Chapter 11 Sean
SEAN
Bed rest. I wasn’t in the room for it, but I found out when Willow was leaving.
Declan may move in shadows, sneaking around hallways hoping for an invitation like a vampire, but I prefer a more straightforward direction.
I saw Cheyenne wheeling Willow out and just asked what the final word was.
Seeing her bristle when she said it—“bed rest”—told me she’d be climbing the walls before the week was out.
Which is exactly why I’m standing in front of her door with three bags cutting into my hands and a grin I refuse to let slip.
Cheyenne answers, arms folded, suspicion in her eyes. “You.”
“Me, howya,” I say cheerfully, pushing past before she can mount a proper protest. “And look—I brought sustenance.”
Her gaze flickers to the bags. “That’s a lot of food. How long are you planning on staying?”
I toss the bags onto the kitchen counter and start pulling everything out, looking over my shoulder at her. “I’m planning on making dinner.”
Willow’s voice drifts from the couch, thin but amused. “Chey, if he brought bread, let him stay.”
“I brought bread,” I call, kicking the door shut behind me.
Cheyenne sighs like she’s been defeated in battle. “Fine. But only because I’m hungry too.”
I wink at her. “You can have some, Cheyenne. I think you deserve some, actually, caretaking for my baby mama here.”
“Baby mama?!” Willow squeaks from the couch. “Did I just hear that right?”
“That’s right, Willow. This man that you let into your house called you his baby mama,” Cheyenne declares, shooting me daggers with her eyes as she grabs vitamin containers from the cabinets.
“Sure, look, facts are facts,” I say with a shrug.
The house smells like candle wax and ginger tea, like Cheyenne’s been oscillating between lighting candles and making tea.
Willow’s propped up with pillows, curls loose around her shoulders, blanket pulled to her waist. Sweatpants, soft T-shirt.
She looks gentle, like someone I shouldn’t want but do anyway.
I swallow, realizing that I want her even in sweatpants, that she looks just as hot to me as she did in a tight dress.
“Doctor’s orders,” I announce, setting the bags on the counter. “I feed you. You sit there and look pretty, so you will.”
Cheynne snorts. “That’s not in any chart.”
“Want me to forge one?” I ask, and Willow throws a pillow at me.
I catch it with a laugh and toss it back, then start setting my messages in front of me like I’m on a cooking show. Pasta, tomatoes, garlic, basil, mozzarella. I pull out the warm bread and bring it to her on the couch. “Here, snack on this while I cook.”
She laughs even as she accepts the baguette. “I don’t know if this qualifies as a snack.”
“You’re growing three humans, Willow. It’s a snack.”
She sniffs the end before biting off a hunk. “So, you actually meant it? You came here to cook?”
“You wound me. Of course I did.”
“You could’ve just ordered takeout.”
“Where’s the romance in that?” I grin over my shoulder. “Besides, this way I can wow you with my knife skills.”
Cheyenne mutters something about “romance my ass” and then says a little louder, “As long as you’re here, I’m going to leave for the night to see my husband. But I have eyes everywhere, let it be known.”
I wave her away, saying, “Grand. I got this, you go. Go.” She gives me a warning glare as she leaves, but it doesn’t matter. Willow’s laughter is the only thing that sticks.
I roll up my sleeves and get to work. The sauce is simple. Tomatoes, garlic, basil, and olive oil. Salt, pepper, and sugar. Let it simmer. The pasta can wait while that’s simmering.
Willow narrates from the couch like she’s hosting a parody broadcast. “That dice job’s tragic. Gordon Ramsay would cry.”
“He’d hire me on the spot,” I shoot back. “Because I’ve got flair, like.”
“Oh, and he’s so famously invested in flair.”
“Careful, or you’ll be eating plain noodles.”
She laughs again, her hand over her mouth, her body rocking, and for a moment it feels like the cruise again. Dancing together, legging it to my room, undressing each other…
Clearing my throat and trying to force the memory away, I plate the pasta with a flourish and carry hers over first. She eyes it suspiciously before asking me with a deadpan that I’ve started to expect from her, “Are you and Declan competing for Most Suffocating or something?”
I tilt my head, fork still in my hand. “Suffocating?”
“Mm-hm.” She stabs a meatball dramatically, but her fork hovers over the plate. “He told me he’s booking me into some Lamaze class when the bed rest is over, and now here you are, cooking me dinner. I just wondered if you two had a bet about who could be most up my ass.”
