We weren’t going to have couples therapy, per se, but she did want to meet him and talk with us for a few minutes before I had my session. She and I had discussed it, and I wanted him to know what I’d been working on, the progress I’d made, and how he could help if I needed him to.
He stepped closer, and I backed up until he caged me in against the counter. “Then we’re going to talk. Okay?”
“Yes. Talk.” I literally had to repeat what he’d said because with him that close, my brain was scrambled.
He leaned in and trailed the tip of his nose along my jaw. The two piercings tickled, and I shivered. “Cold?” he asked, causing his breath to warm my neck.
“Uh-uh,” I breathed out, nearly trembling at his proximity to my body. After everything I’d been through, I still wanted this man more than my next breath.
“Let’s go,” he whispered in my ear and placed a kiss on my temple.
He stood to his full height, which sent my senses into overdrive again and took my hand in his gloved one.
“What are we going to tell her about your gloves?” I asked with a thoughtful crinkle in my brow.
He shrugged, then grinned. “We’ll say I have a skin condition and leave it at that.”
“Okay.”
Korrie still hadn’t come downstairs, so I assumed she was napping with Angeline. Since Trace was in school, I set the alarm on the door as we left. He caught my hand and held it as we walked to my car.
“So what kind of vehicle are you gonna get? Jeep like Voodoo? Truck like my brother? Or are you more into muscle cars like Ghost?” I asked as he backed my car out of the driveway. He caught my eye as he shifted into drive.
“I was kinda thinking about a Range Rover or a BMW SUV,” he said.
“Huh,” I said in surprise. “I figured you’d want something cool.”
“What’s not cool about a Rover or a Beemer?” he asked as he turned the corner out of my brother’s neighborhood.
Wide-eyed, I stared at him. “Those are like, umm… family trucksters,” I said with my face screwed up in a scowl.
His laugh made me want to swoon. Then he glanced at my pregnant belly with an arched brow, and I did.
My counseling appointment went better than I thought. Nico was extremely supportive, and Helen approved.
Nico took me for a late lunch, then we went back to his room at the clubhouse. Since I’d let my apartment lease run out after my place had been ransacked thanks to my father, I didn’t have a place. Neither did he. That would be one thing I needed to figure out, because I couldn’t keep staying with my brother forever.
“I’m going to have to get a place soon,” I said as I sat on the edge of his bed. He grabbed the chair from the desk and spun it around to straddle it. Resting his arms on the back, he propped his chin on his forearm and thoughtfully gazed at me.
“Me too,” he said. “Can’t have my kid here when I spend time with him.”
“Or her,” I added with a smirk, though his words sent a little pang through my heart. Did he not see us together later? I shoved my worries down for another day.
His eyes went wide. “Don’t do that to me. Please don’t do that to me.”
My laugh was instantaneous and boisterous. “You’re hilarious. You do understand that it’s your sperm that determines whether it a boy or a girl, right?”
“Well, in that case, it’s a boy. My sperm are badasses, and they wouldn’t dare give me a girl.” He seemed so certain and serious that I fell over onto the bed laughing.
Next thing I knew, he was sweeping my feet off the floor and depositing me in the center of the bed. As I continued to laugh, he crawled up and nestled his hips against mine. He kept his weight off me on his elbows.
“You think that’s funny, do you?” he asked with a mischievous tilt of his lips. When he rubbed his beard on my neck and chest, I continued to giggle with an occasional snort. Breathless, I gasped as my laughter died down, but my smile remained.
“That was some of the funniest shit I’ve heard in a long while,” I said, still grinning as I raised my hand to his cheek. The soft skin of his lower lip teased the pad of my thumb as I skimmed across it. Before I could pull it away, he playfully captured it in his teeth and flicked his tongue over the end.
He released me as he glanced down to the baby sandwiched between us. “This isn’t hurting you, is it?”
I shook my head, and we both sobered as we stared in each other’s eyes.