JE created and owns all the characters below.

Jenn (perfectmanhattan) thank you seems pretty weak as a response for all your hard work as the Beta on this story, but I offer it to you anyway.

Chapter 11 – Pregnant

"Woody, I'm pregnant."

There was a brief few seconds where time stood still. Woody appeared to be frozen in place on the sofa. I didn't panic because I could see his chest rising slightly indicating that he was still breathing, but other than that he made no movements at all.

I was just about to call his name or snap my fingers in front of his face when I saw the beginnings of a smile appearing on his perfect lips. "Can you say that again?" He asked as though he hadn't heard me properly the first time.

Nervously, I repeated myself, "I'm pregnant."

This time the response was immediate. "That's what I thought you said," He told me around the full on grin his face was sporting. He threw his arms around my torso and pulled me over into his lap connecting his lips to mine as soon as I stopped moving. I was too shocked to respond at first, but as soon as his lips parted I followed his lead and gave myself to him.

His left arm was cradling me and his right hand was on my stomach ever so slowly rubbing back and forth creating a trail of fire everywhere his hand touched. He didn't seem to be slowing down, and by now my hormones were in the middle of a fast tempo happy dance.

I couldn't help but moan as his tongue moved across my own in my mouth. The warmth of his breath on my face and the taste of him was overwhelming. I probably should have been worried that someone I knew so little about could elicit such a strong reaction from me so easily, but at the moment the only conscious thought running through my mind was, "God, yes!". My hands began to move and I let them run over his sculpted chest and down his arms before returning back up the same path.

I thought I heard someone open the door but filed it away as a piece of information that didn't matter one bit at the moment. Ten seconds later Woody's hands tangled in my hair to pull my face even closer to him, increasing the contact between us and setting a fire in me lower than where his hand had just been tracing shapes on my stomach.

He made a growling sound low in his throat that made me shift so that I was straddling his waist but he used my movement to pull his mouth from me and said in a loud and commanding voice, "Go away!" before pulling me back to him for another kiss.

Then I heard Lester's voice reply, "At least let me know that you told him and that you haven't been down here doing this the whole time."

I was way beyond forming words so Woody answered, "Yes, she told me," and then reattached himself to my neck to suck in the tender skin just under my ear. At the rate he was going, I was sure to have marks along my neck reminiscent to the marks he left on our first and only night together. I could just put that on the growing list of things I didn't give a shit about at the moment. I only cared about the fact that it felt wonderful and I'd smack him if he tried to stop.

Lester laughed at the two of us and then prompted us for more information by saying, "Good, she told you. And…"

Once again Woody disengaged from the side of neck only long enough to say, "And I'm thrilled at the thought of being a father."

"You are?" I asked in a sultry voice with my lips brushing against his neck trying to get him focused on me again.

Apparently, it worked because his magic lips reattached themselves to my neck at the juncture of my shoulder just in time for Lester to interrupt once more. "So you're thrilled at being a father and now you are going to…What?" Les was trying to see if we had a plan for the future. I'm sure he wanted to know if we had discussed marriage, living arrangements, telling my parents or any of the other unlimited number of details that would need to be figured out at some point.

Woody was apparently on the same wavelength as me when he answered, "Now we're going to celebrate. Go away!"

I moaned at the idea of finally being able to connect with the man who could reduce me to goo just by calling me Darlin' and whose touch short-circuited my brain.

I could have sworn I heard Lester walk away but the next thing I know his face was inches from mine as he said, "This is my apartment. If you want to celebrate, then get the hell out and go to your own place."

Briefly I worried that Les' comment would spell the end of our moment, but my hormones continued their celebration when Woody stood up with both hands under my ass, and my legs wrapped tightly around his waist. He seemed to move us effortlessly through the hall to his unit and gently slid me to the floor in front of his door to get his keys out so he could unlock the door.

