Every Second With You (No Regrets Book 3) Read online

  Every Second With You

  Book 3 in the No Regrets series

  Lauren Blakely

  Little Dog Press

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  Author’s Note

  Every Second With You

  1. Harley

  2. Trey

  3. Trey

  4. Harley

  5. Trey

  6. Trey

  7. Harley

  8. Harley

  9. Harley

  10. Trey

  11. Trey

  12. Harley

  13. Harley

  14. Harley

  15. Trey

  16. Trey

  17. Harley

  18. Harley

  19. Harley

  20. Harley

  21. Harley

  22. Trey

  23. Trey

  24. Trey

  25. Harley

  26. Cam

  27. Harley

  28. Trey

  29. Trey

  30. Harley

  31. Harley

  32. Harley

  33. Trey

  34. Trey

  35. Trey

  36. Trey

  37. Harley

  38. Harley

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Blakely

  Cover Design by Helen Williams.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  The Gift Series

  The Engagement Gift

  The Virgin Gift

  The Decadent Gift

  The Heartbreakers Series

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  Boyfriend Material

  Asking For a Friend

  Sex and Other Shiny Objects

  One Night Stand-In

  Lucky In Love Series

  Best Laid Plans

  The Feel Good Factor

  Nobody Does It Better

  Unzipped

  Always Satisfied Series

  Satisfaction Guaranteed

  Instant Gratification

  Overnight Service

  Never Have I Ever

  Special Delivery

  The Sexy Suit Series

  Lucky Suit

  Birthday Suit

  From Paris With Love

  Wanderlust

  Part-Time Lover

  One Love Series

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Come As You Are

  Sports Romance

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Most Likely to Score

  Standalones

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  The Break-Up Album

  21 Stolen Kisses

  Out of Bounds

  The Caught Up in Love Series:

  The Swoony New Reboot of the Contemporary Romance Series

  The Pretending Plot (previously called Pretending He’s Mine)

  The Dating Proposal

  The Second Chance Plan (previously called Caught Up In Us)

  The Private Rehearsal (previously called Playing With Her Heart)

  Stars In Their Eyes Duet

  My Charming Rival

  My Sexy Rival

  The No Regrets Series

  The Start of Us

  The Thrill of It

  Every Second With You

  The Seductive Nights Series

  First Night (Julia and Clay, prequel novella)

  Night After Night (Julia and Clay, book one)

  After This Night (Julia and Clay, book two)

  One More Night (Julia and Clay, book three)

  A Wildly Seductive Night (Julia and Clay novella, book 3.5)

  The Joy Delivered Duet

  Nights With Him (A standalone novel about Michelle and Jack)

  Forbidden Nights (A standalone novel about Nate and Casey)

  The Sinful Nights Series

  Sweet Sinful Nights

  Sinful Desire

  Sinful Longing

  Sinful Love

  The Fighting Fire Series

  Burn For Me (Smith and Jamie)

  Melt for Him (Megan and Becker)

  Consumed By You (Travis and Cara)

  The Jewel Series

  A two-book sexy contemporary romance series

  The Sapphire Affair

  The Sapphire Heist

  About

  From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Blakely comes the final book in the sexy, emotional and deliciously addictive No Regrets trilogy.

  It started as one night. It turned into a friendship. Then Harley became my everything.

  She owns me, heart, mind and body.

  And for a few brief days, our future seems bright and certain.

  Until, the past wraps its arms around us in so many terrible ways. Someone I never expected to see again reappears in my life.

  Trying to keep us apart.

  I’ll do anything for her, but the question is – will anything even be enough?

  Every Second With You is the final novel in the No Regrets and should be enjoyed following The Thrill of It.

  Author’s Note

  I first released the No Regrets trilogy in 2013, and I have since revamped, revised and restructured the trilogy to tighten the storyline, enhance characterization and update elements. The heart of the love story and the main characters remains the same. Enjoy!

