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December 25
9:10 a.m.
Almost six months after they were married
Scarlett
I wake with a start. I’m flat on my stomach with my face smooshed into my pillow. I’m pretty sure my face is actually smooshed into a puddle of drool. Lovely. Such a great way to wake up.
“Scarlett. You awake?” Wilder’s voice filters into my awareness.
I lift my face and turn towards his voice which I think is coming from the doorway of our bedroom. Squinting, I make out his body and try hard to pull him into focus. “What time is it?”
He chuckles. “It’s just after nine.”
“Holy shit, why did you let me sleep so late? Your mum and dad will be here soon!” I scramble off the bed. “I have so much to do before they arrive! And why are you laughing at me?”
He reaches for me as I attempt to move past him, circling his arm around my waist and not allowing me through. “I’m laughing because you look ragged.”
My eyes widen. “Ragged?”
More of that chuckling. “Yes, ragged. In the very best way.”
I try to smack him away, but he's not having a bar of it.
Giving him a look that I hope says he should have a bar of it, I say, “I don’t think you know what that word means because if you did, you’d know there’s no way anyone could look ragged in the very best way.”
He tightens his arm around me. “You’re fuckin’ sexy any way you come, Scar.” He brushes his mouth against my ear and drops his voice to a gravel. “Knowing I caused that birds nest in your hair gets me hard.”
Now, I push him away. “You can take your hard dick away from me and sort it out yourself. And I’d recommend signing up for a Sandwich Making 101 class while you’re at it, because telling me I’m ragged and that I have a birds nest in my hair makes me want you far, far away from me. Your sandwiches will all be on you for a while now.”
The sound of him laughing as I stalk down the hall away from him only annoys me more. When he calls out, “Merry Christmas, baby,” I slam the bathroom door behind me and call back, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! It’s not Christmas. There are no presents for you!” I then promptly vomit into the toilet.
I am never getting pregnant again.
Never, ever, ever.
Not even if Wilder tricks me into it.
I refuse.
Morning sickness is hell.
I brush my teeth, wash my face, and sort the mess of my hair out, all while trying to move on from the nausea I’m feeling. Wilder was right that I look ragged but there’s no way I’m telling him that.
I find him in the kitchen with a sympathetic look on his face. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I want to hurt you for putting a baby in me.” At the serious look on his face, I relent. “I’m okay.” My morning sickness has eased greatly from what it was like in the beginning. These days, it doesn’t tend to last long. “But you should know that I may never let you near me again once we’ve had this baby.”
This earns me a grin right before he catches me by surprise and pulls me in close. “What I’m hearing is that I should fuck you as often as I can while you’re pregnant.”
“Naturally that’s what you’re hearing. You are such a guy.” I put my hands to his chest. “Let me go. I’ve got stuff to do before your parents arrive.”
He doesn’t let me go. “I’ve done it all.”
“What?”
“Everything’s ready for them. All you have to do is get dressed.”
I don’t believe him. Besides, he’s a man. He would have forgotten half the stuff on my to-do list. “Did you vacuum underneath the couches?”
“Yes.”
“Did you fold up all the laundry and put it away?”
“Yes.”
“Did you cut all the food for the platter?”
“Yeah.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Did you clean the tops of the ceiling fans?”
His lips twitch. “It’s all done, Scarlett. I even crossed every job off your list for you after I did it.”
“Show me.”
“Fuck,” he mutters. “I feel sorry for our kid. Fuckin’ nothing gets past you.” He lets me go and drags my notepad across the kitchen counter to show me that every job has indeed been marked off as done.
I narrow my eyes at him again. “If you did this so we’d have time for sex this morning, you’re out of luck. I’m not in the mood.”
Wilder has proved to me over the last few months of our pregnancy just how patient he can be, and today is no different. Even when he jerks his head toward the bathroom and bosses me, he does it with more patience than any man I’ve ever met. “Get in the shower, Cherry Bomb. I’m not planning on fucking you this morning.”
