Page 84 of Amor Prohibido

He turned in my arms and gazed down at me. My eyes danced over his beautiful face while I ran my fingers through his two-week-old beard growth. He smiled and briefly closed his eyes against my tender touch.

“Thank you… for everything. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, and I never tell you enough how much you mean to me or how much I appreciate you. Te amo.”

Hazel-green eyes opened and locked with mine. Filled with affection so powerful it took my breath away, I held my breath as he ran his tongue across his lower lip.

“También te amo, hermosa [I love you too, beautiful],” he replied huskily, running his fingers through my long, tangled hair.

The fact that he’d been learning more Spanish spoke volumes to me. Growing up, he knew the basics: please, thank you, yes, no, and greetings and farewells, and of course every cuss word under the sun. But recently, he’d been expanding his vocabulary, wanting our children to be bilingual like me.

Fingers trailed up the side of my neck and along my jaw. He pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose and rubbed his thumb back and forth at the corner of my mouth. “Go back to bed, sweetheart. I’ll make us some breakfast.”

“With eggs?”

“Uh huh.”

“And gherkins?” I asked, batting my eyelashes.

He grimaced despite laughing. “Yeah, with gherkins. Now off you go.”

With a playful slap to my booty, he guided me in the direction of our room, then veered off into the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, he arrived with a massive tray filled with a breakfast fit for a pregnant queen. Freshly cut melon, peanut butter on crumpets, a poached egg, and, of course, gherkins.

I readily accepted the offered plate. “Mmm, ¡delicioso!”

He laughed and balanced his plate one-handed as he sat against the headboard. “Not gonna lie, I’m still weirded out by your food combinations.”

“What’s not to love about gherkins dunked in egg yolk?”

His top lip curled in disgust. “There’s literallynothingto love about it.”

I groaned in food ecstasy as the gherkin and yolk hit my taste buds and I revelled in making Jace snort.

He stabbed at his eggs, splitting the yolks so they ran over the toast. “Nope, not gonna get used to that. It’s ten shades of fucked up, that’s what it is.”

I couldn’t help the pout that formed on my lips as I dunked a segment of melon into the yolk.

Horror twisted Jace’s expression. “Noo.No! Oh, c’mon, J!Melon with egg yolk? Babe, no!”

I giggled while making a show of being surprised at how good the combination tasted.

He pointed his knife at me and deadpanned, “That’s some fucked up shit right there.”

His downturned mouth and flared nostrils had me in fits of laughter. Tears streamed down my cheeks and my stomach clenched hard as uncontrollable hilarity consumed me.

I heaved to gain a breath and was about to make a show of adding chunks of melon to my peanut butter crumpet when a sudden pain sliced across my lower stomach. It made me cry out and freeze. Like a balloon popping within me, it came complete with whiplash.

“Ouch!” My laughter vanished, and I rubbed my lower stomach while panting.

“Babe? What happened?” Jace’s furrow deepened at my unexpected change of demeanour.

“I, uh… Carajo, I think I need to pee.” I floundered to the edge of the bed and waddled to the bathroom with a hand cupped between my legs.

Jace was hot on my heels asking question after urgent question. He didn’t slow his pace as we entered the bathroom, nor did he look away when I sat on the toilet and waited for something to happen.

“Oh shit, that’s not pee, I’m sure of it,” I muttered to myself while trying to look around my huge belly.

“What do you mean not pee? Are you…? Are we….? What the…?”

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