Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
So hard it would hurt if I wasn’t still floating in bliss. He comes then collapses on top of me, his weight crushing my sensitive nipples against my chest and putting too much pressure on my abdomen. I push against him.
“Sorry,” he pants and rolls off me. He lets out a deep breath and puts one hand over his head.
My eyes flutter closed and I wait for the feeling to come back to my toes.
“Noah?” I push up and see that he’s already passed out.
“You’re moody.”
I glare at Noah. “I’m tired.”
“Don’t take it out on me.”
I stick my fork into my pasta and twirl the spaghetti around. “Who else can I take it out on? And besides, it’s your fault I’m tired.”
“You seemed to enjoy that last night.”
I take a bite of food before I answer. “Maybe I faked it.”
“You did not fake that. No one fakes it with me.”
I respond by rolling my eyes. “And yes, the sex was good, but the whole getting you at two in the morning wasn’t.” I just got home from work a little while ago. Noah stayed here all day. He couldn’t really leave since his bike was still at the bar, and I know he slept past noon.
Must be nice.
“Yeah … sorry about that.”
He called me when he got up and left a long voicemail, thanking me and apologizing. But this is the first time we got to actually talk since last night. I came home to dinner on the table, which almost made me forgive him.
“What happened last night?” I ask.
“You don’t remember? You shouldn’t be drinking, you know.”
I roll my eyes, not amused. “I mean, why did you go to the bar and drink so much?”
Noah looks away and shrugs. “Just felt like hanging out with the guys. I didn’t, uh, mean to drink so much. It just happened.” He grinds his jaw, tense. What else isn’t he telling me? His brow furrows. “Lauren?”
I bite my lip and look across the table from him. “Yeah?”
“I won’t do it again. I promise.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, considering each word carefully. “I don’t care if you go to the bar to hang out with your friends. I don’t care if you drink. But I do care about you doing something that could get you hurt because what you do affects me now. Affects us.”
He lowers his head, looking guilty. “I know, and I feel awful. Last night I was thinking about…” he trails off and shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen again.”
He reaches across the table and takes my hand. “I don’t want to let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down. You just made me tired.” I give him a smirk. “Make it up with a back rub, okay?” My eyes lock with Noah’s. Fool me twice…
“I like this, Lauren,” he says softly. “Being with you, being together. Last night I … never mind. But this, what we have, is nice.”
I smile, finding it cute as he fumbles over his words. “I like this too, Noah. Things have been crazy and scary, and having you with me helps. Probably more than you know.”
He holds my gaze steady and smiles. “Want to make things official? Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
“I do.”
“Good. Because that would be really awkward if you didn’t.”
“And now I can at least say my boyfriend knocked me up.”
Noah chuckles. “And I can say I got my girlfriend pregnant. Not just some random chick I took home from the bar.”
“We’re so classy.”
“The classiest.” We finish dinner then move into the living room. Noah starts rubbing my shoulders.
“That feels so good,” I say. “My back has been hurting all day.”
“This might be a stupid question, but is it from being pregnant? You don’t have much of a belly yet at fourteen weeks.”
I think so, because it never hurt like this before. I can tell things are, uh, shifting around down there.”
“Is it safe to keep working? I meant what I said last night.” I flick my eyes to him. I wasn’t sure if he remembered. “You don’t have to work as much. You pull in a lot of hours.”
“There are certain things I have to avoid, but I don’t do more than the average person,” I say. “Actually, when do you work? Shouldn’t you have done something today?”
“I had a shoot scheduled.”
“And you missed it?”
“It was an outdoor shoot and it rained. I got lucky.”
“Yeah, you did.”
He takes another few bites before going on to explain.
“I like to schedule stuff in clusters. Like do a shit ton of shoots one week then take some time off. I’m booked this weekend, actually.”
“I thought you hated working weekends.”
“I do, but a model I shot in the beginning of her career begged me to do her wedding. It’s in Chicago, so it’s not that far. Come with me. We can spend the night, make a weekend getaway out of it.”