Chapter 5
“You feel like a burger?” Brock asked after the forty-minute ultrasound appointment that had left them both blissfully speechless and with a sleeve of black and white pictures with labels like “foot” and “hand” and “face.” Even though in reality they looked like no more than blurry blobs that could just as easily have been a giraffe or platypus fetus.
Eyes glued to the pictures, Krista nodded. “Sure, whatever.”
No more than a grunt. He held open the truck door for her, and she climbed in, her heart swelling and her mind spinning as she just continued to stare at the pictures.
“You tell work yet?” Brock asked, pulling out of the ultrasound clinic parking lot. “Should be switching to light duty. Desk shit.”
Slowly, she peeled her eyes away from her child. “No.”
“Tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Yes. Your job isn’t a safe one, and it’s not responsible for you to be continuing on with your regular cop duties. And it’s not responsible of me to let you.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Let me?”
He nodded with another grunt.
“I’ll let work know when I’m good and ready. I haven’t even been a rookie six months. Light duty would set me back.”
My job is everything to me.
She had to prove to her family, to everyone back home that she wasn’t the screwup they thought she was.
“Plus,” she continued, “I’m fine. I’m not showing yet, and it’s not like I’m a New York beat cop chasing down bad guys on a daily basis or engaging in shootouts. Some days it’s nothing more than highway patrol.”
He snorted, and she couldn’t stop herself from snorting too. Her shitty highway patrol shift and her reaction to it had been what landed them in their current predicament. Oh yeah, highway patrol shifts were the bomb diggity.
“And we both know how much you love highway patrol,” he jeered.
She glanced out the window. “Yes, quite.”
“You need to tell work,” he insisted again, taking a left into the restaurant parking lot.
She grumbled at him, swiveling in her seat to show him her best irritated glare. “Just give me some time, okay?”
He seemed neither convinced by her plea nor fazed by her temper. Instead, he fixed her with a look of his own, one far more deadly than the one Krista had been attempting. “You have one week.” Then he shut off the engine, opened his door, hopped out and ended the conversation.
“You need to move in with me,” Brock said before biting into his bison burger a short while later.
Since he’d ordered her to disclose her pregnancy at work, they hadn’t said a word to each other while sitting in the restaurant waiting for their lunch.
It’d been awkward as hell, but Krista wasn’t about to break the silence when the man was clearly comfortable with it and she was pissed off at him.
He simply sat there in his seat, looking larger than life and attracting stares and ogles from all the little snappily dressed waitresses.
“So you’ve said,” Krista retorted dryly. “You’re definitely not shy with your opinions.” She hadn’t wanted anything besides french fries, so she’d asked for a double order of poutine and was currently in cheesy, gravy, potato heaven. “And I believe I’ve declined the offer. I’m happy where I live.”
He shook his head and used his big hand to grab the napkin off the table and wipe his mouth. “My opinions aren’t wrong. And now that we’ve seen the baby … ” he trailed off.
She lifted one shoulder dismissively. “How does that change anything?”
“It just does,” he snapped. “It’s real. It’s in there. My kid. And I want to be part of every moment. Before he’s here and after. Plus, I saw your fridge. It’s fucking empty. My kid needs food. And not just french fries.”
“It’s my kid, too,” she said, a lot of her fight dissolving. “And I told you I’m going shopping.”
Goddamn it. This he-man alpha protector thing was turning her on.
“We’re going shopping.”
“God, you’re a pushy asshole,” she said, taking a sip of her water.
“Yep. But responsible. And I’m responsible for that little monkey in your belly. So you’ll move in with me so I can take care of both of you properly.”
She exhaled. “I can take care of both of us just fine.”
“And leave me out of it?”
“No. I said you’re welcome to be a part of the baby’s life as much as you like.”
“And I’d like it to be 24-7. Plus, you really shouldn’t be changing the cat litter, and I’m not coming over to do it every day.” He chugged his iced tea in two swallows. “And we get a fair bit of snow out where we are. Road is narrow and windy out toward your place too. My place is safer.”
Jesus, the man was relentless. But despite being an alpha jackass, the more he spoke, the harder a time she was having not agreeing with him—about some things.
The first trimester so far had been really hard.
Harder than she expected. And even though she usually just wanted french fries, some nights she was craving home-cooked food like a stir-fry or her mum’s meatloaf.
