“Did you or did you not pee on a stick, baby?” he prods when I continue to hesitate.
“I did! I told you I did!” I groan as I go get the test, then I bring it back to the nightstand and read the instructions a third time. Then I gather my courage and put on my imaginary big-girl pants as I peel off the cover and peer into the screen.
The butterflies go off inside me.
My parents flash before my mind. Mom and Dad. Another generation. Maybe Nora told them that I’m seeing the man I work for, but if they don’t even know I’m with him, a baby on the way will leave them in need of therapy for a month. I shake off the thought, because honestly, what’s important now is what he thinks. He. Remington Tate. Your one and only Riptide. Possibly, my baby-daddy soon?
Shit.
This can’t be happening.
But it is.
I turn around to see him, and a whole truckful of love slams into my heart.
He’s jumping in the room, swinging his fists in the air, up and down. He hooks, jabs, frowns, and slams into his imaginary boxing partner—who seems to be a fast one, by the way Remington is jabbing and hitting back.
He is mesmerizing.
Ripped, raw, and so real. He is all mine—or at least, that’s all I want in the world. For him to be mine.
Calmly, as if sensing me, he stops swinging and lifts one of his sleek black brows that always seem permanently slanted. “What’s it say?”
“It says . . .” I stare at the small screen, and no, I’m not seeing double. I mean, I am, but it’s not a hallucination.
I think rocks have replaced my lungs, for I can’t breathe as I set the test down at the foot of the bed and walk over to him. Step by step, I stare into those black-gray eyes with the blue flecks that watch me approach in growing curiosity. Lifting my hands, I hold his scruffy jaw and really look up at him as he looks down at me, except I’m perfectly sober, and he’s perfectly amused.
“Remington, don’t forget this,” I anxiously whisper, my chest swelling with need of his support. “You’re black right now, and I don’t want you to forget what I’m going to tell you. I need all of you here with me.”
“Hey.” His dimple vanishes as he frames my face in his huge, callused hands. “I got you.”
“God, please do.”
“Yeah, I do. I got you. Now what’s wrong here? Hmm? If you aren’t, then we figure out what’s wrong with you. If you are . . .”
Jerking away before he can finish, I run over, grab the test, and bring it to him, my heart picking up a wild rhythm. I want his strength. I want his confidence. Even when he’s volatile, he is always so. Damned. Strong! I need that now.
Never taking his eyes off me, he takes the little stick I extend out.
But god, he might not be smiling for long.
My voice is calm and surprisingly steady. “Two lines means, supposedly, that I am.”
His eyes stay locked on mine for a moment longer, and then his lashes sweep downward as he turns the test screen slightly into the sunlight.
My own anxiety eats me on the inside as I wait for a reaction. We were joking on the plane, but he’s serious now. As serious as I am. His profile is completely unreadable as I take in the perfect form of his nose, how elegant it is. His mouth, relaxed and full, so freaking beautiful. His eyebrows, drawing slightly together in puzzlement as he deciphers the lines. Impossible for me to make out any emotion whatsoever.
When he sets the stick aside, my breath stops in my lungs, and when he lifts his dark head, nothing else exists in the world but this moment. He raises his eyes to mine, and my stomach wrings as hard as my heart does in my chest.
What if he doesn’t want me like this?
What if this is too much for us?
What if we’re strong enough to love each other, but not strong enough to love someone else—together?
What if we are not ready?
Our eyes meet. He studies my reaction while I study his even more desperately. And out of the thousand things I could have imagined to see in his face, I never imagined I would see what I see. He’s . . . pleased. No. He’s more than pleased. His eyes glow as if he were sexually hungry, but what he’s hungry for is something else. Then his dimples flash, and he laughs, and his perfect happiness explodes like a rainbow in me.
“Come here.” He picks me up and lifts me so that my abdomen is on his face, and he smacks a noisy kiss on me. I squeal when he flings me down on the bed and hovers over me.
The sight of those two dimples on his scruffy jaw delights me so much, I start laughing. “You’re a crazy man! You’re the only man I know who throws his pregnant girlfriend onto a bed!”
“I’m the only man,” he says, “as far as I know. There’s only one man in your world, and it’s me.”