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My heart warms as I watch him, clearly proud that he was able to find something to help me. I don’t question what the liquid is as he pours me a glass, too struck by the way he was thoughtful enough to remember how sick I’ve been feeling and bring me something.
But I shouldn’t be too stunned. Zy and I might have had our differences at first, but he has been the most generous caregiver I could ask for. Slowly as we lived together, his anger lessened and he broke through my calloused exterior. Now, we’ve established a sort of friendship. As the pregnancy has progressed, he’s been there to help me with everything without a complaint.
It’s been nearly perfect. If it wasn’t also making me fall harder for him.
“There’s another guard whose mate just gave birth to their second child.” Zy presses the cool glass in my hand, and I’m relieved that the liquid is scentless. “He told me this was the only thing that settled her.”
I eye the glass warily, nervous that this will just send my body into another bought in vomiting. I’m almost used to the nausea, but being bent over the toilet with such a large stomach is difficult to manage. I’d prefer not to induce vomiting if I didn’t have to.
Zy presses two fingers under my chin, raising my gaze to his, and my breathing stutters. When he touches me like this… It feels so intimate. Slowly, everything between us has turned from physical to something more and that’s not what I intended.
But when he says lowly, “Try it,” I can’t find it in myself to pull away.
Locked in his gaze, I lift the glass to my lips and take a small sip. Citrus bursts across my tongue, and instantly, I feel my stomach start to settle. My eyes widen as I gulp down half the glass, and Zy chuckles as he drops his hand.
“Better?” He’s still bent forward so that we’re eye to eye, and I nod. “Good.” He presses a kiss to my forehead before turning away to put away the rest of what he brought home, and my stomach flips – and not because of the nausea.
Three.
At least three times a week I wake up in his bed. I didn’t mean for it to be this way. Zy set me up in my own room just down the hall from him with its own washroom. He has quite a spacious house for someone who lives alone.
But the second night I was here, I woke up to Zy holding me against his chest. It shocked me when he was still being so cold toward me, but apparently, I’d been screaming. He claims he just wanted me to shut up so he could sleep – which led to an argument and some really great sex – but I know now that that wasn’t the case. I’d just hurt him by pushing him away and he didn’t want to let me in.
Now, if I dream of Mosar and his brutality, I always wake to Zy’s arms wrapped around my body, his scent calming my body with my face buried in his furry chest. This morning is no different.
My throat hurts and my cheeks are wet. I know that I must have been screaming and crying, and as soon as my eyes are open, I see the walls are not mine. My window isn’t on the eastern wall, nor are those the curtains of my room. They are Zy’s.
Instantly, I relax, knowing that he carried me here, and I sink into him. There’s nothing as soothing as his arms to me.
“Better?” he whispers into my hair, and I’m not surprised he’s awake. Sometimes I wonder if he ever sleeps, I see it so rarely. But I guess right now I’m sleeping enough for all three of us.
I sigh, running a hand up and down his back. The motion soothes me just as much as his fingers working their way through my hair. “Much.”
“I’ve got you, Kyra.” His voice is deep, husky, and it sparks a heat between my legs. “You don’t have to worry.”
I tip my head back to look at him, his beautiful green eyes soothing my frazzled nerves. “I know.”
His eyes roam my face before he dips his head down, his lips pressing to mine. It’s soft at first, a means of comfort. While we have kept our distance emotionally, creating a tentative friendship, we have no problem maintaining a physical relationship. I am pregnant, after all, and we live together. To withhold would be a waste.
I open my mouth to him, welcoming the distraction. “Make me forget,” I whimper against him, and Zy groans as his tongue lashes against mine.
He moves over me, his hands going beneath the long shirt I wore to bed. With a quick motion, he drags my underwear down my legs, and I help him out of his. He drags the tip of his cock between my folds, teasing me until I’m whimpering and then he lines himself up.
But before he drives into me, he pauses, looking into my eyes. “Are you sure it’s not too much?”
I gulp, already breathless. I’m aching for him, but I am glad he asks. Sometimes the nightmares send me into a frenzy, and I can barely handle being touched. “I want it,” I whisper, pointedly not sayingyou.Even though Zy is all I want in this moment. “Besides, it’s good for the baby.”
“Right.” He sighs. “The baby.”
He thrusts into me before I can think too much of it, and soon my body is lost in the throes of ecstasy. But after, alone in the shower, I think it over.
He almost seemed sad that I was using the baby as my excuse. If I’m being honest, as excited as I am to be a mother, that’s all our child is. An excuse to live here, to earn my freedom, to be in his bed.
An excuse to keep all the things I want but am too afraid to admit to.
Forty-two.
“Forty two days until the baby comes!” Phemes says with a big smile as she finishes up our check-in.
