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This wasn’t going to go as planned.
And if it all went to hell and back, then he wanted this night. He wanted to hold her, he wanted to talk to her.
His hand slid along her stomach once again.
“If our child is a boy, I want to teach him to play baseball,” he told her softly.
She laughed at that. A soft, amused little sound that had a smile curling at his lips.
“If it’s a girl, you’ll be a tyrant. ”
A girl? A frown drew at his brows. A daughter, with her mother’s hair and eyes and, God help him, Mackay blood. He shuddered. “I’ll lock her up until she turns fifty. ”
“You will not. ” Her hand covered his, her fingers twining those of his other hand as it lay on her thigh.
“I promise you. Till she’s fifty. That girl will be wilder than the wind and harder to control than a green mule. ”
She looked up at him, the dim light in the room catching the sparkle in her eyes, the love, the concern, the fears that would ride her until this was finished.
“She’ll be a lady. ” The sound of her laughter was almost a giggle, because she knew better, just as he did.
“Wild as the wind,” he argued again.
“And a boy wouldn’t be?” She reached up and touched his face, and that touch, tenderness and warmth combined, was another memory he stored inside him.
“Boys are different,” he told her.
She frowned, just as he knew she would. “How do you figure?”
“Boys are born to be wild. ”
“And girls are born to tame the wind,” she said softly. “What are you doing, Natches?”
He knew what she was talking about. Why was he just holding her, just talking, just building memories?
“I’m creating my shield. ” He lowered his head and kissed her lips. “You’re my shield, Chay, you just don’t know it. Soft and sweet, born to tame the wind and to tempt my dreams. When I walk into that meeting, I want to carry this with me. ”
“Why?”
He was silent for long moments, wondering if there was
any way to make her understand.
“So I won’t kill him,” he finally admitted. “Because this memory and all the others will be wrapped around me, and I’ll remember what you’re fighting for and how important keeping him alive really is. You’re the only thing standing between him and death, Chay. Just this, and knowing he’s more important to your fight than he is to mine. ”
“Then I’ll be your shield,” she whispered, turning, facing him, embracing him. “Always, Natches, I’ll be your shield. ”
TWENTY
He didn’t make love to her that night. He waited until the sun rose and carried her to the bed. There, he stripped her slowly, gently, and gazed at the woman splayed out before him.
Sweetly rounded breasts, her nipples hard and red. Her stomach was smooth, only slightly rounded. There was no sign yet that his child rested there, but he knew it did.
Sweetly curved thighs, and between them, silky bare flesh.
The hours he had spent holding her, kissing her, stroking her, had stoked the fires inside them to a burning simmer. Something Natches had never known before. It was the first time in his life he had ever spent time just holding a woman, just stroking her, just laying velvet kisses wherever he could reach.
He’d been hard for hours. He could have fucked her ten times over in the time he had taken just loving her on that couch. But he wouldn’t have traded it for anything he’d known in the past. Each touch, each kiss, each little laugh, sigh, and whispered love word had bound them closer together.
