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There was the forehead kiss, the belly touch, the lunch, the cookies, the cake. And now him making my new favorite comfort meal.
The other shoe had yet to drop.
I was dubious. I was bracing, waiting. But somehow, I still hoped. That this was it. That I wasn’t alone.
A dangerous thing to hope.
We’d finished dinner—I had thirds—and Kip had done the dishes, fighting against me when I tried to help. I was sitting at the counter with a cup of tea and cookies. He was putting away the last of the dishes.
He paused at the fridge, where I’d put up the ultrasound picture from today.
“Her hands were up at her ears,” he said, looking at the fridge like he was going to drill a hole in it. “Ultrasounds use sound waves.” He gaped up at me. “She didn’t like it.” His brows knitted together. “How many more ultrasounds do you need?”
I bristled, though his distress at our daughter’s discomfort was kind of cute. “However many the doctor thinks I need.”
He nodded, still frowning. “Yes, of course.”
That was enough for me. I sipped the last of my tea, getting up to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. I tried my best not to get too close to Kip. “This day has been… intense,” I said, stepping out of the kitchen as soon as the dishwasher closed. “I need to go to bed.”
He blinked. “Yes, of course,” he repeated like a broken record. He blinked, as if he were rebooting or something, then looked at me a little more focused than that dreamy look on his face. “You want me to bring your cake in for you?” He nodded to the cake stand, where a fudgy chocolate cake sat gloriously.
I pursed my lips, my first instinct being to refuse him on principle. As a thirtysomething-year-old woman, one who was going to be a mother in a few months, I should be able to take care of myself, cut my own damn cake.
But I didn’t want to take care of myself. Yes, being an independent woman was a great goal, a great identity to stick it to the world, the patriarchy, and the man who beat me and tried to grind me into mush.
But it was also nice to let someone take care of you. I’d always wanted that. To trust someone enough to take care of me.
Granted, Kip hadn’t given me a whole bunch of reasons to trust him these past few months, but… he was the father of my child and my husband. And he made a really fucking good alfredo.
“Yes, that sounds… nice,” I replied.
His posture relaxed somewhat, as if he’d been tensed, waiting for a fight. A good thing. Keep him on his toes, I decided.
“Me letting you bring me chocolate cake in bed is not me letting you win,” I said, pointing at him. “It merely means I need chocolate cake.”
Kip nodded soberly.
“I know you, Fiona Owens. I didn’t expect a victory so soon.”
* * *
Kip wasn’t asleep when I burst into his room at midnight.
I expected him to be.
He got up before dawn and worked manual labor all day. And that wasn’t counting all the cooking and cleaning he did around this place. Oh, and carrying around the weight of his guilt and masculine concern. Yeah, I expected that to be fucking tiring.
But he wasn’t sleeping. He was propped up in bed, watching TV. His eyes went to me the second the door opened.
I was surprised he didn’t point a gun at me or something, he was wound so tight. I was wound pretty tight too.
Which was why I was barging into his bedroom at midnight. Naked.
Kip’s expression changed from surprise to hunger in a split second.
I didn’t hesitate before crossing the distance between the door and the bed. “To be clear, this isn’t because I forgive you,” I said, crawling onto the bed and yanking the covers back.
Kip didn’t fight me on the covers, and he let me expose his muscled body in nothing but underwear.
