He had never apologized to her, for anything. Therefore, the apology threw her completely off guard to where she slightly stumbled, but his hold stayed and they kept walking as if nothing had happened.
“It’s hard for me not to be protective. The two of you… you and the baby… have wormed your way under my skin.”
“Wow, I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not.”
Shaking his head, he sighed in exasperation. “You are one tough nut to crack.
She stiffened her shoulders once again, and tried to pull away. The action made him chuckle, and pull her closer, if that was even possible.
“Relax.”
He sure liked to tell her to relax a lot. Maybe she didn’t want to relax. Maybe she wanted the distance she obtained from people by keeping her guard up.
“You think too much.” When she stayed silent, he continued with his apology. “I just meant that you have become important to me.”
“Why didn’t you say that to begin with?”
“Are you going to let me finish?”
She mumbled, “Sorry,” and pinched her lips shut.
“The thought of something happening to you, especially when you’re carrying my child, doesn’t sit well with me. Who’s to say that the kid you told me about won’t turn on you someday? Maybe I was a little forward, but I don’t like the idea of you going into situations that could be potentially harmful.”
His explanation made sense, but she couldn’t uproot her life because he didn’t feel comfortable. She would never put her baby in a situation where it could get hurt. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
“Let me guess. That’s your polite way of saying, ‘Fuck off’?”
She cringed at his harsh language. “Do you always have to be so vulgar?”
“Can’t you be a little more vulgar?” He started to laugh at her. “Come on, repeat after me... Fuuuck.”
She was not even going to pacify him with a snide remark.
When she stayed silent, he tried again. “Too much too soon? Okay, we’ll start smaller… Shit.”
Not going to happen, she thought, but the sides of her mouth were starting to pull up into a smile.
Since one of her arms was still wedged to his side, she reached across with her other, found the general vicinity of his nipple, and twisted. She must have hit her mark, because he jumped away from her, and started rubbing the abused area. She tried to hold it in, but her laugh was too strong to stay silent.
Smiling, he jumped in front to face her, and started to walk backwards. “I call foul, even if I can be a son of a…” He trailed off in hopes that she would finish the sentence.
She hadn’t had this much fun in ages, and the fact that it was with him shocked her even more. His last comment had her laughing so hard that she let out a small snort. Shocked and even a little mortified, she stopped walking and threw a hand over her mouth. Staring at him with eyes that were probably the size of silver dollars, she prayed he hadn’t heard.
“Did you just… snort?” Obviously, luck was not on her side.
Smiling behind her hand, she vigorously shook her head in denial.
“Yes, you did.”
She smiled and started to walk again, successfully ignoring him.
Abruptly, she stopped everything, and grabbed Gemariah’s arm. She pressed her free hand on her stomach and let out a loud gasp before he had stopped laughing.
“What? What’s wrong?” She could tell he had gone into full protection mode from the tone in his voice.
There was no way to describe what she had felt, but it was definitely something new. Instead of answering him, she scrunched her eyebrows down in confusion and shook her head.
“Talk, dammit! What’s going on?”
She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to make a sound. She just wanted to feel it again to figure out what was going on. Letting out a deep breath, she looked back up at Gemariah to explain when she felt it again.
Once again, she gasped, and squeezed his arm.
“That’s it! We’re going to the hospital.” He grabbed her upper arm, and went to pull her forward when she stopped him.
“Wait! It doesn’t hurt, it just feels weird.” When it happened again, she giggled. “It feels like a butterfly’s in my stomach. Like little…” She paused while remembering something the doctor had told her.
“Oh my Goodness! Do you know what this is?”
Confusion was marked all over his face.
“I think I feel the baby moving!” Both hands now on her belly, she felt another flutter. “Oh yeah. That’s definitely her.”
Nicole looked up and saw the uncertainty on his face as he tentatively reached out his hand. Hoping to ease his worries, she grabbed it and brought it to her stomach. “I don’t think it’s hard enough for you to feel, but we can try.”
When it fluttered again, she quickly looked up to him. “There! Did you feel that?” she asked excitedly.
He shook his head, but he was still grinning. “What’s it feel like?”
“It tickles,” she said and chuckled, “but it’s kind of making me feel like I have to use the bathroom.”
Laughing at her words, he said, “It’s a good thing that we’ve made it back to your place then.”
Completely overcome with joy, she stepped up to Gemariah, wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face in his chest.
At first, he didn’t move, but it wasn’t long before he tentatively wrapped his arms around her to return the embrace. It feels so good to be buried in a cocoon of Gemariah, she thought. Nothing could touch her, as long as she stayed where she was.
Her thoughts quickly turned in a different direction, and she felt the muscle definition in his back. When she identified the ripples in his abs that were under her cheek, she felt her body temperature slowly start to increase.
What was wrong with her? After years of never wanting anything to do with men, then her botched first time experience, sexual attraction had been non-existent for her… until then. She quickly let go, and took an awkward step backwards.
