I let my lips go then and grin. I chuckle even. But it only lasts a second, a microsecond actually.
When I realize what I just said.
I realize that I mentioned his taste and now it has come alive in my mouth. On my tongue.
It’s crazy because I’ve only ever tasted him twice. How is it that I remember it so well? How is it that even now I want it, I want to feel it, eat it, inhale it like I’m inhaling his scent.
But that’s not even the thing to worry about here. The fact that I’ve said something that I shouldn’t have and now I can’t get his phantom taste out of my mouth or I can’t stop looking at his slightly parted ruby red lips.
The thing to worry about is that he’s heard me.
And he’s gone still.
Like a stone. A rock. A towering mountain with hard heated muscles and a battered gladiator face.
“I didn’t…” I trail off because I was going to lie.
I was going to say that I didn’t mean it, but I did. I did mean it because he does taste like cupcakes, sweet and toxic for my dancer’s body.
Before I can say something else however, his jaw moves, still bruised and stubbled from last night, and his fingers clutch at me tightly for a second before they let go.
Before he moves away.
And in that process, I realize how close he was to me.
How my legs were spread so shamelessly, like they were on that night, and how my dress had inched up to the tops of my thighs. And how, how, it feels when his coarse jeans rub against my smooth skin.
How it takes my breath away.
When he’s standing at a distance, I snap my thighs closed and lower my dress, a blush burning my cheeks.
This is not the time to think about that. It’s never going to happen again.
I don’t want it to happen again.
Reed’s wolf eyes flash before he says, “It’s my fabric softener.”
“What?”
“The scent. I’ll stock up on it.”
“Oh.” I grab the edge of the island and press my thighs together, feeling cold and bereft without his heat. “Thanks.”
“What else?”
My heart thunders then.
Not that it stopped, really. It has been thundering ever since I found myself in this strange yet cozy house. Ever since I told him, and ever since he told me that he wants her.
But this is something else.
This is even more savage, this thundering.
It comes from his question. What it means and the look in his eyes when he asked it.
It’s the same look that he has when he watches me dance. The intensity, the eagerness, the way his big body goes taut as a string.
He wants to know. Things about me.
He wants to know what I’ve been going through these past days. Doesn’t he?
“Uh, I just get dizzy sometimes,” I say hesitantly and I’m proven correct when his eyes flare with curiosity. “And I throw up a lot.”
At this he frowns though. “What’s a lot?”
I tuck my wayward hair behind my ears. “Like in the mornings. And also at night.”
“Fucking morning sickness,” he mutters angrily.
I can’t believe he knows that.
I mean, morning sickness is the most common symptom of pregnancy and he has been reading books but I just… it’s surreal.
So surreal that this is happening.
That I’m pregnant. With his baby.
And he wants to be a part of this. Not only that, I’m talking to him about my morning sickness. In all my planning, I never planned this.
I never planned that I would want to tell him. That I’d be talking to him like a girl who’s pregnant by a guy she loves and so she wants to share every little detail, every little complaint, every tiny change that she’s experiencing.
And I definitely never ever planned that he’d want to know, that he’d get upset over these changes and look so helpless standing there with his fists clenched and his angry frown. Like he’s really a guy who loves that girl back and he wants to do everything that he can to make things easier for her.
And like always when he gets upset about something, I want to put him at ease. “But it’s fine. I mean, saltines help. Also tea. Ginger tea if I can find it in the cafeteria.”
“I’ve got saltines,” he bursts out. “I don’t have ginger tea though. But I’m going —”
“It’s okay,” I cut him off, assuring him. “Just tea helps too.”
“What else?” he asks again.
I bring my hands on my lap and wring them as I share. “I hate meat now. Can’t stand it. And coffee.”
“Not fucking Peanut Butter Blossoms though.”
“No, not Peanut Butter Blossoms. Not so far at least.”
“Good.”
“And I cry a lot these days.”
“What’s a lot?” he asks again with the same concern and anger on my behalf.
“I don’t know. A lot. The other day Poe, one of my friends at school, stole peanut butter for me from the kitchen and I was so overwhelmed by it that I started crying.”