The corner of my mouth lifts. She sees it. Her eyes soften.
"There it is," she murmurs. "That almost-smile. I've been collecting those, you know."
"Collecting them."
"Mm-hm. I have a whole catalog. The almost-smile when I bring you coffee. The almost-smile when Yevgeny says something stupid at dinner. The almost-smile when you feel thebaby move." She reaches up and traces my lower lip with her fingertip. "One day I'm going to get a full one out of you and I'll probably pass out from the shock."
"You've gotten a full one."
"Once. On the bedroom floor. It was so alarming I almost called Artem."
I catch her hand. Press my lips against her fingertips. Her breath hitches.
"I smile plenty," I say against her skin.
"You don't. But that's okay. I know what you look like when you're happy. You don't need to smile for me to see it."
She says things like that. Casual, simple things that land in my chest and stay there. Things that would have terrified me six months ago and now feel as necessary as breathing.
"What do I look like when I'm happy?" I ask.
She studies me. Those brown eyes, warm and knowing, moving over my face the way they've been moving over me since the altar. Reading me. Seeing me.
"Like this," she says. "Exactly like this."
She pulls me down and kisses me.
It starts soft. Her mouth warm and unhurried, her hand on the back of my neck, her belly between us like a reminder of everything we've built. But it doesn't stay soft. It never stays soft with us anymore. The heat is always there, banked and waiting, and it takes about three seconds for her to make that sound in the back of her throat, the one that tells me soft is over.
"Anton." My name, breathy and low. "I need you."
"Here?"
"I don't care where. Bathroom. Bedroom. Hallway. I literally don't care."
I pull back. Look at her. Flushed cheeks, dark eyes, chest rising fast under my shirt. She's gripping my arm with one hand and the bathroom counter with the other, and the need on her face is open and unashamed and it hits me like a fist to the gut.
"Bedroom," I say. "I want room."
I walk her backward out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. My hands steady on her waist because she's seven months pregnant and the floor is hardwood and I will die before I let her stumble.
She sits on the edge of the bed. Looks up at me. Starts unbuttoning the shirt.
"Let me," I say.
She drops her hands. Watches me as I kneel in front of her, the same way I knelt the night she told me about the baby. My fingers work the buttons one at a time, slow, parting the fabric as I go. Her skin appears inch by inch. The swell of her breasts, fuller now, the nipples dark and sensitive. The round, taut curve of her belly. The soft skin below it.
I push the shirt off her shoulders. She's wearing nothing underneath. Just her. All of her.
I press my mouth against the top of her belly. Feel the baby shift beneath my lips. Then I move lower, trailing my mouth down the curve, over the soft skin beneath, and she leans back on her hands and lets her thighs fall open.
"You're beautiful," I tell her. Not for the first time. Not for the last.
"You keep saying that."
"Because you keep not believing me."
I look up at her from between her thighs. Her hair is falling in her face. Her lips are parted. Her chest is heaving. She looks like a goddess.
