"I was terrified."
"Didn't show," I said. "You were good even then."
She looked at me in the dark for a moment. Her hand came up and touched my jaw, her thumb dragging across the stubble there, and I let her look.
"I've wanted to do that for years," she said. "Just—look at you. Without having to pretend I wasn't."
"Look all you want," I said.
She smiled. Small and private, just for me.
Her hand slid from my jaw to my chest, fingers spreading flat. Feeling my heartbeat, I realized. Just resting there.
I moved my hand slow up her side, over the curve of her waist, and she shifted closer on instinct, the way she always did—always moving toward me, always had, and I'd spent so long pretending not to notice.
"Wyatt," she said.
"Mm."
“Make love to me,” she asked.
And I didn’t plan on fucking her, no.
But I could make love to her.
I lowered my lips to hers to kiss her slow and deep…Haven underneath me, her hands in my hair, the particular quiet of a house that wasours.She pulled me closer by the back of my neck and I went, easy, settling my weight over her like I’d learned she liked. She made a small sound and arched up into me and I felt it everywhere. Everywhere in my body, that was expected—but now I was letting it hit me deep in my chest, where my heart had been so shut off for so fucking long.
I hooked my fingers in the hem of her shirt and peeled it up slow, and she lifted her arms and let me.
The moon was bright outside, enough light bleeding through the window that I could see her. I sat back and looked—really looked, the way I hadn't let myself before. The curve of her waist. The soft skin of her belly, no sign yet of what was growing there. Her breasts, fuller already, nipples darker and more sensitivethan they'd been two months ago—I'd noticed, filed it away, hadn't let myself think about why.
I thought about it now.
I spread my hand flat on her stomach and thought about what the next months would do. How she'd change. How this body that was already perfect was going to do something extraordinary—rounding out, growing heavy, making room. Her hips were already built for it, wide and soft, and the thought hit me somewhere animal and deep.
Mine,some part of me said.All of it. Mine.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked quietly.
"You." I traced my thumb along the curve of her hip. "What you're gonna look like in a few months."
Her breath caught. "Yeah?"
"Your belly gettin' round." I leaned down and pressed my lips to her stomach, felt her fingers slide into my hair. "These—" I trailed my lips up to her breast, took one nipple in my mouth, gentle, and she arched, oversensitive already. "Already changing. Already knowing."
"Wyatt—"
"And these hips." I gripped them, both hands, thumbs pressing in. "Christ, Haven. You were made for this." I looked up at her. "Made for having my babies."
She made a sound that wasn't quite words.
"That okay?" I said. Low.
"Yes," she breathed. "God, yes. Don't stop talking."
I kissed her stomach again. Then her ribs. Then the underside of her breast, and she pulled my hair and I let her.
"Thought about it," I admitted against her skin. "Before I let myself admit anything else. Thought about you pregnant and couldn't—I had to stop thinkin’ about it."
