22. Twenty-Two
22
TWENTY-TWO
D ating Ruby was better than I imagined. Sure, part of me wished we’d done things in the correct order—she was limited on what she could do because she was less than two months away from giving birth—but I designed our outings so that we were taking advantage of what Vegas had to offer.
Nothing fancy. Just normal, everyday stuff. Vegas style.
That meant going on gondola rides at the Venetian. Turned out neither one of us had ever done that before. We went to see the sharks at Mandalay Bay. We had lunch at the Bellagio’s conservatory. Helicopter tours were out, but I had a plan to include those for one of our first dates after the baby was born. We had plenty of babysitters chomping at the bit once things were settled.
It wasn’t all fun and games, though. We also had some practicalities to get through, including setting up nurseries.
“I could’ve hired someone to put the crib together.” Ruby nervously rubbed her hands together as she watched me look over the instructions in her second bedroom. Maintenance had removed all the furniture the previous day and we were getting ready to go all out when it came to decorating the baby’s bedroom. “They have people who do that for money.”
I slid her a dark look. “Are you suggesting I can’t put a crib together?”
“No.” Her answer was automatic. We’d only been dating for a week, but nothing about the way we’d interacted with one another had changed. Well, except for the sexual tension. That was through the roof, and we were no longer ignoring it. Everything else was humming right along on schedule. “You don’t have a plumber’s crack though, and I’ve never seen you use a hammer.”
I was amused despite myself. “We don’t need a hammer for the crib, babycakes.”
She scowled. “I hate it when you call me babycakes.”
I already knew that. It was one of the reasons I kept saying it. “Why would you possibly hate that term of endearment?”
“Because it’s weird. How would you like it if I called you babycakes?”
“I would love it. I would proudly wear a shirt that says ‘Ruby’s babycake’ whenever I was off duty.”
Ruby’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. She obviously didn’t believe me. “You realize I’m going to have a shirt made up that says exactly that, right? Not only am I going to make you wear it to the birth, but I’m also going to take photos and frame them to put beside my bed.”
“All I heard was that you want me near your bed,” I drawled.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered. She nudged the instructions on my lap with her foot. “Can you or can you not put this crib together?”
I didn’t have to think about my answer long. “I can do it.” As if to prove it, I picked up the directions, snapped them to make a noise, then went back to reading. “Are you sure you don’t want to paint the nursery before we put the crib together?”
“See, I knew you couldn’t do it.” She threw her hands into the air.
“I just said I could do it.” I pinned her with a serious look. “Why do you always doubt me?”
“I don’t doubt you. I just … I’ve never seen you put something together yourself.”
“Just because you haven’t seen me do it, doesn’t mean that I can’t do it. Now …
just take a breath. I need to read these instructions.” I was deadly serious. “Just … sit right here.” I patted the spot on the ground next to me.
“If I get down there, I’m never getting back up. I’ll die down there.” She pointed toward her stomach for an explanation. I swear she’d popped even more in just a week.
“Come here.” I was gentle when pulling her to me. “Trust me,” I ordered when she didn’t bend her knees.
On a growl, she let me pull her to my lap, her back to my chest. I then proceeded to go back to reading, my lips brushing over the crown of her head as she looked at the instructions with me.
“Well?” she demanded when I’d spent a full five minutes focusing on the instructions.
“Piece of cake,” I replied, briefly resting my cheek against her head. I didn’t let her up even though she was squirming to get a better angle and look up at me.
“Does that mean you’re going to put it together?”
“It does.”
“When?”
“Shh.” Carefully, I placed the directions to the side and rubbed my hands over her stomach. “Is she kicking today?”
Ruby stopped bugging me about the crib and watched my hands crawl over her midriff. “I think she’s taking a nap.”
“Maybe you should take a nap too,” I suggested. “Don’t they say you’re supposed to sleep when the baby sleeps?”
“That’s after the baby is born.”
“You could sleep now.”
“Are you going to bring someone in to put that crib together while I’m taking a nap and then lie and say you did it?”
“No. I thought you could nap while I’m putting it together. That way there would be no backseat nagging.”
“I don’t nag.”
“Shh.” It wasn’t that I cared about the nagging. She looked tired, though. Plus, I liked the idea of surprising her when she woke up. It felt like something a couple would do.
We hadn’t defined our relationship yet. Nobody had said “we’re monogamous.” Since neither of us were dating other people, though, it didn’t need to be said. Eventually, we might need to have a conversation. For now, I was more than happy floating.
“I’m being serious,” Ruby said after several seconds. “If you can’t do this, I’ll just hire someone.”
“You can’t do it, can you?”
“Can’t do what? Put the crib together? No, I can’t do it. That’s why I want to hire someone.”
“Be quiet.”
“Excuse me? Did you just tell me to be quiet?”
“No, I said you couldn’t be quiet. I wasn’t telling you to be quiet.”
“That’s a slippery slope.”
