Pretend I'm Yours (Pretend 1)

“No, you are up to something.”

Larkyn grabs the vase of flowers and moves them from the right side of the front desk to the left side.

I wrap my arms around her stomach from behind and feel her relax in my arms. I love that I simply have to touch her and she melts.

“Everything is going to be perfect. Now stop fussing, and kiss me,” I say into her ear.

Her head leans into me as I speak in her ear. I turn her head toward me as I kiss her, not able to let go of her stomach, where our baby is due any day now. She turns her body toward me to deepen the kiss and her arms wrap around my waist. I grin against her lips when her hands grab my ass, then slide toward the front of my slacks shocking me. I might get to fuck her in her office.

“Ah, hah! What is this?” she asks, pulling a tiny box out of my pocket.

I shrug. “I don’t remember putting that in there.”

She glances down at my mother’s ring that hasn’t left her finger since the night we told each other we loved each other and wanted to make this real. I would never replace that ring with another.

“You didn’t buy me another ring, did you?” she asks, exacerbated with the idea of me buying her more jewelry.

I grin. “Open it and find out.”

She eyes me and the box carefully. And then opens it. She smiles and shakes her head, as she pulls the tiny handmade heart out with a note attached that says: You’re mine forever.

She looks at me unsteadily as her eyes grow bigger, and I know, if I do this right, she’ll cry, and I’ll get to see her gorgeous tear-streamed face filled with love.

“I didn’t want to propose. I know you don’t want me to. And I don’t either, but I wanted something special to cement our new relationship before this baby comes,” I say, placing my hand on her stomach.

Her lip trembles.

“We don’t need a redo. Everything I’ve ever felt for you was real. The pretending, the marriage, the love. All of it real. The only thing fake was when I treated you like crap.”

“I don’t want a redo either.”

“We don’t have to get married again, or go through a proposal or any of that. I just wanted you to know that I will spend the rest of my life finding ways to tell you and show you how much I love you, forever.”

She kisses me, and I forget about my speech or what I was planning next. I know I need to wrap this up soon so we can officially open her business to the public. But I need a few more stolen moments with her. As soon as her business is open, and we have this baby, I know my stolen moments with her will be few.

“I’ll be yours forever, as long as you promise never to be an ass again.”

I smirk. I love calling herself mine. I love it when she calls me her husband or her baby daddy or any of the words she uses to describe me too. She loves me. And I love her. I was afraid, for far too long, of screwing up and becoming my father, but the only thing I needed all this time was the right woman, one that I didn’t want to screw up with.

“Can I be an ass twice a year?”

She raises an eyebrow at me.

“Never being an ass is too hard,” I say.

She laughs, and I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to get to listen to her laugh for the rest of my life.

“Fine, but you’ll be sleeping on the couch any time you are a jerk. And you have to do cute things like making me handmade hearts to win me back after you fuck up. But no more pretending to be a jerk because you enjoy watching me squirm.”

I smile; I never want to be fake with her ever again. “Deal.”

The End