by J. S. Scott
“Get naked with me, and I’ll be glad to let you look all you want,” Kade whispered low and seductively against her ear.
Asha nearly let him take her away. Right now, the only thing she wanted was to be as close to Kade as she could get. “Dinner,” she reminded him playfully, her arms around his neck, hugging him closely to her body. She could already feel the very hard proof that he could back up his promise quite easily.
“Okay. I do need to feed you first,” he rumbled, letting her body slowly slide down his until her feet were back on the ground. “How was work?”
Asha rolled her eyes, wondering if Kade would ever get over wanting to feed her until she nearly popped. “I rescheduled the job for next week,” she informed him carefully.
“So where were you, then? Found another guy already?” Kade’s words were teasing, but his eyes were serious.
“I went to see Maddie this morning. And then I went to an appointment. It took awhile.” Asha gnawed on her lip, not quite sure how to tell Kade what she needed to tell him.
“You okay?” The worry in his eyes increased.
“I’m fine.” Asha put a palm to his stubble-covered cheek and smiled. “But I have something I need to talk to you about. Something important.”
Kade took her hand from his cheek and kissed her palm. Flipping all the controls off on the stove, he grabbed himself a beer and sat a bottled water on the table. Pulling out her chair, he motioned for her to sit. She sat, and Kade flopped down in the chair on her right. “Talk,” he said gruffly, all of his attention on her. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. As long as you aren’t planning on telling me you won’t marry me or you’re leaving again, I can figure anything out.”
“I’m pregnant.” Asha blurted the words out before she could think about it. They had been bottled up inside her all day, and she needed the support of the person who mattered the most to her in the world. Seeing the incredulous look on his face, she babbled on. “I went to see Maddie this morning and I mentioned a couple of symptoms. She made me take a test. Two tests. Both positive. She made a few calls and got me in to a friend of hers, an OB doctor. She did a bunch of tests. My reproductive system appears to be fine and I’m pregnant.” She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Kade. I didn’t know he’d lied. I didn’t know I could get pregnant. I know you said you weren’t sure you wanted—”
Kade snatched her out of her chair and had her in his lap so fast that it stopped her pathetic speech. Tears poured down her face, every emotion that had been tumbling around inside her suddenly bursting from her body at the same time.
Shock.
Surprise.
Anger.
Relief.
Regret.
Happiness.
And so many other feelings that Asha wasn’t able to identify. “This should have been something we talked about, something we decided together,” she told him regretfully.
Kade lifted the edge of his t-shirt and dabbed at her tears. “I think it took both of us to get you pregnant, Asha,” he said gently. “Please don’t cry. You don’t want this baby?” He sounded unsure, a hint of hurt and confusion in his tone.
“I do want it. I want our child so much it hurts. But we had plans. And you said you weren’t sure you wanted a child of your own. I should never have had sex with you until I knew the truth about why I wasn’t able to conceive. Turns out that I can. Apparently Ravi lied.”
“Not exactly a shocker,” Kade rasped. “Bastard!” In a gentler tone, as he placed a hand on her belly gently, he continued, “I want this baby, too. I know what I said, and I could have easily adopted. But now that I know you’re having our child, I’m ecstatic. I know she’ll be as beautiful as her mother. I guess I’m a little in awe of the fact that we made a baby. Our baby.”
Asha swiped at her tears. “Don’t you want a boy?”
“Nope.” He grinned at her, a smile that went all the way to his eyes, making them twinkle happily. “But I’d take a boy if that’s what you give me. I’d be happy either way, sweetheart. He or she will be our child, and that’s what will make the baby special, no matter what sex it turns out to be.”
Asha digested that information and smiled back at Kade. “I’m used to men who want only boys.” It was Indian culture to want a male child. Knowing Kade would love and nurture either one equally was still a bit of a culture shock. Then again, it shouldn’t have been surprising. He was…Kade. “It will change our life a lot,” she warned him.
“Plans are made to be changed. I want to get married right away. I wanted it soon, anyway. This seems like a convincing reason to do it tomorrow.” He grinned at her wickedly.
Kade had been trying to talk her into a quick wedding since he’d proposed, and she’d wanted to wait awhile because Maddie would be due soon, and she wanted her sister at her wedding. “Maddie—”
“Maddie can come if we do just a few people at her and Sam’s place. We’ll put her feet up and she can be there,” Kade said convincingly. “I already talked to her because I told her I couldn’t wait. She offered.”
Asha raised a brow at him. “She didn’t tell me.”
“I asked her not to tell. I was planning on convincing you tonight,” Kade answered with a seductively evil grin.
“Are you tying me to the bed again?” Asha asked eagerly, blushing slightly. “You could always try to fuck me into submission again.” She’d go for that.
“I’m not tying my pregnant fiancée to a bed,” Kade answered in an adamant but awed voice.
“I can’t believe I’m actually pregnant,” Asha whispered, putting her hand over Kade’s on her belly. “All those years when I thought I wasn’t capable. This seems so surreal.”
