Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
It was worse.
Luckily, Kane didn’t have anything more to say. He just stayed there with his cheek on my stomach.
Not knowing what came over me—beyond the overwhelming need to make sure he was real—I risked lifting my hand and running it through his hair. The stakes were high, as were the chances of rejection. The way he was touching me right now was not about me, not about my body; it was about the baby inside of me. Our baby inside of me.
Instead of stiffening at my touch, Kane relaxed entirely. I continued running my hands through the strands, letting my heart rate even, letting myself lapse into a tense version of peace.
I couldn’t be sure how long we stayed like that, but I would’ve been content to do it forever. Kane eventually lifted his head, looking toward me. Still, there was a shuttering in his eyes.
“I’m gonna go take a shower, then I’ll be back.” He was rubbing my stomach absently. “Don’t go to sleep.”
The order was spoken in a rasp.
Though there were many things different, unrecognizable about Kane, that tone was not. It sent me hurtling back in time, to my apartment, my bedroom, my sofa, my kitchen counter, dive bar bathrooms.
My libido, a thing that I thought was long dead, awoke with a vengeance.
“Heard, Chef?” he asked.
I sucked in an unsteady breath at the title.
“Heard,” I replied, voice quivering.
He lingered there for a moment, looking at his hand on my belly, then pushed off the bed, walking to the bathroom.
I lay there, trying to calm my galloping heart as I heard the shower run, as he moved about in the room right next to me. He was preparing to come into bed with me.
I tried to catalog the evening so far, tried to process his anger, his hurt, his detachment. Betrayal. That was the biggest one. Not from Brax. Sure, that might’ve hit him, but Kane was smart enough to keep Brax at arm’s length.
Me, though... me, he’d let in. He’d given me all of him, and I’d let someone else take it away and reduce it to nothing.
Then he’d sat in a prison cell for months.
It took significant effort for me not to get up and run to the bathroom down the hall to throw up again. Somehow, I managed.
By the time the bathroom door opened and Kane turned off the light, I had sipped at my tea enough to calm myself down and was not in danger of throwing up again.
Kane didn’t speak when he walked out, but from a glimpse I stole, I saw he was in nothing but his underwear. He’d been muscular before but leaner. In the months he’d been gone—in prison, I corrected—he had packed on weight in pure muscle. He looked more menacing now. More dangerous. My tattoo was still on his left pec. He hadn’t covered it up. My brand. My name. Seeing it burned my throat.
When the bed depressed, I leaned over in order to turn off my lamp. No way could I continue to look at him, feel the ache from all the changes.
A hand at my hip stopped me, a palm moving over my stomach.
“No,” he ordered. “I want to see you.”
He resumed rubbing my stomach, slowly, unhurriedly, impossibly gentle.
I felt the kick at the same time he did, from someone who had been suspiciously quiet this evening. Or maybe I’d been too overwhelmed to notice the movements.
Kane froze as a little foot kicked against his palm. Hard.
And again.
Despite the situation and my overall emotional state, I smiled. It had taken me a while to get used to the movements inside of me. I hadn’t liked them at first. It felt strange and foreign and a far too real reminder that my body was not my own and that I would be a mother soon. A single mother.
But as the baby grew, as I watched her kick in ultrasounds, I felt reassured by my constant company, for a responsibility that forced me to keep going.
Kane still hadn’t spoken, I realized. It had been at least a minute of kicking.
“We’ve got a night owl on our hands,” I said, suddenly desperate to fill the silence. “Which isn’t surprising, considering our nocturnal habits.”
It sounded immensely lame, but I had no idea what else to say. I’d never in a million years thought I’d be lying in bed with Kane again, let alone with his hand on my pregnant belly as our child kicked.
Still, Kane didn’t speak.
I held my breath.
“I had a lot in my life,” he whispered. “Or I thought I had a lot. But after feeling this, I now know I had nothing.” He tenderly rubbed his hand against my stomach.
I bit my lip so I didn’t cry. I couldn’t respond. I just let us lay there quietly until the baby decided it was time to rest. After, Kane kept his hand there for at least another five minutes. I didn’t dare move.