Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86126 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Titus huffed out a breath against my nipple that I felt all the way to my toes.
“There’s no normal way to have sex, sugar,” he informed me. “Lots of ways to do it.”
“It was just different than I thought,” I said with a sigh.
“Better?” he asked softly.
I looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Are you kidding?”
Titus laughed.
“We’re gonna need to get the girls sleepin’ in their own beds again,” he muttered. He scooted down so he was level with my belly. “At least for the few weeks we have before this one arrives.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” I asked curiously, watching as he smoothed his lips over the rounded curve.
“Why the hell would it bother me?” he asked, his lips still pressed against my skin.
“Just, you know, I’m pregnant.”
“Noticed that. And?”
“I’m not sexy,” I mumbled.
Titus’s laugh shook the bed.
I shushed him.
“Not sexy?” He hooted, and I shoved at his shoulder, which he ignored.
He leaned up on an elbow. “Maybe if it wasn’t you,” he said, grinning, tipping his head from side to side. “Can’t think of a single scenario that I wouldn’t find you sexy.”
“Oh,” I huffed.
“So, sex with the dead husband,” he said with clearly faked casualness. “Not great, then?”
“No,” I replied calmly. I didn’t want to think about sex with Caleb, not then, but Titus was quiet and I was afraid that all sorts of terrible scenarios were playing in his head. “It wasn’t horrible,” I murmured, running the tips of my fingers over his ear and down the back of his neck. “He used lubricant, and it was all very…chore-like. Go to bed, take off my underwear, slide up my nightgown, think about what I had to do the next day, and then it was over. Clean up and go to sleep.”
Titus made a sound deep in his throat. “I hate that for you,” he whispered. “I’m glad that it wasn’t horrible, but it sounds horrible.”
“It’s over,” I reminded him.
Titus was quiet for a few moments.
“You know, I almost went after you,” he finally said, raising his eyes to meet mine. “When I saw which school they enrolled you in, I almost went up there, waited for you to get out so we could take off.”
Blood rushed to my head, but I knew Titus, and I didn’t let anything but a small smile show in my expression.
“Oh yeah?” I asked quietly.
“Came really fuckin’ close,” he said, nodding as he rested his head against my belly. “But there was nowhere for us to go. If I brought you back here, sure as fuck Ephraim would come for you. And I was seventeen, without a high school diploma, there was no way I could support us anywhere else.”
“It’s good you didn’t,” I replied gently, pressing my finger against his bottom lip. “If you had, we wouldn’t have Ariel or Diana or this one.”
“Maybe we would’ve anyway,” he whispered roughly. “Maybe they just woulda been mine.”
I thought about the way Diana ran screaming with glee toward Titus when he walked in the door, even if he’d only been outside for fifteen minutes. The way Ariel curled up against his chest with her blankie while they watched movies. How both girls preferred it when he brushed their teeth at night because he sang some weird teeth-brushing song. How he’d brought home a baby bathtub because he’d seen it at the store and realized we didn’t have one—I’d never had one, I’d just washed the girls in the kitchen sink. I pictured him pulling on the girls’ socks and shoes so they could go outside with him to play and blowing on Diana’s dinner plate so it wouldn’t be too hot when he handed it to her, and carrying them upside down around the house while they howled with laughter.
I watched as he ran his fingers over my round belly, his head resting against it like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be there.
“Aren’t they?” I asked carefully.
Titus’s eyes closed, and he swallowed hard.
Then he nodded.
I gave him a moment.
“You can’t get rid of us now,” I teased.
“Thank fuck,” he breathed, his eyes popping back open.
“I’ve heard you say that before,” I mused. “Who exactly is fuck and why are you thanking them?”
“Oh, she’s got jokes.” He laughed, his eyes lighting up. His hand went straight for my armpit and I screeched, squirming as I tried to get away from the tickling fingers. The bottom half of me was trapped beneath the blankets and we were both laughing so hard that we barely made any sound before he finally stopped with a sigh.
“The girls are going to be very annoyed that they missed a tickle fight,” I announced breathlessly. My eyes opened wide. “Shit!”
Titus whooped in surprise, pointing at me.
I smacked his finger away. “I forgot my phone on the other bed and your mom said she would call if the girls needed to be picked up, because Ariel—”