37. Charlotte Gallagher
Charlotte Gallagher
The cottage feels different this week. Or maybe it’s just me.
I keep busy with things that don’t need doing—straightening things that are already straight, folding the same tiny stack of newborn clothes over and over.
Sometimes I just stand in the doorway of the nursery and look at it. Not for any particular reason. Just taking it in.
Christina calls it nesting. She says it like it’s obvious, like she’s seen it enough times to recognize it straight away.
Four times, to be exact, so I didn’t argue.
The baby, on the other hand, is in no hurry. He sits low and heavy, completely unbothered, like the outside world hasn’t made a strong enough case for him to join it yet.
Christina says he’ll come any day now.
I’ve stopped saying what I actually think: that this baby is his father’s son and will arrive exactly when he feels like it—not a second earlier.
Dane has his own version of nesting.
This morning he fixed the back door latch. Then he checked everything we already have set aside for the birth—towels, water, supplies, where everything goes. After that, he went to the shops and came back with enough groceries to feed us for weeks.
I’ve spent the last few days watching him move through the house like this.
Checking. Preparing. Fixing things that don’t really need fixing.
And all I can think is that this is how Dane loves.
With his hands. With preparation. With the quiet certainty that if something can be done ahead of time, he’ll do it.
Just in case.
He’s in the kitchen now, cleaning up after dinner.
I’m in bed, staring at the ceiling.
And thinking about those gray sweatpants.
They should be illegal. The way they sit on his hips. The way I can see the outline of his cock. The way the fabric pulls when he reaches for something.
That’s my professional opinion at thirty-eight weeks pregnant.
I watched him load the dishwasher for far longer than necessary before he told me to go lie down.
I did. Because I’m trying to be sensible.
Sensible lasted about four minutes.
I need him.
“Dane?” I call out. “Can you bring me something to drink?”
“Just a minute, babe.”
He appears in the bedroom doorway a moment later, a glass in hand. “Water?”
“Yes, please.”
He crosses the room and hands it to me. I take a sip, set it on the nightstand, and reach for him—fingers catching his shirt, pulling him down just enough to press my mouth to his jaw.
“Thank you for the water.”
I kiss the corner of his mouth.
“Thank you for dinner.”
Another kiss, this time lingering.
“And for cleaning up.”
He smiles against my mouth. “You’re welcome, babe.”
I tug him closer, and the kiss deepens.
He makes a quiet sound against my mouth, one hand coming down to the mattress as he leans into me.
And there it is—that familiar pull.
The warmth. The closeness. The steady, undeniable awareness of him that never seems to fade, no matter how much time passes.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, that expression settling in.
The one where he’s trying—unsuccessfully—to be reasonable.
“You told me to put my feet up. I was thinking I could put them over your shoulders instead.”
Something shifts in his expression. “You were thinking that, huh?”
“I can’t help it. Pregnancy hormones.” I tilt my head. “And we still haven’t made up for being apart.”
“Charlotte—”
“That’s a lot of nights, Dane.”
He holds my gaze for a moment, and I see the exact second he gives in. “You’re in charge. Tell me what you want.”
“That’s a dangerous offer right now.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I want everything.”
A beat.
“Then you’ll have it.”
He starts with my shirt, lifting it over my head and setting it aside. Then he pauses, just looking at me, and something in his expression shifts.
Dane’s hands settle on my stomach, spreading wide.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing you like this.”
His hands move slowly over the curve of my stomach, up to my waist and my ribs, and the warmth of his touch pulls a breath from me.
“Seeing our son growing inside you does something to me.”
He leans in, his mouth brushing the side of my neck. His hands slide to my back, unhooking my bra with that same easy familiarity that still gets to me.
The bra falls away. He leans back again, looking at me with that same focused attention, and heat follows it—simple, immediate, impossible to ignore.
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Careful. I’m starting to think you have a pregnancy fetish.”
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I might.”
He straightens and pulls his shirt over his head in one smooth motion.
I watch him.
The broad line of his shoulders. The familiar planes of his chest. The way those gray sweatpants sit low on his hips.
Fourteen years on an island. Six months apart. Everything we've survived together.
You'd think sharing that much hardship with someone would make them less attractive. If anything, it's had the opposite effect.
He's still ridiculously sexy.
He finishes undressing and comes back to me, his hands finding me again.
His fingers hook into the waistband of my bottoms and ease them down slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. He lets them fall somewhere behind him without looking.
