His eyes roam all over my face and I want to lick him, right through the middle of that cleft in his chin, I want to grab his bottom lip between my teeth and suck his tongue into mine, but I also want to hear him give it to the ice queen; I would, also, like to knock her right out. But I know, being in the pregnant state that I am, it would piss Gabe right off, so going totally against my nature, I stay still and I somehow manage to stay quiet too. For now!
He raises up our joint hands and kisses me on the back of mine. “I have changed. I met Lauren and everything changed, I finally got it, that thing that everyone has told me for years would happen for me one day, it happened. I found out for the first time in my life what it was like to be in love, I finally realised how much more pleasure there is in making love than there was in fucking. I love her beyond reason and everything that you may think you knew or know about me Nina, has changed and I will be spending the rest of my life trying not to fuck this up, because I love her, and dya know what? I actually don’t give a rat’s arse what you think, of me, of her, or our relationship; your thoughts are of no consequence. Unless they affect me and mine, so you best spend the weekend getting your head around all of that and decide how you want things to go from here on in because I am not putting up with your bullshit any more. And just for the record – short, soft and curvy is so much more my thing than tall, hard and bony. Enjoy your weekend.”
Oh. My. God. I love him so much; he so told her, I’m so happy, I want to skip, and why has watching that little speech made me so horny. Pregnancy hormones? I think just the sound of him breathing makes me horny at the moment.
He grips my hand hard and we leave the tall, bony ice queen in her bland, beige house and head towards the car; he stops at the end of the drive and pulls me to him.
“You okay?”
I wrap my arms around his neck and bite the bottom of his chin. “I’m fine. How you travelling?”
“I’m good; thank you for staying quiet and not taking the bait in there, I swear she was trying to wind you up, she knows what a temper you have, I wouldn’t put it past her to have been deliberately trying to provoke you into slapping her so she could call the police. You did well baby, I’m proud of ya.”
I shrug, surely she’s not that calculating, but then she did manipulate Gabe into marrying her, shit, the only thing that stopped me giving her a smack up the side of the head is the fact that I’m pregnant. It suddenly strikes me how I can stand up to Nina with no hesitation and yet I put up with Jason’s shit without a word for so long. He’s done that to me, my Mr Wilde, my future husband and father of the babies that I carry in my belly; by loving me, unconditionally, he has given me back the confidence to stand up to anyone, the way I used to, before I became Mrs East.
“Well you have Bruce and Sheila to thank then, because if I didn’t have them tucked up inside me, I would have knocked her fucking block off. Cheeky bitch, I might be chubby and old but I will still put her on her bony arse.”
“And she’s back, and who the fuck are Bruce and Sheila?”
“The twins. You reckon we have a boy and a girl in there, so…”
“So you still think we should call them Bruce and Sheila?”
“Yeah.”
I shrug. He smiles, that smile that makes his eyes sparkle, the one I hope is only for me and bends his knees so that we are at eye level.
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
“Well yeah, because I love you the same babe.”
“Not possible.”
He kisses me long and deep and I kiss him back, deeper, I wrap my arms around his neck and press myself into him, I feel him laugh into my mouth.
“Lauren…”
Before he has chance to say anymore I here Ava calling out.
“Inappropriate behaviour in public. Please can you stop with the PDA? It’s so not cool at your age.”
We both start to laugh and turn to see Ava standing with her arms folded, leaning against the car. Eyebrows raised. Foot tapping.
“Busted.”
“Anyone would think she was the parent. Let’s go home and get ready for our party wife to be.”
By the time we arrive back home it’s after four, we have people arriving from seven onwards so I bark out orders to everyone and give them jobs; the girls help me marinade the meat and Gabe goes down to the pool house and turns on the patio heaters and fills the fire pit with logs and coals. It’s only about seventeen degrees right now and will get much cooler as it gets dark but it’s not raining or windy and we have told our guests to wrap up warm.