"Mm."
"You're staring."
"I'm looking," I said. "Different thing."
She smiled, eyes still half-closed. "It's early."
"It is."
"You're usually up before five."
"Usually." I reached out and pushed her hair back from her face. Ran my thumb along her jaw. "Not today."
She opened her eyes fully at that. Looked at me.
Something in her face went soft and certain all at once, and she reached up and covered my hand on her jaw.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I said.
I kissed her again, slower this time, no urgency in it, just her mouth and the morning light coming pale through the curtains and the whole ranch quiet outside. She made a small sound and pressed closer and I felt it everywhere—that pull, that specific gravity she had, the thing that had kept me in that parking lot when I should have driven home.
I moved down her throat. The curve of her shoulder. She tipped her head back to give me room and I took it, my mouth on her collarbone, the swell of her breast, and she exhaled my name.
"I've got you," I said, against her skin. "Just lie still."
"You said that last night."
"Still true."
She laughed, breathless, and then my mouth closed over her nipple and she stopped laughing.
I took my time. That was the thing I had learned about her in a month—she needed time. Not because she was slow to want it, she was never slow to want it, but because she'd spent years being the one who managed everything, ran everything, held everything together, and she didn't know how to receive something without trying to participate. Every time I slowed down she relaxed into it a little more. Every time I told her to stay still she let go of a little more of that control she held so tight.
I rolled one nipple between my fingers and felt her arch up into my hands.
"These," I said, low. Against her skin. "You know what I think about."
"What?" she breathed.
"When you're pregnant." I pressed my mouth to her nipple, soft. "How full you're going to be." I felt her shiver. "Heavy." My thumb moved slow. "Sensitive."
"Gage—"
"You're already sensitive." I closed my mouth around her and sucked gently and she pulled my hair and I let her. "Going to be so much more." I moved to the other side, gave it the same slow attention. "Going to be so full of milk for our baby." My hands cupped her, lifted slightly, feeling the weight of her. "And I'm gonna take care of that too."
She made a sound I felt in my spine.
"You can't just—" she started.
"What?" I said, against her.
"Say things like that?—"
"Why not?" I looked up at her. Her face was flushed dark and her chest was heaving and her hands were still fisted in my hair. "It's true. I've been thinking about it." I pressed my mouth to the curve of her breast, the soft warm weight of it. "Thinking about you round and full and heavy with it and walking around this house and knowing I did that." My thumbs traced slow over her nipples and she shuddered. "Thinking about putting my mouth on you then too. Taking care of you."
"Oh god," she breathed.