Then his hands move back up my body.
“I love how you feel,” he says against my collarbone.
His hand settles over the fullness of my breast. “Here.”
Then lower, over the curve of my stomach. “And here.”
He bends and presses a kiss there.
“Dane.”
He looks up at me. “I’m going to take care of you.”
Something in my chest tightens. “I know.”
He always does.
He moves down the bed, his mouth trailing kisses over the tight skin of my abdomen, then lower. My head falls back against the pillow, a soft sound slipping out of me.
We might’ve been apart for six months, but his mouth hasn’t forgotten a thing.
He doesn’t rush it. He never does. There’s intent in the way he takes his time—slow at first, his tongue dragging a long, deliberate path through my slit that makes my breath catch.
“Ohh.”
He does it again. Same slow stroke, then something more precise and sharper—sending heat straight up my spine.
My fingers find his hair, holding on. He settles in, focused, no distraction, no urgency—just his mouth moving against me in steady, deliberate patterns, building exactly what he knows how to build.
“Dane.” Barely a whisper.
He hums, and the vibration pulls a reaction straight out of me. His hands slide under my thighs, adjusting my position, angling me exactly where he wants. Then he settles into a rhythm, and the warmth starts to build—slow at first, then stronger, more insistent.
“Tongue-fuck me.”
He does, sliding his stiffened tongue in and out of my slit with a steady rhythm that makes my breathing turn ragged, each breath coming a little quicker than the last.
My fingers tighten in his hair, my heel pressing into his back. He reads it, all of it, and gives me more—subtle shifts and deeper pressure—until the sound that leaves me isn’t controlled anymore.
“Ohh—”
It builds, climbing fast, right there—
“Dane—”
I grip the pillow above my head and let it take me. When it breaks, it rolls through me in a long, heavy wave, pulling something between a gasp and a moan from my throat. I feel his breath against me as he keeps going, his tongue moving in and out, not letting me come down.
“Ohh—oh God—Dane—”
My thighs tighten around his shoulders, my back arching as much as my body will allow. My fingers twist in his hair, holding him there while I shudder through it.
He doesn’t rush me out of it. He drags it out—every last pulse—until I’m trembling, oversensitive, barely holding together.
“Mmh… mmh.”
When it finally eases, I pull him up by his hair and kiss him, tasting myself on his mouth.
He comes up beside me, and I turn toward him, our faces close, both of us still catching our breath. He watches me for a moment, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Hi.”
He brushes a piece of hair back from my face. “Hi.”
“I can’t lie on my back for long. He presses on everything like that.”
He kisses me once, soft. “Turn over.”
I shift onto my side, and he moves in behind me, his body warm against my back. His arm wraps around me, his hand settling over the curve of my belly.
I can feel his cock behind me, and when I press back, his breath catches near my ear.
The sound sends a small smile across my face.
“Tell me if anything’s uncomfortable.”
“Do I have to keep reminding you I’m not fragile?”
“Charlotte.”
“I mean it.” I reach back, find his hip, and pull him closer. “I’m not going to break. I want to be fucked.”
He eases into me slowly, a low, rough sound leaving him against the back of my neck.
“You’re okay?”
“Yes.” I press back against him. “Fuck me. Now.”
He does with long, steady strokes. His body moves with mine, his arm firm around me, his hand spread wide over my stomach.
There’s something about this—being wrapped up in him in a way we fit together so naturally—that catches somewhere deep in my chest.
He moves, and I feel all of it—the slow pull as he draws back and the fullness as he presses in again, deep and unhurried. The rhythm he sets is steady and controlled. No rush. No urgency.
His hips roll into me in long, measured strokes.
“Mmm—”
He shifts slightly, finding that angle that makes my toes curl.
“Oh, that feels good.”
“Charlotte,” he breathes against my neck. “I’m close.”
“Come inside me.”
His arm tightens around me, his rhythm deepening. I move with him, his mouth finding my shoulder. I feel everything—his skin against mine, the baby shifting, the heat building low and then sharp.
The wave hits again—deeper this time, fuller—and he follows with a low groan against my hair that I feel through my whole body.
We go still after, his breath warm at my neck.
His hand moves in slow circles over my belly, and the baby answers with a small, deliberate push that makes him laugh.
“He knows you.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.” I cover his hand with mine. “When we were apart, I used to put you on speaker and hold it to my stomach so he could hear you.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “What’s our life going to look like after he’s here?”