I laughed. “You argue just to argue sometimes.” Because I could tell she wasn’t comfortable—not because my arms were around her but because the floor was hard—I scooped her up in my arms and carried her toward her room. “This is what’s going to happen,” I said as she started protesting being forced away from her current obsession. “You’re going to take a nap.” I strode into her bedroom as if I belonged there and unceremoniously dumped her on the bed.
“Hey!” She tried to roll to her knees but failed before flopping back. “It’s like being a turtle and I can’t navigate my own shell.”
I laughed at her analogy. “Luckily for you, I happen to like turtles.” I lifted the covers on the opposite side of the bed. “Come on. Get under here.”
“I don’t need a nap,” she protested.
“You have circles under your eyes. You need the rest.”
“And this has nothing to do with the fact that you think I’m nagging you?”
“You are nagging me. I’m okay with it, though.” I kept nudging her until she moved under the covers. Then I proceeded to tuck her in. “The crib will be done when you’re finished with your nap.”
“It’s too late for a nap,” she protested. “I’ll sleep through the whole night if I’m not careful.”
“I’ll wake you up when I’m finished.”
“Do you promise?”
“Either that or I’ll crawl in there to sleep with you.” In truth, I couldn’t see myself waking Ruby. She looked like an angel when she slept. I’d borne witness to more than one nap and I enjoyed watching her each and every time.
She gave me a dirty look. “We agreed on no sex for a bit,” she reminded me.
“I didn’t say I was going to have sex with you. I said I was going to sleep with you. I might need a nap too, and I can’t imagine myself waking you up.”
She cocked her head, considering. “Fine,” she said finally. “But only because I bet you’re warm when you sleep and there’s nothing better than a cozy nap.”
“Thanks for the weirdly effective compliment.” I pulled the covers up and tucked her in, brushing my lips over her forehead, then her cheek, then her mouth before I pulled back. It was just a brief touching of lips and yet it made everything inside of me tingle. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes a little wild when I pulled back.
“Now I’m definitely not going to sleep,” she complained.
I laughed because I couldn’t help myself. “Sweet dreams, babycakes.” I brushed the back of my hand against her cheek. “Rest. I’ll have that crib together before you know it.”
THE CRIB WAS NOWHERE NEAR AS DIFFICULT as I thought it would be to get together. It took me an hour. As anticipated, Ruby was out, snoring away heavily when I went in to check on her. Since I had zero interest in waking her—something I knew would happen when she issued the instructions—I decided to take advantage of the situation. Not in a gross way or anything. Proximity to Ruby was like a drug of late, though, and I wasn’t going to overlook this chance to get high on her.
I stripped off my shirt and track pants, leaving nothing but my boxer shorts on. Then I crawled into bed behind Ruby, who was on her side. I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and my stomach would growl in protest at some point, but for now I ignored what was inevitable and focused on what was perfection in the moment.
Ruby smelled like cloves. I had no idea what perfume she wore. I didn’t even know if she wore perfume. Whatever it was—body spray, shampoo, perfume—I loved the scent. I buried my face in her hair as I spooned up behind her, inhaled deeply, and let myself fly away on clove-scented dreams.
The next thing I knew, it was morning. Ruby had stopped snoring at some point—really, I found it endearing even if she was embarrassed by it—and was staring hard into my eyes as I struggled to make sense of where I was. More importantly, what time was it?
“Hey,” I said dumbly as I stretched. “What are you doing here?”
She made an incredulous face. “This is my bed.”
“Oh, right.” I wrinkled my nose and smiled. “It’s a really comfortable bed, Ruby. I forgot how comfortable.”
“Excuse me?” She arched a challenging eyebrow.
“I said it’s a really comfortable bed,” I repeated, not missing a beat. Her giggle as I tickled her side filled me with warmth. “I forgot how comfortable it was from the first time.”
“The first time that we never talk about?” she challenged.
I was caught off guard, yet suddenly game. “Then let’s talk about it.” I slid one arm underneath her so I could anchor her to me and rested the other on her stomach. It was pressed between us and I could feel a little flutter against my stomach. “That will never stop being amazing,” I murmured as I closed my eyes. “Is that a foot or an arm?”
She shrugged, her eyes heavy-lidded as she watched me. “I’m not sure. Some people claim they can tell what it is. I am not one of those people. It could be a nose for all I know.”
“You think our child is pressing her face to the outside of your stomach and flaring her nostrils, do you?” I challenged. I didn’t think about it long. “I can see that.” Before I realized what I was going to do, I swooped in and kissed her.
Now, we had been dating for a week. We were having a baby. This was the first time I had kissed her without giving it some thought, though. Well … other than that first night. All thought had flown out the window that night, and I wasn’t sorry. Not even a little. Still, where we were at present dictated that I think about what I was doing.
The kiss had been simple. Instinctual but simple. I held my breath and waited for her reaction.
