…it felt like my whole life had been leading to this.
Like Bryce was just a detour on the way here.
“I’m close,” Nash mumbled, voice rough. His eyes flickered open, meeting mine. “You still want that baby?”
I nodded. “Please. Come inside me. Nash?—”
He did, his hips thrusting deep; I ground down on him, meeting him, trying to get him as deep inside me as possible.
It was stupid, what we were doing. It wasn’t responsible. My mother would have asked me what was wrong with me, using my full name like she always did, telling me I was too emotional, too stubborn?—
But Nash didn’t think that.
He liked how emotional I was.
I made his kid feel safe, and I was so, so proud of that.
I collapsed against his chest with his cock still inside me, his hands coming up to draw little spirals along my spine. I listened to his heartbeat, one ear pressed to his sternum as my breath got back to normal.
I didn’t want him to pull out. Just wanted him to stay there inside me…stay until it took.
I lifted my head. “Still don’t think I’m crazy?” I asked.
He shook his head, smiling up at me. “I think you’re perfect. And I think I’m very lucky.”
I grinned and finally pulled off of him, lying beside him with my leg hooked over his hips. Nash kept tracing his fingers over my skin, touching my thigh now, his other arm holding me close.
“You always wanted to be a mom?” he asked.
I nodded against his chest. It struck me all of a sudden…he knew virtually nothing about me.
I hummed, then: “I kind of always have been. My little brother—he’s five years younger than me and I started babysitting when I was eight. My parents…divorced, mom was never interested in being there, dad was even less. So I was Lucas’s parent more than they were.”
Nash kissed the top of my head.
“Sounds rough.”
“I guess,” I said. “I know people who’ve been through worse, so I can’t complain. But it made me want a family and I always just…I thought the order was to date, then live together, then get married, then have babies. I thought I’d do it how other people thought was right. Turns out this was right.”
Nash was quiet for a moment, his fingers still moving on my skin.
“Lucas know about you moving here?” he asked.
“He was the only one I really talked to about it,” I said. “He thought I should go. Said Bryce had been making me small for years and I couldn’t see it because I was too busy trying to make it work.” I paused. “He’s eighteen, so he thinks he knows everything.”
“Does he?”
“About this? Yeah, probably.”
Nash made a low sound that might have been a laugh.
“What about you?” I asked. “You always know you wanted to be a dad?”
He was quiet long enough that I lifted my head to look at him.
“Nell wasn’t planned,” he said. “You know that.”
“I know.”
