SEVENTEEN
Wyatt
I didn’t plan on fucking her that night.
I really didn’t.
I thought we needed a moment to breathe—to be together without the sex, without the stupid fucking arrangement, without any of the hormones and the need and the pleasure. But as we got into bed beside one another, as she curled into my chest and I tucked her head under my chin…
…I slid my hand around her stomach and found it resting there.
Knowing I couldn’t feel anything yet but just—just theknowingwas enough.
Knowing I’d put a seedling there and that it was starting to grow.
That it was going to change everything for us, forme, after too many years of forcing myself to suffer alone.
Haven’s hand covered mine and she somehow nestled closer, her shoulders against my chest, her perfect ass against my cock.
“You excited?” she asked quietly.
I knew there was a right and a wrong answer to this question. Luckily, the right answer was also the true one.
“Beyond,” I whispered into her hair.
I kissed the back of her neck and she let out a satisfied hum.
“Why wouldn’t I be excited to have a baby with the woman I love?” I added, quieter.
She went very still.
Then she turned over.
She did it slow, careful, until she was facing me in the dark, her eyes searching my face. Close enough that I could feel her breath. Close enough to see the exact moment she decided I meant it.
"Say it again," she said quietly.
"Which part."
"You know which part."
I looked at her. At the particular way she was holding herself—Haven trying not to want something too much, the tell she had, the slight tension in her shoulders.
I slid my hand from her stomach to her hip and pulled her closer.
"I love you," I said. "Have for a while. Didn't know what to do with it."
She let out a long, exhausted, happy exhale.
"I love you too," she said. "I've loved you since I was sixteen years old and you helped me deliver my first calf and you were so—" She stopped. "You were so patient. You never made me feel stupid for not knowing things. You just showed me."
I thought about that. A sixteen year old Haven, serious-faced, learning.
"I remember that calf," I said.
"She was breech."
"You kept your head."
