Chapter Twenty
~ Jackson ~
I stood on the porch with my hand resting on my belly—a habit now, my palm following the low, round curve automatically while my eyes tracked the late afternoon light across the pasture.
The warmth of the day was fading, but still caught in the spaces between my clothes and skin. I’d gotten too big for the rail to lean on, which meant standing with my weight evenly distributed, one hip cocked slightly.
Not the most comfortable position after five and a half months of growing this kid inside me, but what the hell else was I supposed to do while waiting for a man who’d been gone for a month?
The sound came first—the familiar crunch of tires on gravel, the engine rumble that didn’t match any of the ranch trucks. I straightened as best I could with ten extra pounds out front, one hand sliding from my stomach to brace against the porch post.
Cruz’s black F-150 rounded the bend and slowed, then rolled to a stop in front of the house. The engine cut, leaving a silence I hadn’t noticed was there before.
I watched him climb out, his movements deliberate as always. He straightened and looked up at the porch, and I saw it hit him—the moment his eyes fixed on the curve of my stomach, visible even under the loose flannel shirt I’d thrown on that morning.
Cruz went completely still at the bottom of the steps, one hand still on the truck’s door handle, the other hanging at his side. His face—Christ, his face did something I’d only seen once or twice in all the months I’d known him. Every guard came down. Every wall dropped. Whatever had been keeping himprofessional and distant and away for a month evaporated in the two seconds it took for him to get from confusion to recognition.
“Jesus,” he said, his voice rougher than it had been on the phone calls. “You look amazing.”
He took the porch steps in two long strides and was in front of me before I could say anything. His arms came around me—careful of my stomach, but not treating it like something that might shatter—and then his mouth was on mine.
It wasn’t a hello kiss. It was the kind of kiss that made up for a month of distance all at once, his tongue sweeping into my mouth like he was memorizing the shape of it, one hand cradling the back of my neck while the other slid around to press against the small of my back.
I kissed him back, hard, one hand fisting in his shirt to keep him close. By the time he pulled back, my breathing was ragged.
Cruz’s hands were already moving, sliding over my stomach through the flannel, tracing the full curve of it with a deliberation that made something in my chest tighten.
“You’re bigger,” he said, not a question.
I snorted. “Yeah, well, five and half months of a baby inside you’ll do that.”
His hands paused for a second, then continued their slow exploration. “I know it’s probably too late in the pregnancy,” he said, his voice low and rough around the edges. “But I want you so fucking bad I can’t think straight. I should be asking if you’re okay, how the appointments went, if—“
“Blow job,” I said, the words coming out before my brain had time to edit. “I wouldn’t say no to a blow job.”
Cruz’s mouth curved into that half-smile that still managed to make my stomach drop. “Yeah?”
I shrugged, aiming for casual and missing by a mile. “I’ve had one hand to work with for a month. Not exactly the same.”
His hand slid up from my stomach to the side of my face, thumb brushing over my lower lip. “Come inside,” he said.
He took my hand—not pulling, just holding—and led me through the front door. The farmhouse smelled the same as it had when he left: cedar from the woodwork, coffee from that morning’s pot, and underneath it all, the faintest trace of the beeswax candles I’d been burning when I couldn’t sleep.
The hardwood floors gleamed in the afternoon light, the furniture exactly where it had been for the past three months.
Nothing had changed except me.
Cruz steered me toward the living room instead of the bedroom, his hand warm against the small of my back. The deliberateness of that choice registered—the couch was easier for my center of gravity, the living room a dozen steps closer than the bedroom. A practical consideration for a body that had its own geometry now.
“I’m not gonna break,” I told him, even as I let him guide me to the couch.
“I know,” he said. “But I’m not taking chances either.”
He reached for the hem of my shirt and lifted it with careful hands, waiting for me to raise my arms before pulling it over my head. His fingers worked the ties of my pants next, then easing them down my hips and letting them drop to the floor. He went to his knees to help me step out of them, one hand braced against my calf for balance.
Within a minute, I was sitting on the couch cushions in nothing but my socks and the silver bracelet from Cruz that caught the afternoon light coming through the window. I’d put it on that morning, another habit I’d developed without meaning to.
Cruz knelt in front of me and looked up, his eyes dark and steady. “Okay?”
