Page 49 of Hidden Heir With His Housekeeper

‘Don’t drop me,’ she mumbled, her body massaging the thick length still impaling her.

He grunted in protest. ‘Then stop that,’ he remarked.

She let out a husky chuckle, still buoyed by the endorphin overload, reliving the memory of him stalking across the bathroom naked, his fierce expression promising retribution for her blatant provocation.

He groaned, then shifted against her, probably attempting a dismount. But as his flat stomach pressed against her belly, she felt the ripple of sensation deep in her abdomen which had started several weeks ago.

‘What the hell was that?’ He jerked back.

‘You felt it too?’ she asked, her heart bursting with joy.

‘Yeah, what is it?’

She grinned, enjoying his stunned expression maybe a bit too much. She draped limp arms around his neck and wrapped her legs more securely around his waist, to anchor herself in his arms—after all, she was several pounds heavier than the first time they’d christened his shower.

‘Answer me,’ he said, impatience radiating off him. ‘Are you okay?’

She nodded then smiled, pleased even more by his panicked reaction, because it was more concrete evidence of how much he worried about her welfare. Even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. Yet.

‘Absolutely,’ she said, the joy in her heart all-consuming, because she was ridiculously happy they’d shared such an intimate moment. ‘It’s just the baby protesting at the squeeze on its living quarters.’

‘That’s...’ He stared at the bump. ‘Really?’ Intense emotion flashed across his features but then his gaze became hooded, and he shifted away from her.

Her joy faded. A little.

The guarded expression was one she’d become accustomed to in the last four weeks. Every time she probed as gently as she could about his thoughts on the baby, or their future, or both.

His gaze glided down to where their bodies were still joined, but she could feel the tension in his shoulders increase—sense him distancing himself from the fierce excitement of moments ago.

‘Good to know,’ he said, his voice rough with all the things he refused to say.

More of the joy faded, replaced with sadness and confusion. Why did he find it so hard to talk about anything to do with the baby? He listened with interest when she gave him feedback about her antenatal appointments, but he never asked any questions. And he’d refused her invitation to attend her recent scan. And last week, when she’d asked if she could equip the guest bedroom as a nursery—hoping to start a conversation about what would happen once the baby was born—he gave her a gruff yes, then changed the subject by seducing her into a puddle of need on the dinner table.

The next day, his PA Joe had informed her of an account with unlimited funds set up in her name at London’s most exclusive department store and supplied her with a list of personal shoppers who specialised in baby equipment and couture, and the contact details for a world-famous interior designer who did nursery interiors.

But Mason had refused to enter the guest room ever since.

Reaching across her, he switched off the still pounding jets. Then levered her off him to deposit her on her feet.

He clasped her elbow firmly, until he was sure she was steady.

‘You good?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, but as he let her go, she knew she wasn’t good. Not even close.

Maybe the unshed tears making her eyes sting were the pregnancy hormones. Mostly. And the emotional wipeout of cataclysmic sex followed by feeling her baby move inside her and knowing he had felt it too. But all those qualifications couldn’t dispel the ache when he left her standing alone in the shower to grab a towel.

She swallowed down the raw emotion pressing against her larynx as she watched him wrap it around his lean waist.

Why couldn’t he let her know how he felt? Why couldn’t he even talk about the baby? About them. About their future. She’d tried to be patient, tried to be understanding, tried to give him time to figure out his thoughts and feelings, because she suspected—from the little he’d let slip about his past—he wasn’t a man used to having to talk about his emotional needs, or even really having to acknowledge he had any.

But she knew he did, because all the evidence was already there—that he could be a tender, loving, fiercely protective father and partner, if he would just admit it to himself.

She’d seen the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching. Had been able to read all the questions, all the need, in his eyes.

But it wasn’t just the things he wouldn’t say, it was the small ways in which he showed her she mattered.

He had hardly spent a single evening away from her since that first night when he had told her he needed separation. And he’d stopped leaving her to sleep alone. Now he always stayed the night and dragged himself away at stupid o’clock in the morning, so he would have time to return to his suite at the hotel in Belgravia where he kept all his clothing, but nothing else. He’d been agitated and tense when he found her working late yesterday but had stopped short of demanding she work less.

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