Calm. I had to keep my shit together. I was worried if she told me something I didn’t like, I’d lose it. Fuck, I hated this. I hated the constant threat that my head would explode or that I’d see shit that wasn’t there.
The taps turned off and the door opened. She looked at me. The strands of hair around her face were wet and her skin dewy and pink. Her lips lightly pressed together, not tight, but firm as if to stop them from trembling.
I decided my best approach was to say as little as possible. “Come to bed.”
She hesitated then walked across the room, brushed by me and climbed under the covers. “Do you want me to stay until you fall asleep?”
Her eyes met mine and it killed me to see the pain in them and I could do nothing about it. But her words were enough to calm the disquiet in me. “I want you to stay no matter what.”
Tears filled her eyes and I opened my mouth to ask her again what was wrong, but clamped it shut. She’d tell me when she was ready. Patience. I had to find my patience again. That steady control that I’d lacked ever since coming off the drug.
“Okay, shutterbug.” I yanked off my shirt and slid onto the bed. I leaned against the headboard then reached to bring her into me, but she was already snuggling close. Fuck, I loved that.
I softly stroked her hair, her cheek resting on my chest, her palm next to it. The wetness of her tears on my skin nearly broke my control. My heart thumped wildly and I grated my teeth as the anger threatened to rise. The mere idea that anyone hurt her was like the match sparking and the flame igniting into an inferno.
Instead of feeding on that, I concentrated on the feel of her in my arms. The soft strands of hair between my fingers; her heated breath on my skin.
Slowly, the fire went out and Alina fell asleep in my arms where she was always meant to be.Question 16: What have you done that’s illegal?MY EYES FLEW open as I woke with my heart pounding and my breath locked in my throat.
Oh, God, I was pregnant.
Yesterday replayed in high-speed through my head. London meeting me at Avalanche. Going to the walk-in clinic. The doctor taking blood but he wouldn’t get the result for a couple days, so he did a urine test, too.
Then…
The doctor saying with a huge grin, “Congratulations. It looks like you’re pregnant. We’ll confirm it with the blood work just to be sure.”
My hand went to my stomach. This should be a celebration yet I was calmly freaking out. Internally freaking. Externally calm.
“Alina?”
I stiffened, realizing that Connor was in bed, his lean length pressed into me from behind.
Oh, God, what was I going to do? Did I tell him and risk him leaving? If he left, it would destroy him. Destroy us. But how could I keep something like this from him. But worse was the thought of losing something so precious.
He’d known something was wrong last night. I’d never be able to keep this from him and he trusted me.
But could I trust him to stay? Did I have a choice?
He tugged me closer, so my back was pressed into his chest. He softly kissed my shoulder then trailed them up my neck. “I love you,” he said in a low graveled morning voice.
The sun beamed in through the window leaving bright sun streaks across the bedspread. I closed my eyes, attempting to hold back the tears. “Did you stay with me last night?” He never stayed the night with me.
He squeezed me. “I couldn’t sleep,” he murmured against my neck.
“Because of me.” It wasn’t a question.
“I was thinking, baby.”
I turned over onto my back and reached up to stroke his cheek with my fingertips. “I wished you’d sleep more. And that you’d fall asleep with me like you used to.”
“Me too, shutterbug.”
My hand dropped. Yeah, and that was what worried me because I knew where this led. Where telling him the truth led.
God, he’d be a great dad. I pictured him, cradling our baby in his arms. Giving him or her their first toy. Reading together. Playing football or giving piggyback rides in the backyard. Taking our ten-year-old dirt bike riding, with me being worried as hell that he was taking our ten-year-old dirt bike riding.
Connor’s eyes followed the heated path of his hand between my breasts, across my ribs to my waist where he lifted the silk material. He slid his hand beneath then laid his palm flat on my belly.
My breath hitched and our eyes locked.
“You know?”
He closed his eyes a second and inhaled a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago.” He caressed slow circles on my stomach with the tips of his fingers. “It clicked. You being sick then starving. Meeting London yesterday. Leaving work early last night. Then seeing the conflict in your eyes. But what did it was how you slept with your hand on your belly. Protective. Nurturing.”