Page 51 of Angel's Smoke

Anna put her hands on her hips. “And if any of those words held even a modicum of truth, I’d have told you that a woman does not invite a man who is not the biological father of her baby to her frickin’ OB appointment without planning to spend the rest of the afternoonwith that man.” Then she folded her arms over her chest. “What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you want to know the gender?” It was the question that had been bouncing around his mind all through the ride home and one he hadn’t been able to figure out an answer for.

“What?”

He struggled to keep the regret out of his voice, but in doing so, he somehow managed to let sparks of his indignation punch through. “Why don’t you want to know? There’s got to be a reason, because this is America. It’s default information overload all the goddamn time. So, what makes you so different here? You’re not the type to love surprises, so why don’t you want to know the gender of the life you’re carrying? Seems like it might make things easier with the planning and all.”

Anna hugged herself tighter, and he waited,waitedfor the blast of censure she was sure to fire at him for running off his dumb-ass mouth to a pregnant womanabouther pregnancy, as if he had any skin in the game on that front. And if he’d honestly thought it’d help her get a clean, deserving shot at him, he’d open his coat and flannel wide enough so she couldn’t miss.

But then her eyes tipped toward the floor, and he didn’t overlook the sheen that coated them before she stole all that sad sparkle away from him.

“What if I’m not enough?” She whispered her confession to the floorboards.

Iron could have been in the track of an entire solar system’s worth of space garbage and, after hearing her heartbreaking words, still wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to move out the damn way. “Anna, you can’t be serious.”

“Of course I’m serious.” She swiped at a tear while all he could do was stand there, horrified that he’d made her cry in the first place but far too dumbstruck to work out which problem to tackle first—all of which he feared he had a hand in starting. “Since the day Travis left me, I told myself I was better off, because I wouldn’t let that asshole within sniffing distance of my new family, and him leaving was the best of both worlds. I promised myself that I would be such a magnificent goddamn mother that there would be no room for my child to ever wonder about who helped create them. I’d be the best. The best entrepreneur, have the most successful online nutrition counseling service in the state, always be there for my baby whenever they needed me. I would smother that child with enough love to squeeze out Travis from the picture entirely, until he was never even a thought in our lives to begin with.”

The conviction in her voice felt forced but well used, like a coat of armor that never fit quite right but had been called into countless battles regardless. Her strength was astounding and totally fucking heartbreaking.

“But when my doctor first asked me whether I wanted to know the gender, there was something inside me that kept scratching at whether I might be wrong. How will I react if I see Travis in my child? Will I see his judgmental attitude shaming me behind my son’s eyes or his coloring monopolizing every prominent feature of my daughter to the point that people don’t even recognize her as mine? I thought that, if it was a surprise, at least I’d have to find a way to deal with the hand I’d be dealt and that maybe some of my anxieties would be stripped away. But what if all my intentions and self-talk fly out the window as soon as I find out what kind of baby I’m giving birth to? What if I’m not really strong enough to do this on my own and all my motivational mumblings wind up feeling as hollow as they sound?”

His heart finally finished splintering. Just full-on shattered into a thousand shards that scampered further away from him on the peals of her pain. There was no hope of collecting them again, for he feared that whatever he’d manage to save would be so battered and bruised that there wouldn’t be any love left in them to care for the child that desperately needed the love it previously housed.

In the absence of anything useful to wield against a foe he had no experience fighting, he offered up the only thing he could think of.

Iron closed the space between them, gliding across her living room in two giant strides. His hands flew to the sides of her face, offering his strength even as he thumbed away her tears. Just the sight of her heartache was enough to send his heart, whatever was left of it, into a painful spasm. She didn’t deserve this, and he was the piece of shit who had pressured her into unraveling a hurt he’d not known she’d carried, all to satisfy his curiosity.

“Listen to me, Anna,” he said, softly shaking his insistence into his embrace. “You are so much more than enough.”

He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t hold back anymore. There were a thousand scenarios that saw him turning on his bootheels and leaving her to a life he logically knew her to be better off in. But only one of them had her in his arms, pulling her closer, while he stroked the smooth skin down the sides of her neck, doing his bumbling best to massage away the tension he’d brought into her home.

Only one scenario saw him slanting his lips across hers, absorbing the anguish of her tears into himself.

Only one scenario had her responding, her arms curling around his neck, returning his possessive embrace with a claim of her own, or him lifting her high against his chest and carrying her to her bedroom.

If she didn’t think she was enough, he was going to spend whatever time he had left in the mortal realm showing her how very wrong she was.

Chapter25

It was on the tip of Anna’s tongue to ask Iron to kiss her—or beg, to be frank. It would have been a million times easier to get lost in the heady flavor of him than to slice open more of the wound she’d been trying to cover up ever since she found out she was pregnant. She never expected him to silence that noise by stealing bits of her broken soul into him. Hadn’t even known that was possible, just like so many things when it came to this man.

With the mental clamor gone, or at least silenced for the time being, she dove headfirst into whatshefinally wanted.

Anna let Iron carry her far away from whatever anxiety had spilled out of her mouth and onto her living room floor. Whether it evaporated into the ether or chose to fester into a larger problem for her to deal with later, she didn’t care. All that mattered was Iron’s mouth on hers and the feel of his solid strength supporting her.

Iron kicked her bedroom door closed behind them. The slam of the wood was a definitive statement, shutting out her problems while barring entrance to anything that wasn’t supporting her body with his strength. But when Iron didn’t immediately carry her over to the bed like she expected, she forced herself to pull away from him. The look etched on his face nearly stopped her heart.

Whatever master had previously taken their chisel and hammer to Iron’s features had replaced their tools with lust-fueled flames. A tempered need flashed high in his eyes, which had yet to land on any part of her andnotignite her skin with reciprocal force. Anna blinked, then focused her gaze on where her forearms rested over his shoulders, double-checking for heat that was surely rippling off her skin.

Nothing. Nothing except a frenzied desire to rip off the far too many layers of clothing he still wore, including his coat, and run her scorched palms over every mound of muscle she’d only ever dreamed of touching.

Which had been fever dreams, clearly, because holy shit, it was hot in her bedroom. Even the air felt arid, and that was quite the problem, because if he kissed her like that again, she was going to need entire atmospheres of the stuff just to keep up with him.

With a groan she felt in every single one of her vertebrae, he attacked the side of her neck with a renewed enthusiasm that had her tumbling over whatever cliff he’d brought her to. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you.” He palmed her ass, spreading and massaging her through her pants, maneuvering her right where he desired. When he squeezed the flesh there, gripping her with just the right amount of force, her pulse kicked higher against his lips. “Mmm, perfect. I want your wild heartbeats, Anna. I want everything about you, all the frantic, messy bits no one sees. Let my arms be that safe place for you, where you can come apart without consequences.”

“Yes,” she breathed, shocked at the emotion in her voice. She wanted all of that.God, she wanted all of that, to hold Iron in her messy world and be held in return, free of any rebukes or reprimands. She wanted?—

“I need the sun on your skin.”

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