He grins and pretends to reach for my arm again, but he’s just using it as an excuse to draw me closer to him, to kiss his way down my neck. “How’re you feeling, Mama?” He touches my belly. “How’s my little girl doing?”
“Our son,” I say dryly, continuing our lighthearted argument on gender that’s gone on for the last nine months, “is protesting the confines of my uterus. I’m ready to push this baby out and put us both out of our misery.” I grin, rub the spot the baby’s just kicked. “What about our other son? How much of the water stayed in the tub?”
Laughter rumbling in his chest. “I see you’ve missed the state of my clothes.”
“I most certainly did not…oh,” I finish. I’d been so busy watching him walk toward me and appreciating the way his body looked when he moved, I had missed the state of his clothes.
As in they’re soaking wet.
And plastered to his body.
Yum.
“Oh?” he asks archly.
“Yes.” I’m suddenly not hungry for cookies. “Oh.”
“Hmm.” He dips his head and kisses me, hot and sleek and long.
He tastes of cinnamon and raisins, oatmeal and Leo. His arms wrap tightly around me, the wetness of his clothes sinking into mine, but I don’t mind.
Because his body is hot and strong and mine.
And because when he holds me, it feels like coming home.
At least until he snatches the cookies from my hand.
“Hey!” I say, tearing my lips away from his. “Those are?—”
I feel a pop and gasp.
“Harp?” he asks as we both look down at my wet pajamas. “Is that from me?”
“No,” I whisper, my eyes going wide.
He cups my cheeks, tilts my head up. “Fuck, I love you.”
“I love—” Pain ripples through my belly.
“I’ll call Lainey,” he says when the contraction fades and he’s helping me upstairs so we can both change our clothes. “She and Sawyer are on standby.”
I nod.
Then have to pause and breathe through another contraction.
His hand settles on my back, rubbing slowly.
“They’ll be here in five,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you loaded in the car.”
We make our way downstairs, and luckily, Lainey and Sawyer really are on standby. They walk into the garage with a sleepy Ollie holding tight to Sawyer’s hand.
Lainey spreads a towel out on the passenger’s seat and helps me buckle in.
She hugs me. “You’ve got this, Mama.”
“Thanks for staying with Reed.”
“Are you kidding?” she says. “Ollie is excited to have a sleepover at Leo’s house.”
