Chapter 16 #2
It’s the shake in his voice that gives me some indication. Some clue as to what he wants. Because I’ve never ever, in all the time that I’ve known him, seen him this unsure, this shaken and taken aback.
But I’m afraid to hope.
I’m afraid.
“No, I don’t. I can’t… it’s too early. But I want it to be.” Before I can stop myself, I ask, with stupid hope in my voice, “Do you have a problem with that?”
He slowly shakes his head. “No.”
I exhale a breath. “You don’t?”
“No.” He licks his lips as he keeps staring at me. “I’d like a girl.”
My eyes circle wide. “You w-would?”
“Yeah, a tiny ballerina in a pink tutu with blonde pigtails. I’d like that.”
He’d like that.
He said that, right?
He said, he’d like that. He’d like a girl with blonde pigtails and a pink tutu and Jesus Christ, I think I can breathe. Relief bursts through my veins and my body sags. “Well, she could… she could have dark hair.”
Like you.
Like her…
Like her daddy’s.
I think he hears my unspoken words because his lethal, animal eyes melt. “No, she’s going to have blonde hair.”
Like you. Like her mommy’s.
He doesn’t say it either but I hear it. He’s not done talking though and these next words he says fiercely. “And she’s not a mistake. It doesn’t matter how she… she came into existence. But she’s not a fucking mistake.”
His words, intense and spoken with so much heat, shock me. They leave me speechless for a few seconds and all I can do is blink at him.
But then I notice something.
On the island, where he’s still standing bent over.
A book, and as I stare at it, my words burst forth. “You’re reading a book.”
He straightens up abruptly. “And?”
I ignore his defensive tone. “I’ve never seen you read a book before. Not even in school. But…” I’m still staring at it when it occurs to me. “It’s a pregnancy book.” I snap my eyes to him. “You’re reading a pregnancy book.”
His cheekbones are flushed and he rubs the back of his neck, frowning. “It’s not exactly noteworthy.”
He even picks up the book from the counter and puts it in the drawer, as if he’s embarrassed at being caught. And I can’t… I can’t help but think it is.
It is noteworthy and it is crazy and gosh, adorable that he’s so embarrassed. And so unlike him.
And I can’t help but ask, “You’ve been preparing, haven’t you? You’ve been reading up. For the past week. Like me.”
He stares at me a few moments, his jaw tight before he replies, “Yes.”
Yes.
He has. He’s been preparing like me.
Even though I’d been running from him, even though I hadn’t told him myself, he was getting himself ready. He was reading up on things like me.
“What if I had told you…” I pause to calm down my racing breaths. “What if I’d said that I didn’t… I didn’t want her.”
His eyes pierce into mine. “Then I’d have…” Now he pauses and I know that it is for the same reason as me, to calm down his heaving chest. “I’d have taken care of it. If that’s what you wanted.”
I know he would have.
I can see it on his face. In the determined look of his eyes. I also know that he wouldn’t have liked it; that’s also apparent on his face, but he would’ve let me make the decision.
Up until this point, up until he said it, I hadn’t known that it was important to me.
This freedom of choice.
As important as it is that he wants her too. He really wants her. He doesn’t think she’s a mistake, and suddenly, everything sinks in.
Everything settles in my bones, the relief, that I feel dizzy.
I feel it so much that I stumble.
But he doesn’t let me fall.
Like last night, he’s there to catch me. He’s there to put his hands on my waist to steady me. Not only that, he also picks me up and puts me down on the island.
“Are you okay? Are you… are you going to be sick?” he asks, his warm hands holding me tightly, keeping me grounded.
Without really thinking about it, I move closer to the warmth. I latch onto it with my fingers, grabbing onto his forearm and trying to breathe.
And I get a whiff of that scent again.
That scent which calms down my stomach, and I whisper, “What is that?”
“What?”
“T-that scent. It…” I swallow and dig my nails in his forearms. “It makes me…”
“Makes you what?” he asks, a thick frown between his brows. “What the fuck is going on, Fae? You want me to —”
I steal his words by fisting his t-shirt and pulling him close. I bury my nose in his chest and breathe him in, moaning, “Oh God.”
He cradles the back of my head, his chest swelling and contracting against my burrowed-in face. “What —”
I cut him off again, this time with words though. “What is that scent?”
His fingers flex on my waist. “What scent?”
I look up at him. “That scent. Coming from you. Your t-shirt. It makes me feel better. I know it’s not your regular scent.”
“What’s my regular scent?”
I nuzzle my nose in his hard, heated chest first before replying, “Wildflowers and woods.”
