On that note, I stepped away to start the water before coming back to undress her. I knew what to do. "I'm taking your clothes off." Not a question. She didn't respond other than to be soft and pliable as I worked, helpful even, until I had her exquisitely bare beneath my hands. I caged her in with my arms, loving that I now had her captive, able to focus only on me. Which was all she needed right now. I knew best how to help my Winter.
I took a finger to her brow and traced it down her cheeks where the tears had fallen. I drew it down her neck, and then on farther down between her breasts, before circling one perfect globe in a spiral with my fingertip. She gasped sharply, arching into me when I took her nipple into my mouth to soothe the tightened flesh I'd made. So responsive. So finely made. So beautiful, inside and out. Mine to love.
"You are so beautiful to me. I don't think you’re even aware of how much, "I whispered to her as my mouth covered the other breast and sucked on the nipple until it was tight and tipped dark pink from the attention I was giving it.
Another moan was her response. I kissed my way down until my mouth hovered over her flat belly, the smooth skin hiding something precious behind it. I couldn't help but think about what was happening inside her body. A baby was growing—our baby. "Every time you give yourself to me I love you even more. Always so generous, I am in awe of you." I replaced my mouth with my hand and splayed it out on her stomach. "We have something precious between us right here. Something that's part you and me together…that was made with love."
I felt the change in her body as she heard me, the battling of emotions silently screaming inside her as she processed the truth I'd spoken. I was torn between leaving it there and pushing her for just a bit more.
"Look at me, Winter."
She lifted her head and locked her eyes with mine, tears flowing anew. One word. It was all she was able to say, but it was a good word. It was enough to show me what she felt beneath all of the fear and the shock.
"Y-y-yess."
I kissed and touched her all over with as much love as I could until she was soft again underneath my hands and mouth, and I knew she was ready for me. I picked her up and carried her into the bath where I helped her into the water first. I stripped out of my clothes before her, silently commanding her to watch me as I got naked. I stroked my cock a few times and studied her expression, her eyes widening for just an instant before growing hooded. She swallowed deeply and adjusted her legs under the water. Her breasts above the water's surface were tinged pink from the heat…and desire. She wants me. More like she needed me. My Winter needed to be taken away by pleasure from the fear of the moment.
My specialty.
I stepped in and settled into position, grateful the tub was so large to accommodate both of us easily. "Come here, beautiful. You need to be fucked first and then we'll talk." I reached for her, bringing her over my lap to straddle me. I did not ask. Instead, I split her wide and thrust my cock into her slippery heat quickly and deep. She was so ready it was easy, even with the added friction of the water.
For once she didn't take it silently.
Winter needed to let off some of the tension while being fucked this time apparently. She told me she wanted it harder right before she came the first time. So, I fucked her harder and did some things that put marks on her flawless body…and mixed in a little bit of sweet pain with the pleasure. Her words and cries told me I got it right as she came the second time with me.
Whatever my girl needs.
After the bath—and one more hard fuck—she was ready to talk about it. I didn't mind her process. In fact, I found it brutally honest. Giving the body what it needed so your mind could do what it had to do was about as honest as it got.
She was also a fucking gorgeous sight with her head thrown back, tits shaking, her long hair trailing down to brush my thighs as she squeezed her cunt around my cock. I knew I'd never tire of watching her come.
I settled us side by side in the bed and smoothed her hair back from her face. She was tired, but her mind was busy when the first thing she asked was, "How can you be so easy with this, James? Why is this not making you angry? I don't understand your reaction at all."
"You love me?"
"Yes, of course I do."
"And do you trust me?"
"Yes, always. But what I did is the same as Leah did to you."
Hell the fuck no. "This is nothing like what that bitch did. Let me be very fucking clear on this, my love. Leah cheated with a colleague who was a partner in my father's firm. She got pregnant with his kid and told me it was mine. She would have married me anyway, but my father intervened and made sure she didn't…and in the most humiliating way possible to me. But only so he could call in favors later—when he wanted something—and had the person by the balls trapped in his spider's web of lies." Which he now had, with Ted Robinson beholden to him as well as dying of cancer. Karma was a vicious bitch sometimes…and not my fucking problem today.
"I'm so sorry, James. For what happened before with her, and for now…with me. I lied about being protected. I wasn't completely sure, and I didn't do a thing about it for over a month."
"I'm not sorry."
"How? Why aren't you feeling betrayed by my lying to you about my birth control?"
"Okay then, let me ask you this. Why did you lie?"
She looked down, feeling the full force of her shame, I guess, but I wanted to hear her answer anyway. "I didn’t care. That first night…I’d wanted you for so long...and once I knew you wanted me too, I refused to allow anything to stand in my way of having you. I…I…really don't know. I told you point blank it was okay for you to come in me. You asked me if you needed to pull out because we didn't have condoms at the house that first night we were together. I told myself the shot was still working when even I considered it might not be." She shook her head slowly back and forth. "It was so irresponsible of me and goes against everything I know and practice in my life and my work."
"I don't care, and I'm still not sorry it happened."
"Why not, James?"
"Simple." I took her face in my hand and held her firmly then put my other hand low on her belly. "Because this baby was made with the right girl. My right girl. And I love you, and now our baby, very much."
Her eyes filled with tears again. I knew then that I loved her tears when she cried, because they were mine. I owned them…much like Winter owned my heart. This woman had cried for me…feared for my heart, when she had possibly hurt me. But what she didn’t realize was that her instant reaction proved her love for me beyond words.
She was mine to love forever.
And my heart was now safer than it had ever been.
Chapter Twenty-One
WINTER
One week later.
"I suppose I won't ever have to worry about a want of grandchildren, will I? At this rate adults in this family are going to be outnumbered by babies in a very short time." This was my mother's attempt at making light of a situation that was anything but light for me. I had to give her props for not being a bitch about it though. She'd always adored James, so she was genuinely thrilled with our news. Which surprised me only because she hadn't been as thrilled about Caleb and Brooke when they'd announced they were expecting. Granted she'd been out of town then, staying in Charleston with her aunts and cousins over the holidays when Brooke and Caleb found out she was pregnant. Married in secret a week later, then away for a month-long honeymoon, they were now happily living life as they waited for their baby to be born. Without input from her or anyone else.
I was not feeling so fortunate as my brother. Caleb had skills for dealing with our mother that none of the rest of us could match, and he always had. She didn't get away with manipulating him very often, the lucky bastard.
"Three weddings in six months will certainly be a challenge, even for me," she said cheerfully, "but I think I can pull it all off with a flourish."
"Not three in six months, Mom."