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As we drive, my mind drifts to the shadows still lingering at the edges of our happiness. There’s been no trace of Russo or Luca, no whisper of their whereabouts or their plans. It worries me and I know it bothers Nico too, even if he doesn’t say it. I can see it in the tightness around his eyes sometimes, the way his jaw clenches when he thinks I’m not looking.
But we can’t live in fear of what might be. We can only cherish what we have now. And as Nico parks the car outside our condo building, as he helps me waddle laughingly to the elevator and then through our front door, I feel that truth settle deep into my bones.
This is what matters. These small, perfect moments. The laughter, the love, the teasing arguments over what to have for dinner.
“Thai,” I insist as I kick off my Crocs, rubbing the small of my back with a groan. “I’m craving Pad See Ew like you wouldn’t believe.”
Nico wrinkles his nose, as he reaches out to take over the massaging of my aching muscles. “You know I can’t stand Thai food,” he grumbles. “All that lemongrass and ginger. It’s just wrong.”
I shoot him a glare over my shoulder. “Your pregnant fiancée wants Thai,” I say pointedly. “And what the pregnant fiancée wants, the pregnant fiancée gets.”
He heaves a put-upon sigh, but I can see the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Fine,” he relents. “Thai it is. But I’m getting spring rolls, and you can’t steal any of them this time.”
I grin, victorious, and lean back to press a smacking kiss to his cheek. “Deal.”
Dinner is a lively affair, full of laughter and good-natured bickering. We chat about my day at the hospital, about the new restaurant account Nico’s working on. We speculate about whether the baby is a boy or a girl, tossing around increasingly ridiculous name suggestions until we’re both red-faced and wheezing with mirth.
It’s easy and achingly domestic in a way I never knew I craved until I had it. As we clean up and settle in for the night, and I slip into bed beside the man I love, I feel a rush of pure, bone-deep contentment.
Nico’s chest is a solid wall of warmth against my back. His arm drapes over my hip, his hand splaying possessively over the swell of my belly. He strokes gently, his calloused fingertips tracing intricate patterns over the taut, stretched skin.
“I love you,” he murmurs, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, sending delicious shivers racing down my spine. “So damn much.”
I hum, a soft, contented sound, and turn my head to catch his lips with mine. The kiss is sweet, almost chaste, a gentle press of mouths that feels like coming home. “I love you too,” I whisper against his lips. “More than anything.”
But then his tongue flicks out, tracing the seam of my lips, and the kiss suddenly turns heated and hungry.
His hand slides up from my belly to cup my breast, his thumb swiping over the sensitive peak, coaxing it to aching hardness. I moan into his mouth, my back arching, pressing myself more firmly into his touch.
He groans in response, a low, guttural sound that I feel all the way to my core. His hips flex against my backside, the hard, insistent press of his arousal nestling into the crease of my thighs.
“Nico,” I breathe, my voice hitching on a gasp as his fingers pluck and tease at my nipple. “Please.”
He takes his time undressing me, his hands skimming over every inch of skin as it’s revealed, mapping the changes in my body, the new curves and swells.
He lavishes attention on my breasts, grown heavy and sensitive with pregnancy, until I’m panting and writhing against him, my fingers clenched in his hair.
When his hand finally dips between my thighs and his fingers part my slick folds and find the throbbing, aching center of me, I nearly sob with relief.
He strokes me expertly, circling and flicking and rubbing, winding me tighter and tighter until I’m balancing on the knife’s edge of pleasure, my body drawn taut as a bowstring.
“That’s it, baby,” he rasps, his voice rough with lust. “Let go for me. Let me feel you.”
And I do. I shatter in his arms, my head thrown back on a silent scream as ecstasy crashes over me in dizzying waves. He works me through it, his fingers never stopping their skillful dance, until I’m boneless and trembling, my skin sheened with sweat.
But he’s not done with me yet. He urges me onto my side, spooning up behind me, his chest pressed to my back and his hips cradling my bottom. I feel the blunt, broad head of his cock nudge against my entrance, and then with a slow, inexorable thrust, he’s inside me.
I gasp, my body instinctively clenching around the thick intrusion.
No matter how many times we do this, it always feels like the first time.
It always steals my breath and makes my heart stutter wildly against my ribs.
He starts to move with shallow strokes that tease and torment and make me ache for more.
His hand splays over my belly, holding me steady as he rocks into me, his lips tracing the column of my throat, the curve of my shoulder.
“You feel so good,” he groans, his voice strained with the effort of holding back, of keeping his movements controlled. “So perfect. Like you were made for me.”
