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ChapterThirty-Three
QUINN
I absolutely shouldn’t have had another night with Kenan. I wanted far too much, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Despite the doubts bouncing around in my mind, I savored every second with him, especially the mornings.
Waking up with Kenan was a special kind of heaven. He was warm and strong. I loved when he curled around me. I woke up, feeling his muscled chest against my shoulder blades and the subtle crinkly feel of his chest hair against my skin. Not once in my life had I ever thought about the way a man’s chest hair felt.
Kenan was almost sweetly sensual in the morning. He would kiss me lazily, sometimes he would tease me to a climax in bed, and other times we would shower together.
This morning, he’d offered to make breakfast, pointing out that it was the day after Thanksgiving and almost everything was closed. He made me waffles and bacon. I told myself I needed to tell him I had something to do so we didn’t spend the whole day together before we went to my parents’ house. Except I didn’t want him to leave.
Hours later, Kenan tactfully handled all of the lights on the upper portion of the tree in the yard. My heart twisted in my chest when I looked up, and he called down to my father, “Like this?”
If my father noticed that Kenan took over all the ladder work for the day, he went along with it because Kenan made it easy. It was all good. I still kept turning over in my mind the conversation I’d overheard in Rhys’s office.
Kenan drove me back to my place. When he stopped in the front, he turned off his car and glanced over. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” A sense of trepidation slipped through me. I didn’t know what was on his mind, but it seemed like he wanted to talk.
When we got inside, I asked if he wanted any leftovers. As our families usually did, we had divvied up the leftovers from Thanksgiving. There was always more than enough to go around.
Kenan shook his head. “Thanks for asking, but I’m still full from the turkey sandwiches your mom made.” He leaned his hands on the counter, his eyes on mine.
“What is it?” I asked. My belly wobbled with anxiety.
He pressed his tongue into the side of his cheek, his eyes dipping down to the counter and then back up. “Let me be the one.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s do this for real. We were already going to see how things work for us. If you really want to have a baby, I want to be the father.”
“Wha-a-a-a-t?” I sputtered.
Something flickered in his eyes, but he straightened, lifted his chin, and squared his shoulders. “Let me be the one. For you. For our baby. I love you, Quinn.”
My pulse stuttered, and then my heart felt as if it was soaring skyward with a rush of joy, almost like a thunderclap inside of my chest.
I still couldn’t catch up. “Are you… are you—” I stuttered again before forcing myself to pause and take a slow breath. “Kenan, I love you too, but I don’t want you to do something you never wanted to do just because I want it. That seems like a recipe for disaster. I don’t handle a lot of family law, but you know my cousin does. There’s nothing worse than people going along with having a kid when they don’t want one.”
Kenan held my gaze for a long moment. “Quinn, I’ve thought about this. I promise you. I want this. With you.”
I didn’t realize I was shaking my head until he pushed back from the counter, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Wow. You have that little fucking faith in me. You know what? Let’s forget about this before we make it worse. If you ever think you can believe in me, let me know.”
Panic started to churn inside as he turned and began to leave. “Kenan!” I called.
He turned back. “Yeah?”
“Can we just talk? I just, I don’t, I don’t think you’re ready for this.”
His eyes shuttered, and then he was gone. I didn’t try to stop him.
For hours that night after he left, I kept picking up my phone and contemplating what I could say. I never mustered up the courage to call or text. I also kept praying he would call me and say that he had overreacted and knew we needed a little more time. Right?
He never called. The weekend passed with radio silence between us.
I went into the office early Monday, hoping to see him there. His office was dark.
At some point later in the morning, I had to check with Rhys about something. I refused to ask him where Kenan was.