“What did the doctor say? Is everything okay? You should have called me. I would have gone with you.” Kade sounded both irritated and worried.
“I didn’t think about it. I thought it was all a mistake. I think I must have conceived in Travis’s office at the racetrack. The doctor said everything is fine.” She hesitated for a minute before she commented, “I suppose that means I won’t be taking the riding course to get my motorcycle license right now.”
“Hell, no!” Kade boomed. “You aren’t even getting close to a bicycle right now.”
Asha sighed. “I suppose this is going to make you into a tyrant.” His protective nature was probably going to be nearly unbearable, but it was done with love. This was all new for both of them. “You’ll get used to it,” she told him casually. “We both will.”
Kade tightened his arms around her body. “No I won’t. Sam never has. The closer Maddie gets to her due date, the more frazzled he looks. I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack already, and the egg is barely fertilized, right? Damn. I need to borrow some of the books on childbirth from Sam. And we need to get stuff for a nursery. And a baby needs clothes and lots of other stuff. This house definitely isn’t childproof. I need to work on that.”
Asha took his head between her hands and kissed him, shutting down his frenzied words, and hopefully his overactive mind. She loved the way he cared enough to brood over her well-being and now the baby’s, but when he got obsessive, she needed to find a way to calm him down. And kissing him seemed to be the only way to do it.
Kade took over the embrace almost immediately, kissing her with a passionate intensity that left her breathless. Both of them ended up panting, Asha resting her head on his shoulder. “You have time to do everything,” Asha gasped. “And the last thing you need right now is to talk to Sam. He’s a wreck. Maddie’s having twins, so he’ll probably tell you a bunch of horror stories about what could go wrong. Women have babies every day.”
“It’s different. My woman doesn’t have our baby every day,” Kade muttered.
“I love you. Take me to bed,” she urged in her fuck-me voice that Kade had never been able to resist.
“We can talk about everything later. Right now I just want to be close to you.”
Her relief at the fact that Kade really wanted this baby as much as she did had her dizzy with happiness, and all she wanted was to be joined to the man she loved in the most elemental of ways.
“Food,” Kade argued.
“You,” Asha countered, sliding her hand down to the front of his jeans and gently grasping his hard cock through the denim. “I’m hungry for you.”
Kade groaned. “I love you, too, and you’re pushing me, woman.”
“I know. I plan to push you right over the edge with pleasure,” she answered naughtily. “All I need is you inside me right now.”
Kade’s big body shuddered, all of his defenses coming down as he looked into her eyes. “I want to give you anything and everything that will make you happy. That’s all I want.”
“Then you don’t need to give me anything but your love,” Asha told him honestly, her heart in her eyes as she stared back at him.
“Baby, you’ll always have that,” Kade told her confidently, standing up with her in his arms.
“Then I’ll always be happy.” Asha sighed as Kade strode toward the bedroom.
Kade didn’t forget to feed her. But they ate later. Much later.
Two Months Later
“That looks good. Exactly what I would do,” Kade told Asha encouragingly over her shoulder as she sat looking at her financial portfolio on her computer, the portfolio she was now building for their child.
She explained her rationale to him as she did her investing. Kade encouraged, and he pointed out pros and cons, but he let her figure things out on her own once she got the hang of thinking like an investor.
He’d calmed down considerably about the baby, but he never stopped worrying. Instead of his alpha male behavior irritating her, it actually comforted her. She was learning, especially from the women in her life, exactly how to handle Kade’s occasional over-the-top behavior. Mostly, Asha felt loved, and that was a feeling she wouldn’t trade for anything. Kade coddled her, cherished her, and downright spoiled her. In return, she tried to do the same for him. She supposed there was nothing she could really do to prove how much she loved him, but it didn’t stop her from trying.
The last few months had been an adjustment period, but strangely, it hadn’t been difficult. Considering they were married a few days after she’d discovered she was pregnant, Asha would have expected there to be some rough patches. There weren’t. Not really. She and Kade just seemed to…fit, getting closer every day until she couldn’t remember what her life had been like without him there, and she didn’t want to remember. Kade was her best friend, her lover, and now her husband and the father of their unborn child. After her traumatic history, she felt like she was living a dream, a lovely dream that she hoped never ended.
“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” Asha answered. “You’re the smartest man I know.” She signed out of her account and got up from the chair. “I guess it’s time to get to Maddie’s. I can’t wait to hold the babies again.”
Her sister had delivered slightly before her due date, but both babies were healthy and already driving their parents happily crazy because they weren’t on the same feeding schedule. She and Kade had volunteered to give Sam and Maddie a night off so they could get out of the house. Truthfully, it was no sacrifice for either of them, as they were both completely enamored of their new niece and nephew.
“Do you really think we’re going to be able to pull either one of them away from the babies?” Kade asked doubtfully.
“They’re going,” Asha answered stubbornly. “They both look worn-out. They need a break.”
