Page 64 of Knocked up By the Minotaur

Ah. The Conversation.

I press a kiss against her bellybutton and let out a slow breath. “You are everything to me,” I whisper, because I don’t know that I’m yet able to say this any louder. “I want all of you. I want to give you all of me. I…” My heart thuds arrhythmically, and I squeeze my fingers over her hips, feeling a frisson of energy zip along the lines of my Mate Mark. “I don’t want anyone else but you.”

“No one else?” she asks, settling her palm against my cheek. “Ever? Or just, no one else for now?”

Fair question, I think, but it still sends a stab of hurt through my heart that she has to ask.

“No one else, not ever again.” And I know I mean it. Even without the mark, I know it’s true down to my bones. I let her dress pool down around her legs, and I run my hands reverently over her hips and thighs. “Something’s changed inside me, Grace. It’s like a light’s been switched on and suddenly the mysterious, alluring room I was in has been exposed for the rotted, unhappy place it truly is. I don’t want anyone else, I don’t want that life. I don’t know how to do this, how to… be in a relationship, not really.” As the words fall out of me, something like fear rears itself in my chest, but I try to quash it, to set it to the side and overcome. “I know I’ve said countless times before that I’m not looking for commitment, but with you… With you, I want it. Be mine, Grace.”

She lets out a shaky breath. “Oli…”

I press my palms into the door and stand. Clenching my fist tightly, behind her head where she won’t see, I steel myself to speak the words that she deserves to hear.

“I want you, Grace Davis. I want you in my life, in my bed, and in my heart. I want to stand beside you, always. Will you have me?”

Her eyes shimmer with tears, and when she nods my heart bursts with warmth, with hope and excitement and joy all rolled together. I lean towards her—but her hand snaps up between us, and she stops me once more.

I drop my forehead against hers. “What is it, sweetheart? Tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll do my best to make it right.”

“God,” she sighs. “Have I ever told you how sweet you are?”

My lips quirk upwards. “I could always stand to hear it again.”

She offers me a watery smile, before slipping away and beginning to pace across the living room. I turn on the lights, so she won’t trip on anything.

“Alright, so, there’s something I have to tell you,” she says, her hands fidgeting against her dress before she lays them flat over her abdomen. Her obvious and sudden nerves are starting to make a pulse of anxiety form in my own gut.

“I’m not as good at pretty words as you are,” she continues, still pacing, “so I’m sorry if I slap you in the face with this, but…”

She stops, looks at me with a grimace, and then turns away and powers towards the doorway leading further inside.

“What?” For a moment I stare at her retreating form, completely nonplussed. “Grace, wait!”

I race after her, catching up in the hallway and grabbing lightly onto her wrist. “What’s going on?”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she groans, and I let go of her.

I don’t think she drank all that much tonight, if she drank anything at all, so it couldn’t possibly be that. Worry now coursing through me, I follow her into the bathroom, but then she just leans over the sink and breathes heavily.

“Grace…” I move closer, rubbing one hand in soothing circles over her back while the other feels her forehead. It occurs to me that I’m not exactly sure how hot is too hot for a human, but I think she feels about the same as usual. “Are you sick?”

“No,” she murmurs, shaking her head. “It can’t be the baby, either, it’s too soon. It’s just nerves.”

“The…” My blood suddenly runs cold, and my hand against her back stills. “What?”

She bits her lip, and then looks slowly up at me through the reflection in the mirror. “I’m pregnant.”

The silence between us is sharp. I don’t think I’m even breathing.

“It’s not Brad’s, I haven’t been with him since long before I left him, and my cycle has been regular up until this month. I’ve only been with you. I’m…”

My hands jump away from her skin as if burned, and I take several steps back, heart in my throat. I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t seem to speak.

Suddenly my thoughts are filled with my cold, hollow childhood. Memories of an echoing house, a nameless woman crying in the bathroom—different every few years, but always crying. My father watching me as I study, emotionless but satisfied for as long as I was quiet and studious and doing well at school. As long as I wasn’t bothering him in his study, or making a fuss, or otherwise existing in a way that would remind him he had a flesh and blood child, since that child was the cause of his Fated Mate’s death.

I caught glimpses of parental warmth through Rhokar’s parents, always so loving and open whenever I visited after school—but that almost made it all worse. Made me more keenly aware of what I was missing, what I can’t possibly know how to give to a child. How can I be a father, when I don’t know what that looks like?

“I…” My voice creaks hoarsely from my throat, and Grace turns from the sink to face me.

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