He palmed one now in his big hand, testing the weight. “Eight months pregnant and you’ve never been sexier to me.”
“Priest,” I protested laughingly.
“Truth.” He plucked my nipple hard between his knuckles. “You’ve never been more mine than you are with our baby growing inside you.”
I laughed then, falling into it, pushing my head back into his unyielding shoulder so I could share that laughter with the heavens. “Could you be more of an alpha?”
He grunted, ignoring me mostly, his eyes fixed on my breasts as he used the knife to slice off a button, revealing even more of my pale cleavage.
“Priest…” I warned even as my body went warm and pliant in his hold. “We’re in public.”
“In a park at two o’clock on a fuckin’ Tuesday,” he pointed out as his hand dove into the parted fabric and pulled out my flesh, my breasts lifted and pressed together over the bunched fabric beneath. “No one’s gonna see me fuck my woman.”
“God will,” I half-teased.
Priest shifted out from behind me, laying me back on the blanket so he could settle in a half-sprawl on his side to cut off another section of peach. I watched breathlessly as he squeezed the piece of fruit between his strong fingers over my breasts, the sunset gold liquid running in rivulets down and between their roundness.
“Let him watch,” he welcomed in that raspy voice that abraded my skin and gave me goosebumps.
And then he bent his head to lick up every drop of that sweet nectar from my flesh. His tongue lashed hotly, teeth biting gently to test the firmness of my tit, his breath blowing coolly over the wet skin. I shivered and groaned, clutching him to me by two handfuls of his silken copper hair.
“My shadow loves the pain,” he hummed around my nipple before tugging it sharply between his teeth, then lashing the swollen nub with his tongue.
“I love the contrast,” I agreed, arching into the pressure. “The pain with the pleasure.”
He fed me his sticky fingers, sliding them over my tongue so I could suck off the juices. The taste of peach and man was heady enough to make me light-headed and almost dizzy. With his other hand, he rucked up the bottom of my dress, running his rough fingers along the edge of my panties, testing the placket of the cotton to see if I was already wet for him.
I was. Pregnancy had made me almost feverish with constant desire, and Priest had no problem fulfilling my every need. He began to then, fingers teasing beneath the fabric when a painful spasm ripped down my back into my belly.
I hissed. Priest recognized it instantly as a bad sound and pulled his hand away. He cocked his head, locking his eyes to my wide ones. He didn’t ask me if I was okay because he read me in an instant.
When he got up, I tried to protest, but he hushed me with a single frown. “We’re goin’ to the hospital.”
“Priest, I’m fine. Pains are normal. Maybe they’re Braxton Hicks contractions.”
I tried my hardest not to laugh, but Priest had been the most detail-orientated dad-to-be I’d ever known. He read science books about pregnancy and childbirth, studying like a doctor for an exam. When we went to doctor’s appointments, he actually scared the lovely Dr. Rosen with both his interrogations and his intensity.
“Describe the pain,” he demanded then. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared me down like I was the enemy.
My lips twitched, but I held back my grin. “My back’s been hurting, but that isn’t exactly unusual, and then there was this spasm in my belly.”
His eyes narrowed, head cocked as he ran mental calculations through his head.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Can we please continue our picnic?”
“If you have the same pain in ten minutes, we’re goin’,” he determined in a tone that brokered no argument. “Try changin’ position. I read that helps if it’s Braxton Hicks.”
“Yes, sir,” I muttered under my breath as I moved into a partial incline on my side, braced on an elbow.
Priest was suddenly there crouching before me, clenching my chin in his fingers so I was forced to meet the intensity of his gaze. “You and this baby are my heart, my pulse. Do you wanna fuck with that?”
My heart softened. Sometimes, I forgot how new this was to him, loving someone. There wasn’t a moment or aspect of loving me he took for granted. For a man who didn’t believe in miracles, he treated me like one every day.
He already felt the same way about our baby. I’d been surprised when he didn’t want to know the gender before the birth because he was so pragmatic, but in that way, it made sense. He’d explained his reasoning simply, finding out who our baby was when he or she was born was the biggest surprise, the biggest miracle he’d ever experience, and he didn’t want to ruin that.