The Child Who Changed Them (Parent Portal 5)

The shower door opened. Eyes flying open to a deluge of water, Greg started to turn, arm raised and ready to fight, only to hear, “Steady there, sailor. I come in peace.”

Sailor.

Oh my God. He’d once dared Elaina to try to send his ship out to sea... They’d been in the shower after a particularly energetic bit of lovemaking and he’d been certain she couldn’t get him turned on again so soon.

She’d made him into a sailor that night. And several other times, as well.

As his mind was still processing the words, the reality of her voice inside his opened shower door, she slid fully behind him. Her hands began moving over his back. Down his sides.

The door shut behind her. Whether on its own or with her aid, he had no idea. He just knew that his neglected penis was not missing one second of what was transpiring.

And—oh, God—things were transpiring. A hard round ball pressed up against his lower back as Elaina’s fingers slid around him to find his belly button, and then travel upward, tangling in the hair of his chest. Moving on to his nipples. With hands desperately plastered to the tile of the shower wall, Greg leaned a bit forward, spreading his legs as he did so.

If she wanted something from him, she’d tell him so.

This part of “them,” he had down pat.

And so did she.

Slim, feminine fingers slid down his torso, finding the bush of hair at the apex of his thighs, and then moved lower. Closing around him with just the right amount of pressure to drive him out of all rational thought. He moved within her fingers, some idea lingering about being inside her, bringing her with him, but didn’t have a chance to focus on it as he exploded, almost immediately, in her hand.

She’d been gone most of the afternoon. And for months, too.

For a few brief moments, as he recovered, he allowed the water to wash over them, allowed himself to savor the feel of her warmth against his back.

Until there was a very definite complaint. Or call for acknowledgment at any rate, from a tiny body part with a big punch right to his kidney.

And he noticed the water had started to go cold.

“We need to talk.” Elaina spoke the words into his back before she let him go, and he nodded. Turned off the water. Reached for towels and handed her one.

Then got hard all over again when he saw her naked body, quite pregnant with his child, in his shower with him.

He’d seen her belly during the ultrasound, but the whole picture...was something his imagination hadn’t drawn nearly as perfectly as the real thing. He had no breath, standing there looking at her.

So beautiful. Just so beautiful.

She covered herself up with the towel he’d handed her. Started to dry off, still covered. And he heard again the ominous words she’d stated just seconds before.

We need to talk.

Very little good ever came from those words beginning a conversation.

And while the sex they’d just shared had been wonderful, it did nothing to reassure him.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Sex was what they did when there was nothing else between them.

All he had in the bathroom was a pair of thin cotton pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. He pulled them on and left her to redon the clothes he saw thrown over the edge of the bathtub on the opposite side of the room.

The noise he’d heard earlier. The poodle had to have known she’d been there, but he had not given anything away.

“Thanks, buddy,” he said dryly to the dog, who’d moved from the shower rug to the bed at some point.

He could hear Elaina dressing—pictured the jeans and loose-fitting cotton top, covered by the calf-length cardigan she’d left in that afternoon. Running a hand through wet hair that he hadn’t taken the time to comb, he paced back and forth from the end of the bed to the chair and table under the window, and back again.

He’d leave if she asked him to. Immediately. Move out in the morning. He’d even understand if she told him that the sex had been a fond farewell.