He’s offended, his chest vibrating with his words. “I smell like flowers.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Bullshit.”
I can’t believe I want to laugh when my body is rebelling against me, even though his scent and his heat have helped a little, but I do. I also want to tease him a little bit more so biting my lip, I tell him, “You do. It’s like super sweet and —”
“Yeah, let’s not talk about it.”
“What, boys can smell like flowers.”
“Your brothers tell you that?”
“They can also twirl, Reed,” I tell him primly.
He squeezes me slightly, his eyes liquid. “Thanks for all the information, Fae.”
“You’re welcome.” I nod, my lips trembling with an oncoming smile. “Oh, and it’s okay for them to taste like cupcakes. Like you do.”
I let my lips go then and grin. I chuckle even. But it only lasts a second, a microsecond actually.
When I realize what I just said.
I realize that I mentioned his taste and now it has come alive in my mouth. On my tongue.
It’s crazy because I’ve only ever tasted him twice. How is it that I remember it so well? How is it that even now I want it, I want to feel it, eat it, inhale it like I’m inhaling his scent.
But that’s not even the thing to worry about here. The fact that I’ve said something that I shouldn’t have and now I can’t get his phantom taste out of my mouth or I can’t stop looking at his slightly parted ruby red lips.
The thing to worry about is that he’s heard me.
And he’s gone still.
Like a stone. A rock. A towering mountain with hard heated muscles and a battered gladiator face.
“I didn’t…” I trail off because I was going to lie.
I was going to say that I didn’t mean it, but I did. I did mean it because he does taste like cupcakes, sweet and toxic for my dancer’s body.
Before I can say something else however, his jaw moves, still bruised and stubbled from last night, and his fingers clutch at me tightly for a second before they let go.
Before he moves away.
And in that process, I realize how close he was to me.
How my legs were spread so shamelessly, like they were on that night, and how my dress had inched up to the tops of my thighs. And how, how, it feels when his coarse jeans rub against my smooth skin.
How it takes my breath away.
When he’s standing at a distance, I snap my thighs closed and lower my dress, a blush burning my cheeks.
This is not the time to think about that. It’s never going to happen again.
I don’t want it to happen again.
Reed’s wolf eyes flash before he says, “It’s my fabric softener.”
“What?”
“The scent. I’ll stock up on it.”
“Oh.” I grab the edge of the island and press my thighs together, feeling cold and bereft without his heat. “Thanks.”
“What else?”
My heart thunders then.
Not that it stopped, really. It has been thundering ever since I found myself in this strange yet cozy house. Ever since I told him, and ever since he told me that he wants her.
But this is something else.
This is even more savage, this thundering.
It comes from his question. What it means and the look in his eyes when he asked it.
It’s the same look that he has when he watches me dance. The intensity, the eagerness, the way his big body goes taut as a string.
He wants to know. Things about me.
He wants to know what I’ve been going through these past days. Doesn’t he?
“Uh, I just get dizzy sometimes,” I say hesitantly and I’m proven correct when his eyes flare with curiosity. “And I throw up a lot.”
At this he frowns though. “What’s a lot?”
I tuck my wayward hair behind my ears. “Like in the mornings. And also at night.”
“Fucking morning sickness,” he mutters angrily.
I can’t believe he knows that.
I mean, morning sickness is the most common symptom of pregnancy and he has been reading books but I just… it’s surreal.
So surreal that this is happening.
That I’m pregnant. With his baby.
And he wants to be a part of this. Not only that, I’m talking to him about my morning sickness. In all my planning, I never planned this.
I never planned that I would want to tell him. That I’d be talking to him like a girl who’s pregnant by a guy she loves and so she wants to share every little detail, every little complaint, every tiny change that she’s experiencing.
And I definitely never ever planned that he’d want to know, that he’d get upset over these changes and look so helpless standing there with his fists clenched and his angry frown.
Like he’s really a guy who loves that girl back and he wants to do everything that he can to make things easier for her.
And like always when he gets upset about something, I want to put him at ease. “But it’s fine. I mean, saltines help. Also tea. Ginger tea if I can find it in the cafeteria.”
“I’ve got saltines,” he bursts out. “I don’t have ginger tea though. But I’m going —”
“It’s okay,” I cut him off, assuring him. “Just tea helps too.”
“What else?” he asks again.
I bring my hands on my lap and wring them as I share. “I hate meat now. Can’t stand it. And coffee.”
“Not fucking Peanut Butter Blossoms though.”
“No, not Peanut Butter Blossoms. Not so far at least.”
“Good.”
“And I cry a lot these days.”