What Lovers Do(90)

Shep: Sophie?

Me: What?

Shep: I’ve been in the waiting room since six this morning.





“What?” I whisper to myself, staring at the screen. Already dressed, I ease off the side of the bed.

“Where are you going?” Mason whispers.

“Waiting room. Be right back. Tell the nurse I didn’t jump ship.”

I make a snail’s trek toward the waiting room. Shep’s nowhere in sight because he’s hidden behind a huge bouquet of pink flowers. He sets them on a table and meets me halfway.

“I have a sanitary napkin, roughly the size of Cape Cod, in my sweatpants. My belly is wrapped like a mummy to splint my insides back in place. And my boobs are going to quadruple in size and start leaking in the next forty-eight hours.”

Shep’s eyebrows inch up his forehead.

I shrug. “So I realize this is probably not the best time to say this, but it’s the only time that we’re guaranteed so—”

“I love you,” he says.

I’m … speechless. And unprepared to hear this from him. And quite frankly, I’m a little perturbed. He stole my line!

“Take it back,” I say.

“What?” He chuckles.

I cross my arms over my chest. “Take it back. I was talking, and you interrupted me. That’s rude. So you have to take it back.”

He mirrors my stance, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ll do no such thing.”

I shove him.

His eyes widen.

“Did you just shove me?”

“Take. It. Back.”

His stupid, kissable lips bend into an obnoxious smile. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to love you first.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but if you just came to this conclusion, then you don’t get to call dibs on ‘first’ because after a lot of self-reflection, I’m pretty sure you had me the day you spilled your iced coffee all over my store. I loved you first. Can you handle that?”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t you worry about what I can or cannot handle. I just pushed a seven-pound human out of my body with nothing for the pain, and my boobs make magical milk.”

Shep fights his grin.

“Do you want to meet my nephew?” I bail on the conversation.

His relinquishes one hundred percent of that grin. It’s blinding. “Maybe in a minute.”

“In a minute?”

“Yeah. I have something to do first.”

“What’s that?” I cock my head to the side.

“I’m going to kiss you. And I’m also going to cop a feel of your boobs before they start leaking.”

“You’re not—”

He smashes his mouth to mine. And as promised, his hand cups my boob over my T-shirt.





Three weeks and five days later …

“What’s in the bag?” I ask when Shep arrives home from work about thirty minutes after me.

Home.

I did it again. I’ve let a man basically move in with me. Every day, more of his stuff appears at my house. Every night, he’s in my bed. So far, he’s kept his job at the pet store, and he showers daily.

“Nothing much.” He sets the bag on the counter and pulls me into his arms. “Hi.” He grins while brushing his lips over mine.

“Fine. Thank you,” I murmur.

He kisses me. It’s a little more intense than this morning’s goodbye kiss. It’s a little more intense than he’s kissed me since … I’d say Santa Monica.

“I …” I break the kiss. “I’m a…” I give him a little chuckle “…little sensitive in uh … areas. I just pumped.”

A wolfish grin steals his face. It doesn’t help my situation. “Sensitive? Or aroused?”

With another chuckle, the nervous kind meant to hide my embarrassment, I take a few steps backward. “Um … how was the shop today? Busy?”

Shep eyes me like a hunter, moving in on me slowly as I continue to retreat until I hit the edge of the counter, gripping the edge with both hands as I swallow hard. “I miss my best friend,” he says, while ducking his head and kissing along my jaw to my neck.

“Uh …” I wet my lips and close my eyes. “It’s only been—”

“Three weeks five days … almost six days,” he mumbles over my skin, licking and teasing it with his teeth as his hand snakes up my shirt.

“Shep!” I yelp when his thumb dips into the cup of my bra and grazes my nipple, my very sensitive, recently-stimulated-by-a-breast-pump nipple. “S-six …w-weeks …” I stutter as he kisses along my shoulder, one hand sliding the strap down my arm while his other hand drives me insane with more nipple stimulation than is bearable.

“Four to six,” he murmurs. “We’re close enough.”

“Shep.” I have weak resistance despite my self-consciousness about my lactating breasts and postpartum situation down below.

“I could still spot …” Spotting is not a sexy subject, but Shep doesn’t seem to care.

“You’re not. I haven’t seen any pads in the trash.”

I giggle because I told him about Jimmy and the tampons.