Tainted Gold (Providence Gold 3)

She didn’t even blink throughout my rambling, only glancing down at the area in question when I got to the fact that it wasn’t a myth, and then looking back at me. With no expression or reaction to tell me what she was thinking, it left me trying to figure out if I’d dug myself a huge hole, and if I had could I dig myself out of it.

Thankfully, she put me out of my misery. “Would it help if I told you I had a blue vagina?”

In all the possibilities running through my head, not once had that answer been one of them. Screaming at me, kicking me in them, calling me a heartless asshole, calling her dad to come and save her, shit like that, yes.

“What?”

Nodding, she raised her hands to be lifted down from the cab of the truck, something which I normally loved doing, but right now I was still waiting for a hard ball booting. “It’s true. Sleeping next to you every night is torture. You’re a snuggler, you’re hot, you’re Tate and my vagina likes all of that.”

This conversation so wasn’t appropriate in the parking lot of the doctor’s office, one who was about to look after her because my dick had come inside her unprotected. Call it crude, but if you were in my predicament, all flowery words would have left you too.

“This is a new form of hell,” I groaned, gently putting her on the floor in front of me.

“Why? It means we can go home and do the horizontal hula!”

If she didn’t stop, I’d be doing the vertical hula up against the side of my truck…

“No, we can’t,” I groaned again, not removing my hands from her. Instead, they were rubbing up and down her sides and back, loving the contact with her. “After this, we’re headed to my folks' house.”

“Shit, that’s tonight?”

Yes, yes, it was. The family night from hell. We got together a lot through the week, we were just a close family who did that. Tonight was different though, it was man bonding night. The women were staying with Mom, while the men went to a bar half an hour away. We’d decided to do it after Levi and Archer had a falling out over some irrelevant bullshit to do with a car, and going to one in a place where everyone knew you, and you couldn’t spend time together without being interrupted or someone joining you, negated the bonding part. So, we’d found the new bar, and once a month we all went to shoot the shit, have a drink, and just switch off.

Something which hadn’t been a problem for me until Lily. Now, I wanted to spend all my time with her, learn more about her, look at baby shit with her, rub her back, and do a midnight run to the store for whatever it was she was hankering for.

Being around her had become even more important to me since she’d started showing and her blood pressure had made the woman frown and make a noise when she’d seen the reading. I wasn’t a stalker or clingy, hell no – I liked my own space. I was a man who wanted to make sure his woman was ok is what I was. Dad looked after Mom and made sure she was ok, Gramps looked after Grams, Noah and Madix looked after their women too. It was what a man did.

I was also a man who worked long hours that didn’t mesh well with the hours his woman worked – talk about hell.

“Ok, we’ll do it when you get back. You drive, do your thing, come back and pick me up, and we’ll say I need to go to bed early. Deal?” she decided as we entered the building and walked over to the elevator. “No one needs to know we’ve got plans that involve the sex.”

Unfortunately, the elevator doors opened at that moment, and a nurse pushing an old man heard all of it.

“I ain’t got no plans tonight, doll face. You want the sex, I’ll give it to ya,” the old man said grinning. Anyone else, it might have pissed me off, but the old guy whistled when he said the letter sand looked like he’d just been handed the world. He could enjoy his moment with my woman.

“And I’d take it from you,” Lily winked. “But I’m kind of carrying a full load at the moment,” she pointed at her stomach. “And it’s his, so best not to make those waters muddier, right?”

“I’ll take him off your hands,” the nurse offered, looking me up and down. “And I always wear cherry Chapstick.”

Well, fuck!

“Hey, me too!” Lily chuckled.

“Course you do, girl. You’re with Tate Townsend. It’s the only flavor he likes,” he whispered like it was a conspiracy theory.