Page 92 of Branded
Thankfully, I had a really smart girlfriend who was good at it.
So, I’d left her to her project, cleaned up the food from lunch, washed the sheets we’d made a mess of because we’d eaten in bed and got crumbs everywhere (not to mention our activities of the previous day and last night), and remade the bed. Then I’d searched her cabinets, found enough in them to make a simple meal of a salad and pasta, unfreezing some garlic bread, and somehow managing to not burn it.
I’d made her a plate, brought her that and a beer, placing both on her desk and earning myself a slightly dazed smile, her pretty green eyes blinking up at me.
“You need me to stop?” she asked, the work haze beginning to leave her face.
“No,” I murmured. “Just…sustenance. Can’t have you wasting away.”
She snorted, but smoothed her hand over my cheek, my beard in that way that never failed to make my heart skip a beat. “With this body?”
Slowly I’d spun her chair, planted my palms on her thighs. “I know you’re not talking shit about yourself, little bird. I happen to love this body.”
A smile, that other hand coming up to join the first on my face. “You’ve shown me that, and I like my body. It’s strong. It’s capable. It…”
“Gives you orgasms so long as you’re watching reality TV?”
Laughter in her eyes. “I thought you were responsible for those.”
“Nope,” I said, playing innocent. “It was the vibrator class.”
That sent the laughter from her eyes and onto her tongue, filling the air with the soft, melodic sound of her amusement.
“Eat, little bird,” I’d ordered before I could distract her further, “Or I’ll have to punish you again.”
More humor. Another smile that hit me right in the solar plexus. “Now you’re just tempting me.”
She’d been tempting me.
But I’d managed to just press a kiss to her lips (and keep it relatively short) then had retreated to the couch, turning occasionally to make sure she was eating.
When she’d finished, I’d retrieved the plate, soaked in some hockey and the very talented Brit Plantain, and just enjoyed the domesticity, the stillness, the settling of being with her, even though we weren’t doing the same thing.
“Baby?”
I blinked, realized I’d been daydreaming and the game had gone to intermission while I’d been thinking about all things that were my wonderful, perfect woman, and meanwhile had missed that my wonderful, perfect woman was approaching.
Her hair was piled on top of her head, and she had those tortoiseshell frames perched on her nose, the smattering of freckles beneath them and polka dotting the bridge and the tops of her cheeks.
But it was her hands that had me blinking away the relaxed fog the day had brought.
They were wringing together.
Fingers woven and sitting just beneath her belly button, as though trying to contain something—butterflies? Nerves? A creepy monster that would burst out a la Alien (though, for the record, I’d still love her, even with a baby alien inside her).
The skin of her hands was turning white and pink as her fingers squeezed and released, her fingers shifting along each other, clenching and relaxing.
I placed my palm over the top of her hands, stilling the movement, stopping her from hurting herself. “What do you need, little bird?”
Nerves and excitement in emerald eyes. “Can I show you something?”
On my feet in a second, my palm going to the side of her neck. “Of course, honey.”
“Right.” A breath. Her chin went up, shoulders straightened. “It’s over here,” she said, turning away and leading me to her computer. When I made it there, she placed a hand on my arm. “Will you sit?”
I sank down into her chair, let her roll me close.
“I—” A breath. “I made this for you thinking it’d be helpful, but now I’m worried that you might be upset because you don’t need it and it’s presumptuous, and I didn’t mean to make it seem like you needed it and?—”
