Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(44)

I sniffled, relaxing my arm so he could take it.

He took the boxes, scanned them, and put them back on the shelf. “There. We’ll get them both, and we’ll let the baby decide which it likes.”

When he turned back to me, I was still frozen, incapacitated. “It’s too much, Theo. It’s too much. Too many choices, too many things to get wrong. What if the baby has reflux? We won’t have bottles for that.”

Without argument, he swung his arm around and scanned the reflux bottles. “Now we will.”

And then, he pulled me into his arms.

I buried my face in the expanse of his chest, breathed deep to try to calm myself. But instead, traitorous tears slid from my eyes and onto his beautiful suit.

I tried to back away, but he held me still, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. He rocked us, just the smallest shift, back and forth.

“It’s not about the bottles, is it?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

He always did.

“No,” I said miserably.

Another press of his lips into my hair, this time with a small chuckle through his nose. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but they’re just bottles. If we need different ones, we’ll get them. Flexibility in the moment, remember? It’s how we plan for things we can’t control.”

“I know,” I said, and I did. But I didn’t feel it. “I…I don’t know how to do this, and it scares me.”

His arms wound tighter around me, the rocking coming to a stop. “I know.” The levity in his voice was gone. “But that’s why I’m here. We’re deferring to me, remember?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“So let me shoulder this stress. Trust me to take care of it.”

“I do,” I whispered. “I trust you.”

Something in him stilled and came alive in the same moment. But he said nothing, just held me to him with strong, sure arms and a steady hand splayed across my back.

He didn’t let me go, and I didn’t let him go either. Instead, he held me in silence, and I knew without knowing that he’d hold me like that until I loosened my grip.

But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to go away, didn’t want him to stop touching me. I didn’t want a lot of things. Which led me to the realization there were a lot of things I did want.

I wanted him to stop the restraint, and I wanted to be unconstrained. For weeks, we’d been skirting around this, flirting with the possibilities of a relationship, toying with the boundaries set in place so firmly.

By me. Those boundaries were my construct. And if I wanted them gone, there was only one way to do it.

“I think I’m ready for the next phase in our experiment,” I said with a small, shaky voice.

He leaned back, separating us by the smallest degree necessary to see my face. “Are you sure you want to decide this right now?”

“You mean, while I’m emotional?”

“No, while we’re in the bottle aisle of Target.”

When I laughed, he smiled, cupping my face, thumbing the cool track of my tears.

“Are you sure? Why don’t we talk about it tonight,” he said softly.

But I shook my head against his palm. “I’m sure. I’m tired of the restraints. I don’t want the once a week rule anymore. The next steps are PDA, more frequent sex, and sleeping in the same bed.”

He chuckled, his eyes dark and alive with possibility. Hope. “I thought we agreed to take things by increment.”

I sighed. “We did.”

That clever smile of his tugged up on one side. “How about we start with me holding your hand in Target while we look at breast pumps?”

“All right,” I agreed with an amendment, “but first, kiss me. I’ve gone a week without your lips, and I don’t want to miss them anymore.”

When he drew a breath, everything smoldered—his eyes, his smile, the air between us crackling and hot. “Whatever you want, Kate.”

The sweet softness of his lips surprised me, the week that had passed diluting the memory to swill compared to the pure potency of his kiss. It was arresting, robbing me of will and thought, of power and choice. It was a kiss that claimed me, a signature of his body and soul on mine that I couldn’t erase.

I wondered if I’d be branded forever by him and knew with some degree of wariness that the answer was yes. But then he smiled at me and took my hand, ushering me to the breast pumps with a joke on his lips and a bounce in his step, and I forgot to care.





16





Big Spoon





Theo

17 weeks, 2 days

Zedd played over the speaker that night, the bass thumping as Katherine and I sat side by side on the couch. In her lap was a ball of pearly-white yarn, and in her hands was the beginning of a baby bootie. The TV played Love Cabana with closed-captioning.

It was a guilty pleasure we’d started watching as a joke but had turned into a nightly routine. We’d meant to make fun of it. Best-laid plans and all that. We were already on season three.

A week ago, she’d asked me for more in a Target aisle, tears in her eyes and a neat row of baby bottles in front of us. And, as promised, we held hands through Target for starters. The highlight of my week had been leaving that store with Katherine under my arm, her body against mine and her arm around my waist.