Chapter Seven
“Thank you,” Gwen said as she took the goblet of white wine that Grace Warner offered her that evening. She gazed into Julián’s smoldering brown eyes as she brought the glass to his beer bottle and tapped lightly. “Cheers.”
He replied in kind and shared the toast, pressing the beer bottle to his lips for a sip as he watched her drink from her wine. His cock was as hard as a rock beneath her ass, where she sat on his lap on the couch in the Warners’ living room.
Chris Potter sat right next to them, uncharacteristically quiet, as far as she could tell, having known him only a short time. Including him, she tipped her glass gently against his beer bottle and drank a silent, full-eye-contact toast with him as well.
He’d been quiet since she’d come out of the den and gone in search of Julián earlier that afternoon. If she asked him a direct question, he answered her but offered nothing in the way of cuteness, teasing, or otherwise irritating behavior. She found that she almost, but not quite, missed the bluster. She did notice that he never seemed to stray far from her and Julián, almost orbiting. Rather than irritating her, she found that she liked him there. She was tempted to reach out and touch him, casually letting him know that she enjoyed his company and felt comfortable with him there.
Grace returned to the living room with two more glasses and handed one to Rosemary Garner, who sat on the couch opposite of them, flanked by her men, Wes and Evan Garner. “Sparkling grape juice for you, sweetie,” Grace said with a smile.
She handed the other wineglass to Jayne Carter, who sat reclining against her husband Seth’s chest on the hearth rug next to the fireplace. Jayne looked radiant as she held her son, Toby’s hands and he toddled around them, crawling over their legs. He grabbed hold of Seth’s long-sleeved T-shirt and pulled up on shaky legs with a babyish chuckle. His action stretched the neck of Seth’s shirt, revealing intricate monochromatic tattoos below the neckline and one shoulder. Gwen was intrigued but said nothing, wondering if she’d ever have the guts to get a tattoo. When Toby began eyeing the decorations on Grace’s Christmas tree just a few feet away, Jayne held out a plush toy to Toby which he happily went after instead.
Rosemary giggled and then groaned, drawing Gwen’s attention as she rubbed her abdomen with her palm. Wes and Evan placed their big hands on either side of her burgeoning belly and Evan grunted. “Damn, Rosie, did that hurt you? He feels like he’s wrestling in there.”
Rosemary smirked and shook her head. “Or she could be dancing. No, it doesn’t hurt. Just feels really weird. Oh—then she does that and pirouettes on my bladder. Gotta go,” she said as she struggled a little like an overturned turtle to rise from the couch. Evan quickly stood and helped her rise, taking her glass from her.
“Be right back,” she murmured before kissing him and then making a kissie-face at Wes who winked back at her and said, “We’ll save your spot, baby.”
As she waddled from the room, Gwen turned to Evan and asked, “When is the baby due?”
“Doctor Emma says first week in February.”
“I take it you opted to not find out if it’s a boy or girl yet?” Julián asked as he stroked Gwen’s thigh in a manner that sent warm flutters straight to her girlie parts and made light conversation difficult to pay attention to.
Evan shook his head. “We wanted to, but Rosemary decided she’d rather be surprised. What Rosie wants, Rosie gets.” Gwen noticed he said that with a certain amount of satisfaction. The three of them made a ménage look so easy.
The conversation carried on around them, and Gwen realized that she was actually having fun. She’d thought she’d be too tired to enjoy Christmas Eve at Grace’s but the truth was that she was having a great time. She felt encapsulated in a happy, warm bubble, sitting with Julián and Chris on the couch. The exhaustion had even abated some, thanks to her nap earlier.
She couldn’t believe that she’d conked out like that, but she’d felt better after two hours in Julián’s arms than she had after six hours in her bunk the night before. She attributed that to being in a safe place and being held by someone she was beginning to feel very secure with.
It was a cold, hard fact that when she left in March, it would be with a heavy, possibly broken, heart.
She pushed the thought from her mind and drained the rest of the wine from her glass. Wanting more, she shifted carefully in Julián’s lap, enjoying the feel of that hardness that was meant for her. Julián steadied her at her hips as he continued his conversation with Wes and Evan, and she accepted Chris’s hand when he helped her to rise. The simple contact sent a tingle through her.