As if knowing what she had been thinking, he flashed a devilish grin, but thankfully decided to keep his mouth shut and not embarrass her.
“Hey, let me take you out to celebrate this new milestone!”
It took her a second to realize he was talking about feeling the baby and not her budding attraction. Still trying to recover her equilibrium, she thought about going out for the night. She had a long day, and plans for another long one tomorrow. It wasn’t that she couldn’t go out; she just didn’t feel up to it, so she let him down gently.
Instead of bowing out gracefully, he had another idea. “Okay, I’ll just come in, and make a celebratory snack.” Without waiting for her go-ahead, he took her keys from her and walked up to the door to unlock it.
“I can unlock my own door, you know,” she said, but the smile on her face contradicted the stern tone she tried to put forth.
“I know, but it’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”
She heard a click, then he swung the door open. When he stood to the side to let her go through first, she smacked his stomach with the back of her hand as she passed. “Since when are you a gentleman?” she joked.
“I can be very gentle, if only given the chance,” she heard whispered behind her.
Something had changed between them; something that was a little exciting, but still made her nervous. Feeling her cheeks heat from his comment, she ignored him as and walked to the kitchen to sit at the table. She made a show of looking at her watch, before saying, “Didn’t you say something about a snack?”
******
With a hand covering her full mouth, Nicole mumbled, “Oh my! That was delicious.” She then frowned down at her cleared plate.
“You know how cute you are, when you make that face?”
She ignored the pleasure she got from his comment, and scoffed. “Hardly. Cute is not a word I would use for me. I’ve gotten hug
e, so huge that light stretch marks are starting to show.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “You have to grow. Did you know that the baby is…” Looking around the table, he quickly picked up a fork and held it up. “…the baby is about this long right now?”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been reading some.” Once again, he shrugged as if it were no big deal. Little did he know exactly how much it meant to her.
“Plus, you’re not that big.” His voice was soft, and comfort— “Yet.”
She dropped her jaw and before thinking twice, she kicked out her leg, making contact with his shin under the table.
He chuckled, and without warning, there was a loud bang and the chair next to her toppled backwards. The action startled her and made her squeak as she quickly scooted back from the table.
“Oops. I guess I missed.”
Looking from the chair, to the grinning face of the man sitting across from her, she couldn’t help but return his smile. Pointing a finger in his direction, she said, “I knew you were violent from the moment I saw you.”
She was still grinning as she swiped up chocolate syrup from the plate with her finger, and popped it into her mouth. When she looked up, Gemariah’s face was hard as stone.
“What?” The word was distorted from the finger still in her mouth, so she quickly removed it and frowned.
When he didn’t answer, but instead stood up to clear the table, she was even more confused.
“Obviously, I’m not a mind reader, so I can’t know what’s bugg—”
“You’re never going to forgive me for that day, are you?” he abruptly asked.
“What day?” She thought to what she had said and it brought back memories from the day they met. He had been bullying a teenager, and she had been so mad. How could she have forgotten? It felt as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown over her, successfully drowning her good mood.
There was only one question that was on her mind. “What were you thinking that day, anyway?”
The dishes landed in the sink with a little more force than necessary.
“I was thinking that the boy had it coming.” There was a growl in his voice, and she was glad he was standing on the other side of the room. On any other day, she would take on a grizzly man with a bad temper, but not when her baby was at risk.
She pointed to her stomach. “So what are you going to do when this baby talks-back, or acts up? Are you going to hit him, or shake her?”
His eyes grew wide, and his shock was evident. “Of course not, but I’ll be damned if it turns out as disrespectful as that punk was.”
“What will you do to stop that from happening, huh?” She swallowed down the lump in her throat caused by fear. He will have to go through me first, she thought.
“You are trying to make me into someone I’m not! I’m not anything like the person that hurt you.”
“Get out.” The fact that he could see right through her didn’t sit well.
“Nicole…”
“I said get out!” she yelled.
She remembered another time she had yelled at him to get out of her house. It was like a mask had been put over her eyes to his true character, and she had forgotten everything from their past.
As if feeling the change in her mood, he started walking towards the door without another word. Walking behind him, she followed him to the door, but stopped at the threshold. When he was about to get into his truck, she hollered out, “Gemariah.”
Still unsmiling, unlike how he had been only ten minutes earlier, he turned to look at her.
“I think it’s best if you don’t come back.” Before he could answer, she shut the door. As she stood on the other side, she listened to a door slam and an engine roar, and then all was silent. She knew that it was for the best, but she still couldn’t help but feel more alone than ever.
CHAPTER 6
She had told him to stay away, but did he listen? No, like a stupid idiot, he did not.
During the day, he would follow her from a safe distance, so she didn’t know he was there, but he could still make sure that she was okay. His was seriously behind on his duties for the team because of it, but everyone had helped pick up the slack. After she made it home from work, that’s when he would make himself known.
