“Thank you,” he whispered, almost like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.
I chuckled again. “You do realize you just agreed to have a highly-hormonal, highly-pregnant woman move into your house? I mean, you know how tough I was to handle before you knocked me up.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” He grinned, trailing a finger over the line of my jaw. “I can handle you.”
Another shiver raked my skin as he winked and turned out the door.
I watched him walk away, the muscles in his back so gorgeously evident from the tight black shirt he wore.
I can handle you.
Well, I’m glad one of us was confident because living with Warren?
The sexy-as-sin, best lay of my life, father of my unborn child?
That was going to be some kind of newly invented torture, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be strong enough to resist the temptation.
Chapter 4
Warren
“How many pairs of shoes do you own?” I asked as I hefted the sixth and final clear plastic tub from her SUV.
All of them filled with shoes—kitten heels and fuck-me heels and boots. Each pair pristine and organized in their own box. A mental image of her wearing any of them—and only them—while I feasted on her from my knees, flashed red hot in my mind.
Fuck. Lock it up.
Rory and Gage had helped move her stuff into my house earlier today without hesitation. Each of them had their fair share of advice for living with a pregnant woman, but it was hard to know how much of it I should follow. Jeannine and I weren’t like Bailey and Gage or Rory and Paige.
Nine hadn’t fallen madly in love with me and then decided to have my child.
No.
I was lucky she was allowing me to give her a place to stay while her apartment was renovated. She was successful and resourceful—she could’ve shot down my offer and stayed with one of the girls or sublet another apartment until hers was fixed.
That notion alone gave me hope.
“Are you complaining?” She asked, falling into step behind me as I sat the tub down on my already crammed dining room table.
Most of her things—furniture, books, electronics—were now neatly stored in the guest house’s master bedroom. The one I’d never furnished because I never had overnight guests. But there were some things she’d demanded stay with her. The killer cookware, for sure, her clothes, and the many bins filled with shoes.
“Of course, not,” I said, resting an elbow on the lid of the box. “But are you sure you don’t want these to go into storage with the rest of your stuff? The guest house isn’t that far—”
She cut a glare that silenced my words.
“Point taken.” I raised my hands in defense. “It’ll take me a beat to clear the suits out of my master closet, but I’ll get it done.” I turned, heading to do just that.
“No,” she said, and I spun back around. “You don’t need to clear out your closet,” she said, running her hand over the clear tubs. “I’ll take the guest room. Besides, I can’t exactly wear half of these.” She sighed. “I mean I could, but I wouldn’t dare risk falling off my heels and hurting the baby.”
A warmth pulsed in my chest and I dared a glance down at her tummy. Something I’d avoided since she’d arrived twenty minutes ago.
Every beat of my heart screamed mine, mine, mine.
I wanted to run my hands over her belly and talk to the baby I never knew I wanted.
Wanted to feel what she felt—our lives coming together inside her to create something short of a miracle.
Damn.
I’d never thought anything would have the power to change me so drastically and so quickly, but here I was, moving Jeannine into my house. A place I’d never even brought a woman before—except Lettie and the girls—let alone allowed one to sleep over.
If I was being honest, those six months I spent thinking about Jeannine, most of those fantasies included sleeping with her here.
In my room, in my kitchen, on the damn dining room table now covered in all things her.
And that was before I knew about the baby.
“I just want them close,” she said. “So I can take them out and look at them and remember the life I used to have.” She gasped, her eyes flaring wide as her words caught up with her. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she hurried to continue. “I’m happy.” She rubbed her belly, almost like she was apologizing to the baby. “I’m so beyond happy—”
“Hey,” I said, stepping toward her with my hands outstretched like I was approaching a cornered animal. “It’s okay to miss your old life.” I stopped with a few inches between us. “It’s only been six months,” I said. “This will likely take more than a lifetime to get used to.”
A small laugh and she nodded.
“I know you’re right,” she said. “I never want to sound like I have regrets. Because I don’t.” She locked her gaze on mine, the severity in those blue eyes shaking me. A few blinks and it softened. “We can put these in one of your guest room closet if that’s all right.”
“You’re carrying my child,” I said, no room for argument in my tone. “You’re sleeping in my bed. No guest room.”
A tiny sigh escaped her lips, and she darted her tongue out to wet them.
Heat shot straight to my dick with that innocent little move, and it took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to reach out and bury my hands in her silky hair.
To claim her mouth.
Taste her in more ways than a kiss.
“It has better back support,” I said, my voice a damn near whisper.
“Okay,” she said. “But we can still put the shoes somewhere else. As long as it’s a closet and not some darkened storage unit.”
I laughed. “You feel like a master bedroom in the guesthouse is a storage unit?”
“Well, it is now, isn’t it?” She popped her hands on her hips.
I tilted my head and scooped up the same box I’d just sat down. “Guess you have a point,” I said, heading to the guest room across from mine. “This space is free.” The closet didn’t have a thing in it save for some extra bedding my mom had bought as a house-warming gift after I’d purchased the place.
“Perfect,” Jeannine said, peeking around the corner as I opened the door and sat the first tub down on the empty closet floor.
“One down,” I said, laughing. “Four million to go.”
She snorted. “If I made the kind of money a Shark does that number would be a hell of a lot more accurate.”
I gaped at her, noticing she wasn’t close to joking.
“What?” she stopped near where I’d halted in the doorway. “I have a weakness for shoes.”
I shifted to face her like it wasn’t an option not to—my body begging to be aligned with hers in any way possible. “I didn’t figure the wild Nine had any weaknesses.”
She arched a brow at me. “A few.”
“What are the others?” I leaned one arm on the doorframe, slightly caging her in.
“I’ll never tell,” she said, her chest rising and falling a bit faster than moments before.
I dared to shift closer, so close I could feel the heat from her body, smell the fresh scent of her skin.
“I could get it out of you.” I kept my other hand steady at my side, demanding it not to betray me and reach for her.
“Is that so?”
I nodded, unable to stop the smile shaping my lips.
“And how would you go about getting that information from me?”
Yes. There she is. The girl who likes to play.
“Oh, I have a few techniques I think would work on you.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmhmm.” I inched my face closer to hers, needing more of her scent, more of her nearness. “Ways that would likely have you spill all your secrets.”
A shudder rippled over her skin, and she forced out a laugh. “I don’t have any secrets.”
“Liar,” I teased, my nose a breath away f
rom the tip of hers.
“I’m an open book.”
“I know that’s not true.”
“You don’t know me,” she countered, shifting so that her spine was against the doorframe, her body almost brushing mine.
I smirked. “You’re independent and fierce and sometimes a real pain in the ass.”
She rolled her eyes, but a flush raced over her cheeks.
“But,” I continued, taking my time to trail my eyes over her body. “Under all that strength? There is something there. Something I think you rarely let people see. Maybe not even the girls.”
Her lips parted, her eyes darting over mine.
They were shocked but hungry and full of heat.
She wanted something from me, and in that moment, I had something I wanted to give her.
One breath, that is all that separated my lips from hers. It would only take one nod from her, and I’d claim her mouth.
I held my breath, holding my position, waiting…wanting.
She tilted her chin up just a fraction and closed her eyes.
Submission.
Acceptance.
Mine.
A thrill rushed through me, flickering nerves fueling my racing heart as I smoothed my hand over her cheek.
She jolted, her eyes snapping open wide and panicked…
Before she sprinted from under my touch.