Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,169

up for the woman I love. Everything else, he butts into, but that was too insignificant a detail for him to pass on? When you didn’t say anything, when everything stayed the same, I figured you didn’t want to know.”

“Oh.” She could barely speak. She could barely think. But she was laughing, too. And so touched. “So that’s why he keeps checking on me. He thinks I’m locked in this … this torrid affair with you, probably some kind of master/slave thing, from all his dark hints about letting him know if I need help, and here you’ve been, practically kissing me on the cheek! Oh, man. Blake. He can be such an idiot. Also, we’re not in junior high. Why are you telling him that you love me and not telling me? And seriously? You do? And if I hurt you—Harlan, I’m sorry.”

Now, he was laughing, and he was pulling her back into him again. “Seriously,” he said. “I do. At least I think that must be what this is. Either that, or I’m getting a brain tumor. It’s been a little hard to concentrate. And I don’t know why I didn’t say it to you. Felt scary, probably, putting it out there. I’ve never said it. And if we’ve got a master/slave relationship, baby, I’m not sure which one I am. That thing in the bathroom …”

“Who spanked who?” she asked. “Also, why is that so hot? Is it that way for you, too? It’s always sounded hot, but it actually was. Wow. Also, the way that position felt … you felt so tight in there. That was amazing.”

“If you don’t know why spanking a woman’s hot,” he said, “I can’t explain it. Trust me, it’s hot as hell. Possibly because you’ve got the best ass in the world. But I didn’t check enough. I don’t know if there are special … pregnancy things, what’s OK and what isn’t. I figured, keep you off your belly, but if it’s not comfortable, you have to tell me.” He shifted his hand so it was on her abdomen, and he was cupping it like he wanted to feel it. “The little guy doing OK in there? Not too traumatized?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “You put him to sleep. All that rocking.”

His hand stilled. “You can feel him?”

She put a gentle hand on his face and kissed his mouth. “Yeah. I can. It feels so good, Harlan. It’s magical. I never got to enjoy it the first time, I was so scared, and now … it’s magical. He’s active, I think, even though what I feel is just flutters right now, like butterfly wings inside me. In another month or so, though, you’ll be able to feel him kicking, too. He’s in there growing, getting strong.”

“So …” He hesitated.

“Oh,” she said, “go on and tell me. Whatever it is. Surely we can be honest now.”

“So when you go on Monday,” he said. “And have the … the sonogram and all. See the doctor. Do you want me to come with you?”

She still had her hand on his face. “Do you want to come with me?” She wasn’t sure which way he was asking the question. Why he was asking the question. She knew, though, that they needed that honesty.

Your truth is your sword and your shield.

“Yeah,” he said, and smiled. “Yeah. I do.”

“I want that, too,” she said.

He smiled like the sunrise, and she laughed and kissed him and thought, I can’t stand this much happiness.

He said, “Well, good. Also, do you want dinner?”

She sighed. “I so want dinner, you cannot imagine. Please. Feed me.”

An hour later, Harlan was loading the dishwasher and Jennifer was pouring the leftover soup into a plastic container and looking sleepy, even though it was barely eight o’clock. Barefoot, in her pink PJs and robe, sweet as cotton candy. In his kitchen, and all he wanted was to keep her here.

As if she’d read his mind, she asked him, “You know what I want to do?”

“It had better not be having sex,” he said, finishing with the dishwasher and closing it up, then starting to wipe down counters. “I’m good, but I’ve got a limit.” He didn’t. It was more about whatever crazy ideas she might have about what she was now required to want, seeing as she was the most conscientious woman in the world and he was a football player.

How the hell did a sweet, conservative, monogamous woman get that good at oral sex? And