by Hart, Staci
He always did.
“No,” I said miserably.
Another press of his lips into my hair, this time with a small chuckle through his nose. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but they’re just bottles. If we need different ones, we’ll get them. Flexibility in the moment, remember? It’s how we plan for things we can’t control.”
“I know,” I said, and I did. But I didn’t feel it. “I…I don’t know how to do this, and it scares me.”
His arms wound tighter around me, the rocking coming to a stop. “I know.” The levity in his voice was gone. “But that’s why I’m here. We’re deferring to me, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“So let me shoulder this stress. Trust me to take care of it.”
“I do,” I whispered. “I trust you.”
Something in him stilled and came alive in the same moment. But he said nothing, just held me to him with strong, sure arms and a steady hand splayed across my back.
He didn’t let me go, and I didn’t let him go either. Instead, he held me in silence, and I knew without knowing that he’d hold me like that until I loosened my grip.
But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to go away, didn’t want him to stop touching me. I didn’t want a lot of things. Which led me to the realization there were a lot of things I did want.
I wanted him to stop the restraint, and I wanted to be unconstrained. For weeks, we’d been skirting around this, flirting with the possibilities of a relationship, toying with the boundaries set in place so firmly.
By me. Those boundaries were my construct. And if I wanted them gone, there was only one way to do it.
“I think I’m ready for the next phase in our experiment,” I said with a small, shaky voice.
He leaned back, separating us by the smallest degree necessary to see my face. “Are you sure you want to decide this right now?”
“You mean, while I’m emotional?”
“No, while we’re in the bottle aisle of Target.”
When I laughed, he smiled, cupping my face, thumbing the cool track of my tears.
“Are you sure? Why don’t we talk about it tonight,” he said softly.
But I shook my head against his palm. “I’m sure. I’m tired of the restraints. I don’t want the once a week rule anymore. The next steps are PDA, more frequent sex, and sleeping in the same bed.”
He chuckled, his eyes dark and alive with possibility. Hope. “I thought we agreed to take things by increment.”
I sighed. “We did.”
That clever smile of his tugged up on one side. “How about we start with me holding your hand in Target while we look at breast pumps?”
“All right,” I agreed with an amendment, “but first, kiss me. I’ve gone a week without your lips, and I don’t want to miss them anymore.”
When he drew a breath, everything smoldered—his eyes, his smile, the air between us crackling and hot. “Whatever you want, Kate.”
The sweet softness of his lips surprised me, the week that had passed diluting the memory to swill compared to the pure potency of his kiss. It was arresting, robbing me of will and thought, of power and choice. It was a kiss that claimed me, a signature of his body and soul on mine that I couldn’t erase.
I wondered if I’d be branded forever by him and knew with some degree of wariness that the answer was yes. But then he smiled at me and took my hand, ushering me to the breast pumps with a joke on his lips and a bounce in his step, and I forgot to care.
16
Big Spoon
Theo
17 weeks, 2 days
Zedd played over the speaker that night, the bass thumping as Katherine and I sat side by side on the couch. In her lap was a ball of pearly-white yarn, and in her hands was the beginning of a baby bootie. The TV played Love Cabana with closed-captioning.
It was a guilty pleasure we’d started watching as a joke but had turned into a nightly routine. We’d meant to make fun of it. Best-laid plans and all that. We were already on season three.
A week ago, she’d asked me for more in a Target aisle, tears in her eyes and a neat row of baby bottles in front of us. And, as promised, we held hands through Target for starters. The highlight of my week had been leaving that store with Katherine under my arm, her body against mine and her arm around my waist.
The door had been opened for PDA. And PDA had led to kissing. And kissing had led to heavy petting, which had led to Katherine naked in my bed.
And the world was suddenly full of possibility.
Subsequently, I couldn’t keep my hands off her. And she didn’t seem to mind.
Even now, her feet were in my lap, and my hand absently stroked her leg as Billy and Jeanine got into a screaming match over a spilled daiquiri. And by spilled, I meant Billy had dumped it down Jeanine’s back and into the hot tub.
Katherine shook her head as she wound the yarn around her needle. “I’m not big on immature displays, but Jeanine deserved that.”
“If they don’t get kicked off the island this week, I’m gonna be convinced this show is rigged.”
“It’s scripted. They’re all scripted. Reality TV is anything but real. Everyone knows that.”
I chuckled, my hand shifting over the delicate bones on top of her foot. “It’s so much more fun to imagine it’s real.”
“But it’s not,” she insisted, twisting the yarn again.
“So you’ve said.” For a moment, I watched her fingers, the click of the needles and quick motion of her hands as she assembled the tiny sole of the shoe. “How long have you been knitting?”
She gave me a blank look. “You watched me start twenty minutes ago.”
“No,” I said on a laugh, “I mean, when did you learn?”
“Oh. A few months ago. We have a knitting circle at the library, and I was the only one who didn’t know how. I’m glad I learned though. It’s coming in handy.” She held up her work in display.
