Still… “Can I be lazy and make you do all the work?”
His eyes lit up and he rolled her slowly, supporting his full weight as they switched positions. “I do believe that’s possible.”
He rocked forward to kiss her forehead, then her nose. Dropped a quick kiss on her lips that she returned before he slipped his way down her body, stripping off her sleep shirt and panties and revealing her body to his heated gaze.
The physical changes so far were small, but she’d particularly felt an increase in her breast’s sensitivity. The light touch of his forefinger as he drew gentle circles around her areolas was just the right amount of contact to tease her without causing pain. She held her breath as he put his mouth on one nipple, but the delicate dabbing of his tongue against her skin felt amazing, and desire grew between them.
His every touch was deliberate, so careful and precise. Tasha reveled in it and finally let go of her tension. Max played her body like she was a rare treasure, increasing her arousal without ever making her cringe from an oversensitized backlash. He licked and sucked, stroking her until she grew feverishly hot, the ache between her legs needing to be answered. When he pressed into her, the width of his girth seemed to have grown larger since the last time, and he had to rock in, small bits at a time as she pulled up a leg to try to accommodate him better. A wash of pleasure rolled over her, not only in her core, but her skin as he continued to stroke wherever he could reach—her breasts, her belly, the hard nub of her clit.
There was no wild thrusting, none of the harsh, almost animalistic pleasure they’d shared in the first days of their sexual relationship. Tasha watched Max’s face as he joined them together, enjoying the play of emotion displayed there. The arousal, the tenderness. She couldn’t have asked for a better friend in her life, in or out of her bed, and when the first pulses of her climax started, constricting around his shaft, she spoke his name, accepting his kiss as he too found release.
They lay tangled together for a while, his weight strategically resting to the side even as he left their bodies connected. It was very intimate, and very right.
Max rested a hand on her belly. There was no change yet, nothing to show they had a baby on the way. Tasha had given it a lot of thought, and even though she was now okay with them telling people, the first announcement wasn’t going to be at the full out-and-out Turner-clan Christmas bash. No way would they share during that kind of insanity. Max had agreed—he suggested if they told his parents, Maxy, and his grandmother, the trickle-down effect of the big family network would be enough.
Tasha had already called her own mom and got a noncommittal “congrats”, given with about the same degree of enthusiasm that Mom had used when she’d called to say she and Max were married. No, it was clear that her extended family was now the Turners. And all of them were being as supportive she’d hoped, except for one notable exception.
“You ready to head to the Turner Christmas dinner?” he asked.
Damn. She swore he was psychic at times. She sighed lightly, rolling to run her fingers through his hair in an attempt to calm her suddenly shaky nerves. “Honestly? Yes and no. The dessert is in the fridge, and that’s all we have to bring, but I’m…”
The sentence didn’t need to be finished. He knew what caused her hesitation.
Lila.
Chapter Thirteen
Max watched his wife wander through the family room in his Gramma’s enormous home, chatting with everyone, older and younger.
His wife.
There was an immediate heart-wrenching, stomach-twisting response to that word every time he thought it, and he thought it often just to enjoy the sensation. Tasha was exactly what he’d longed for. Yeah, the past few weeks she’d spent a lot of days a pale shade of green, but his attraction to her was based on more than her natural beauty. Her sarcastic wit may have been a trifle slower in the mornings, but now that she’d reached her second trimester, the old spunk and devil-may-care attitude had snuck back into play, and he was even more in love than before.
Adding in the fact that was his baby growing in her belly? Over the moon. He could barely breathe every time the reality of it hit him.
The only taint in paradise was that she still had some kind of wall raised between them. At times she would laugh with him, cry with him. Whisper his name as they made love—and even thinking about sex with Tasha made his body tighten. But occasionally he caught her staring off into space with a sad expression, or in the middle of laughing with him she would almost physically pull back. Retreat. Straighten her shoulders and slide that damn wedge between them again. When he’d started this relationship he’d assumed that the details would fall into place—it was proving far more difficult than he’d imagined.
He obviously needed to increase the romancing again, but that had been difficult when her head was so often in the toilet.
“Hey, stranger.”
Max twirled at his sister’s call and hooted with delight. He grabbed her for a hug. “I’ve missed you.”
She squeezed him back, even as she laughed lightly. “Yeah, yeah, I don’t think missing me has been on the top of your things-to-think-about list lately.”
Maxy backed away and waved as she looked over his shoulder. He pivoted in time to see Tasha respond and that shot to his gut went off again. “It has been busy, between the house and the—”
“Give me a break, I’m not complaining.” She smirked at him. “I certainly hope when I’m a newlywed you don’t expect me to be concentrating on too much outside of my immediate area. You guys are still on your honeymoon as far as I’m concerned. That excuses a lot of mental lapses and…ahem…skipped emails.”
A streak of guilt ripped past him. “I was supposed to send you a few projects to proof. Shit, I can’t believe I forgot.”
She grinned. “Sorry, couldn’t resist giving you grief. I’m serious—I don’t expect you to be perfect right now, bro, but I do need a little guidance next week, or right after New Year’s, if you don’t mind. There’s a section in that project you gave me where I’m fudging a step—and I can’t untangle my coding errors, so it’s not working.”
“No trouble.” But not during the holidays. Those romantic memory-making things he wanted to put into place included a lot of private time for just him and Tasha. “At the start of January we’ll get together and work it out.”
A couple of the younger clan members darted underfoot and they both shifted their footing easily with the experience of years of attending crowded family events. “You two want to join me and Jamie after dinner for a walk?”
Max jerked upright. “You still seeing that guy?”
She grumbled back, “Yes, I’m still seeing him. We’ve been going out for the past three months.” The front door opened and she peered hopefully in its direction. Max followed her gaze, but it was just kids running in and out from the porch to the main house.
“So, where is he now?” Max asked.
“He’ll be here.” Her cheeks flushed and he wondered what the hell was going on. Protective instincts kicked into high gear.
“Maxy, is something wrong?”
She shook her head rapidly. “Of course not. He’s…not very punctual. It bugs me a little.”
“Jerk. He’s not pushing you anymore, is he?”
She flapped her fingers rapidly, motioning him to silence, then tugged him into a corner where they were no longer in the middle of the action. “Don’t do that. It’s bad enough you’re giving me the third degree, I don’t need everyone in the family asking what’s up.”