Page 94 of Dash

It’s not uncomfortable, but it is a weird feeling of pressure and fullness.

He keeps one hand between my legs, moving the probe around where he needs, pressing buttons on the machine as he stares at the screen.

My lungs feel like they’re being strangled as the seconds tick by.

“The good thing is at this stage in pregnancy, baby’s fairly protected, but let’s just have a peek and see what’s going on.”

I glance up at Dash, my fingers locked tight in his, but his eyes are locked on the screen.

“Okay, I can see the sac…” He moves the probe inside me, and I wince a little at the pressure. “And there’s your baby.”

I turn my head so quickly, I nearly snap my neck. The image is grainy, like there’s too much static, and I squint at it.

“I don’t see anything.” I should be able to tell my baby, right? I’m its mother.

He makes a sound in his throat. “It’s difficult when the foetus is this small, but this here,” he points to a spot on the screen that looks like a speck, “that’s the sac, and this little bean shape here is the baby.”

My world tilts on its axis. I stare at the screen. There’s something growing inside me, something that Dash and I made.

Dash’s fingers tighten in mine, and I lift my eyes to him. I’ve never seen that look before. Completely and utterly reverent.

“You seeing this?” he murmurs.

“Yeah. Our baby is modern art.” A tear escapes. “Abstract, doesn’t look like what it’s supposed to, definitely costs more than it should.”

This time when he squeezes my hand, there’s warning behind it that has me smirking.

“Everything looks good?” Dash asks. “She went down pretty hard.”

I want to tell him it’s not his fault, that he didn’t know I was pregnant, and that he saved us anyway.

The doc clicks the keys before he says, “Everything looks good so far. I’d guess baby is closer to eight weeks than six, looking at the measurements.”

If the dates are right, eight weeks would mean I conceived the night of Ivy’s engagement party. I was pregnant our entire relationship.

Dash lifts my hand, pressing a kiss to my knuckles, and the look on his face says he’s worked the same thing out. We were always destined to be here.

He removes the probe before he turns to me. “If you have any bleeding, any abdominal pain, come back in. Oh, and congratulations on your pregnancy, Miss Harrington.”

He leaves the cubicle, and I try to sit up. “At least you clean me up after you’ve been inside me,” I joke. “He didn’t even give me a tissue.” Dash grabs some roll from the dispenser on the wall and gently parts my thighs. “What are you doing?”

“Babe, if he tried to clean you up, he would have been spitting teeth.”

He wipes away the mess made by the lubrication.

Tears prick my eyes when he’s finished. And they choke my throat as he helps me sit up and gently slides my underwear up my legs.

Nobody has ever taken care of me the way he is right now. And I don’t know what to do with it. He’s always been attentive, but this is soul-deep care.

Once I’m dressed, he wraps an arm around my shoulders and presses a kiss to my temple. Then another to my cheek and finally he claims my mouth, his hand wrapped around my throat lightly.

Mine.

That’s what it screams.

And for once, I’m not scared by it. By this. By him.

If this is what it feels like to be loved—real love, not lust or loneliness playing dress-up—then I’m already too far gone. Because I don’t know how to go back to surviving without him.

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