I took his hand and walked backward thrilled to see that his eyes never left mine, allowing himself to be guided into his apartment and over to the sofa. We sat back down in the position we had just left, with him in the middle of the couch and me straddling his lap.

For some reason before we could continue kissing, my mouth decided to open and before I could stop it, I asked, "Did you mean what you said?"

"Yes, I definitely want to celebrate." He responded before running the tip of his tongue along my collarbone causing me to shiver.

"No," I said before a low moan escaped my lips and I could add, "Not that."

"Then yes, I most certainly wanted Lester to leave," He tried again.

I moved my hands to Woody's chest and pulled back slightly to get his attention and was relieved to see a sexy smile on his face. I couldn't believe how good looking he was. The apartment wasn't currently well lit since we hadn't taken the time to turn on the lights, but there was some sun coming through the windows and it highlighted his face, making his ruggedly handsome face beautiful. Briefly I forgot what I wanted to say, but Woody understood what I had been asking and decided to stop joking around.

"Of course I'm happy, why wouldn't I be?" He asked, throwing the responsibility of conversation back in my lap.

A champion at hot-potato myself; I tossed it back his way by clarifying, "Because this is a less than traditional way to start a relationship."

The words had barely cleared my mouth when his lips were being forcefully pressed against mine. I melted again and began to think that this chat could wait. We had nine months to figure it all out.

Apparently our ESP wasn't in sync yet because he stopped kissing me and even my whine of complaint didn't motivate him to return where I wanted him. "We're in a relationship?" He finally said with his dimple showing again.

"You seem happy about that question," I stated as fact.

"I'm over the moon about it." He confessed.

"Why?" I asked with my curiosity in full gear now running neck and neck with my hormones.

"Because a few days ago I thought if I took things nice and slow and treated you like the lady you are that you might one day agree to be mine, but I tried not to get my hopes up. But to hear you say that we're in a relationship is like a dream, but it's even better because it's real." He explained.

I was processing what he said. It almost sounded like Woody wanted me regardless of how the baby would change things between us. I may have been too hasty with my ESP comment as Woody added, "I know the baby changes things, but have no doubt Stephanie, I adore you and I had already planned on using the rest of my life to show you how wonderful you are. I want my life work to be fulfilling all your dreams. I couldn't be happier about being a father because it's a life that's created by the two of us. I want it, I want as much of you as you want to give me. I'll try not to push, but when I hold you I just see a future full of happiness and I can't wait to jump into it." He expounded.

My heart accepted everything he said. I could see the sincerity in his eyes and I trusted every word. Since things had slowed down a little, I figured I may as well ask the next question that popped into my head. "So you don't feel shackled to me just because I'm pregnant.

"Darlin', I could never feel stuck or shackled to you, although that may be something we could try out later" He said with a wink. I understood what he was saying. He didn't want to be with me out of some sense of obligation; he wanted to be with me because he truly cared about me.

"So what do you want to do?" I repeated Lester's question from earlier.

He brushed the curls away from my face a little and left one of his hands in my hair. "I want to be by your side for every second you'll let me. I want to love you and I want you to tell me what you want so that I don't push us to move faster than you're comfortable."

"How fast do you want to move?" I asked, confused about what he could mean.

"Before this big news I would have been okay with flying to Vegas tonight to marry you, but I know how you feel about marriage so I've been repeating a mantra of 'take it slow' in my head for the last two days." He told me.

I swallowed audibly when he said that. I was definitely attached to Woody in some strange way. I hadn't felt like this with anyone before, but I didn't fully understand what 'this' was, so marriage seemed a bit premature. Still, I didn't feel like I was hyperventilating and a quick check of my arms showed no hives had appeared which was a definite improvement over the last time someone mentioned marriage to me. Maybe that was a good sign.

It looked like Woody was waiting for a response so I opened my mouth and just said what I felt. "I don't think I'm ready for Vegas, but I am ready to discuss a future." His face lit up when I said that. "But, this is all a bit overwhelming to me so I need you to be patient with me. I'm strangely happy which is not the reaction I ever expected to have if I got pregnant so if we take it one day at a time I have a feeling we'll figure it out together."

