her pulsating beneath him; the throb of his cock so deep inside her.

"More, Kevin, more," Kat groaned, feeling her second orgasm approach, and he complied, pounding harder and harder into her, feeling her walls start to spasm, to clench him. The tightness set him off and they came together, screaming each other’s names so loud the walls of the room vibrated with the echo.

Chapter 40