Je Suis a Toi (Monsters in the Dark #3.5)(52)

My knees gave out, depositing me before her. “What did you just say?”

Her lips stretched into a blinding smile. “You knocked me up when you let yourself fully go. That was what I needed. What we needed. We come alive when we’re together with no cages or locks between us.”

I shook my head. “Again. Tell me again.”

Her gaze melted with adoration. “I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” I couldn’t compute. “Pregnant…as in…pregnant?”

She nodded with a wide smile. “And for our child’s sake, I hope it’s a boy.”

I couldn’t…I didn’t believe her. “You’re—you’re—”

Tess touched my cheek with all the love in the world. “Congratulations, Q. You’re going to be a father.”

“And you think it’s a boy?”

“No, I don’t know what it is yet. I just hope it is so you don’t die of a heart attack trying to protect a daughter. You don’t need to go to war to protect a baby girl just yet.” She chuckled softly. “Maybe once you’ve learned to relax a bit more…then we could try for a daughter.”

First, she told me she was pregnant. The one thing I wanted more than anything else. Then, she said she wanted more with me. A family of our own. Multiple children.

I couldn’t do it.

Grabbing her, I lashed my arms around her naked form. My lips landed on her throat as I kissed and nipped and thanked her.

“Fuck, is this true?”

She giggled. “Yes, it’s true.”

I wasn’t a man who cried. I’d seen a lot in my life and never shed a tear.

No, that wasn’t right.

I’d let a few escape when Tess had strapped me to the bed, and I screamed for mercy before she killed me. Even now, the faint scars from that day still graced my face and body.

I’d given Tess what she needed to break her past and finally be free. And she’d just done exactly the same for me.

We’d both learned so much from each other.

And soon, we would learn so much more.

But that was life.

A never-ceasing evolution to our perfect happiness.

My gaze landed on her flat stomach. “How can you be pregnant? You’re not showing.”

“I’m too early to show. And I’m pregnant because of the usual way.” Unable to stop her good mood, she added, “I booked a private meeting with a gynecologist here in Paris. I was going out of my mind with your incessant need not to touch me. I needed to know either way.”

She shrugged, growing shy. “The test showed I’m pregnant. And the timeline puts conception at that night in the pool, or even a couple weeks earlier.” She raised my belt once again. “So you see, Q. You have no reason not to be yourself. Come back to me. I’m begging you.”

I reared back. “You expect that, just because you’re pregnant, I’m going to hurt you again? Fuck, I’m never going to touch you again. We’ll be celibate for nine months until you deliver safely, and even then I’ll treat you like the queen you are. Our past is done. We’ve been kidding ourselves by thinking that’s normal. It’s not normal. I’m not normal. I can’t keep letting that part of myself free when it’s so f*cking wrong.” My voice threatened with a growl as both facets of myself waged war.

Tess bared her teeth. “If you do that. If you stop being the man and monster I married, then we won’t last. Being pregnant won't matter.”

Ice water replaced my blood. “What the f*ck are you saying?”

“I’m saying be the man I want. Hurt me. It’s not a request. I need it just like you do. This is our normal. The rest isn’t. Don’t ruin us because of some stupid ideal to conform. If you do that, Q, we’ll lose each other and grow apart. Is that what you want? For our marriage to fail?”

Of course, I didn’t want that.

She needed to wash her mouth out with soap for ever suggesting such a thing.

My eyes fell on the hotel property, judging and dispelling each item in terms of punishment capabilities. I wanted a magazine to roll or a lamp cord to tie. Or even a hard covered book to spank my naughty, stubborn wife.

Anything would do.

I squeezed my eyes. But I promised I wouldn’t touch her in such a way.

She’s pregnant.

The knowledge trickled through me, growing in decibel with every heartbeat.

Pregnant.

Nothing was wrong with me. I’d achieved what I needed. And it’d happened the night I thought would be our last free time together.

What did that say about us?

That our bodies had reacted far more potently by giving into our baser desires or that it was merely an accident?

I hadn’t come here looking to talk. I’d come here to drag my esclave home where I could keep her safe. But Tess stood proud and defiant, her hands on her flat stomach. “Do you want that, Q?”

Her voice wrenched through my tumbling thoughts. “Do I want what?”

Her eyes glassed with tears. “Our marriage to fail?”

Shit, I hadn’t replied. My chest expanded with anger. “I can’t comprehend how you can ask such a horrid thing.”

“I ask because I honestly don’t know.” Clutching her stomach, she murmured, “Is having a child worth cutting us apart?”