Five minutes later, I’m in the shower, thinking about how moody I’ve been this week. Even I can’t stand myself half the time. I’m unsure how my husband stands me. Pregnancy hormones are no joke. It may be a miracle if I’m still a married woman by the time I give birth.
I shower and get dressed and meet Wilder out on our back deck where he’s doing some final cleaning up of the plants.
“I’m sorry I’m so moody. I honestly don’t know how women survive pregnancy.”
He meets my gaze. There’s only pure love shining in his eyes. No frustration with me. “You don’t have to apologise, Scarlett. I know it’s your hormones giving you hell.”
Ever since the day he told me we don’t burn the house down but rather we build it strong, this man has been showing me just how much he meant those words. We rarely argue even though I’d argue like hell with me if I were him. Wilder gives and gives without asking for a lot in return. The only thing he wants is my love and my commitment to building our house strong. And while he has those things, always, I don’t show him that often enough.
I move into him and pull his mouth down to mine so I can kiss him. I spend my time in this kiss, deepening it slowly until he’s groaning into it.
“Scar,” he rasps, dragging his mouth from mine. “You can’t kiss me like that when I’m already hard for you.”
I give him a sexy smile. “I thought you weren’t planning on fucking me this morning.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m planning on that or not, I’m always fuckin’ hard for you.”
I feel those words deep in my core. I may do a good job of grumbling my way through telling my husband I don’t want sex, but there’s no denying that most of the time, he only has to look at me a certain way with those greens of his and I would beg him to fuck me.
I press myself against him and kiss him again. This time, I make it a much shorter kiss, and then I say, “I have presents for you and some of them are the kind of presents that we shouldn’t exchange with your family in attendance.”
His lips pull up at the ends. “I thought there were no presents for me.”
“That was the demon in me speaking. There are a lot of presents for you. Like, a lot, a lot.”
“I didn’t realise we were doing a lot, a lot of presents. I only got you one.”
“Well, I mean, so long as it’s the exact present I want, you’re good.”
“I’ll take it back and exchange it if it’s not, and perhaps next year, you could write me a list that has only one present on it so that I don’t fuck it up.”
I grin.
I did give him a wish list that had ten gift ideas on it.
“I think you should just get better at knowing me,” I tease.
“How about we go inside, and you give me these indecent presents before Mum and Dad arrive?”
“How about we go inside, and you fuck me?”
His eyes flare with undeniable heat. “Fuckin’ hell,” he growls, and then he’s got me over his shoulder and is carrying me to our bedroom. “Paul texted that he’s on his way, so this is going to be fast.”
I shrug as Wilder begins tearing at my clothes. “He can wait outside while we finish.”
Wilder shakes his head at that, but still, amusement fills his features. He knows I kinda mean it. I really could get away with saying or doing anything and he would still love me.
My thoughts over that run wild, causing me to grip his forearms and say, “I love you, Justin Miller, and if you ever stop loving me, I will hunt you down and make you start again.”
This gets all his attention, slowing him right down. His eyes come to mine, and we share a long moment of just watching each other while what I said works its way deep inside of him. Then, he takes hold of my face and kisses my last thought, my last breath, my last everything out of me before growling, “I will never stop loving you.” One of his hands moves to my stomach and he curves it over the baby bump that’s barely there while looking down at it. “It’s always going to be you, me, and our kids, Scar.” He meets my gaze again. “And not one fuckin’ thing will ever come between any of us. I promise you that.”
My heart has never known love like the love Wilder gives me. Love that knows no bounds and never ceases, not even when shit gets hard.
I stare up into his eyes. “That was the present I wanted. You don’t have to return it. And just to save us time with the unwrapping, so that we don’t have to have the fastest sex known to mankind, I got you a cock ring. And now you should just fuck me already because I’m suddenly desperate for your dick.”
He opens his mouth to say something at the same time that Paul calls out, “I’m here!”
Wilder looks positively cockblocked.
I simply grin at him before calling back, “We’ll just be a minute, Paul.”
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