“Sam’s gone from worrying about the birth to worrying about what college they’re going to. That got me thinking—”
“Don’t even start,” Asha warned him, putting her arms around his neck. Kade and Sam were bad for each other when they started talking kids. When Simon got into the mix, it was even worse. Every one of them was more than ready to plan out the next eighteen years of their assorted children’s lives for them before they could even talk.
“What?” Kade asked innocently, tightening his arms around Asha’s waist. “We’re just thinking about their futures.”
“You can wait until they have some say in that future,” Asha told him adamantly. “I can tell you from experience that it sucks to have your future planned out for you.”
“I’d never do that,” Kade said huskily. “You know I’d never force anything on our child.”
Asha did know that. “I’m sorry. It’s a touchy subject. I know you wouldn’t.” Kade was excited, and she didn’t want to kill that excitement for him. “It’s my own insecurities. It’s not you. It’s hormones. It seems like I’m either cranky, crying, hungry, or horny.”
“But you’re beautiful in any mood,” Kade reminded her with a grin. “I prefer the horny mood, though.”
A startled laugh escaped from Asha’s mouth. It didn’t matter what mood she was in; Kade could switch it from irritable to horny in a matter of seconds. She looked up at his beloved, handsome face and liquid eyes with a sigh. “My soul mate. I happen to prefer that mood myself,” she told him with a grin.
“You are my soul mate, Asha. Do you remember when you asked me if I believed there was one person for each of us? I wasn’t sure what I thought then, but I know now. If I get overbearing and annoying, just remember that I can’t live without you anymore.”
Asha nodded. “I know. I feel the same way.” She lifted her foot onto the chair. “I redid my tattoo.” Her henna tattoo had faded, and she’d replaced it with another image, using materials that she knew were safe for the baby.
Kade studied it for a moment before recognition dawned. “You changed it entirely. It’s a phoenix rising, just like mine.”
“I don’t feel like a butterfly anymore,” she admitted. “I feel like I’ve been reborn and I’m ready to start living for the first time. Because of you. A butterfly is too fragile. I feel stronger than that.”
Kade tipped her chin up and kissed her. “You are strong. The strongest woman I’ve ever known.” He fingered the delicate phoenix, tracing it with a finger. “There are very few people brave enough to escape the conditioning you went through and become their own person, no matter what the cost.”
“I wasn’t brave. I was just surviving,” Asha told him, perplexed.
“Sometimes surviving is a whole lot braver than the alternative,” Kade said gravely. “You’re a miracle. My miracle.”
Asha thought it was the other way around. “You saved me.”
“You saved me, sweetheart,” he contradicted.
“Maybe we should just say we saved each other,” Asha answered, knowing the important role Kade had played at making her start to put the pieces of her shattered life back together again.
“The phoenix is perfect. You’re right. The butterfly is too fragile,” he mused. “And you’re finally flying.”
“Not yet. But I’m working on it.”
“Anything I can do to make you fly higher?” Kade asked solemnly. He put her head on his shoulder and rocked her gently, his hold comforting and reassuring.
“Just love me,” she murmured.
“Then you can be sure you’ll always be soaring,” he answered.
Asha pulled back to look once again at the phoenix rising, and she knew Kade was right. The butterfly that couldn’t escape the cocoon was finally gone, replaced by a powerful mythological creature that would always be airborne. Right now, the phoenix was barely rising from the ashes, but with Kade’s love, it would soon be flying high for the rest of her life.
How could it not? She had married a man who had loved her and wanted to marry her when he thought she was barren, but had easily become ecstatic about the idea of having an unplanned child of their own. Kade loved her
unconditionally, and that continued to amaze her each and every day.
“I love you,” she whispered as she gently kissed the strong line of his jaw. It was as if she couldn’t tell him those words enough. They’d been bottled up inside her for so long that all she wanted to do was tell him how much he meant to her every day, several times a day.
Kade held her tighter and she lowered her foot to the floor to keep her balance.
“You know what it does to me to hear you say that,” Kade growled, palming her ass.
She knew, but she told him anyway because she needed to say it and she loved the consequences.
Kade told her he loved her as he tore her clothes off and carried her to the bedroom.
They were a little late for their babysitting that night, but Sam and Maddie never said a word. Her sister took one look at Asha’s swollen lips, tousled hair, and contented smile and winked at her as she and Sam went reluctantly out the door.
Asha winked back, smiling as she flipped the lock on the door behind them.
She entered the living room to find Kade holding both babies, one in each arm, all three of them asleep. Her heart turned over as she saw the protective way he held the babies, an arm curled around each tiny body.
It wasn’t often that both of the twins slept at the same time, but Kade seemed to have the magic touch. Asha crept over to the couch and cuddled beside Kade, resting her head on his leg.
It was one of those moments when everything in her life was perfect.
She was with Kade, her nephew, and her niece.
Real family!
Asha knew she had finally found the place where she truly belonged. All her life, all she’d wanted was a real home. Finally, she realized that home wasn’t just a place. It was a state of mind. And it was him. Life really was all about love, and as long as she was with Kade, she’d always be home.
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