Page 76 of Love and War

Aziza took a deep breath before letting it out. “Okay.”

I don’t know if I would ever be okay with what I did. I should have taken her with me. There were a million things I should have done. And to this day I regretted it. But now that I was bigger and stronger, no one, nothing was taking her from me. Never again.

“I love you.” Pressing my lips to her, I kissed her like our life depended on it. Because at this moment, it might as well have.

32

Aziza

MybodyachedasI stretched my arms above my head. Feeling my back crack I let out a long groan. Settling back into the warm bed, my hands rested on my stomach as I looked around. Killian had gotten out of bed a few hours ago, telling me to get some more rest. I didn’t have to be told twice, especially since this baby was beginning to sit on my bladder.

A ping of sadness hit me in the chest. I needed to tell him; I knew I did. I should’ve told him from the beginning, but I couldn’t change that now. Unfortunately, that ship had gone and sailed.

And the more I waited, the more I realized what a stupid idiot I was. I knew I was going to be showing soon. Real soon. Little bean was around the size of a banana if Google was correct. Which only meant he was getting bigger, and soon too big to hide.

I knew I was also being terrible because I needed to start taking prenatals. It was important, and I was already failing as a mother. God, what a fucking joke I was.

But what would he do when he found out?

Sure, he would be mad, he had to end up mad. But would he be happy? Would he be excited to be a father? His father was a piece of shit. I know Killian would never end up like that. He would never raise a hand, or his voice to our kid.

But would he leave? Would he want to be there for our kid? He had left once, apparently to protect me, but protect me from what?

There were a million questions. And only one person held the truth. The truth was what I was afraid of.

I just needed to tell him. I would. Today, I would tel–

The door opening and closing stopped me mid thought. Ripping the blanket off, I stomped out of the room to the living room.

“What the hell?” I stopped mid limp. Killian was pulling a leotard, multiple.

“What?” He looked over at me, continuing what he was doing.

“What are you doing?” Maybe I should have read between the lines, but I was never good at that.

His warm eyes and soft smile were warming my heart. Almost making me forget what he was doing.

He shrugged, pulling out more leotards. “Just thought you’d like to have more.” As if that explained everything, which it did not. Not even close.

“Care to explain what you mean?” I glanced down, noticing my lower stomach sticking out a little more. More than being able to just chalk it up to being bloated.

“You’re going to need more to start dancing again.” My eyes widened. To start dancing again? He wanted me to start dancing again? Why?

I don’t know how long I ended up standing there, because next thing I knew he was standing in front of me, his hands cupping my face, his eyes searching my own.

“I know you’ve missed dancing, and I know it hurts. But I believe you can still dance, you just have to change the way you do it.”

“I don’t think—”

His hand clamped over my mouth, a smile appearing on his lips. Whatever I was going to say was lost as he stepped closer, our chests now touching. One hand reaching around my waist. My body tensed as I remembered if he touched my stomach, he could put two and two together.

“I want you to dance for me. I want to see you let loose and remember what it felt like for the music to move through you. I want Aziza.” He groaned as I licked his hand.

“If you’d let me finish, you’d know I was going to say I don’t think it’ll be easy with this cast and boot on. But I could do it.” I smiled up at him.

“Good because I want to see your ass in this leotard I got.”

“I bet,” I murmured.

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