Page 45 of Wed to the Devil

“Like you haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?” I stretch out, folding my arms behind my head and crossing my legs.

Talia snorts and rolls her eyes. “It’s not like you to be nice.”

Her words catch me like a blow to the solar plexus. I wince.

“I hate to say it, but I’m not being nice.”

She spreads her fingers out across her abdomen. It has grown, the convex shape of it ever so slowly becoming more pronounced.

“Ah,” I say. “Your pregnancy is beginning to show. So what?”

She looks up at me, her brow creasing with concern.

“Don’t you worry about what the baby will be like? It seems more real to me every single day.”

My eyebrows arch. “Worry? No, not really.”

“It’s different for you. You’re not growing a whole person inside your body.” Talia rubs her abdomen in slow, rhythmic strokes. “I feel like a crazy person right now. But I can’t stop thinking that I’ll look away and then suddenly, I’ll be nine months pregnant. Or worse, that suddenly my son or daughter will be standing before me, a fully-fledged human being.”

My brow furrows. I reach a hand over to her belly, spreading my fingers over her bare skin. “Are you worried you’ll blink and miss it?”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m just completely freaked out by the fact that our baby is growing so quickly. As we speak, it’s like… getting nutrients and developing fingers. It’s wild.”

I give a laugh of surprise. “When you put it that way, sure.”

Talia scrunches up her face.

“It’s still not real to you. I can tell by how laid back you are. If it was real, you would be freaking out.”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

Cupping her belly, I try to picture Talia heavily pregnant. But I can’t. I can only see her as she is right now, lying next to me. I don’t know whether that means I am shortsighted or if I’m just more interested in the present.

Her mouth bunches up and she looks at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I take my hand off her stomach and shrug. “That is a question.”

Talia schools her expression. “Will you tell me about your childhood?”

Her question kills my enjoyment of the moment. I screw up my face as I look at her.

“Why?”

She blushes but doesn’t demur. “Because. I want to know about you, Dare. Right now, it’s kind of like I’m married to a ghost without a past.” Her lips thin. “And I would like to know what made your brother so terrible.”

A chuckle rumbles from my chest. “I can’t say why Burn is like he is. He certainly wasn’t born like that. He was normal all through grade school and college. It wasn’t until…”

Stopping abruptly, I shake my head.

Talia tilts her head and uses two fingers to lightly stroke my forearm. Her delicate touch sends a jolt down my spine and my cock stirs.

“Until what?” she prompts, her voice soft and sweet.

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