So instead of pushing or bartering, I joked, “Damn, that ruins all my plans for the night.” I flashed a smile, hoping to show her how delighted I was that she’d given in so quickly. I would never word it that way to her, of course.
Her gaze jumped between my eyes and lips, eyes and lips. My blood boiled. I was going to devour her. But I gritted my teeth to keep from doing so. I’d already gone to her over and over, made every move. It was about time she did the moving.
And she did.
Leaning over the armrest, she brushed her soft lips over mine. The sharp breath I sucked in couldn’t be stopped. Blood rushed through my veins, my pulse pounding in my ears. I wanted to gobble her up but again stayed my hand. She pulled back slightly, and I bit my cheek to keep from grabbing that braid and crushing my mouth back to hers.
“Oh, and I forgot to add, no more being a jackass,” she murmured against my lips, and my heart sang.
I fucking adored her.
I chuckled darkly, muttering, “Now that’s one thing I cannot abide,” before snaking that braid around my hand and brushing my lips against hers.
When we dropped down, it was still the afternoon. Kate had driven her own car, so we went our separate ways from Ava and Cade at the airport. After we let them know we’d call them the next day when we found out the news, they seemed in a hurry to be on their way. Probably us making out on the plane for the last hour of the flight had made them uncomfortable. I didn’t give two shits. I’d gotten to make out with Kate for the last hour of our flight. I was fucking flying.
But I needed to ground myself. This wasn’t going to be a cake walk. Kate had baggage, baggage she didn’t like sharing. I liked carrying people’s baggage. Case in point, I had joined the air force fresh out of high school. Fixing things was my greatest enjoyment.
First thing to be fixed for Kate would be her driving situation. Her car was a piece of shit. It’d taken much finesse and eight tries to get the engine to turn over.
Once she finally got it started, it barely made it out of the airport parking garage. It was troubling, but she didn’t make a fuss about it. I was going to make a fuss, but instead I stared at her perfect belly, our baby growing in there, wishing I could have a cigarette. She wouldn’t let me smoke in her piece-of-shit car, reasoning that I was supposed to be cutting back anyway. The awful country music she had blaring only made me want to smoke even more.
“So what are our plans for tonight?” I asked her. She was leaning forward, her shoulders about reaching her ears as she navigated the roads with squinted eyes. It was fucking adorable.
“I was thinking about a nap. And maybe some food.” The impact of the smirk she sent me knocked the breath out of me.
“I guess the nap is probably necessary for you.”
She snorted. “Yes, I need one desperately, since you wouldn’t let me sleep on the plane.”
That’s right, I hadn’t let her sleep on the plane. Not after she opened up, after getting to taste her again.
Gripping the steering wheel, she cleared her throat. “And the food would be nice. I’m actually hungry again.”
Which was music to my ears. She needed to be gaining some amount of weight, but she looked even skinnier than when I first saw her three days ago. “If we’re having food, does that mean I can take you out on a date?”
She gave me a wry look before pulling into her apartment complex, stating, “I think you’re a bit late on the date, sugar.”
With a dark chuckle, I said, “You’re wounding my ego. I want to take you on a genuine date if we’re going to be in a relationship. I would have done as much before… before that happened, but you were being stubborn.”
She kept her mouth sealed tight, rolling her lips between her teeth until we were out of the car, getting our stuff out. “I may have been stubborn, but you wore me down.” After giving me a wink, she unlocked the door, then said, “If we’re going on an actual date, I’d like to do it when I haven’t been traveling all day.”
She swung the door open and led the way inside, tossing her bags on the floor by the table. Which was where I stopped short. The sight of the stuff for her pump, the amount of it, made me sick to my stomach. I had done some research on hyperemesis gravidarum. It was extremely dangerous for her and the baby if it wasn’t kept under control. Just her throwing up at my parents’ had probably stolen a good amount of her reserves. I hadn’t even noticed her doing anything with it while we were there, which told me it was another thing she wanted to keep to herself, something she wouldn’t share the burden of.
Next to the pile of medical supplies were neatly stacked textbooks on computer science, some I actually knew from my own studies. And next to that stack was an even bigger one of about twenty different pregnancy/baby books. My stomach turned. I’d done my fair share of research, but nothing near this. She was reading about baby sleep patterns, breastfeeding, first-time parenting, and so on. At the very top was a book titled You’re Going to be a Dad! that had me sweating bullets.
She cleared her throat after a full minute of me standing there staring at the
