Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Gage
She was pregnant.
I didn’t have any way of knowing…no confirmation. Nothing. As far as I knew, her cycle was regular. As far as I knew, she was normal.
But something about the way she looked the next morning…I could feel it.
I lay beside her and looked at her face, at the dark curls spread across the pillow, the red lips I’d been so fixated on the first time I ever saw her at that fertility clinic.
A month ago…a month, I’d been in love with this woman.
And in six months, she would agree to be my wife.
I knew it the way I knew she was pregnant.
Deep and sure. Positive.
And Christ…I needed to kiss her.
She stirred just slightly as I pressed a gentle kiss to her lips…then she kissed me back, so I kissed her harder.
She made a soft sound against my mouth, still half asleep, and I swallowed it. Kissed her slow and deep until she woke up the rest of the way, her hands finding my chest, her body turning toward me on instinct.
I pulled back and looked at her.
Sleep-warm, hair everywhere, lips already swollen. The quilt had slipped and she hadn't pulled it back up and I looked at her the way I'd been looking at her since the parking lot—like she was something I couldn't account for, couldn't have predicted, couldn't imagine having gone without.
"Morning," she said, voice rough.
"Morning."
She stretched, slow and unselfconscious, arms over her head, back arching, and I watched every inch of it.
"Gage."
"Mm."
"You're staring."
"I'm looking," I said. "Different thing."
She smiled, eyes still half-closed. "It's early."
"It is."
"You're usually up before five."
"Usually." I reached out and pushed her hair back from her face. Ran my thumb along her jaw. "Not today."
She opened her eyes fully at that. Looked at me.
Something in her face went soft and certain all at once, and she reached up and covered my hand on her jaw.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I said.
I kissed her again, slower this time, no urgency in it, just her mouth and the morning light coming pale through the curtains and the whole ranch quiet outside.
She made a small sound and pressed closer and I felt it everywhere—that pull, that specific gravity she had, the thing that had kept me in that parking lot when I should have driven home.
I moved down her throat. The curve of her shoulder. She tipped her head back to give me room and I took it, my mouth on her collarbone, the swell of her breast, and she exhaled my name.
"I've got you," I said, against her skin. "Just lie still."
"You said that last night."
"Still true."
She laughed, breathless, and then my mouth closed over her nipple and she stopped laughing.
I took my time. That was the thing I had learned about her in a month—she needed time.
Not because she was slow to want it, she was never slow to want it, but because she'd spent years being the one who managed everything, ran everything, held everything together, and she didn't know how to receive something without trying to participate.
Every time I slowed down she relaxed into it a little more.
Every time I told her to stay still she let go of a little more of that control she held so tight.
I rolled one nipple between my fingers and felt her arch up into my hands.
"These," I said, low. Against her skin. "You know what I think about."
"What?" she breathed.
"When you're pregnant." I pressed my mouth to her nipple, soft. "How full you're going to be." I felt her shiver. "Heavy." My thumb moved slow. "Sensitive."
"Gage—"
"You're already sensitive." I closed my mouth around her and sucked gently and she pulled my hair and I let her.
"Going to be so much more." I moved to the other side, gave it the same slow attention.
"Going to be so full of milk for our baby.
" My hands cupped her, lifted slightly, feeling the weight of her. "And I'm gonna take care of that too."
She made a sound I felt in my spine.
"You can't just—" she started.
"What?" I said, against her.
"Say things like that—"
"Why not?" I looked up at her. Her face was flushed dark and her chest was heaving and her hands were still fisted in my hair.
"It's true. I've been thinking about it.
" I pressed my mouth to the curve of her breast, the soft warm weight of it.
"Thinking about you round and full and heavy with it and walking around this house and knowing I did that.
" My thumbs traced slow over her nipples and she shuddered.
"Thinking about putting my mouth on you then too. Taking care of you."
"Oh god," she breathed.
"You like that."
It wasn't a question. I could feel that she liked it—the hitch in her breathing, the way her hips had started moving against nothing.
"Yes," she admitted.
"Good." I pressed one more kiss to her sternum, deliberate and unhurried. "Hold that thought."
I kissed down her stomach. Felt her breath catch. Her hands came to my hair and I let her keep them there—she needed something to hold.
"Gage," she said.
"I know," I said.