Only she didn’t have the groceries or energy to make it and instead just ate more fries or roasted red pepper soup.
Eyeing his sexiness over the rim of her water glass, she took another sip.
She’d been denying it all day, but being around Brock, having him take care of her, touch her hand, the small of her back, it’d been nice.
Albeit also frustrating because he was a pushy fucker, but it’d been nice.
And he certainly wasn’t hard to look at.
Or smell. Would moving in with him mean they could have sex again?
Would she ever have sex again? She’d been as randy as a bitch in heat these past few weeks—when she wasn’t nauseous that is—and her poor vibrator was on its third set of batteries since the test had been confirmed positive.
Chewing on an ice cube and blearily remembering his head bobbing up and down between her legs, she gave him her best negotiator face.
“Okay, let’s just say, for hypothetical purposes, that I do move in with you. I’m going to need to know a heck of a lot more about the man I’m moving in with than I do now.”
He visibly stiffened, and even though she couldn’t see it, an invisible wall came crashing down around him.
He grunted. “Okay.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
He nodded. “Three younger brothers.”
“And your parents?”
His jaw twitched. “Dad died when I was twelve. Mum lives across town.”
Her heart clenched inside her chest. Mickey had mentioned Brock’s dad was gone. Didn’t mention when he’d died though. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
He grunted and lifted one shoulder.
“Did you mother ever remarry?”
He shook his head.
She let out an exasperated huff. It was like pulling teeth to get the man to open up. “Look, if you want me to consider moving in with you, you’re going to have to give me more. I’d prefer to get my information from the source. But I’ll do a background check on you at work if I have to.”
The man looked like he was going to vomit, but he shut his eyes for a moment before starting. “My mother never remarried, so when my dad died, I took on the role as father-figure to my brothers. All four of us have done a stint in the Naval Reserves. Like our dad. Dad became a cop, though, after.”
“Are any of your brothers cops?”
He shook his head again. “No. We were recruited by Joint Task Force 2, and then ran special ops.”
Krista’s eyes went wide. Was he still doing that now?
He must have read her expression. “I retired.”
She sat there in quiet contemplation for a moment. Sure, he was a bossy ass, but he didn’t seem like a bad guy. She put away bad guys. And she wasn’t getting that kind of a vibe from Brock. Pushy? Yes. Alpha? Yes. Bad? No. He was definitely one of the good guys.
She lifted her eyes to his from where she’d been staring at her plate. “So, if I move in with you, then what?”
“Then I take care of you and our baby. I’m responsible for that child.”
“Are you always responsible?”
He didn’t even blink. “Yes.”
Did the man know how to have fun? Or had he abandoned all whimsy the day his father died, becoming the man of the house?
She studied him for a moment, all sexy and broody. Those walls of his were up, but from the way the left side of his jaw ticked, she wondered if there was perhaps a hairline crack in his fortress. Was he worried she was going to say no?
He said he wanted to take care of her and their baby. She really didn’t want to do this alone. She could and she would if she had to, but she didn’t want to.
She dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, suddenly wishing it wasn’t so damn hot in the restaurant. “All right, let’s just say I move in with you. We’re going to need to set up some ground rules first.”
Rule #1: We get to have sex again.
Rule #2: We get to have lots of sex.
Rule #3: Sex! Sex! Sex!
But instead, she took a deep breath and started, “Rule number one, you are not the boss of me. This alpha male, bravado thing needs to stop. I’m nobody’s pet.”
He didn’t say anything. The man didn’t say much. Instead, he was all devastatingly sexy smiles as he chewed his burger triumphantly. And boy did that smile make her not only want to move in with him, but also jump his bones, wear his ring and give him as many kids as he wanted.
Yeah, Krista was fucked.
Krista didn’t know what to expect when she moved into Brock’s place.
Would they share a room? A bed? Meals? Condiments?
She’d had roommates before, but they’d always been other women, and she wasn’t sexually attracted to any of them or expecting a child with them either.
This situation was an entirely new kettle of fish, and by the awkward way they danced around each other in the kitchen the first few days, it was just as new for Brock.
But in the end, it wasn’t as weird as she anticipated. After the ultrasound appointment and lunch, they’d gone grocery shopping. Then he’d followed her home and pretty much insisted she start packing right then and there.