Page 116 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
Maeve winked. "You look terrified."
"I’m not terrified. I’m calculating the appropriate grip pressure."
"You've held him a hundred times."
"This is the first time I've held him while you're looking at me like that."
She tilted her head. "Like what?"
Like I was someone who deserved to hold a baby on a wool rug in a sunlit room. Like the blood on my hands was something she'd already forgiven. Like she'd seen every scar and decided none of them disqualified me.
I didn't say any of this. Words were not my primary function.
Instead I said, "Tomorrow he comes. Finn."
"I know."
"I won’t let him near this room."
Maeve reached across Fergus, who made a small sound of protest at being briefly compressed, and placed her hand against my jaw. Her palm was warm. Her thumb traced the scar that cut through my eyebrow.
"I know that too," she said. "But you don't need to stand at the window like you're already at war. He expects a victim. He wouldhave got one, before I found you. Before—" She glanced at Mac, then back at me. "Before all of this."
"Now he will find the opposite."
"Yes." She leaned forward and kissed the corner of my mouth. It was not a kiss of passion. It was a kiss of certainty. "He will."
I swapped Mac to my other arm and wrapped the other around her waist, pulling her against my side. She fit there. She had always fit there, from the first moment in Prague when she'd stumbled into an alley with a steak knife and a bad plan.
"You make me want things I was not designed to want," I said.
Maeve looked at me. "What things?"
"A baby. Wooden blocks. A dog that fits in my pocket." I paused. "More children."
Her breath caught.
“Wow, Gregor. You’re getting good at this.”
"I’m not good at saying things," I argued, because I had started now and stopping seemed worse. "I observe. I stand near the doors. This is what I contribute. But I watch you with Mac and I want—" I stopped. The words were not arriving in the correct order. "I want to see you get bigger with our child. I want this more than I ever thought I would. The love and the babies I mean."
Maeve was very still. Then she laughed. It was the bright, surprised laugh she made when something had gone past her defenses.
"That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."
"It was not romantic. It was logistical."
"You said you wanted to have more babies with me and not once did you mention perimeter or weapon safety. That's a marriage proposal in your language."
"I was not proposing. We’re already married in the eyes of pack law."
"You were proposing a baby."
"I was—" I stopped again. "Yes. That is accurate."
She kissed me properly then. Her mouth was warm and steady and her hand stayed on my jaw and Mac made a small sound between us like he was registering a complaint about being excluded from the conversation.
When she pulled back, her eyes were bright but dry. "Ask me again after tomorrow. When Finn is gone and the house is quiet and you're waiting for a war."