Surprisingly, she didn’t act as if it was out of the ordinary. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” she asked instead. “You said you were going to.”
I shrugged as I brushed her hair out of her face. “You look like an angel when you’re sleeping.”
“I think that’s a bit of a stretch.”
“But it’s not. You look like an angel and snore like a freight train. It’s a glorious combination.” I kept a firm grip on her because I knew she would squirm away. “Stop,” I whispered into her hair. “Let me hold you.”
I expected her to fight a bit longer. Instead, she went limp, her face disappearing into the hollow next to my shoulder.
“Well, that was easier than I expected,” I admitted after several seconds.
“Yeah.” She tiptoed her fingers up my chest, then flattened her hand there. “I’m going to tell you something that’s easier to say when I don’t have to look you in the eye.”
My natural instinct was to pull back enough to stare at her, but she stopped me.
“Just let me get through this,” she instructed.
Since I had no choice, I held her close and nodded.
“I didn’t expect us to end up here. Like … at all.”
“That doesn’t mean we don’t belong here.” Something inside of me was starting to panic that she was already going to send me away. I couldn’t bear the thought.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, her hand moving over my bicep. Not in a lascivious way, but to anchor me. “I’m saying that, well, I think I knew what I was doing the night of the party.”
This was so not what I expected her to want to talk about. It was so much better. I nodded to propel her forward.
“It’s just … I’ve been thinking about it a lot since it happened,” she explained. “I remember how good you looked that night. You looked really, really good. I remember you and my brother having a laugh about how foul the pink drinks were.”
“They were foul.”
“I kind of liked them. They were fizzy and optimistic somehow, just like your sister. That’s neither here nor there, though. I remember seeing you laugh from across the bar. You were mocking your sister, and bonding with my brother, and your smile was wide enough to swallow the entire bar.”
“I’m still not sure what you’re saying, Ruby,” I admitted.
“I’m saying that I remember looking at you and thinking that I wanted to kiss that mouth of yours so you would be smiling at me.”
I could no longer force myself not to look at her, and when I glanced down, I found her smiling at me sheepishly. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I asked finally.
“Yeah.” She was mortified but continued forward. “I think I seduced you, Rex. Not only that, I think I knew I was going to do it hours before I did it.”
A multitude of emotions flooded me. Amusement. Adoration. Lust. She was so many things all at once in this moment. Most of all, she felt like mine. So, I could’ve given her a hard time and watched her squirm. The old Rex would’ve done that. This Rex wanted to meet her halfway, however.
“You were wearing a purple dress that showed off an amazing amount of cleavage,” I said out of nowhere. “When you laugh it sounds as if angels are singing. That’s what I thought when I saw you that night. You were drinking the pink drink. The reason I wanted to leave early is because I wanted to make bad decisions with you, too.”
Her eyes almost popped out of her head. “Wait … are you saying you wanted to seduce me too?”
“I’m saying I wanted to do everything I did with you that night. I knew if I stayed, it was going to happen. There was just a vibe floating around that night.”
“There really was,” she agreed.
“I think we both knew what was going to happen,” I continued. “We both knew … and we didn’t care about the consequences.”
“Yeah.” She was solemn. “Do you want to know something else?”
“Always.” Nothing could’ve dragged me from her bed in that moment, and not for the reasons I normally couldn’t be forced out of a bed. Just her warmth and smile were enough to keep me there forever.
“When it first happened, I thought the consequences were somehow … punishment or something.” She licked her lips. “Now they don’t feel like a punishment.”
I grinned. “Are you saying I’m a reward?”
She scowled. “You always have to take it to a weird place.”
“I do,” I agreed. “I’m being serious when I say this, though.” I leaned in so our mouths were mere inches apart. “You’re my reward, too, Ruby. That’s exactly how I see things.”
She sighed as she kissed me, her body melting into mine. I held her tight, content for the first time in … well … forever. Then something occurred to me. “You remember the orgasms finally, don’t you? That’s why you’re looking back on that night with such fondness.”
“Oh, geez,” she muttered, causing me to grin. “You just couldn’t let it go, could you?”
“I really couldn’t,” I agreed. “Just tell me you remember the orgasms.”
“Rex, I always remembered the orgasms.”
“I knew it!” I wanted to pump my fist in victory, but somehow I refrained. “There was no way you couldn’t remember those orgasms. They were too good. Ha!”
“You need to let it go, Rex.” She didn’t sound as amused now.
That didn’t stop me from being me. “Ha,” I repeated.
“Oh, geez.” She flopped to her back and threw an arm over her head. “Did you at least finish the crib.”
“Of course I did. Our child will be sleeping in style. Now I require breakfast to make up for my manual labor and the detrimental way in which you dismissed my orgasms.”
“I cannot believe you went there.”
“Well, believe it, babycakes. My orgasms are gifts from the gods.”
“I never know when to shut my mouth.”
We had that in common, and I was glad for it.