I bark out a laugh, shaking my head. “Comparing pasta and homemade sauce to a Lamaze class under duress doesn’t seem fair.”
Her eyes glitter, daring me. “Okay, so are you going to try and one-up him with prenatal yoga or something?”
“Nah.” I shrug, easy. “I’ll just come with you. I can be up your ass at the class.”
The bite of pasta freezes halfway to her mouth. “You’ll what?”
“Lamaze,” I say, leaning back, folding one leg under me, feigning nonchalance.
“I’ll go with you two.” I lean forward, staring into her glittering green eyes, and smile.
“I’m not losing that bet. Ah now, I’m definitely going to be the most suffocating presence in your life.
” I spear another tomato, covering the way my chest is thudding, and add, “As long as Cheyenne doesn’t come. ”
The truth is, I’d take any excuse to sit beside Willow. Even if it means panting like an idiot in a room full of strangers. Just being near her is enough for me.
She narrows her eyes, but her lips twitch like she can’t help herself, and she hides her smile by finally taking a bite. Her eyebrows shoot up and she laughs. “Okay, Sean, that’s good.”
“Aye? Deadly,” I say proudly, sitting on the floor at her feet in front of my own plate. “Say it again, slower.”
“Don’t push your luck.” She snickers, slurping a noodle into her mouth noisily. The end of it snaps against her cheek, leaving a small dot of sauce that I lean forward and wipe away. She blushes, looking away from me, and then grabs her stomach and grimaces.
“What?” I ask sharply, dropping my fork. “What is it? Describe the pain. Is it a cramping pain? Do you feel any dizziness with it?”
She giggles a little, her face softening, her wide smile giving way to another slurp of noodles. She shakes her head and grabs my hand, guiding it low against her soft belly.
At first, I don’t feel anything, and I wrinkle my nose in confusion, blinking at her. But then, there it is. A thump against my palm. Quick, certain, impossible to mistake.
My throat closes with the same certain quickness. Willow’s hand is clammy against the back of mine. When I look back up at her, she’s holding her fork still, a bite of pasta speared on it, and she’s watching me carefully, like she’s trying to figure something out. “Do you feel them?” she asks.
I nod at her and look back down at her belly, at the protruding shape of a baby’s body part—hand, leg, part of a head, I can’t be sure.
“Aye,” I murmur. I can’t joke. Not with that tiny life pressing against my hand.
Not with the realization that some part of me could be written in that heartbeat.
My chest aches. All the charm I’ve carried like armor feels thin. “There you are, a stór,” I whisper.
She studies me. “Sean?”
“Jaysus, I didn’t expect it to feel like that,” I admit, voice rough.
Her thumb rubs the back of my hand and she leans closer to me, saying, “I didn’t either.”
“It’s really three little people in there.”
“I know.” She giggles, but her eyes are serious.
My heart trips. “And they might be…half me.”
Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, I lean forward and press a quick kiss against Willow’s forehead. From the couch, she looks at me, her eyes serious but her mouth smiling, and her gaze drops to my mouth, then back to my eyes.
I move her plate of pasta to a safer location, and then I lean in. The kiss is soft at first, exploring, and it feels like walking up the steps to a home I’ve been gone from for a long time. She kisses me back just as gently, the press of her mouth more warmth than weight.
Her fingers slip into my hair, and my hands find her waist under the blanket, pulling her closer to me, my body language shifting toward her. I nibble at her bottom lip, and she gasps against my mouth, her hands clasping my hair harder.
I trail kisses along her jaw, her throat, the curve of her shoulder. She arches, blanket slipping. Her hands clutch at me, warm and insistent, and I move to my knees, leaning over the edge of the couch, kissing her harder. I stand and spread out across her, pressing my hips to hers.
Willow’s grasp becomes more insistent, and she leans up to let me pull her shirt up over her head.
I toss it on the floor and move to kiss where the edge of her bra cuts into her breasts, plumper than her normal size, spilling out over the cups.
She pets my hair, her fingers trailing down to my back, lightly scratching me.
I kiss down to her stomach and pepper the bump, my hands soft on her waist, and I whisper, “Sliabh mo chroí.”
She shivers and cups my chin to look up at her. “What did you say? Don’t go telling my babies things I don’t understand.”
“I said ‘mountain of my heart,’” I tell her. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“No.” She giggles as I continue kissing all over her stomach and down the sides of it.
“Would you rather it be ‘hill of my heart’? Cnoc mo chroí? Or summit? Mullach?”