Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,177
doctor for an exam. When we went to doctor’s appointments, he actually scared the lovely Dr. Rosen with both his interrogations and his intensity.
“Describe the pain,” he demanded then. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared me down like I was the enemy.
My lips twitched, but I held back my grin. “My back’s been hurting, but that isn’t exactly unusual, and then there was this spasm in my belly.”
His eyes narrowed, head cocked as he ran mental calculations through his head.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “Can we please continue our picnic?”
“If you have the same pain in ten minutes, we’re goin’,” he determined in a tone that brokered no argument. “Try changin’ position. I read that helps if it’s Braxton Hicks.”
“Yes, sir,” I muttered under my breath as I moved into a partial incline on my side, braced on an elbow.
Priest was suddenly there crouching before me, clenching my chin in his fingers so I was forced to meet the intensity of his gaze. “You and this baby are my heart, my pulse. Do you wanna fuck with that?”
My heart softened. Sometimes, I forgot how new this was to him, loving someone. There wasn’t a moment or aspect of loving me he took for granted. For a man who didn’t believe in miracles, he treated me like one every day.
He already felt the same way about our baby. I’d been surprised when he didn’t want to know the gender before the birth because he was so pragmatic, but in that way, it made sense. He’d explained his reasoning simply, finding out who our baby was when he or she was born was the biggest surprise, the biggest miracle he’d ever experience, and he didn’t want to ruin that.
It was one of many moments in the past six months that made me realize there was a certain wisdom to be found in my man’s psychopathic tendencies, that it was those very characteristics that made him so uniquely beautiful.
“Okay,” I agreed easily. “Until then, sit with me.”
Reluctantly, he sat. He was tense, muscles coiled with potential energy just in case any little thing happened that would need him to spring into action. Watching him, knowing how conflicted he was sitting there because I asked him to when he really wanted to rush me to the hospital, my heart clenched for one long, almost painful moment with agonizing love for him.
“I love you,” I told him, feeling the words were so inadequate when it came to what we shared. “I love you with everything I am.”
Priest blinked at me the way he always did when I was effusive as if he couldn’t quite acclimatize to my professions or the truth of them. Then he shifted, a slow uncoiling of lean muscles so that he lay half-propped on a bulging forearm facing me.
“You are my whole heart,” he explained factually without a shred of intonation. “And so is this baby.”
He placed his large, death stamped hand on my belly, splaying his fingers. I read the names of the deceased on each knuckle, the newest addition on his thumb a constant reminder of what we’d been through.
Linley.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a painful reminder when I caught a glimpse of it as I often did, but a powerful one. It was a seemingly insurmountable obstacle we had overcome together, and maybe it was strange, but I was proud of that.
We were quiet then for a time, both sinking deep in our own thoughts. We weren’t a couple who watched television or went out drinking at bars. We were the people who threw knives at the old cross Priest had transplanted to my backyard, the couple who practiced self-defence for fun on the pink-patterned carpet in our living room, and the pair that sat quietly together while he whittled or read and I studied for classes.
It wasn’t exactly a quiet life we led or a normal one, but it was the only life I’d ever wanted.
His hand was still on my belly when, minutes later, my abdomen contracted so hard it made my teeth ache as they ground together against the pain. He could feel the tightening of my womb under his fingers, and seconds later, I was being lifted up in his arms, extra weight and pregnant belly and all as easily as if I was a sack of flour.
“Our stuff,” I cried out, looking over his shoulder as he stalked away from our blanket and picnic basket.