"I’m happy forus,” I corrected her. “I’m not making any choices that don’t work for all of us, sweetheart.”
“But . . .” She swallowed and blinked, telling me that she was battling emotion. “We’re not—you don’t have to get my permission to take a job. We’re not married. We’re not even—”
“Alison.” Still holding her chin with my two fingers, I skimmed the pad of my thumb alongside her jaw. “You can lie to yourself. You can lie to me. But we both know that we’re not just two people who are having a baby together. We’re not living parallel lives, going in roughly the same direction but never touching. We’re more than that.”
Her eyes held mine. “What are we, then?”
The corners of my mouth tipped up slightly. “I don’t have a word for it yet. Maybe we don’t need words to define us. But if I had to say something, I’d guess I’d call us . . . beginning. With eyes wide open, lots of hope, and a trust that we’re both committed to doing what’s best for each other and for our child.”
And then, because I was so close to her, and because I'd been dying to do it for months, and because at this moment, it felt like the best idea in the world, I kissed her.
I felt her shock, the jolt of surprise when my lips covered hers. And then, mere seconds later, I felt her enthusiastic response as she moaned and tilted her head.
She was softness and heat and utter perfection, and all I wanted to do for the rest of my days was to kiss her. When I traced the seam of her lips with my tongue, she opened for me, welcoming me inside, meeting every thrust and parlay with her own.
It was as if my body remembered hers, remembered her taste and the way she moved. Kissing Alison was like coming back to a place I’d loved, finding my home again after centuries of wandering, lost in the wilderness. It was right, and it was everything I’d ever need.
I wanted to mold my hands to her breasts, to press myself against her and feel our child moving between us. But that would keep for another time. Right now, kissing her was enough.
When I broke the connection to breathe, taking the opportunity to rain small kisses along her jaw and down her neck, she murmured my name.
“Noah.” Her fingers feathered through my hair. “Noah, what are we doing?”
I raised my head just enough to look into her eyes. “What we should have been doing all along.”
“But . . . but . . . I’m not sure we should.” Her breath stuttered. “Those boundaries—remember?”
“Fuck the boundaries.” I said it tenderly, not even a note of harshness in my tone. “We need this, Alison. I need it. I need you.”
When she startled a little, I framed her cheek with my hand. “Nothing more than this. But I need to kiss you. I need you to know—how much I care. How much you matter.”
She gazed up into my eyes, her expression one of cautious wonder.
“I care for you, too, Noah.” She guided my lips back to hers. “You matter, too. I need you. All the time, Noah. I need you.”
It wasn’t everything I wanted to say, and it wasn’t everything I wanted to hear, but for this moment, it was enough.
Chapter 14
Alison
“Read me that last part again?”
Noah and I were sitting in the nursery, surrounded by boxes, gift bags, and about a million pieces of a pine crib.
He had spent the last two weeks focusing on the nursery. He’d painted the room a lovely pale yellow color, insisting that I stay with Emma and Deacon at the cabin for the two nights after he’d completed the first and second coats so that I didn't have to inhale the paint fumes. Together, we had selected the crib and the dressing table. Noah's mother had sent us the cradle that all of her children had slept in, and that was already set up in my bedroom.
Now, with my due date less than ten days away, we were finally tackling the project of building all of the furniture that hadn’t come pre-assembled. I squinted at the paper in my hand, trying to decipher the words.
"I'm pretty sure that this was translated directly from Swedish by someone who didn't speak English," I commented. “It doesn't seem to make sense."
"Does it say at what point we’re supposed to hook the platform into the end pieces?" Noah asked. "I feel like I might have to do it before we put the side pieces on."
"I'm not really sure." I turned the paper at an angle trying to understand the picture in front of me. “None of this makes sense to me.”
With a groan, Noah got to his feet, rubbing his sore knee absently. He'd recovered enough range of motion that his physical therapy appointments had been cut down to twice a month. But he was still determined to put in the work to reach his full potential, no matter what that might be. He walked across the gleaming hardwood floor, skirting the rug that coordinated with the paint we’d chosen. Standing behind me where I sat in the rocker that he’d bought for me last month, he peered over my shoulder at the directions. His face was so close to mine that I could breathe in his scent, and it made my heart beat just a little faster.
These past few weeks, ever since the day Noah had returned home from his meeting with his coach and kissed me senseless downstairs in the living room, I'd slowly, slowly found myself relaxing more around him. I was getting used to his casual, incidental touches. I didn’t tense or spend hours deconstructing what he said or did.
