Page 93 of Prince of Tides
“Let’s see how it goes,” I said, smiling. “But I’m open to the idea of it. I like carrying your child.”
“You do have an advantage over me in being able to do that,” he said. “But there’s something I can do that you can’t.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Carry both of you,” he growled, easily lifting me and holding me to his chest as he carried me from the bathroom and back to the bed, where he lay me down amid the myriad pillows and covers.
“Cheater,” I purred as he got on top of me.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You know I’m a sucker for being tossed around easily like that,” I said, sticking out my tongue. “Especially when you’re naked.”
“Oh, well, you haven’t experiencedanything, then,” he teased.
“Huh?”
“You need to try it whenyou’renaked,” he said, tapping my breastbone.
I frowned playfully. “You just want to get me naked.”
“Yes, and?” he said, batting his green-blue eyes innocently.
Laughter burbled up out of my chest. “Well, listen, mister. If you’re getting me naked, you’d better make it worthwhile! I’m not going through all the effort of taking off my clothes just so you can ogle my tits!”
“As if that’s theonlypart of you I’d ogle,” he rumbled, lowering his lips to my neck. “Trust me when I say I wantallof you, my love.”
There wasn’t much more talking after that.
Chapter Forty-Four
Laurie
Ientered the driveway, the front gate retracting out of the way smoothly, allowing me to continue up to the house itself.
“What the hell?” I muttered at the line of cars parked outside Rip’s house.
Our house. I need to start thinking of it as ours.
It was technically the property of the Tidal Clan, but being as he was their prince, and I was now theirprincess, that made it de facto ours.
And boy, wasn’tthatpart taking some getting used to. Rip had wasted no time in sitting on the throne, proclaiming himself the prince, and announcing me as the princess. That was five months ago, and it wasstilla shock every time I thought about it. Me? Royalty? Yeah, right. I was nobody special, even if my parents would disagree. But that was special tothem.
Royalty was special to several thousand dragons. Literally superhuman creatures who could transform from human form to flying scaled beasts of legend. And I, little ole Laurie Stiller, was theirprincess.
Gulp. No pressure, right?
Luckily for me, most of them were good people. Very good people, and they took a liking to me almost immediately. I’m sure it helped that Rip was near-universally liked, but I’d been doing alotof reading to try to ensure I was good to them. My duties were light for the moment, given I was both new to their society and also increasingly pregnant. My belly was quite large now and growing with every week.
But the baby was healthy, and just yesterday we’d found out it was a girl! We’d waited a long time, given the cross-compatibility of the two species, to make sure there were no oddities with the pregnancy. But so far, our human doctor hadn’t noticed anything different, which was good. No wings or snouts or anything, which was a vast relief!
“Eb,” I said, getting out of the car as the elderly attendant came out the front door. “What’s going on?”
“Um,” Eb said with a shrug, taking the keys. “I’m not at liberty to say, princess.”
“Oh, for the love of … please, call me Laurie? That’s just so awkward. I need friends, Eb. Not servants or whatever you want to call yourself.”
“I am your friend, princess.”
