Not when I’ve only just learned how to stand again.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Mara
“Sometimes I wonder if I should prepare snacks for these late nights,” I say, sipping my tea and trying not to look like a woman hanging on by three frayed nerves and a hope.
Alec is opening the next box with absurd gentleness—as if it contains a newborn, not vinyl.He uses the tips of his fingers, careful not to scratch the sleeves, his focus narrowing in like it’s sacred work.I swear he’d be less cautious with an actual baby.
Not that I should be imagining him with a baby.
And yet—I do.
That strong frame—all shoulders and quiet intensity—cradling something impossibly small in those broad hands.A baby tucked against his chest, one of those soft blankets draped over his arm, his voice low as he murmurs nonsense just to keep the quiet.A laugh—rare, unguarded—slipping from his mouth as he rocks a tiny newborn without even realizing he’s doing it.
It hits me low.Too low.
Because it’s not just sweet.
It’s sexy.Ovary-exploding, ruin-me-with-your-dad-energy sexy.
Put that baby in me now.Seriously.Right now.
The contrast gets to me—the raw masculinity in his frame paired with the unexpected tenderness in the way he handles anything delicate.It makes me press my thighs together, just a little, just enough to ground the thought before it spins out into places I shouldn’t go.
But a baby—and making it—would involve his hands on my hips, his mouth on mine, slow kisses that turn heated and messy, breath tangled between us.It would be his body moving over mine, inside mine, his voice low and wrecked in my ear as he tells me to take it.To open for him.To let him fill me up deep, so deep and hard.
Stop,I order myself before I start growling with need.
But where did that come from?
Oh, I know exactly where.
From Mila—my darling, brilliant, unfiltered child—who earlier announced that her new friend Tonya has a baby sister and she would like one too.
She said it so casually, like she was requesting a snack.A very loud snack.One that cries at ungodly hours and ruins your boobs and your sleep and your spine.And then—because fate clearly has a twisted sense of humor—she added:
“Maybe you should talk to Alec about it.I think he’d be a great father.”
For a second, I genuinely considered saying,What the actual fuck, Mila?
But then my parenting reflex kicked in—some long-buried rule from a dusty manual about not swearing at your child, even when they casually hand you a mental breakdown before breakfast.
So I smiled.
Smiled like she hadn’t just lobbed a nuclear-level fantasy straight into my brain and strutted off with a juice box like it was nothing.
And now that thought is stuck.Wedged deep and stubborn.Lodged somewhere between curiosity and a deep, aching want that makes it hard to stay still.
Because the thing is ...I do think he’d be a good father.
I think he’s the man who doesn’t say much but always shows up, quietly dependable in a way that sneaks up on you.He knows how to hold still when everything else falls apart, like he’s been through worse and learned how to stay steady.His touch would speak louder than any promise.
And then—because my brain truly is my worst enemy—it drags me straight into the fantasy I’ve been trying to ignore.Alec kissing me, hard and hungry, like he needs it.Like I’m the only thing that could possibly quiet whatever’s burning in him.He’s naked—all muscle and heat—pressing me into the mattress with his cock thick and hard, sliding into me in deep, slow thrusts that have nothing to do with patience and everything to do with ownership.
The stretch.The ache.The heat that builds between us until I’m unraveling under him.
I know he’d take his time.Learn every sound I make.Every shift in breath.Every desperate whisper of more.All out of reverence.Like my pussy was a secret only he was meant to discover.