I picked up the bootie she’d just finished, which sat on the coffee table. “This is the tiniest shoe I’ve ever seen.”
Katherine smiled. “I know. There’s a little sweater I want to make, too, and a hat and blanket to match. I decided on white since we don’t know the sex of the baby yet.”
“Just a few more weeks.”
“I’ll never understand people who want to be surprised by that information. There’s already enough we don’t know and can’t control. Why wouldn’t you want to know everything you could?”
I shrugged. “Some people like the anticipation, I guess. The mystery.”
She made a face. “Lawless. I’m stressed just thinking about it. I would like to have a name chosen and color-coded clothes, all washed and folded and put away before the baby comes.”
With a smirk, I said, “Funny, I would have figured you wouldn’t label the baby with pink or blue.”
“I’d rather not spend my free time correcting people who guess incorrectly.”
“Fair enough,” I said on a laugh.
The credits rolled on Love Cabana, and I picked up the remote. “Did you want to watch another?”
She sighed, bundling up her yarn and needles. “No, thank you. I’m—oh!” With a gasp, she folded forward, her hand flying to her stomach.
I was on my knees at her feet within a breath, searching her face for signs of distress, but there was only wonder. “What’s the matter, Kate?”
She said nothing, just gasped again, her face lighting up with a wondrous smile. “The baby. I think…oh!” she said again, giggling.
Her hand shot out and grabbed mine, pressing it to the hard curve of her stomach.
“What am I—”
“Shh, wait…”
The silence was thick with anticipation, her hand on top of mine. The only sensation was the steady rise and fall of her bump as she breathed and the feel of her warm hand over mine.
I was about to give up when I felt it.
A thump against my hand, so fast, I wonder
ed if I’d imagined it. “Was that—”
“Uh-huh.” She beamed, nodding.
Another thump, this one harder, and we both laughed.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, laying both my hands on her stomach. “I can’t…this is incredible.”
But no more movement came, to our disappointment. I leaned in, angling for her lips, my hands still cupping her belly. And I kissed her, the magic of the moment filling every mingling breath, every flex of our lips, every sweep of our tongues.
She broke the kiss with a smile.
“Come to bed, Kate,” I whispered, even though she didn’t have on her lipstick tonight, her lips a dusty shade of rose, naked and natural.
Damn the rules.
“All right,” she said. “But only if you’ll stay all night.”
My smile was boundless. “Your room or mine?” When I stood, I offered my hand.
She took it, answering, “Mine.”
It was safer, I knew. One less variable for her to factor in or plan for.
“Anything you want, Kate.”
She had just started to really show, opting for dresses with high waists and flowing skirts, and once home, she almost always stepped straight into leggings and T-shirts. Tonight she was wearing a Team Tommy shirt from a library fundraising publicity stunt we’d come up with after he and Marley Monroe broke up. He’d sold the T-shirts. She had written a breakup album about him that went platinum.
To be honest, I hated the sight of my brother’s name stretched over the swell where my baby was.
I pulled her into me, smiling down at her, ready to get her out of that T-shirt. Not only so I could get to what was underneath it, but so I could throw it in the fireplace.
She smiled back, but something else was behind her eyes, words waiting at the corner of her mouth.
I kissed her to loosen them up.
I hadn’t intended the kiss to deepen, but that was the nature of Katherine and me—we were in far less control than either of us would acknowledge. Her arms threaded around my neck, her lips open wide, tongue delving past mine, searching the depths. When I realized her ass was in my hand and my cock was rock hard, I broke the kiss.
“All right. I’m going to get ready for bed, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling and flushed and breathless.
I kissed her again, this time slow and sweet. I couldn’t understand how she fit so neatly against me, why her face seemed to fill my hand exactly, why her lips fitted to mine with the fit of a tailored suit. Strange. Beautiful. Utterly perfect.
We parted ways, hurrying in opposite directions so we could come back together.
As I changed and brushed my teeth, my mind zipped and zinged with possibility. Every step, every box checked, every marker passed had brought us closer to something bigger, something more. It’d brought us closer to us, to the place where we could be together fully.
And, if I played my cards right, maybe forever.
There was no logic behind the thought, only instinct I felt in my marrow. I understood her in ways I wasn’t sure she understood herself. I understood what she needed and how to provide it, knew when to let her breathe and be and exist without constraint.
I could be her everything. She was already becoming mine.
Things were going exactly as planned.
I padded through the apartment, shutting off lights as I went, a little nervous and a little giddy at the prospect of spending the night with Katherine, something I’d waited for so long, it was almost as enticing as the prospect of sex.
Almost.
When the apartment was dark for the night, I stepped through the threshold of her room.
She had turned down the bed, the only light that of the small lamps on the nightstands. Her hair was long and loose, her nightgown delicate white cotton. The shadow of her body through the thin fabric was sensual without intention, curves I’d come to know quite well.