  Every Second With You

  By Lauren Blakely

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  1

  Harley

  Trey paces from the window to the door of his studio. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. How many times do I have to tell you? I took, like, twenty tests.”

  From the door to the window, and back again. He can’t stop moving, can’t stop shaking, and all I can think is that this is the start of the running. This jittery back-and-forth, like a caged animal, is a harbinger. He’s going to walk. He’s going to spr
int and leave me alone with a baby in my belly, and a kid in my life.

  “Did you go to the doctor?”

  He asked me that already. He asked me that on the way back from the store. He’d grabbed my arm, gripped it so tight his hand was like a blood pressure cuff, and then practically dragged me to his nearby apartment.

  “I told you. No, I didn’t go to the doctor. Pregnancy tests work.” I cross my arms over my chest, standing firm against the wall. I have no clue where my certainty is coming from, but it’s as if all that prior fear zipped out of me, and now I am resolute.

  He shoves his hands into his hair, and continues pacing. He wears a tread to the bathroom, then swivels around and walks back to me.

  “Are you keeping it?”

  My brain rattles, trying his question on again for size. But it’s like he’s given the computer a command it doesn’t understand. “What?”

  “Well?”

  His green eyes are dark, bottomless, and I can’t read them. All the gold flecks that sparkle are now blotted out. “How is that even a question?”

  He raises his hands defensively. “Because it is.”

  “And how can you say it?” I spit back at him. My voice rears up like a viper, hissing. I press my hands against my belly protectively. My eyes follow my hands, and it hits me what I’ve done for the first time. Protected my baby. I’m winded by my own motherly instincts that materialized out of nowhere. “Of course I’m keeping the baby.”

  He turns on his heels and stalks over to the window, gripping the windowsill so hard he could crack the wood in his hands. I march over to him, grab his shoulder, and spin him around.

  My steely eyes glare hard into his dark ones. “And for the record, it is a baby. It is a he or she. A boy or girl. It’s not a fucking it, Trey.”

  “You don’t have to get like that with me. It’s not like we’ve even talked about abortion. It’s not as if we sit around and debate abortion, or the death penalty, or anything like that. I mean, I don’t even know if you believe in abortion.”

  I scoff, cold and dry. “Believe in abortion? It’s not a religion. It’s a fucking medical procedure.”

  “So. Do you believe in it?”

  I grit my teeth, wishing I had something in my hand—a glass, a phone, a hairbrush—that I could throw. “I am not having an abortion, and I want to smack you so hard for even suggesting it. How could you? You want to kill my baby?”

  His eyes fall shut, and he rocks back on his heels, his shoulders hitting the window. His body sags, as if all the bones in him have crumbled to dust and he’s only air and tenuous breath. His lower lip trembles, then he licks it once, and swallows. I don’t know what’s going on inside him, and I wish I could crawl up into him, feel his heart, read his mind, and know what he’s thinking.

  He opens his eyes, and then parts his lips to speak, but no words come out. His apartment is starkly silent, and the quiet has become a living creature in this room, a shadow animal wedged between us. Then, he whispers so low I’d need some kind of machine to pick it up if I wasn’t staring at his lips and the words that take shape on them.

  “Our baby.”

  He pulls me to him, and I tuck my face into the crook of his neck, placing a hand on his chest, his heartbeat wild and terrified under my palm.

  2

  Trey

  Two words I never thought I’d say. Not now. Not yet.

  But they’re here, levitating in the air between us, another presence in my apartment, and then inside me, an echo reverberating in my cells.

  Our baby.

  I can honestly say I never thought this would happen. Maybe that makes me stupid, but we were so careful, and I’ve never knocked up anyone before, so it makes no logical sense why it would happen now.

  But there’s no point in trying to apply reason. Logic has been factored out of the equation.

  So, what’s next? Are we supposed to talk about baby names? Parenting philosophies? What hospital she wants to give birth at—like responsible adults? Or the fact that we’re in college and this is happening? That we’re recovering addicts, junkies, fuckups with the worst possible parental role models ever?

