Page 35 of A Very Bumpy Christmas
“Just making sure we get to keep this,” I admit, returning to her. “Now I’m off-duty.”
“Good,” she says, and tugs me closer.
We kiss again, deeper but not faster. I learn the tilt of her chin, the pace that makes her sigh against my mouth. When I map the line of her jaw with my knuckles, her lashes flutter; when Itrail my mouth to the soft place below her ear, she shivers and whispers my name like thanks.
“Tell me no if anything isn’t right,” I say against her skin. “Humor me.”
“I will,” she promises, and I believe her.
I keep my hands where they’ve been wanting to go all night—her back, her hips, the curve beneath her shoulder blades. I knead the muscles that took the strain, careful of new weight and old aches. She melts under my palms, breath hitching when I find a knot and work it loose with slow pressure. It’s practical and it’s not. I can feel the exact moment relief turns to heat again, see it in the way she arches, in how her fingers slide under the hem of my shirt to find skin.
We shed a layer, both of us losing our shirts. Nothing frantic. Fabric moves as the air finds us.
She traces her fingers through the grooves of my muscles, up my chest and over my shoulders. I watch her as she studies my body.
The room smells like pine and laundry soap and whatever it is her skin does to my judgment. I keep one palm at the small of her back, a steadying point, the other moves to her belly.
“Hey, Peanut,” I whisper, ridiculous and awed. “Permission to proceed?”
She laughs, breathless and bright. “Permission granted.”
We tip onto the bed with care, me bracing so she can half-sit, half-sprawl without strain. I line us up so her back’s supported and her hips aren’t fighting angles they don’t like. When I slide my hand along her thigh to anchor us, her breath stutters. When I press a kiss to the hollow of her collarbone, she makesthat quiet, sincere sound again that ends up somewhere I’m not prepared to talk about.
“Lucas,” she says, and it’s a request and a reward. “I know my body isn’t like it was when we first had sex.”
I shake my head, hating that her mind is going there. “Mel,” I whisper, looking her straight in the eyes. “I want you to believe me when I say this.”
She nods.
“Back when I first met you I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. When we spent that weekend together I thought I was the luckiest man in the world.” I run a hand over her belly. “But now, you’re so much more beautiful than you were that night, and now I know I’m the luckiest fucker in the world.”
“Lucas,” she whispers. “I’m glad my baby is going to have you as its father.”
I kiss her. Slow, steady. I can feel my chest expanding with something I don’t have a better name for yet—a pressure that isn’t panic, a fullness that makes my hands gentler. It’s new. It’s not complicated, and it’s clear. I want her happy. I want her safe. I want to be the quiet in her nervous system and the heat she asks for when the cold sneaks in.
When the temperature edges too high for good sense and doctor’s orders, I ease us back with a kiss that lands like a promise and a breath that saysnot tonight, not like that.Her smile tells me she heard it, and her hand on my jaw tells me she agrees.
“Thank you,” she whispers, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “For not… rushing this movie.”
“Best movie I’ve ever seen,” I say, pressing my mouth to her palm. “Five stars. Would rewatch.”
She laughs, soft and sleepy, and tucks herself under my arm like she belongs there—which, I realize with bone-deep certainty, she does. I pull the blanket up, switch my brain to the setting where it listens while I rest, and let my hand settle over her stomach again. The baby rolls once, like a satisfied cat. I swallow hard against the ridiculous urge to tell a tiny person I’ll never miss their Tuesday.
“Go to sleep,” she murmurs, eyes already closed, like she can feel the way I’m wired and loves it anyway.
“Working on it,” I say, pressing a kiss to her hairline.
In the quiet that follows, my mind does one last sweep—wedge in place, chain set, phone charged, threat picture clear—and then, for the first time in longer than I can remember, I let it go. Not all the way. Just enough to dream about a tree in a small living room and a woman who leans into me like I’m steady ground.
I promised myself I’d figure this out.
I will.
One slow yes at a time.
14
Melanie
