Forever with You

My heart toppled over itself. “Yes. I would like that.”

“Let’s get some blood drawn and get this show on the road,” the nurse said.

As she went about her business, I couldn’t help but grin, because Nick suddenly found something very interesting on the floor to stare at. Only when she finished taking half of my blood supply and handed over the gown did Nick look up. He appeared a bit green around the gills.

“Dr. Connelly will be in shortly,” the nurse said, closing the door behind her.

Nick’s gaze moved from the door to me, his brows rising with interest. “Is this the part where you get naked?”

Hopping off the table, I slipped out of my heels. “Is this the part where you try to pretend like you weren’t about to pass out earlier?”

He tipped his head back against the wall, eyeing me through lowered lashes. “Needles give me the willies.”

“Willies?” I shook my head as I began to undress. “Isn’t that what little boys call their dicks?”

“If that’s the case, then what I’m seeing right now makes my willy very happy.”

“Oh my God.” A laugh burst out of me. “Maybe you coming here wasn’t a good idea.”

A slow smile graced his lips. “Coming here was a great idea.”

Undressing and putting on the papery gown was an experience. It took a lot to convince Nick that I didn’t need his help, but even though he stayed seated, the heated gaze that tracked my movements felt like a physical caress.

While we waited for the doctor, we chatted. I told him that I’d seen Brock today, and he talked about a show he’d stumbled across in the middle of the night on the History Channel and that he now wanted to marathon the season. I liked this—the idle conversation—and it was like this every time I’d seen him since Halloween night.

On the nights he had off, he came over or we went out and had dinner. Every time we talked, and each night we got to know each other a little better. We were continuously peeling back the layers.

And there was more between him and me. A lot of skin-on-skin time. Or skin against clothes. Or just the removal of the necessary clothing. Like the night on Halloween, it felt different each time, felt like more. Definitely not about two people getting off.

When Kira was with his grandfather, he stayed the night. And last Saturday he’d surprised me by coming by after work. I’d been half asleep when I let him, in and that night there was little conversation. Nick had lifted me up as soon as he closed the door behind him, and he had us skin-to-skin within minutes. The sex . . . the way he had pinned me against the headboard, had spread my legs and . . .

God, he . . . he took me like he was insatiable, like he thirsted for me, only me.

My mind was fully in a place where it shouldn’t be when Dr. Connelly came in, and then I felt about seven levels of awkward. Somehow, with the slight grin on Nick’s face, I felt like he knew where my head had gone.

Jerk.

Dr. Connelly appeared to be in her fifties. Brown hair peppered with gray was pulled back in a neat bun at the base of her neck. Fine lines reached out from the corner of her eyes and mouth. She looked like she smiled a lot, and I immediately liked her.

The appointment reminded me of a normal gynecologist visit until we got to the point the ultrasound was brought into the picture. By then Nick had scooted his butt closer to the table and was staring avidly at the screen as Dr. Connelly moved the handle. A lot of black and gray . . . blobs were moving on the screen.

“There you go,” Dr. Connelly said. “Your little bun loves the camera, because we got a clear image of it.”

My gaze darted from her to the screen. Uh . . . I had no idea what I was looking at. “You see it?” I asked Nick.

He was leaning forward. “Yeah, I think I do.” Stretching, he ran his finger around what sort of looked like a lima bean. “Right there, right?”

Dr. Connelly nodded. “There it is.”

What in the hell? I shot him a look. He could see it and I couldn’t? I glanced at the doctor, who was smiling broadly at him like she wasn’t immune to Nick. “I don’t see it.”

“That’s common,” she said, and the screen stilled. The picture was taken. “It doesn’t really look like a baby right now. It’s still so small, but the little bun is in there. Believe it or not, fingers are moving and so are the legs.”

“Really?” I asked, my eyes widening.

She nodded as she started to pull away from the table. “The fingers are slightly webbed at this stage.”

Nick grinned at that.

“And cool little fact for you,” Dr. Connelly said. “The baby’s taste buds are actually forming already.”

“Wow,” I whispered, floored as I stared at the screen. There were other things on the screen, dots and lines and numbers, but I focused on the blur that Nick had so easily seen. The longer I stared, I sort of saw it, and it was so incredibly tiny.

My throat clogged and I cleared it. Without having to say a word, Nick reached over and folded his hand over mine. He squeezed. “You find it yet? Or do we need to draw a circle around it with a bunch of arrows?”

“Jerk.” I laughed hoarsely. “I think I see it. Looks like a lima bean, right?” My gaze moved to Nick’s and was stuck, held by the softness in those light green eyes. “That’s what it looks like?”

Nick nodded.

“The baby looks like a lima bean,” I told him, fighting a grin.

“Yeah, but it’s our lima bean,” he said.

My lips curled up at the corners and I nodded. Yeah, it was our lima bean.

Chapter 22

Because I was a cornball of epic proportions, I’d tacked the sonogram on the fridge with a heart-shaped magnet. Sort of like when I was a kid and my parents displayed my grades. I mean, they were proud of my grades and I was proud of the lima bean.

Nick was coming over in the afternoon. Things had been rough with his grandfather the week after the prenatal appointment, so I hadn’t seen a lot of him, and I missed him.

God, I really did miss Nick.

When he wasn’t around, I thought about him at the oddest moments. Seeing certain things reminded me of him. Fresh, crisp scents made me think of his cologne. When something happened at work or if Roxy or Katie said something funny, I couldn’t wait to tell Nick.

Relationships were weird like that, I decided.

A twinge of unease formed. Relationships were also tricky. No labels had been tossed around. He didn’t call me his girlfriend, and vice versa, but what we were doing felt like that. Except I still hadn’t met his grandfather and he hadn’t met my mom.

My mom would really like him. Based on everything I’d told her, about his grandfather and everything, she already did, and while I knew his grandfather wouldn’t know who I was, I still wanted to meet him.

I still wanted more.

Was that what falling . . . in love felt like? I sighed. I imagined that it was what it felt like when you weren’t sure if the other person felt the same way. Actually, I knew that was what it felt like.

I held out waiting for the perfect guy—the perfect relationship. I never fell for anyone I’d been with. Guys who had no baggage I knew of. Guys who were already firmly seated in their careers. Ironically, it was the most imperfect situation and imperfect guy who was capturing my heart.