Page 55 of Pregnant After One Forbidden Night

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SEBASTIANWATCHED JENNA, her dark hair spilling across the pillows, the long olive contours and planes of her body supple and relaxed in sleep.

She breathed slow and deep and her body was angled toward his, her head tucked into the crook of his arm.

Watching her first thing in the morning, he was filled with unprecedented peace. It had become one of his most treasured portions of the day.

“You’re staring. I can feel it.” She hadn’t opened her eyes yet, but there was a smile threaded through the grumble in her voice.

He continued, shameless. “I will never get tired of waking up with you in my bed. No matter how many times I’ve memorized it.”

Things had shifted between them in the time since all of his intentions had fallen apart, and with them, new possibilities opened. He had risked a sliver of vulnerability with her, and the reward had been paradise.

Since then, he had shifted his main office to Redcliff and spent every spare moment with Jenna. Every day, they cooked and ate together, they chatted and read, they exercised and strolled—and every night they fell asleep exhausted and utterly spent.

She had entered her second trimester, and against expectation, her morning sickness had worsened and, in that time, he had become as expert at managing scents and flavors and spice as she had.

And, early and out of the blue, their baby had quickened, dancing around with such frequent enthusiasm within its mother’s still toned and tight abdomen that even Sebastian had had the opportunity to catch a flutter.

He could think of no other time period in his life in which he had been happier. And, though they had not discussed the future again, since that night in the library when Jenna had so clearly seen and understood what drove him, he looked forward to the future. Just as he’d wanted, it would be filled with Jenna, his work and his child.

She cracked open a single glorious brown eye, only to immediately squint in the dappled light that the paned skylights let in. Soon, her other eye followed suit.

With alertness came the focus and warmth that the cold, lonely thing inside him couldn’t get enough of—all of it flooding in, as if her eyes were two buckets, slowly submerged in an ocean of her heart.

It was a process he could sample every morning and still look forward to at the end of each night.

“Doesn’t that steel trap mind of yours have more important things to memorize? Secret codes, launch sequences, priceless national intelligence...”

“Good reasons to keep it fresh on you, wouldn’t you say?”

She smiled, blushing, somehow sweet and innocent still despite the fact that by now he’d had his hands all over her in every possible way—and only wanted to put them there over and over again until the end of time.

The wanting would never stop, he realized.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, echoing the first morning he’d stayed in bed with her. As he had nearly every day since.

Sebastian shook his head. “No. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since you’ve joined me. I’m exhausted.”

Jenna chuckled though he only spoke the truth. “You’re uncontrollable.”

He didn’t bother to deny it. Instead he pulled her hand to his lips to softly nibble the tips of her fingers. “And we have so much time until the afternoon...”

Jenna scoffed but made no move to pull her hand away. “Spoken like a decadent city duke.”

“I’ll accept decadent, but Redcliff is deeper into the country than your own home.”

She scoffed. “You were always at the capital.”

He shrugged. “There are more women in the capital.”

“Right,” she said flatly, eyebrows becoming a straight, unamused line across her face. “Well, I’m going back to my room now.” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, at ease and saucy, even absolutely naked.

It stole his breath away.

Until she brought a hand to her stomach and moaned.

Sitting up, recognizing the signs of her nausea, he let himself be guided by the powerfully possessive urge to care for her that had developed within him over the past month or so—since he’d stopped trying to deny it.

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