“It’s safe now. You can open your eyes.”
Noah turned around. His gaze swept over my body, hidden by the mounds of bubbles. He didn’t say anything—he just bent over and turned off the water.
“How’s the temperature?”
“Just right.”
“Great. I’m going back downstairs to finish putting away the groceries and make us some soup for dinner.” He hesitated and then held up one finger. “Hold on a minute.”
A few seconds later, he returned and set my phone on the bench next to the tub. “When you’re ready to get out, or if you need anything, hit the button. It’s the speed dial to my phone.”
“I will.”
“Okay. Enjoy your bath.”
I lay under the bubbles, letting the warm water soak away the aches of the flu, and I thought about Noah’s gentle touch, his endless patience with me . . . and how he made me feel every time I looked at him.
And much later that night, when I lay alone in my wide, empty bed, knowing that Noah was sleeping just across the hall in the antique four-poster, on sheets I’d told him where to find, I tried to remind myself that this was all good. I was doing this for my child, for the baby whose fluttering movements I was just beginning to feel. I was going to get through this without giving in to the constant desire to touch Noah, to kiss him, to beg him to hold me.
But if I dreamed about doing those things, it was no one’s business but my own.
Chapter 9
Noah
Honesty was important to me. It always had been. I’d been careful to remind Alison that the two of us needed to be transparent with each other if this unorthodox living situation ever had a chance of working. I’d been strict with myself about being truthful with her, no matter what.
But I was still lying to myself.
I lied to myself every time Alison smiled and I wanted to kiss her breathless. I told myself that it was just because she was a woman I’d had sex with and I was a horny bastard. And every time she leaned a certain way and her shirt pulled over those full, luscious tits, my dick went hard, and I told myself it was perfectly normal to react this way. Just a visual stimulus. Nothing more.
I lied to myself a lot.
I’d sold myself and Alison on the idea of us living together as friendly parents-to-be, and I hadn’t been wrong. It was important. I knew that every morning when Alison came downstairs and offered me a grateful smile for the decaf coffee and breakfast I had on the table for her. I knew it when she came home exhausted from her practice and sat down across from me to dig into whatever dinner I had on the table.
I knew it when the baby’s movements became pronounced enough for me to feel, and she held my hand, pressing her palm to the backs of my fingers and guiding them to where our child was kicking.
That feeling, though, man. Knowing that a tiny person who was part Alison and part me was inside her, growing a little more day by day . . . and that we’d done this together, Alison and me—it was an incredible turn-on, and that was something I hadn’t expected. When she shared small, intimate details of her pregnancy with me—the way the skin on her stomach itched as it stretched, or that her breasts hurt if she slept without a bra—it made me want to hold her close and stroke her body, to learn all the ways that she was changing.
It seemed to me that Alison too was craving my touch. She was more likely to sit close to me on the sofa when we watched television at night. Sometimes, she’d skim her hand over my back as she passed by me. It never felt overtly sexual—it was friendly more than anything else—but I found myself wishing for more with every passing day.
That was the problem, I decided. I wanted more of everything with Alison, and that couldn’t happen. I’d promised her that we’d keep things light and easy, and I had a strong feeling that sex wouldn’t be included in her definition of easy.
I felt like I was in a bizarre state of limbo: everything I’d always wanted was so close, but if I dared to reach out and touch, I could lose it all.
Still, we were both adjusting to this new normal. Alison’s recovery from the flu had been uneventful, and she’d gone back to work a little over a week after her discharge from the hospital. At my insistence, she curtailed her hours for the first few days back, but as her energy returned, she insisted that she was anxious to be back to her regular routine.
The day we hit the one-month mark of our arrangement, I got up a little earlier and made a special breakfast. I was pretty sure Alison was going to green-light me staying here for the rest of her pregnancy, but just in case I was totally misreading the situation, I needed to hedge my bets. And since she’d move into the second trimester, food had become a huge motivator, I’d discovered.
So I popped a tray of her favorite almond croissants from the specialty store into the oven. I squeezed orange juice from the basket of fruit that Anna and Jimmy had sent over after she’d been in the hospital. I brewed her favorite coffee, and I even set the table with a pretty bouquet of flowers that I’d picked up the day before.
“Wow. Look at this.” Alison’s eyes were wide as she wandered into the kitchen. “What’s the occasion?”
I pulled out her chair for her and unfolded a linen napkin, draping it over her lap. “Today is our one-month anniversary, darlin’. I thought it deserved some recognition.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “The trial period ends today. We have to decide whether we’re going to re-up for the full term of commitment.”
“Exactly.” I nudged the plate of warm croissants closer to her. “Help yourself. And in case you wondered, the OJ is freshly squeezed by these capable hands.” I wiggled my fingers.