I had to assume the fact that our lips instantly met was his agreement with what I had said. Truth be told, the way it felt to have one of his strong arms wrapped around my back and the other hand under my hair rubbing hypnotic circles on my neck made me not care one way or the other. If he suggested Vegas to me again right now I'd probably agree as long as his thumb never stopped moving.

This time it was Woody who decided to interrupt with more talking. "So you're okay with this?" He placed the back of his fingers gently against my stomach to clarify his question.

I looked down at the gesture and realized what an amazing man he was. Most guys blanched at the thought of being fathers, but he seemed genuinely thrilled and was worried about how I was handling the news. It was no secret that I was not big on having a family of my own so his question was valid and I felt like I needed to address it. "I think I am. I always expected that I would freak out if I got pregnant, and I'm not saying I didn't a little when Bobby first told me, but seeing how you're taking this is helping."

"Is that why you sent me away when I came downstairs to check on you?" He asked with only a tinge of hurt coming through in his voice.

I looked into his eyes and decided honesty was the only answer that would work here. My hormones went to pout in the corner. "I've been married before."

"To Dickie," He interrupted with a mouthful of disdain when he said my ex-husband's name.

"That's right." I acknowledged. "I knew before we got married that we wanted different things out of life, but I went along with it anyway because everyone said it was the right thing to do. I've seen what happens in a marriage when you do it for the wrong reason." I shivered at the image of Dickie plowing into Joyce on my dinning room table with his dress pants bunched up at his ankles and her feet practically in the air. There isn't enough alcohol in the world to burn an image like that out of one's mind.

"So you were afraid that I would want to marry you because you were pregnant and then in time something similar to Dickie would happen again?" He clarified.

I nodded, unable to voice the fact that he was exactly right. If I needed a single thing to explain my fear of marriage that was it.

"But you do realize that I'm not your ex-husband. You know that I would never do something like that to you, don't you?" He asked and pleaded simultaneously.

"I know it, but stepping out in faith to trust it is a big thing for me. I swore I'd never let myself get hurt like that again so it's hard to open up." As I confessed this I realized how unfair I had been. I'd expected him to fully disclose everything about himself but I'd not been willing to do the same thing for him. "But I want to try," I added and the smile he gave me in return put that warm feeling back in my chest.

We slowly moved toward each other, the time for talking was over and it was finally time to celebrate our news. There were lots of details to work out, but it seemed that we were on the same page as far as how we felt for each other. I felt at peace with the idea that we could work it all out. Just as my eyes began to close and our lips tentatively touched my cell phone began to vibrate. I grunted a very unhappy sound at the interruption, but it was covered up by Woody's own complaint when his phone also began to sound. We checked our messages and had each received a text from Zip informing us that there was some information to review and the team was being assembled in the conference room immediately.

"I think that's our cue to join them," Woody said with no excitement at all in his voice. Then he put his hand back on my stomach and asked, "Are you okay? I mean, do you feel alright? Do you want to go upstairs for the meeting or do you want to stay downstairs and rest?" There was a nervousness in his questions that was endearing.

I put my finger over his lips to silence him and then smiled at how he allowed me to control him so simply. "I'm fine. I promise to let you know if I begin to feel off, but you have to promise not to treat me like a porcelain doll. I hate that, and if I think you're using kid gloves with me I'll hide stuff from you to keep you from worrying. I don't want to play those types of games, so for right now you need to trust that I can handle this."

He smiled and nodded his head. Then I giggled at the fact that I had left my finger over his lips which explained why he had no verbal response. I lifted it from his mouth and ran my hand over his cheek. He hadn't shaved this morning and there was a fine layer of stubble on his face which made him, if possible, seem even more manly. Shit, my hormones had reentered the building and they were making it hard to stay focused long enough for me to stand up.

