My hands immediately gravitate toward it, as if I was metal and she and that baby are the strongest magnet.
But it’s not enough.
I bring my lips to her belly, kissing it gently. She tenses at my touch but relaxes instantly.Sensitive.Got it.
“Did your doctor say it was okay for you to come here for a whole month this close to your due date?” She nods.
“What about work?” I pause in confusion. My stomach knots. “What about your mom?”
I avoid looking at her eyes, afraid at what I might find. Going no contact with my parents was the choice I wanted to make—the one I needed to make— but Hailey’s relationship with her parents is nothing like mine. If she left them because she thinks this is what I need, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.
“Eyes here,” she says. “My siblings are stepping up to help with my mom, and she’s stable. She has therapy and stuff, but she can be away from me for a while.” She smiles reassuringly.
“I took the PTO I’ve been accruing for years. I guess when you feel guilty about taking time off, you don’t realize how much you actually work until you go to use your PTO and the head nurse is surprised.” She flashes me an alluring smile. “It was time for me to do something for me for once.” She yawns again. She’s trying to mask her exhaustion, but I know better.
I can’t stop touching her bump. It’s smooth and perfectly round. She must be exhausted, though, and as much as I don’t want to let her go, she needs to relax.
“Let me run you a bath and you can relax. I have some friends coming over later, but I can cancel.” I’m not letting her or our baby out of my sight, but she shakes her head.
“You have friends, Asher Hunter?” she sasses, completely derailing my thoughts.
I let out a harsh breath. “Very funny. Come on. Bath. Rest. Now.”
I help her up and guide her to the bathroom, where I massage her back as the tub fills. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect temperature for my perfect girl.
She’s so stunning. Even with small bags under her eyes, she’s glowing while growing the life inside her. The urge to keep her captive and take care of them invades all my senses. The bathroom light showcases every inch of her, and I want to touch and kiss and explore her body the way it looks now. I want to see all the things that have changed while she’s been growing our baby, all the things that have stayed the same. I want to know this body as I know mine.
I trace her back with my hand, brushing her hair away just like I did that first night we met. I pepper kisses all the way up to her neck, my hands rounding her bump as my breathing speeds up. Damn, I love her always, but like this? Wow. It’s like my brain forgot words and my world has no meaning beyond her, him, and us.
She shivers and squeezes my thigh. “Mmm. No. We’re not doing anything. I need you to relax; you just traveled for so many hours.” I kiss her neck again. “I’m taking care of you.”
She moans when I massage her shoulders. “But you can jump in the water with me and make me feel good, no?”
“Behave,” I grunt.
“I thought you were a water boy.” Her breathy sounds bounce off the walls in the small bathroom.
“Prove it to me,” she whispers, dragging her hands down her breasts, and over her belly.
Goddammit, I’m supposed to be doing the noble thing here, but I guess giving her an orgasm while she soaks in the wateris technically taking care of her. I strip and carefully sit us both into the tub. I slide her in as she rests against me. I massage her shoulders, and she groans, my dick moving to attention.
“Someone’s happy to see me,” she whispers, sinking deeper, bringing her delicate hands to squeeze my thighs. “I love these.”
“My legs?” I continue massaging, squeezing, touching, kissing, just like I wish I did for the past seven months I haven’t been near her.
She lets out a sound between a groan and a moan. “Your thighs.” I smile against her hair and continue massaging down her arms. My fingers find her hips, and when I dig in my fingertips, the pleasure it gives her is palpable. It’s audible too.
Soft moans and whispered yeses.
Groans and moans.
A pleading.
A want.
And I’m about to give it all to her.
My fingers graze the top of her thigh, crawling slowly to the spot I know she wants me to touch. And if there was any doubt, when she drops her knees to open wider for me, she erases it.
