One Moment Please (Wait With Me #3)(59)
Her eyes are half closed as she steps under the waterfall shower. I set about wetting down her hair and washing it. I take special care to avoid her baby bump as I scrub the other parts of her body with my soapy hands, and then do the same to myself as she wipes away her makeup with a washcloth.
When we step out, she lets me wrap a towel around her and lead her to my bed. She pauses when I pull back the covers. “I can sleep in my bed.”
I frown, staring at her big brown eyes that are rimmed with leftover makeup. “You’ll sleep here,” I demand, and thankfully, she doesn’t argue.
She drops her towel and slips under the covers naked while I do the same. She turns away from me as I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. We’re both quiet as my mind wanders to the events of the night. A lot has happened in a short amount of time, which has kind of become the story of our lives as of late. I don’t know what she’s thinking or what any of this means, but I’m too tired to give a fuck.
Josh never fully smiles.
I lie propped on my elbow as Josh’s chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm. The early morning sun streams in through his enormous bedroom windows that have no blinds because the only thing that can see inside is nature. I hope nature enjoyed the show last night because I certainly did.
Josh’s sandy brown hair sticks out all over the place as his mouth hangs open to release his faint snore. Even with the snoring flaw, he’s easily the sexiest man I’ve ever been with. Even if he doesn’t ever smile. He grins, he smirks, and the corners of his mouth twitch quite a bit, but a full-blown smile doesn’t seem to exist for him. I wonder if he’s always been like that, or if it’s something that’s come from years of treating sick people.
Sick children.
A heaviness settles in my belly over that thought. How could he not mention that to me? He lived the majority of his adult life in Baltimore as a pediatric oncologist and that fact just never came up? Not possible. Something major must have happened there for him to purposely omit that part of his past. Surely going from a pediatric oncologist to a small city ER doctor is a demotion, right?
I’m desperate to know the full story, but one lesson I’ve learned after last night is that forcing Josh into something—like telling his parents we’re having a baby—isn’t going to turn out well.
God, last night was a mess. What was I thinking springing both of our parents on him? I should’ve never let Kate sweep me up into one of her romance novel plot twists. The girl has a good heart, but she often has difficulty separating fiction from nonfiction.
I need to do things differently with Josh. From now on, I’m not going to force anything. I’m going to let things progress more naturally. Let him share when he wants to, and let us turn into whatever we’re going to turn into. I’m only twenty weeks pregnant, so we have plenty of time. Whatever this is between us, and whatever past Josh will inevitably have to face will surely get figured out well before the baby is born.
And if I’m being honest, I hope there’s more than just co-parenting between the two of us. I want to explore what we could be and see if that man who let his guard down for me in the bathroom last night can exist all the time. If so, maybe this thing between us could work out better than either of us had ever imagined?
Josh stirs beside me, his sculpted chest, abs, and Adonis V on full display as the sheet slips to his groin. His hands rest beside him but his one wrist is bent in a weird way that looks horribly uncomfortable. I reach for it, intending to move it to a more comfortable position on his abs, but his voice interrupts my super un-stealthy moves.
“Why are you rearranging my hand?” he grumbles, his voice deep from sleep.
My nose wrinkles as my hand retreats. “Your wrist looked jacked up. Are you hyperflexive?” I blink curiously at him.
His green eyes flutter open, his dark lashes framing his gaze in a way that makes him smolder. “That’s the first question out of your mouth after everything that happened last night?”
I shrug and offer a small smile. “My mind knows that winter is coming, so I figured I’d start with the easy stuff.”
He huffs and stretches his arms over his head with a yawn. “How long have you been awake?
“Just long enough to count the freckles on your pecs. I was getting to your abs, but you interrupted my concentration.”
He pins me with a flat look. “God, you’re a freak.”
“Whatever.” I flip my hair over my shoulder. “You’re the one who still has my outfit from the first night we slept together. It’s hanging in your closet all clean and ironed. Now who’s the freak?”
Josh’s brows furrow. “Were you snooping through my room while I was asleep?”
“No,” I state defensively, my jaw dropped in offense. “I was grabbing a T-shirt out of your closet.”
He glances down at the Colorado Rockies shirt I found folded on one of the shelves. “Was your own closet too much of an arduous journey for you?”
“Yes,” I reply and tip my chin up. “Plus, grabbing one of your shirts meant I could snoop and figure out what a true pervert you are for keeping my clothes hanging up in there all this time I’ve been living with you. God, what do you do with them? Imagine me inside them and jerk off?”
His brows lift as he refuses to smile. “I usually imagine them on my floor and me buried inside you when I jerk off.”