Tainted Gold (Providence Gold 3)

“Sure,” he agreed easily. Maybe too easily. “But it’s a boy.”

“Why are you so sure about this?”

Not missing a beat, he replied, “Because the Mayans and Chinese told me. Which reminds me, tomorrow I need you to do a couple things. Nothing bad, just shit like picking up a key.”

Blinking as I stared at his neck, I thought about this. “How did the Mayans and Chinese tell you it was a boy?”

“Me and Beau did some mathematical lunar shit last night online.”

I should have known my best friend would be in on this. Not surprisingly, when I’d texted her to make sure she was ok after we’d left, she had mentioned none of this. All she’d said was she’d buy me more eggs, new plates, new glasses and a new fruit bowl – with fruit in it this time.

“I see.” Part of me was worried that I’d given in and allowed him to pick the name if it was a boy too easily, the other part was rolling its eyes at the fact he believed the results.

Rolling so he was on his side facing me too, he sighed and tapped the mattress in front of me with his finger to get my attention on him. “We need to talk, baby.”

Nothing good comes from someone saying that to you, not one damn thing. I hadn’t been in a lot of relationships, but I knew the words all women avoided.

We need to talk. It’s not you, it’s me. My dick just slipped into her vagina. I made a mistake, but I thought about you the whole time. Oh, I ate it because I didn’t think you were going to. I think your panties look better on me. We’re the same shoe size, can I borrow your new stilettos?

Ok, I’d only heard four of those things in real life, but my friends had experienced the other ones.

So, it was fair to say that I was anxious as I waited for which road he was going to go down. His feet wouldn’t fit in my size seven shoes, and his dick definitely wouldn’t fit in my underwear if memory served me right. I’d also left a donut in the box on the counter in the kitchen for the morning…

“I know we’ve done this the wrong way around, Lily,” he started, “but I want this with you. Do you want the same thing?”

He sounded so unsure and nervous, that I didn’t make him wait for the answer. “Yes.”

His body visibly relaxed, and I looked up at his face for the first time since he’d mentioned baby names, to see his eyes closed and a look of pure relief on it. It reminded me of something – Tate didn’t hide his emotions. I wasn’t sure if it was because he couldn’t, or if he just didn’t want to, but I’d been privy to each one since I’d first met him. Did he just do it with me?

“Good,” he sighed, opening his eyes and looking back down at me. This close, I could see the different colors in them. The base color was a dark blue, but he had flashes of a jade green color and dots of gold sporadically splodged around them. Would the baby would get those or my lighter blue ones? “I want us to do this properly,” he announced, confusing me again. “We need to get to know each other, and work on the relationship side of things slowly.”

“What does that mean?”

“We spend time together getting to really know each other. What we like, don’t like, our quirks, our personalities, our hobbies, just shit like that. And during it, no sex.”

“But why?” I almost whined. “We’ve already had sex, so we know that. Can’t we do it while we get to know each other? We can look at it like a bonding experience.”

New note about pregnancy – horny. Lots and lots of horny. Earlier, he’d had a piece of the glaze from a donut on his lip and when he’d licked it off, I’d almost slid off my chair. Then he’d cleared his throat, and I’d watched his Adam’s apple move underneath the scruff of his beard, and it was like someone had flipped a switch on in my vagina. Pregnancy was libido city.

Jesus Christ, what was I going to do for the next nine months?

Laughing at the look of panic on my face, he leaned in and gave me a quick peck. “It’s not for forever, baby. Just until we catch up with where we should be for us to be having a baby together.”

Gulk. “What if that never happens? What if we decide we don’t like each other outside of bumping uglies?”

It was a genuine worry. You read about people who got married because of some stupid chivalry shit to do with pregnancy, and then they discovered they hated each other.