Page 139 of Into the Dark
“No,” I answer immediately. That isn’t it. Then I realize what that sounds like. “I mean, not no I don’t want to marry you. Yes, I want to. It’s just…well, that wasn’t planned, was it? Why did you ask me right then?” He had a look of epiphany on his face as the words spilled from his mouth, so I know it can’t have been planned.
“Because it’s what I want,” he says with a half-shrug. Because I know what I want when I see it. “And because I never want to be in a situation where I regret not saying something to you. I’ve made too many fuckups with that, with not telling you things. And that orgasm was really fucking good.”
I burst out laughing. Beside me Jake chuckles. When my laughter subsides, I ask, “Well, now that it’s faded, and now that I’m pregnant, how do you feel? Still want to marry me?”
He grins. “I wanna marry you even more now I can think straight.” He takes my hand again. “I want to be able to call you my wife, Doctor Alexandra Marlowe.”
Father of my child. My husband. Oh Christ, I want that too. The idea of it causes something debilitating to happen to my breathing and body, turning me so bloody soft.
“You know, if I marry you I won’t be Doctor Marlowe?”
“If you marry me?” He quirks a brow. The sheer amount of confidence in his expression makes me laugh out loud again.
“Meh. Someday I might.” I shrug.
He chuckles again and casts a sideways look at me. “So not a no then?”
I blink awake in the darkness of the bedroom. The curtains aren’t fully closed and a shard of pale moonlight cuts over the end of the bed where Fred sleeps softly by Jake’s feet.
I fell asleep immediately, due most likely to the fact the secret was free of its cage and out in the world. After we got into bed he wrapped me up in his arms and stroked his fingers through my hair until my eyes closed over in a warm, relieved kind of sleep.
Now, I turn my head to look at him and find him wide-awake and watching me. Below the covers, his hand rests gently on top of my stomach.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Go back to sleep.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“Thinking of baby names.” He smiles. “Now get back to sleep.”
I turn fully onto my side so we’re facing one another. “Have you slept at all?”
“Not tired.” He exhales. “Too much on my mind.”
Guilt flares up again. “I’m sorry.”
He frowns. “Why are you sorry?”
I let out a deep breath. “Just…this is what I was worried about. Burdening you. Giving you more to think about.”
“Alex, what did I say in the car?” he says, and I nod. “Anyway, that’s not what I meant. That’s not what I was thinking about.”
“What, then?”
He shifts closer to me, pressing the front of his body against mine. He’s naked, and his body is warm—so warm—a plane of hard, rigid muscle at rest below the sheets. I want to kiss him. So I do. A soft brush of my lips over his.
“What were you thinking about?” I ask again.
He peers into my eyes. “How long were you trying to decide if it was what you wanted? The baby. Is that why you held off?”
My mouth drops open. I sit up and shake my head. “No, that’s not what it was.”
“So it never even crossed your mind not to keep it?”
“No. Not really, no,” I tell him earnestly. “I was shocked and it took me a minute to get my head around it, but when I did, it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made.” I give him a knowing smile. My decision-making process is never as uncomplicated as it was then.
He watches my eyes for a long moment before letting out a breath. It sounds like relief. Then he grins at me. “I mean, I do make pretty good babies.”