Page 144 of Finding Forever

“Wait, so no sexy times?” She pouted—getting a kick out of teasing him—and hegaped at her.

“You literally just got out of the hospital.Definitelyno sexy times.”

“Gosh you’re being an old maid about this.”

He clamped his lips shut and she made her way to their room, shedding her clothes along the way. The sexy fitted fuschia maternity dress that she’d worn to her meeting tossed aside carelessly. She’d felt so confident in it. But she never wanted to see it again.

Cade was as good as his word, stripping and stepping into the huge shower with her. He soaped her from top to toe, washed her hair, stood patiently and quietly when she insisted on returning the favor and balked only when her hand closed around his straining erection.

“Fern,” he admonished mildly, stepping out of her hold and shutting off the water.

“But it’s right there… it’s hungry, like me. Can’t we just?—”

“No,Jesus, you’d drive a saint to drink. You’re going to rest today.”

Ugh.

She dug out an old T-shirt… one she hadn’t seen in a while actually, and—after donning a pair of panties and striped knee-high socks— shrugged into it.

When Cade, now dressed in a pair of charcoal cargo pants and a black T-shirt sporting Captain America’s shield on the front, turned around and saw her, his face froze.

“Where’d you find that?” he asked, his expression darkening. Fern paused in the act of combing snags out of her damp hair and stared at him in confusion.

“What?”

“That T-shirt?” She glanced down at herNight of the Living DeadT-shirt in confusion and shrugged.

“In my drawer.”

“I thought I’d gotten all of them,” he muttered under his breath.

“What do you mean?” she asked him.

“Nothing.”

“No, you clearly meant something. What happened to all of my other sleep shirts, Cade? This is the last of my original ones.”

“Margot’s boyfriend’s shirts, aye?”

“No, they’remyshirts now. They haven’t been his shirts in over ten years.”

“You like my shirts better though. They’re a better fit, softer cotton.”

She folded her arms over her chest.

“What happened to them, Cade?”

“I don’t know what happened to them.”

“I feel like you do,” she challenged. She was mostly amused by this turn of events. She’d always suspected he’d had a hand in the mysterious disappearance of her shirts. What she hadn’t known waswhy.

“No, I’m serious, Fern,” he maintained earnestly. “I don’t know what happens to shit after it gets thrown out.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, mostly to hide her smile.

“You threw them out?Why?”

“Because I didn’t like seeing you in another man’s clothes,” he admitted, running a hand over his head as he avoided her eyes.

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