Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(47)

She frowned, thinking. “Val can make me laugh when it’s the last thing I want to do. She always cheers me up. And Rin knows exactly what to say to make sense of things, which makes me want to tell her everything. That alone is singular. Amelia triggers a protection response from me, but I think that’s because she’s so small and innocent. I think Tommy has that instinct, too.”

“Because you love her, and she seems vulnerable.”

“Love is defined as a deep attachment. It’s not unexplainable. It’s survival. We need other people. We search for relationships and connections because without people, we’d go crazy. Even love for your child is a product of brain responses that form an attachment, so you’ll be motivated to care for your baby. It’s about progeny. About continuing the species. If you didn’t love your baby and think it was cute, you wouldn’t be so compelled to make sure it was safe and cared for. It’s not magic. It’s evolutionary science.”

“Some would call that instinct.”

“But instinct isn’t strictly reactive. It’s a response, not an initiative action.”

I chuckled. “I dunno. Some instincts can be ignored, and some can’t.”

“I suppose that’s true,” she conceded. “But it’s still a response.”

“When I met you, there was something about you I had the instinct to know better. I knew the second we shook hands that we’d end up here, one way or another.”

Her frown deepened. “With me pregnant?”

“No,” I said on a laugh. “With you and me here, in bed, talking about the scientific merits of love.”

She relaxed. “Well, that’s just pheromones, oxytocin. I think our bodies knew we were a physiological match.”

“I’d argue we were more well suited than just physically, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would agree,” she said quietly. “The longer I know you, the more compatible I find us.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

I brought my lips to hers, wondering how I’d found myself with a woman so resistant, so restrained, so averse to love and relationships. As I kissed her, I considered my motivation. Was it the challenge? The newness? The instinct to have and hold and protect her because she was carrying my child? Or was it more?

But I knew the answer, knew it with the certainty of a clairvoyant.

I was hers, and I’d do anything to make her mine.

And lucky for both of us, I never failed.



?





Katherine

My first thought when I woke was that of complete and total confusion.

I was hot—that was the first thing I noted—my hair stuck to my dewy face and nightgown tangled between my legs. And I was trapped, contained by heavy, thick restraints that should have sent me into a panic, especially when combined with the sweltering heat.

But I wasn’t panicked at all. In fact, I drew a deep breath, curling into the hot confines of Theo’s chest.

We were a knot of arms and legs, my face buried in his chest and his arms a vise around me. The thick rope of his bicep had become my pillow, threaded through the bend of my neck, his hand holding me to him by the shoulder. The only reason I could breathe was my nose had found the deep valley between his pecs, which doubled not only as a well of his scent—musk and soap and male—but a divot in which I could funnel air from the sweltering cage of his arms.

He woke with a drag of air through his nose and tightening of his muscles, somehow bringing me even closer to him. I hadn’t even realized there’d been space. My lips brushed his skin with nowhere else to go.

“Morning.” The word was rough, the sound sending a shivering desire through me.

It was as if the exact pitch and timbre of his voice had initiated the firing of a string of nerves in me. As if I were tuned specifically to him and no one else.

“I didn’t hit you last night or anything, did I?” I asked, worried to hear the answer.

A laugh reverberated through him and into me by way of my rib cage. “No. I couldn’t keep you off of me.”

When I leaned back, he loosened his grip.

I looked up at him in disbelief. “I don’t remember that.”

“I wasn’t actually sure if I could keep my hands to myself, so I stayed on my half of the bed with my back to you. You spooned me.”

My brows drew together. “You’re too tall to be the little spoon.”

“Trust me, I know,” he said, laughing. “I don’t take threats of physical violence lightly, but no way am I anything but the big spoon. I half-expected to catch a bloody nose when I set the spoons in order.” He watched me for a moment, amused. “You look confused.”

“I’m surprised, is all. I slept so soundly, I don’t remember a thing.”

“At one point, I tried to put you back on your side of the bed, but the second I rolled over, you wiggled your way back.”

Embarrassment set a hot blaze in my cheeks. “I’m sorry. You must not have slept at all.”

But he slid his leg between my thighs, squeezing me tighter with that sideways smile on his lips. “Not until I ignored the warning and spooned you good and proper. Then I slept like a baby.”

Ignoring the disconnect between my mind and body he’d so casually mentioned, I admitted, “Me too. You defy all the things I assumed to be true. It’s…it’s both a comfort and a point of contention. I both crave and am disarmed by you.” I paused tracking his dark eyes as they searched mine, his thoughts shifting behind the irises. “Why do you want a girl like me?”