Total pages in book: 199
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Now and for as long as I live.
That it’s completely irrational and of course untrue is not something that I want to think about.
What I want is to exist with him in this moment.
Exist and reminisce about our history.
Our story.
That’s not a romance novel, but it’s still a story of love and hate and heartbreak and revenge. We may not get our happily ever after but I will forever remember these days that we’ve spent together and our past fraught with tension and longing as something to be happy about.
And maybe I’ll tell them too, one day.
My babies.
About how Mommy and Daddy met and what Daddy means to Mommy.
“Because things are different now,” he says, pulling me out of my own head.
“Different how?”
“Different because you’re my wi —”
He stops abruptly and I prod, “I’m your what?”
His eyes go down to my belly again that I’m still cradling, still rubbing in circles. “You’ve got my babies in your belly.”
“Yes.”
Lifting his eyes, he rasps, “So no one else gets to look at you. Or them.” With that, he finally, finally takes a step toward me and I breathe out in relief. “No one gets to look at what I’ve done to your body. How I’ve made it softer and rounder. More ripe and swollen. No one gets to see the way your tummy is stretching and growing every day to keep my babies safe. How you and your body are making sacrifices, how you and your body bear every pain and ache that I’ve given you, just to nourish and treasure my babies. It’s because your body’s a temple now, isn’t it? And only I get to worship at your altar.” Then, when he’s only a couple of steps away, he says, “Well, it was a temple before too, but I guess I’m less of a sinner now than I was back then.”
Finally he’s close and I raise my hand to cup his cheek. “You’re not a sinner.”
He scoffs, his breath escaping him in a rush. “No I’m not. I’m more than that. I’m the sin itself.”
“That’s not —”
“Show me.”
“What?”
He licks his lips. “Your body.”
Now my breaths are escaping me in a rush. Not that they weren’t before, but still.
Now my breaths are even more excited and rapid.
As I go to do his bidding.
I don’t even wait to show him my new body. I can’t. I want him to look. I’ve been wanting him to look. To see what he did to me. What I look like now.
All proudly and eagerly.
Because I know he’ll like it. I know he’ll like my expanded curves, the pooch in my belly. He’ll like my bigger tits, my darker nipples. All the little veins and moles that keep showing up every day now.
And that’s because he wants this as much as me.
Yes, he’s been angry at my symptoms and all the pain I’ve had to endure, but I know that he wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, now that we know we’re having twins, he wouldn’t want anything less.
And the moment my dress is off and my bra is gone, I’m proven both right and wrong.
Wrong because he doesn’t just like it, he loves it. And right because he does want it as much as me.
In fact he wants it so much that his knees go weak.
Something that I never thought could happen to a guy and such a masculine guy at that.
But I guess I should have known.
If anything can weaken his knees and make him come down on them, it’s these babies that are growing inside of me. Because that’s where he is: on his knees on the floor, his rough hands gripping my rounded hips and his mouth on my swollen belly.
As I said, I’m only fifteen weeks right now and my clothes hide the bump. But I’m also carrying twins, which means my bump is bigger than a normal fifteen-week bump.
And he’s doing exactly what he said before.
He’s worshiping it.
With his mouth. That he at first simply presses on my skin before opening it and breathing on my bump. But that’s not where it stops, no. It’s only the beginning. After simply breathing on my tummy, he then licks it. As if tasting my skin. As if he thinks it tastes different now because of the babies.
Because my body is growing something for him.
Maybe it is, I don’t know. He certainly feels so, because after that first long lick with the flat of his tongue, he groans. And he does it again.
And again and again.
Like it’s his new favorite thing, the taste of my pregnant belly.
After which he goes on to suck.
Which is when things get crazy and feral and all I can do is bury my fingers in his hair and let him do to me whatever he wants. Let him suck at it, lick it and nip it as he rubs his hands all over my bump and my hips. As he touches and caresses and mauls and memorizes everything about my new body, from veins to moles to little silvery lines at the bottom of my bump.