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the button to turn off my TV.
“Have a seat.” Nathan puts his feet to the floor and sits up, an arm draped loosely across the back of the couch. I sit cross-legged near the middle-end, in order for the distance between us to seem natural.
“Why’d you turn the TV off?”
My position causes my shirt to ride up my belly even more, and Nathan doesn’t miss it. He grins before returning his eyes to my face, and I take the opportunity to tug my shirt back down. Not that I mind him seeing my skin, but because I’m suddenly nervous.
“I thought we could talk for a bit.”
“Oh, um. What did you want to talk about?”
His thumb and palm rub the back cushion of the couch in what appears to be a nervous gesture of his own.
“I don’t know how to say this without it coming out the wrong way.”
A pit opens up below my sternum. My first assumption is he’s found someone else. Maybe my pedicure lady had it wrong when she confidently stated he’s not out looking. On all those nights we weren’t together, that could be exactly what he was doing. And there’s been a lot, not that I’ve been counting. He’s not my boyfriend, and I don’t keep tabs on him besides the one or two days a week he comes over. The stark realization hits me we never meet at his house for dinner. What if he has someone living with him already? Does he want me to meet her before the baby comes so I can get used to our son having another woman in his life?
The hot acid of indigestion rises up my throat.
“Kiersten, Jesus, take a breath.” The sharp command holds a stinging bite.
He curls his arm around my shoulders. I turn wide eyes to him in panic that I can’t breathe. His hand comes to the back of my neck and shoves my head to my knees. As close as he can get it with this massive belly in the way.
Whoosh.
Greedy gulps finally force the crazy thoughts to recede.
“What the fuck was that?” I flinch at the intensity of his tone.
“Sorry.” I gasp and sit up slowly. “It wasn’t anything.”
“Bullshit. I utter one cryptic sentence, and it sends you into a fucking panic attack. Do I need to call your doctor?”
“No!” I secure his arm to keep him seated as he looks ready to spring from the couch. My touch returns his attention to me. “I … had a loose train of thought. I’m fine now.”
“Tell me what it was.”
What choice do I have but to spit it out after that unstable display of insecurity? “You aren’t seeing someone, are you?”
Nathan gazes at me with an unsettling intensity. My stomach sinks.
“Is that it? Not that it’s any of my business. I know that,” I rush to tack on. “Just … take care when introducing her to our-our son.”
“There’s no one.” He releases a deep baritone growl I’ve never heard from him before. My nipples pebble beneath my shirt at the same time I grow instantly wet.
He secures me right under my chin in a forceful grip, thumb on one side and fingers fanned on the other. They curl tight enough to hold my attention but not enough to hurt. My pulse throbs from my carotid beneath his thumb. Arousal or a tinge of fear, I can’t be sure. Knowing this is Nathan, I’d guess the former.
He pushes me back into the couch with his hold and follows me down. Solid weight capturing and comforting all at once. A thigh lands between my legs, spreading them and supplying pressure at the apex. His torso hovers over mine, a forearm lands somewhere behind my head, and the hand at my throat loosens and glides away in a feather-light caress.
“For months, now, months, it’s only been you.” His head disappears into the crook of my neck, and his hand skims up my side, fingertips tease the hem of cotton fabric. “The only one I’ve touched.” His teeth press against the sensitive skin near my shoulder, and he follows it with his tongue. “The only one I’ve tasted.”
I whimper and shiver beneath his warm weight.
“Nathan …”
His lips connect twice, then three times against my neck and up to my jaw.
Fuck it. The need to feel him overpowers my restraint. I throw my head back to give him better access and tug his shirt up his torso and over his head. He gets caught in the fabric that smells so good I want to wrap it around my face and leave it there, but then he’d have to stop kissing me and … ohmygod! His hand disappears beneath the elastic of my pajama bottoms.
