“It won’t matter if you have one child or ten at the same time. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, you will know everything about each child,” I tell her truthfully. I watch as her lips slowly move into a full smile. Her small giggle escapes and the sound dives down inside of me somehow and I’m pretty damn sure that from this moment on, I will always be able to hear that laugh in my head when I think of Kayla. A laugh full of happiness and love. I know it’s love because I see it shining in her eyes.
“If I have ten kids at one time, I won’t even know my own name. Did you see how worn out CC was from having just two?”
“You might have a point,” I grin. “I might have exaggerated a bit to get my point across.”
“I love you, White,” she whispers, and those damn words settle inside of me with the force of an explosion. “I love you so much.”
I’m a man and I think by design alone we’re not made to handle emotion—at least, not well. When Kayla gives me those words, her eyes so earnest and the truth of them beaming from everything she is, there’s a moment where I can’t breathe. I’m choking on things I should say. Things I need to say. I want to give her these flowery words, these sonnets and poems and a million other things a woman like Kayla deserves. That’s not who I am, however. That becomes even more evident when all I can do is let out a growl like a caveman, move my hold from the side of her face to her neck, and take her lips.
My brain is misfiring. All I can hear over and over is one word: mine. It doesn’t matter that we’re in a crowded hospital waiting room. It doesn’t matter that it’s late and a minute ago I was just looking forward to getting Kayla home and holding her while we slept. Nothing matters except this overwhelming need inside of me to make sure she knows that she is in fact mine.
CHAPTER 51
KAYLA
Kissing White always transports me away from reality. This time is no different. When we break apart, it takes a few minutes for my brain to register that he just kissed me like that in front of an area full of strangers. I don’t think it’s bothering him, however, because when I try to pull out of his arms, he doesn’t let me.
“White?”
“You picked a bad time to tell me that you loved me.”
“Um… you said you already knew I loved you.”
“I may have thought it, Buttercup, but I never heard you say it. That makes it real,” he explains, and his thumb massages at the corner of my mouth again. His deep blue eyes are staring down at me and he’s so beautiful. He feels like something I shouldn’t hope to touch or want, and yet I do, and he’s mine. He’s made that clear and finally I’m starting to believe it.
“Why don’t we go home and I’ll show you how much I love you?” I ask him boldly, suddenly having more courage than I ever have before.
“I thought you said sex at my Mom’s was a no-go?”
“It’s a good day. I’m willing to make an exception,” I tell him, feeling the heat rise on my face.
“What if I can’t wait that long?”
“Huh?” I ask like a dummy, not quite catching on.
“It’s a good thirty-five, forty minutes to Mom’s from here. I don’t think I can wait that long,” he tells me, bringing my hand to the zipper of his jeans and moving it down so I can feel the prominent outline of his cock. I squeeze against the firm shape, feeling the heat emanating from him. I’ve heard the term raging hard-on, but I’m not sure I’ve taken the time to admire and feel one close-up. This definitely applies. I look around and am thankful to find that no one seems to be noticing what we’re doing.
“White,” I whisper uneasily.
“I got this,” he says, and I’m not one to argue, but my heart is beating hard. It’s pushing against my chest in a mixture of fear, excitement, and worry. He turns us around and we’re going through the hallway that leads to the rooms. At first, I guess because I’m apparently slow, I don’t realize what he’s doing. No, I’m busy thinking we’re going back to see CC and Gray. I start to question him, but before I can, he pulls me inside a room. It’s a room much like CC’s birthing room, except this one is empty. There’s a hospital bed in the middle with a curtain that pulls around it, and the rest of the equipment is pushed to the corner, unused.
“White?”
“I love when you wear dresses,” he growls. Then, I find myself lifted in the air. I wrap my legs around his waist, afraid I might fall. I shouldn’t have worried; his hold on me is solid. He closes the door behind us and then walks me over to the bed.
“White, I’m not sure I like that look in your eye. It’s a hospital. Anyone could come in and we really—”
“Don’t worry, Buttercup,” he says, reaching up and pulling the curtain around the bed.
“A curtain? Really?”
“Yeah, and as for the look in my eye, that shouldn’t bother you either.”