I brought her hand to my lips. “I’m not telling anyone anything. It’s either the two of us together or not at all. And if you want to wait, we’ll wait.”
“Say we do it. How?”
“Here’s what I’m thinking. I’ll ask my brothers to come to the Stonehouse before lunch tomorrow. We’ll make the announcement together—you and me. Then the guys will leave, and you can have lunch with the women.”
“All of them at once?”
“Rip the bandage off.”
“Okay. Might as well.”
Yeah, I hated how defeated she sounded when, until we left Whitmore, having the baby was something we were both so excited about, but I wouldn’t push.
We got out of the car, and I grabbed our bags from the trunk. As she stood, looking out at the view of the night sky from the floor-to-ceiling windows that were one of my favorite things about this house, I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist. “This is where we made this little one,” I said against her ear.
When she stiffened, I knew what she was thinking. The last time we’d been here, I said horrible things to her. I wished so much I could go back in time and relive that morning.
“Kick—” she started.
I turned her in my arms and kissed her before she could finish. Her eyes searched my face.
“Let’s make new memories,” I said. “Starting tonight.”
She smiled then. It was slow and warm, and the tension melted from her shoulders. “New memories.”
I led her to the fireplace and knelt to start a fire while she settled onto the thick rug in front of it. The kindling caught quickly, flames licking at the logs, casting dancing shadows across the room.
When I turned to face her, she’d removed her sweater. Underneath, she wore a simple cotton tank top that clung to the new fullness of her breasts.
“Come here,” she said.
I went.
We took our time. No urgency, no desperation—just slow, deliberate exploration. I mapped her body with my hands and my mouth, relearning everycurve and hollow, paying attention to the ways the pregnancy had changed her even in the last couple of days. She was more sensitive now, gasping at touches that used to make her sigh, arching into my hands with an eagerness that made my heart pound.
“Isabel, I…I…God, the way I feel about you…” I kissed her throat, her collarbone, and the space between her breasts, wishing so much I could utter what I really wanted to say. That I loved her.
She pushed at my shirt and jeans, stripping me bare.
“Show me,” she whispered.
So I did.
The fire crackled beside us as I sank into her, as her legs wrapped around me and her fingers dug into my back. We moved together in the flickering light, finding a rhythm that built slowly, steadily, until she shattered around me with a cry that echoed off the high ceilings.
I followed her over the edge moments later, burying my face in her neck, her name on my lips.
After, we lay together on the rug, a blanket covering us, watching the fire burn down to embers.
“New memories,” she murmured, her fingers tracing slow circles on my chest.
“The first of many.”
She tilted her head to look at me, her eyes soft in the dying firelight. “Kick?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“I’m scared.”