The first few evenings had been fun. He went to the front door, and she would pretend not to be home. Of course he knew she was, he could sense her turbulent emotions.
At first, he felt her anger and frustration, so he sat with his back against the door, and tried to talk about the night before.
“Let’s see, how would I punish our kid if they misbehave?” He could feel the tension rolling off of her in waves when he started. “There’s always time-out or taking things away. I’m not opposed to manual labor, such as helping around the house.” Her emotions shifted to something dark, and he thought to lighten the mood. “I got it! We could always make them eat your turkey meatloaf, because honey, you can cook a lot of things, but that ain’t one of them.”
He could almost feel her smile. “Let me in, so we can talk, Tinker Bell.”
“You need to go away.” He should have been disappointed by her first words, but instead he was glad that she finally decided to talk to him.
“Fine. I’ll leave now, but I’ll be back tomorrow.” He stood up to go.
“No!” He turned with a smile on his face, thinking she wanted him to stay, but his hope was quickly dashed with her next words. “Don’t come back tomorrow. I’ll call the cops if you do.”
Focusing on her emotional state, he knew that she was telling the truth. As he walked away, he thought that the next day would be interesting.
Sure enough, when he came the next evening and started talking to her through the door, it took ten minutes for the patrol car to pull up in front of the house. He watched as two uniformed cops cautiously made their way up to the house, and stopped a good ten feet from him.
They asked him to leave, and he had explained the situation, that she was pregnant with his child and he had put his foot in his mouth… again. The two men were sympathetic, but still had to make him leave.
As he walked away, he turned toward the house and yelled, “Same time tomorrow, Tink?” When there was no answer, his smile grew even bigger. What a stubborn woman.
The next two evenings were about the same. He would arrive, and ten minutes later, he would be shooed away by the police. He even took it upon himself to bring coffee for the officers.
On the fourth day, no police came. He guessed that she realized her efforts were for nothing because he would come back the next day regardless. He didn’t get to do much talking though, because he would have had to yell over a vacuum that was running and placed by the door inside the house. He didn’t care. He just sat there, and soaked up her feeling of satisfaction. Her happiness had become intoxicating, even if it was caused by his demise.
Yesterday had been a week since she kicked him out of her house, and she still wouldn’t let him in. That didn’t stop her from coming out though. He had been in the middle of a very lengthy description about weapons and their evolution throughout the ages when she stormed out.
Before he could say anything, or even express his elation that she had finally opened the door, he was dowsed with ice cold water. He shot up, sputtering, and wiped at his eyes to clear his vision. When he could see clearly enough, he spotted the little pixie, hair flowing free and standing as if she were about launch into an attack. Glancing down, he noticed an empty pitcher clutched in her hand, and he couldn’t suppress his smile.
“Damn, you got spunk.” And so much more fun than he originally thought.
Obviously, she didn’t like his smile, because she clenched her tiny hands into fists, and groaned at the sky. He could see the fire in her eyes when she looked back at him. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Before letting him answer, she took a step forward and pointed her finger at him. “Don’t think I don’t know abou
t you following me while I’m working either.”
Observant little thing.
“You need to stop!”
Holding up his hands in surrender, he took a step forward and tried not to be discouraged when she took a step back. “Now, Nicole, you’re pregnant. Think about this. Are you really mad at me, or is this just the hormones talking?”
Thank God for his quick reflexes, or he wouldn’t have been able to dodge the pitcher that was thrown at his head. Screaming, she turned, and he watched her march back into her house and slam the door shut. The click of the locks, were his signal that he was done for the night.
After the week they had, he decided to try something different. Since she already knew that he followed her anyway, he didn’t see what was stopping them from riding together. So he sat in his truck, and waited for her to leave the house to go to work.
He heard his phone ring, and looked down to see that Trinity was calling him. Hitting the Ignore button, he turned up the radio.
Trinity called him at least once a day to tell him to give “Nicci” some space; that she would come around eventually. No offense to Trinity, he loved her like the sister-in-law she was, but she needed to butt out. It was between Nicole and him… not her. If Nicole wanted him to leave, she needed to get her little butt out here and tell him to his face.
When his phone rang again, he glanced down to hit the Ignore button again, and groaned when he saw it was Gideon. To say that he didn’t get along with Gideon was putting it lightly.
Picking it up, he hit the button to answer it, and put it to his ear. “Yo.”
“Fuck your, ‘Yo’. You need to come handle your shit.”
“Can’t today.”
“Listen, I’ve been covering for your ass too long now. Shit hit the fan and you need to get to your housing district, now!”
Gemariah sat up straighter, and gave Gideon his full attention. “What happened?”
There was no answer, and when he looked down, he saw that Gideon had hung up. “Fucker,” he mumbled as he threw his phone into the passenger seat.
With one last look at the house, he sighed and put his truck in reverse. Another day, he thought.
The Divine Whisper Page 12