"Steph?" He asked when I didn't move.

"I need some help," I confessed causing him to worry immediately. "My body doesn't want to get up and go upstairs. It wants to stay here, strip off all the unnecessary clothes and celebrate with you. If you intend to go to the meeting I need you to help me up and out the door."

There was a growl that I have to assume came from Woody. All I know for certain is that he stood up and held me tightly to him forcing us both to stand up but pressing us together in a way that didn't help my little hormone problem. The spark was certainly still there but it seemed to be growing despite our having gotten vertical. His hand had made its way back to my neck which almost certainly meant I'd go along with anything he said at this point.

Just then there was a loud banging on the door making me jump and Woody swear. "I think that's our next warning page to get to the conference room." He managed to say as we broke apart. We made it to the door of his apartment before he spoke again. "What are your plans about telling people?"

I made a face that he found amusing before explaining. "We just found out, and I'd rather wait a few days before we hit the rumor mill with the baby news. I think Bobby was going to get me a doctor's appointment. After that, we can figure out how to tell everybody."

"That's reasonable," He agreed before pushing, "And what about us?"

That was a much tougher question. "I don't know. I don't want to hide anything, but I don't want to be in the guys' faces with it either. I mean, we can keep our work and personal life separate and I want the guys to accept that." I knew it wasn't much of an answer, but it was all I had right now.

He shrugged as though he understood what I meant. "Just so you know, I think when Lester chose to attack me in the gym most of the guys got a general idea of what had happened. I mean, our conversation about why he was pissed wasn't quiet. But, I understand about not wanting to be all over each other in front of everybody. They'll respect that we're together without us advertising it openly."

He reached for the doorknob and we walked up the stairs to join the others. I realized why I tried everything that was possible to avoid going to meetings. I was bored out of my mind within the first ten minutes and the meeting was basically all about my situation. How the guys managed to maintain their level of interest was beyond me.

While doodling to keep from staring at Woody, I did manage to pick up that Hector had determined Jenkins had just gotten lucky with my e-mail address. He's sent an identical e-mail to ten different variations of my name at the RangeMan server apparently hoping one of his threats would make it to my inbox. The guys seemed relieved at this since I think they were worried he'd gotten someone to hack into the system to get the information of how to reach me.

Apparently Ranger was out of the country but Tank had gotten a message to him about the Bertucci threat and he hoped some ideas would be forthcoming from our fearless leader. In the meantime, I couldn't leave the building without at least one of the guys with me and I needed to let control know of at least a general plan for where I would be anytime I had to go. I rolled my eyes. I mean they had multiple trackers on me that I was aware of, and I had a hunch there were some planted that I was clueless about. Was a schedule really necessary? When I realized Tank was waiting on me to confirm I'd heard him I nodded and the meeting was over.

Bobby came over and slid a piece of paper to me. It had a doctor's name and phone number on it and 10:00 am with tomorrow's date underneath. I realized he'd made my appointment for me so I thanked him and he replied, "Just let me know if you want me to take you, or if you have someone else in mind for that." His eyes cut to Woody briefly implying it might be a good thing to let him be a part of this.

I put the paper in my pocket and smiled at Bobby. "I think I've got it covered, but I'll let you know for sure." He nodded at me and walked away.

Les then plopped down in front of me and said, "I need your help this afternoon if you can spare me an hour or so."

I looked at him questioningly. First of all Lester knew there was nothing I wouldn't do for him, but what kind of help he would need from me was a mystery so I was intrigued.

"I'm trying to get a security contract from the women's clothing store I told you about, but I'm struggling to propose something she'll be happy with. I have an appointment to do a store walkthrough and I thought you might be able to come along. I'm sure she'd be more comfortable with you there, and you might see something I'm missing in how the store needs to be monitored.

It didn't seem like a pity gig when he put it like that so I agreed to meet him in the garage in ten to fifteen minutes to ride over.