"You don't even know what I was going to—"
"I know," I said again, and put my mouth on her.
She arched clean off the bed.
I pressed one forearm across her hips and held her down.
Took my time here too—slow at first, learning the shape of the morning, the way she was different from last night, softer and more open.
She was still sensitive from the bench and I felt it in every small sound she made, every involuntary pull of her hips against my arm.
"Too much?" I said.
"Don't you dare stop," she breathed.
I didn't stop.
She tasted like last night and like herself and I worked her slow and thorough, my hands spread wide on her hips, thumbs tracing the soft skin of her inner thighs.
She said my name three times in a row and then stopped making words entirely, just sounds, honest and unguarded, the sounds she made when she'd stopped thinking about anything except this.
Those were my favorite.
I brought her close and held her there, right at the edge, until she was shaking.
Proceeding with explicit romance novel scene, Gage's POV.
I brought her close and held her there, right at the edge, until she was shaking.
"Please," she said. Barely audible. "Gage, please—"
I pulled back just enough to speak. "Please what?"
"You know what—"
"Say it."
She made a desperate sound. "Let me come. Please let me come."
"Not yet."
"Gage—"
"Not yet." I pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. Felt her tremble. "I've got something to do first."
She lifted her head and looked down at me, breathing hard, completely wrecked. "What—"
I reached up carefully and removed the cap.
Her breath caught on a sharp inhale.
"There," I said quietly. "Kept it in all night." I pressed my mouth to her, soft, just once. "Did exactly what it was supposed to do." Another kiss, unhurried. "Now I'm going to fill you up again."
"Oh god," she breathed.
"But first." I put my mouth back on her properly.
She dropped her head back.
I worked her with everything I had—slow, then faster, then slow again when she got close, reading every sound, every pull of her hands in my hair, every involuntary roll of her hips against my forearm.
She was so responsive in the morning, softer and more open than any other time, all that careful control she carried through the day not yet assembled. Just her, unguarded, completely mine.
"Gage." Broken. "I need—I can't—"
"You can," I said. "You're going to."
"Please—"
I slid two fingers inside her and felt her clench around them immediately, desperate and fluttering, and curled them forward and she cried out.
"Feel empty?" I said.
"Yes—"
"I know." I worked my fingers slow, watching her fall apart. "I'm going to fix that."
"Now," she said. "Now, please, right now—"
"Come first," I said. "Then I'll fill you back up."
She came on my fingers with my mouth on her clit, loud and shaking, her thighs clamped around my head and her hands pulling my hair hard enough to sting and I stayed through every second of it, drew it out as long as I could, until she was oversensitive and squirming and trying weakly to pull me up by the hair.
"Up," she managed. "Get up here, I need—"
I kissed her hip. Her stomach. The curve of her waist. Took my time moving up her body while she made increasingly desperate sounds about it.
"Gage." Ragged. "I swear to god—"
"Swear to god what?" I pressed my mouth to her breast, felt her arch.
"I will—" she stopped. "I don't know, something terrible—"
I laughed against her skin and she laughed too, breathless and frustrated, and then I was over her and the laugh dissolved when she felt where I was.
She looked up at me.
Morning light on her face, hair wrecked, lips swollen, eyes dark and soft and certain.
I pushed in slow.
All the way. Her eyes went glassy and her mouth fell open and I held there, deep, watching her feel it.
"Full," I said.
"So full," she breathed.
"Good." I pressed my forehead to hers. "That's where I'm staying. Every morning. Every night." I pulled back slow and drove forward and she gasped. "This is mine. You understand that? Every morning I wake up next to you, this is what happens."
"Yes," she said. "Yes, Gage, yes—"
"You're going to be pregnant." I rolled my hips and she arched up to meet me.
"Probably already are." My hand slid between us, found her still swollen and sensitive, and she jerked.
"And I'm going to keep doing this anyway.
Pregnant, married, whenever you'll let me.
" I worked her slow, felt her climbing again already, her body impossibly responsive.
"Going to fill you up every morning and watch you get round with it and do it all over again. "
"Again?" she gasped.
"As many times as you'll let me," I said.
She looked up at me with something so open in her face it nearly stopped me entirely.
"Okay," she said. Small and certain. "Okay, yes, as many times as you want—"