It was so strange to see a woman in a nightgown like that, almost formal or maybe old-fashioned. When she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked up, she froze but for her eyes, which dragged the length of my naked torso, not stopping until she’d noted every ridge and valley, skimming her eyes down my pajama pants and to my bare feet.
With a series of rapid blinks, she found herself. “I sleep on this side of the bed,” she said matter-of-factly.
I walked around to the other side. “I sleep on this side, so it works for me.”
She smiled down at her hands as she arranged the pillows. “We are a good match, Theodore.”
“We are, Kate,” I said as I slipped between the sheets.
She did the same, but before she could lie down or turn out the lights, I kissed her.
My hand cupped the back of her head as I laid her down, tasted the minty sweetness of her lips, felt the soft curves of her body through the thin barrier of her nightgown. Cupped the swell of her stomach that I loved so deeply. And her arms hung around my neck, holding me to her until the kiss slowed, then stopped.
“I should warn you,” she started, her voice husky and hot, “I’ve never spent the whole night with a man in my bed—or a woman either. So please don’t be offended if I accidentally push, kick, or hit you in the middle of the night. I don’t typically like to be touched, and I can’t speak to my reaction.”
“You sound sure it will be violent.”
“Like I said, I don’t typically like to be touched. Except for when it’s you. It’s strange really,” she mused. “I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t have to understand it.”
“But I’d like to.”
I thumbed her jaw, looking over her face. “Maybe some things can’t be explained.”
“I don’t believe in magic, Theo.”
“I know you don’t. But would you agree there’s mystery and intrigue in things you don’t understand?”
She frowned. “Everything can be explained in some way or another. Action and reaction. Science. Magic isn’t real.”
“You’re uncomfortable leaving a stone unturned. You don’t want to believe in magic.”
“Because I take comfort in what’s real.”
“Because that doesn’t require faith,” I noted.
“I have faith. Faith in facts.”
A smile brushed my lips. “Faith is believing despite the fact. And I’d argue that not all facts are black and white. You have faith in your friends, but there aren’t a set of rules that you apply to your relationship with them.”
“Our friendship is founded on respect and trust.”
“Which were built with time, attachment, and evidence. But don’t you think there’s something beyond your experiences or chemicals that connects you to someone else? Something that motivates you to feel that’s not strictly based in fact?”
Every corner of her face was touched with confusion.
“Okay, let me ask you this: is there something you can’t explain that draws you to one of your friends?”
She frowned, thinking. “Val can make me laugh when it’s the last thing I want to do. She always cheers me up. And Rin knows exactly what to say to make sense of things, which makes me want to tell her everything. That alone is singular. Amelia triggers a protection response from me, but I think that’s because she’s so small and innocent. I think Tommy has that instinct, too.”
“Because you love her, and she seems vulnerable.”
“Love is defined as a deep attachment. It’s not unexplainable. It’s survival. We need other people. We search for relationships and connections because without people, we’d go crazy. Even love for your child is a product of brain responses that form an attachment, so you’ll be motivated to care for your baby. It’s about progeny. About continuing the species. If you didn’t love your baby and think it was cute, you wouldn’t be so compelled to make sure it was safe and cared for. It’s not magic. It’s evolutionary science.”
“Some would call that instinct.”
; “But instinct isn’t strictly reactive. It’s a response, not an initiative action.”
I chuckled. “I dunno. Some instincts can be ignored, and some can’t.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she conceded. “But it’s still a response.”
“When I met you, there was something about you I had the instinct to know better. I knew the second we shook hands that we’d end up here, one way or another.”
Her frown deepened. “With me pregnant?”
“No,” I said on a laugh. “With you and me here, in bed, talking about the scientific merits of love.”
She relaxed. “Well, that’s just pheromones, oxytocin. I think our bodies knew we were a physiological match.”
“I’d argue we were more well suited than just physically, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I would agree,” she said quietly. “The longer I know you, the more compatible I find us.”
“Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”
I brought my lips to hers, wondering how I’d found myself with a woman so resistant, so restrained, so averse to love and relationships. As I kissed her, I considered my motivation. Was it the challenge? The newness? The instinct to have and hold and protect her because she was carrying my child? Or was it more?
But I knew the answer, knew it with the certainty of a clairvoyant.
I was hers, and I’d do anything to make her mine.
And lucky for both of us, I never failed.
❖
Katherine
My first thought when I woke was that of complete and total confusion.
I was hot—that was the first thing I noted—my hair stuck to my dewy face and nightgown tangled between my legs. And I was trapped, contained by heavy, thick restraints that should have sent me into a panic, especially when combined with the sweltering heat.
But I wasn’t panicked at all. In fact, I drew a deep breath, curling into the hot confines of Theo’s chest.
We were a knot of arms and legs, my face buried in his chest and his arms a vise around me. The thick rope of his bicep had become my pillow, threaded through the bend of my neck, his hand holding me to him by the shoulder. The only reason I could breathe was my nose had found the deep valley between his pecs, which doubled not only as a well of his scent—musk and soap and male—but a divot in which I could funnel air from the sweltering cage of his arms.