The idea that she’d just agreed to move in with him and was pondering more than their one accidental baby made his heart leap.
Audrey studied his face as she waited for his response, and her belly did a small somersault at the spark that lit him up.
“You want more than one child?”
“If I can. I’m already in the advanced maternal age category, so we’ll have to see. But as an only child who always wanted siblings, I would be happy if we had more than one little peapod.”
“Do you want to learn the baby’s sex before they’re born?”
“No. I want the mystery. I don’t care if we have a boy or a girl—I just want them healthy, and they may end up being a different gender than what they’re assigned at birth anyway.”
He nodded. “Works for me. Mystery it is.”
She rose from the bed and reached for the top button of his shirt. “Okay, I need to see the damage for myself.” He’d refused to show her his bruises during their video chats this week, leaving her to assume they were gruesome.
She opened his collar and gently pressed her lips to his healing clavicle. “I can’t believe you picked me up and carried me.”
“There weren’t stairs involved, and it was a short distance. Worth the pain.”
She gave him a stern look. “No more hurting yourself for me.”
“I’m fine, Aud. I wore the sling until the doctor said I should start using my arm. It’s even possible I might not need another surgery.”
She knew that was because the doctors weren’t confident another surgery would help and not because he was in better condition than they’d estimated a week ago. But she’d let him take it as good news. Either way, the surgery wouldn’t happen for a few months, and he’d been relieved by that.
She slowly unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his muscular chest and the tight white wrapping around his rib cage.
Above and below the wrapping, his usually golden-brown skin was a mottled yellowish brown. Many of the contusions had probably been purple a day or two ago, as the bruises on his face had been.
His right eye had been swollen for days, and the skin around it had been a deep dark purple—so dark it was almost black on his cheekbone.
Now his cheek was yellow with pale purple in the center, and his left jaw showed a similar impact point. She could only imagine how his scalp must have looked, as they believed the concussion had been caused by a blow to the back of his head, behind his left ear.
A week later and the bruises were impressive, but past their peak. She pressed her lips to each mark, placing at least a dozen gentle kisses on his face, shoulders, chest, and arms before circling him to inspect his back and seeing the same patchwork of marks marring his muscular perfection.
As she had with his front, she kissed each healing contusion, tracing a particularly long—and still purple—slash mark on his lower back below the tight wrapping that supported his ribs.
She returned to his front and reached for his fly, quickly popping open the top button on his dark slacks. She moved to the zipper, and his hand covered hers. “You unzip me and start kissing below the waist, and I’m not going to have a lot of patience for you to finish your inspection. I’ve missed you and am hard as a rock.”
She grinned. “I’m counting on that.”
She’d been wanting this moment for the last week, when she could give him pleasure that would make him forget his sorrow, if only for a few moments.
He’d made love to her in the lodge. Now it was her turn to make love to him. To transport him from his aches and pains and heartache.
She lowered the zipper and dropped to her knees before him, pulling down his pants. She frowned at his shoes, seeing her miscalculation.
She quickly untied them so he could toe them off. He then stepped out of his pants. She pulled off his socks, then looked up at the gloriously naked and very erect man who stood before her.
She’d never seen a more beautiful male body and she wanted to lick every inch of him. She smiled because that was exactly what she was about to do.
She started by kissing the bruises on his upper thighs, moving upward. When she reached his hips she grinned wickedly up at him and said, “Turn.”
His nostrils flared, but he followed orders without complaint. Heat spread through her; he was enjoying the anticipation as much as she was.
His butt and upper thighs were as mottled as the rest of him, meaning there was much kissing to be done. She finished by taking a gentle nip of his left ass cheek, and enjoyed the sound he made at the back of his throat.
“Turn,” she said again, and again he complied, faster this time.