“Always fine,” he whispers.
“Always perfect if I have you.”
“You have me.” His fingers thread through my hair and grip before he pulls me back. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“You married me. Of course I know.”
He shakes his head and grabs my hand, pulling off my wedding ring and holding it up. “Do you think this signifies my love for you?”
“Yes,” I admit quietly.
He smiles a little, as if I just don’t get it. I don’t. “Then we should get these diamonds removed and have it reencrusted with my heart.” He slowly slides it back onto my finger, and I dissolve in his lap, reaching forward and resting my palm on his chest.
“I like your heart exactly where it is.” Leaning down, I place my lips on his skin. “I like how it swells when you look at me.”
“Just for you, baby.” He pushes our mouths together and spends a few moments reinforcing exactly that. “Let me bathe you,” he mumbles, working his lips down to my throat. “Turn around for me.”
I begrudgingly let him shift me from his lap so he can come off his knees and sit back before he arranges me between his thighs and starts with his bathing routine. I sigh contentedly but say nothing. And I don’t plan on instigating tub-talk, either. Not this time. This is for him to lead. Of course, my curious mind has gone into overdrive, but I won’t be the first one to break the comfortable silence. My Lord’s past holds no significance to our future. He has said that before and now, more than ever, I know just what he meant.
“Are you fine?” he asks, working the sponge around the base of my neck.
I smile down into the water. “I’m okay.”
I watch the water ripple, the little waves lapping around me as he moves in closer and rests his mouth at my ear. “I’m a little worried about my defiant temptress,” he whispers.
I don’t want to come over all hot and tingly, but it’s something I’ll never prevent when he’s near, let alone breathing in my ear. I push my cheek into him. “Why?”
“Because she’s too quiet when there’s information to be had.” He kisses my temple and lays back, taking me with him.
“If you want to tell me, then you will.”
His chest jolts beneath me on a silent laugh. “I’m not sure I like what pregnancy is doing to my girl.” His hands rest on my stomach. “First of all, she’s developed a phobia of my cock in her mouth.” He lifts his hips into my lower back, as if demonstrating what I’m missing. I know exactly what I’m missing, and I’m not liking it. “And second, she’s not blessing me with her forceful demands for intelligence.”
I shrug nonchalantly. “My Lord isn’t blessing me with his wide range of expert fuckings, so we’re even, aren’t we?”
He laughs, and I’m a little annoyed that I’m not facing him because if I was, I know I’d see the sparkle in his eyes and the light fans at the corners. “But she’s still blessing me with her filthy mouth.” He gives me a tweak above my hipbone, and I perform a jerk and a yelp before he lets me settle again. The silence settles, too.
He eventually sighs and starts circling tiny rings with his fingertips on each side of my bellybutton. “His name was Jake.” He doesn’t say any more than that, so I lie quietly on him, waiting for him to elaborate. “He idolized me. He wanted to be me. I’ll never understand it.” He sounds angry, and I’m suddenly moving, being turned around to face him. I’m now on my stomach, spread all over him and looking up into green grief. “I can’t do this on my own, baby. Help me.”
My instincts kick in and I push myself up his body, settling higher so I can get my face in the crook of his neck. “Were you not alike?”
“We were the furthest away from alike you could get. In looks and personality.”
“He wasn’t a god?”
His hands caress my back gently. “He was a genius.”
“How is that far away from you?” I ask.
“Jake had his brain to get him by; I had my looks and I used them, as you well know. Jake didn’t use his brain. If he did, he wouldn’t be dead.”
Questions are popping into my mind left, right, and center, and I can’t hold them back. “How did he die?”
“He got hit by a car.”
“How would that be not using his brain?”
“Because he was pissed when he staggered into the road.”
Realization is dawning, and it’s dawning very fast. “Carmichael isn’t the only reason you don’t talk to your parents, is he?”