“That you’re eating for two?”
“No. That you’d remember I was pregnant.” He’d remember, and he wouldn’t want me.
He rolled to his side. “You thought it’d turn me off?”
“Yes.” The word came out a rasp. “I know it’s only temporary, but I thought you’d come to your senses.”
“Clover, you’ve knocked them all out, but aside from that, no. I’ve had my eyes wide open this whole time about who you are and my relation to that kid in your belly. I’m the guy helping you get back on your feet after my brother pushed you down, and you’re the girl helping me reclaim the career my ex dismantled. Now roll over.”
“You really mean it? We’re having sex again?” I hadn’t had a marathon day of doing it since, well, ever. I might be sore tomorrow.
“Roll to your back.” He crowded me with his big body until I was sprawled on my side of the bed. Tingles spread from my belly to my sex, but then he put his face inches from my lower abdomen and stopped there.
“Hey, Bean,” he crooned.
Shock rippled through me, but I didn’t move. The view was too cute, too sweet, and it didn’t matter there was no light.
“I’m your uncle Van. You can call me Sullivan, though I suppose that’ll be harder for a kid to say.”
I smiled, but I didn’t want to interrupt him. These were the moments I thought I’d never get. The small things I was prepared to mourn. I had no husband, no fiancé, no boyfriend to share in all things baby. But Bean had an uncle Van.
He had come to the first doctor’s appointment. He’d been there for the bulk of my morning sickness. Now he was here for the smallest of moments—talking to my belly.
My heart clenched, and my throat grew thick. I could do this alone, but geez, if I was getting this choked up over this? I had more work to be the independent, lady-boss role model for Bean.
Yet I wouldn’t interrupt him. I was weak enough to need this too.
“Just don’t call me Sully,” he continued, a breath gusting over my skin, making this all the more intimate. “You’re not going to have a choice. You’re going to learn how to play Pokémon.” He shared a grin with me. “You’re also going to learn rockhounding. I bet you’ll have a good eye, like your mom. I bet you’re going to be smart, too, like her.”
“I think Bean will get some of his uncle’s intelligence. His fortitude.” I swirled my fingers through his hair. “Bean might even start his own geological consulting company.”
Van’s shadowy smile was lopsided. “As long as Bean doesn’t let some girl or guy wreck it all.”
My heart dipped. No, I would not be that girl for Van. “Bean’s going to have some good people to look up to.”
“Yeah.” His lips were a whisper away from my skin. He kissed my belly, a touch as light as a snowflake. “We’ll set the example. Mama and Uncle Van. I’ll be the example I almost never got.”
“You’re going to be around that long?” I was only asking to keep up the playful conversation. Not at all because I wondered if he would be around this time next year. Or in five years. Ten. Where would our lives be then? “You could be a tech millionaire and buy a house in Aspen, and I’ll be a girl who plays with rocks.”
A rumble came from him that sounded like a growl. “Don’t diminish what you do.”
“It is what I do.”
“Tell me your job again.”
“You know what it is. I’ve told you.”
He flipped over, and cool air gusted over me before he nestled by my chest. I hadn’t put my pajamas on yet. We hadn’t made it any further after our last round of sex than this. He drew a nipple between his lips, and a shiver racked my body.
He let it go with a pop. “Tell me.”
As if he wasn’t making my brain a slurry, he blew across the damp tip. Goose bumps erupted over my skin, and a bolt of electricity shot through my bloodstream. “That’s mean.”
He sucked my nipple back into his mouth, licked across, then let it go and blew over it.
“Is this supposed to be torture?” I arched my back off the mattress, like I was trying to stuff the peak back into his mouth.
He pushed up to reach the other side. “What do you do for a living?”