That left only Zip and Woody and Zip seemed like he was about to explode to say something. I decided to channel my inner Lester and said, "Spill."

Zip pointed at his partner and said, "This guy is going all silent on me and saying he has nothing to tell me, but I think it's a load of shit. I was watching both of you during that meeting and you both look different to me. There's something going on and I think I should know what it is."

I decided to have a little fun with Zip and pass along a valuable piece of information at the same time. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about," I began while taking a piece of paper out of my pocket and handing it to Woody. "But I do need some help from the two of you tomorrow morning at 10:00. I have an appointment that I have to make and I'll need some back up."

Woody made the connection immediately and his eyes widened as he nodded his agreement to going. Zip was clueless, but like most of the guys here he took my safety very seriously so he agreed to go with us. That way I knew we'd be able to concentrate on the appointment itself knowing Zip was there to watch our backs.

"Are you sure there isn't something you want to tell me?" He tried one more time.

"Nope," I said with a laugh. Sometimes it was really too easy to get a rise out of the guys. Woody stood up to walk out behind his partner but I grabbed his hand at the doorway. I wasn't sure what came over me. I wasn't usually that forward. Maybe it was the rear end hugging pants he was wearing, or his worn cowboy boots, but he was one hot man and I wanted one last kiss before meeting Lester downstairs.

Woody's ESP was operating at full power as he responded in a split second by swinging around and pinning me against the wall of the conference room with both my wrists held above my head in his hands. When he finished kissing me I was out of breath and couldn't remember for the life of me why I didn't want to flaunt our relationship in front of the guys. If it meant being kissed like that on a regular basis I needed to revisit my previous position.

Just before Woody pulled his body from mine I heard the unmistakable sound of Zip's low voice say, "I knew it! I knew there was something going on with you two."

Woody repeated the same command he'd given to Lester and told Zip, "Go Away!"

Zip just stood his ground grinning at us and not moving. Realizing he wasn't going to leave Woody put a final soft kiss on my lips and released my hands to put his on my hips. "You want to have dinner tonight?" He asked quietly even though Zip was close enough that he could still hear.

I nodded yes glad to know I'd have another chance to be close to him this evening.

"Just come over sometime after five and we'll figure it out," He said before moving away by pushing off with a thrust against my body. It was like sending an electrical current through me hitting all the good spots at once. I was sure I blushed and whimpered at the same time.

Zip noticed and laughed while repeating his earlier exclamation, "I knew it."

This time I let them go, still appreciating the view of their exit. I made my way down to the garage and found Lester sitting on the hood of an SUV playing a game on his phone and waiting for me.

"Ready to roll, Beautiful?" He asked.

"Absolutely," I responded while he jumped down. "And on the way you can tell me how many times you've asked this woman out so I'm prepared for how much ground we have to cover today."

"I'm insulted," Les began with a false sense of insult. "Why do you think I would need to ask someone more than once to get a date?"

"I don't think you usually do, but to me a single store is a small account and you seem pretty determined to get it which doesn't make sense. So I figure she's either connected to someone else that would represent a much bigger account or you see this as a way to impress her in the hopes of getting a date." I explained.

He didn't answer right away but his expression did change. I realized I was right on both counts. "Alright, then who is she related to?" I prompted, knowing he didn't want to talk about his flirting failures.

"Her father owns Springman's Jewelers." He replied.

Springman's was a huge chain of jewelry stores in New Jersey. Every girl wanted a solitaire from there since it had a reputation for only carrying the best merchandise. Trying to get to the father through the daughter wasn't a bad idea so I decided to put my most professional face on and see if I could help Les get RangeMan's foot in the door.

If it helped Lester score at the same time, there was nothing I could do about that. But I intended to make it perfectly clear that I had played the role of his long lost sweetheart for the last time. If he went out with this girl he was on his own to figure out what to do on the day after.