  I don’t know, I can’t know, and my feet feel unsteady and my breath is thin, but there is one thing I can hold on to—that I don’t want to lose touch with her. She is my rock, she is my hope, she is my everything, and so I don’t let go of her. I cling to her, my chin against her hair, her body gathered in my arms.

  We stand there for minutes, our arms tangled so tightly together, our bodies snuggled close, as if we can erase the distance and the fear if we’re entwined.

  Soon I pull away, look her in the eyes, and opt for the naked truth. “I don’t have a clue what we’re supposed to do next. Or talk about. Or if I’m supposed to take you shopping for baby clothes, or touch your stomach all the time. All I know is, I love you, and I’ll do whatever you need.”

  Her shoulders seize up, and her eyes well, but she nods, seeming strong, steadfast. That’s my girl. My tough, badass, brave girl.

  “I love you too. That’s all that matters, right? We’ll figure it all out somehow. As long as we’re together.”

  “We will always be together,” I tell her, locking eyes with her, making sure she knows these words are the absolute truth. They are the foundation of how I live my life now. With her. With the certainty I have in this crazy love that we found in the most unlikely place. “Remember? Staying.”

  “Staying,” she repeats, nodding. “Always.”

  Then her hands slip up my shirt, and she runs her fingernails across my arrow tattoo. I rub her shoulder and bring my lips down to kiss her heart and arrow. It’s like we’re sealing a promise. One that neither of us ever expected to make—not now, not like this.

  But what choice do we have?

  Somehow we manage to make it through the rest of the day, and when her stomach rumbles in the evening, I laugh.

  “Hungry much?”

  “I guess so,” she says with a sheepish grin.

  “Bet you didn’t know I am amazingly proficient at making grilled cheese sandwiches.”

  Her eyes light up. “Ooh! I bet you didn’t know that’s my favorite kind of sandwich.”

  I show off the extent of my skills in the kitchen, making her a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner, the melted cheddar drizzling over the crust of the bread.

  She takes a bite and rolls her eyes in pleasure. “This is so good I’m going to call it the Cheesy Miracle.”

  “That is an excellent name.”

  I whip up a Cheesy Miracle for myself, and damn, it tastes good, and it’s almost enough—the dinner and the banter—to make it seem like we are the same people we were this morning, or yesterday, or a week ago.

  Almost.

  But not quite.

  Because as the hours turn into days and the week ticks by, I start to feel uneasy, as if I’m living on borrowed time. Because that’s what we’re doing. We’re playing pretend, avoiding reality, talking about sandwiches and saying I love you so much we’re a broken record.

  I want to live in this make-believe state forever and ever. But then time does what time does—it marches onward—and reality sets back in. The tape starts playing in my head, a highlight reel looped over and over, and I see myself at age fifteen with my baby brother, Will, dying in my arms when he was only three days old. His tiny chest, rising and falling for the last time. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment when he left this world. Everything had slowed, all his breaths, all his blood, and he slipped from life to death at some point as I held him, his tiny little body no longer working, his heart no longer pumping blood.

  I didn’t even know him, and still, it hurt so damn much. It hurt like someone was shoveling out my heart, scooping out my organs, the metal edges grinding against my bones.

  The aching, awful emptiness of those days. Of that life. Of no one to talk about it with. I’ve worked so hard to move on, to live, to love. To not see death in front of my ey
es every time someone says words like pregnancy or baby, but now it’s all I can see. It’s the picture I can’t stop looking at.

  My mind starts to agitate like a washing machine stuck on an endless spin cycle, as I feel the hope and the happiness and the future draining out of me.

  On the first day of her junior year of college and my final semester, I walk her to campus. Her hand is in mine, and it feels so right to hold her hand, so I know that I shouldn’t feel as if my blood is on speed. I try to settle my hyperactive heart. I look down and see her fingers in mine, intertwined. See? It’s all fine, I tell myself. I can do this. I can survive all my fears. We’ll do this together.