Page 134 of Possession

Hell, he probably made a hawk look like a slacker compared with how he watched me.

Which was why I’d locked myself in my workshop for weeks now with the excuse of being consumed with my latest project.

It wasn’t a lie. Iwasconsumed, but I wouldn’t be selling this particular piece.

It was my anniversary gift for Blake. And if he didn’t want it after hearing my news, well, screw him then.

Dina, the sea warrior would live in the nursery instead.

I breezed by Blake’s latest assistant—who wasnoGrace Copeland Carson, by the way—and knocked softly before marching in and planting my wicker picnic basket on his desk. “Had lunch yet?” I demanded with no shortage of spice.

I was already bruising for a fight.

Kinda weird to intend to fight while only wearing polka dot bikini bottoms underneath my knee-length navy trench coat, but I never claimed to be the average woman.

Blake looked up from the blueprints—blueprints?—he was poring over and immediately removed his wire-framed glasses.

Too soon, if you asked me. He didn’t wear glasses nearly enough to suit me.

“No, in fact, I intended to work through lunch. Did I forget an appointment? Also, you’re soaked. Come here, Grace. Let me dry you off.” He pulled open a drawer and withdrew what looked like a thick towel, which he held out to me as if I was a toddler who’d taken an unplanned shower.

Which I had, actually, though I was definitely not a toddler. I’d just been caught in a deluge.

But I was undeterred from my mission. A few million pesky raindrops couldn’t slow me down.

Also, why did he have a towel in his desk?

But I didn’t ask that. Instead, I accepted divine providence had changed up my plans slightly, so I’d just have to work with it. Somehow.

I didn’t try to divert him from urging me around his desk, not even batting an eyelash when he went to work on my soaked hair, ruining what was left of my careful updo by dragging the thick towel over my drenched curls. Then he continued on, quickly untying my trench coat and opening the panels wide to reveal my half nudity.

And fuck, since Blake’s office was all glass, practically as opaque as mirrors, I absolutely had a belly over my bikini bottoms.

So much for making sure nothing would show.

His hazel eyes widened before lifting to lock on my face. “Grace?”

If he’d just said only that, I wouldn’t have deviated. But there was a faint tremor in the middle, the slightest quaver, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

He wasn’t the only one.

“I thought I’d timed it perfectly. I knew I was running out of time, but I studied myself from every angle and I’ve been working so much that you hadn’t gotten a good look at me in weeks.”

“Or clearly gotten a good feel, either.” Something he’d clearly chosen to rectify right now. His hands were sculpting my belly and breasts as if I was a priceless artifact. He kept touching me over and over and then he took off his glasses and threw them on his desk before he lowered his head to plant his lips dead center of the gentle swell of my belly. “How?” he asked brokenly.

I couldn’t help myself from running my fingers through his thick dark hair completely free of product—just the way I liked him best. Then he lifted his head and nailed me with his glittering eyes, shocking me into silence when they glistened.

I couldn’t even speak. My smartassed reply, “oh, the usual way, I imagine,” died in my throat as I cupped his cheeks.

“You’re not unhappy?”

“Unhappy? Dear God, woman, I was trying to understand how I could be even happier than I was just earlier today, when I was so in love with you it felt as if my heart would explode with it. I don’t know how I can possibly love you more, and now that there’s two of you, I’m simply…undone.”

Then I was crying too. And sniffling too, completely in an unladylike way that had my nose visibly running. “I didn’t realize I’d gained so much weight already. All the damn Girl Scout cookies you bought me.Us,” I added in a wavering whisper. “You really didn’t need to get 6 boxes,” I added in a mock censorious tone that would’ve fooled no one.

Not even me.

He framed my belly in his big hands and kissed it again. “Have you been to the doctor? Of course, you have. The next one, I want to go. Hell, I want to go to all of them. What are we having? Oh, God, I don’t care. Boy, girl, either is perfect.” He straightened up and cupped my face in his hands, destroying the remaining bit of my composure with the tenderest kiss we’d ever shared.

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