Page 93 of My Sweetest Obsession
“No.” I brush my lips across her cheek to her ear. “Let me do it. I want to see all of you like this.”
With the lights on.
Without the dark cloud hanging over me thinking she hated me.
All I want to do is drink her in.
Because Christ, she’s beautiful pregnant, even more so than she was before, which I didn’t think was even possible.
The way her entire body seems to glow, her breasts higher and fuller, the swell of her belly and knowing she’s growing a life in there. I run my hand across it, pressing my palm over the center, and the baby kicks, a tiny foot pressing into my touch.
I grin at her and another tear slides down her cheek.
Her lips curl. “I think she likes your voice.”
A blazing warmth floods my chest, and somehow, it feels like my heart stops and beats faster at the same time.
I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that, to know that my niece feels something for me even before she’s entered this world. That I am going to have a chance to watch her grow and thrive and become everything that Drew would want her to be.
Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them away and manage to swallow through the tightness in my throat. “I hope so because she’s going to be hearing a lot of it.”
Because I plan to spend every waking moment I can with this woman and this baby.
Being whatever they need.
Giving them the world.
Ensuring they have anything they could ever want.
Ivy laughs at my comment, and it’s filled with something I wasn’t sure I would ever hear from her again—joy, maybe hope for the future, and faith that in the end, it won’t just be agony and anger but love and hope that pulls us through the hard days.
Today started out as one of them.
When I walked into that meeting, I was nearing my breaking point with Ivy.
After weeks of keeping it all in, giving her what she needed while I tried to ignore how badly it was affecting me, and then showing her the nursery, pretending it wasn’t pure torture to walk away that night was getting to be impossible.
But I don’t have to pretend anymore.
I don’t have to hold back.
And I won’t.
Not ever again with her.
I grab the hem of her sweater and slowly glide it up over her stomach, her breasts, and pull it free, letting it fall to the floor. Her long, dark hair spills out, and I grasp a strand of it, letting the silky texture skate over my skin.
My hands itch to touch every single inch of her, but I force myself to hold back, to instead allow only my gaze to rake over her. From her warm, welcoming gaze, to her slightly parted lips swollen from our kissing, and down over the swell of her breasts peeking out of her bra.
I trail my fingertips along the edge of the material, and she shivers, inching closer until her belly presses into mine again.
Resting her hands on my chest, she leans in. “You know what I just realized?”
Her voice wavers, but the unsteadiness has nothing to do with fear or trepidation and everything to do with the fact that she’s just as on edge as I am.
“What?”
“I’ve never gotten to really see you naked.” I narrow my eyes on her and she smirks, sliding a hand down to tease them along the hem of my T-shirt, making my skin pebble with goosebumps. “You were always so focused on me, so intent that you never gave me a chance to explore you.”
