“Have a baby. Love him or her. Hope we don’t fuck it up.” He sounded so confident. Still in awe, but so sure of himself.
A helpless sob left me. “But what about us?”
Dropping the pictures to the floor, he cupped my face in both his hands. “Why would you ask something like that?”
“I don’t know. Because I’m scared? We’ve broken up twice. What if we break up again? What if we hurt this baby the way my dad hurt me when I was growing up?” His brows pinched together, but I couldn’t stop the words now that they were free. “I know he didn’t mean to. I really do. But when I was growing up, I didn’t understand it. And it hurt, Jace. If we break up again and the baby is put in the middle… I don’t want our baby to hurt like I did.”
“We aren’t ever going to break up again,” he growled. “Nothing—do you hear me, Kin?—nothing is ever going to come between us ever again. I can’t live without you. I won’t. This is it for us. We’re not going to spend another day apart. You are my best friend, the love of my life, and I love you more and more every day. Baby, you are the other half of my soul.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” He kissed me, hard. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark with determination. “We will always be together. Always.”
“Jace—”
“Do you love me?” he demanded, his voice thick with emotion.
I nodded, blinking back my tears. “Yes. More than anything.”
“Then stop second-guessing us. Everything will fall into place, I promise you. Don’t worry about the what-ifs. They don’t matter. You and I are forever, Kin Montez.”
“How can you be so sure?” I whispered, but I was starting to calm down, starting to realize he was right. My heart wasn’t going crazy, and the weight that had pressed down on me for the past twenty-four hours was starting to fade.
“Because I was forced to live without you, and it nearly killed me. That shit isn’t happening again, Kin. I’ll weld our shadows together if I have to, but I’m not ever letting you go again.” He brushed my hair back from my face, his thumb wiping away my tears. “I love you so fucking much it hurts. And I swear to you, I’ll always take care of you and our baby. You two will always come first with me. But if I ever make you feel like you aren’t, you better set me right, and quick.”
A smile teased at my lips even as my tears continued to spill down my cheeks. “I promise to kick you in the balls anytime you do something stupid like that, babe.”
“Does this mean you’ll marry me now?” he asked hopefully.
But I shook my head, and his face fell. “I’m not marrying you just because you knocked me up.”
“You’re killing me, woman,” he groaned, his hands going to my stomach and rubbing so tenderly, I had to swallow another sob. “Do you hear
that, little sweet pea? Your mommy still doesn’t want to marry me. What the hell am I going to do to convince her to say yes?”
“Get the proposal right, would be my guess,” I teased.
He blew out a frustrated sigh. “I’ll make sure to work on that.”
Tapping my leg, he urged me to scoot back on the bed. I kicked off my shoes and moved so I was lying down. He climbed in beside me, but instead of spooning me, he lay so his head was pillowed on my stomach, his ear against my lower abdomen.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he pressed his head firmer against me.
“Trying to hear our sweet pea,” he muttered, his face adorable the way it was scrunched in concentration.
“You need a doppler for that,” I advised.
“Crap. Give me your phone.”
“It’s in my purse.”
He sat up, grabbed his own phone off the end of the bed, and pressed his head back into my stomach. I stroked my fingers through his hair as he flipped through his phone for a few minutes.
“I don’t think there is an app for what you want,” I warned when he kept grumbling.
“Funny. I’m not looking for an app. I’m trying to find the best home doppler so we can hear the baby whenever we want. But all the ones I’m finding won’t let us hear it until nine weeks.” He muttered a curse then clamped his lips shut. “Sorry, little sweet pea. Daddy didn’t mean it.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how he was talking to the baby. A soft giggle escaped me as two tears slipped over my lashes, and I hurriedly wiped them away before he could see them.