Page 58 of Beauty and the Daddy
For a long moment, the world is just this. Our ragged breaths and the soft warmth of her skin under mine.
I press a soft kiss to her temple.
"You're mine," I whisper.
And she doesn't argue.
11
BELLE
Iwake with a start, sunlight streaming through unfamiliar curtains.
For a moment, I'm disoriented, my head foggy with sleep. Then I remember—Italy. The Council. Luca.
Last night comes rushing back in vivid detail, and I feel heat flood my cheeks.
God, what we did... what I asked him to do...
My body aches in places I didn't know could ache, but it's a good kind of sore.
The kind that reminds you you're alive.
I ease upright, careful not to wake the sleeping beast beside me.
The movement sends a wave of dizziness through my skull, and my hand instinctively presses to my stomach.
There's something... different. Not sick, exactly, but heavy. Foreign.
Like my body's keeping secrets from me.
When was my last period? The question creeps in like cold fingers.
Before Luca, definitely. But how long before?
I count backwards, once, twice, my pulse picking up speed with each calculation.
I count back the weeks, then count again, a cold feeling spreading through my chest.
That can't be right. I'm never late, not like this.
My hand drifts to my lower belly, resting there as the implications sink in.
No.
It couldn't be.
The first time was just a few weeks ago.
But morning sickness can start early, can't it? And I've been so tired, emotional...
The sun feels too bright today, like it's deliberately trying to spotlight the mess I'm in.
I get dressed in the hotel room that feels too hot. Luca's scent still clings to my skin, despite all that soap I used. I don't mind.
Flashes of his mouth, his hands, the way he made me forget my own name. Yeah, I'm all for that.
But my body feels heavy, sore in all the wrong ways, and my stomach's doing somersaults with dread.
