Exiting the hotel, she keeps her head tilted forward so that it’s impossible to see her expression, even as she enters my vehicle.
“Good—”
“Not a word.”
Her voice is raw, and I wonder if she’s been crying all night. It pisses me off that I haven’t been there for her. That I let her down.
With a five-hour car ride ahead of us, I decide not to piss her off, but two hours into the trip, I hear her stomach growling.
“Care for breakfast?”
“No.”
“You have to eat.”
When she says nothing, I follow up with, “For the baby?—”
“Didn’t I say not a word?” she snaps.
Refusing to let my baby go hungry, I pull into the next diner I see.
“You can’t be serious!” she huffs.
“I’m not leaving this parking lot until you eat something.”
“I can’t eat.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I’ll throw up all over your truck again.”
“Well, that just means we’ll have to get a barf bag.” I exit the vehicle and go around to the passenger side to help her out.
Ignoring my hand, she jumps down from my raised truck.
“From now on, you’re letting me help you in and out of the vehicle.”
She walks past me into the diner.
Despite her hesitation to eat, she puts down enough food to fill three grown men, which brings me relief, because there’s no way in hell I’d tolerate her eating like a bird in her condition.
Her chocolate brown bangs fall into her egg yolk. She grumbles as she wets her hair to remove the offensive food, then tucks the lock behind her ear and continues eating. Which delights me.
Surprisingly, despite her condition, I’ve never been more aroused by a woman, which is odd considering I’ve never looked twice at a pregnant woman before, let alone popped a boner for one.
But all I could think about last night in my freezing cold truck is how sexy she would be with a white tank top stretched around her belly, her nipple poking through the thin fabric.
I press my eyes closed, willing my erection to soften.
I need to stop thinking in the moment. A baby isn’t a temporary thing. It’s a commitment.
And right now, I need to prove to Penny that I’m all-in.
When she’s done eating, she pushes her plate away and pants, like she’s exhausted.
“Now that we have breakfast out of the way, we should come up with a plan.”
She spikes a brow. “A plan?”
