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I don’t fight when she unzips my hoodie, slipping it off my arms. I pant down at my waterlogged shoes and give her access to my arms. My shirt comes next, and then she whispers, “Lay back, okay?” and what else am I going to do?

I flop back, struggling to breathe as she pops the button on my jeans, working them over my hips. It feels so much better once it’s all gone, without the weight of it dragging me down. I hear more than see them land on her floor, the heavyplopof the fabrics ringing significantly.

I wish she could take my skin, too.

That thought,skin, draws my eyes up, realizing that she’s used her own towel to dry me. She’s between my legs, worrying her lip as she watches me, her body completely bare. My gaze instantly snaps to the curve of her belly, so small a thing.

Just a tiny little bump.

Just…

Just an apple.

I’m drawn to it like a magnet, holding her hips as I press my forehead to the small swell of her belly. Father preaches a lot of bullshit, but I think I see it now. The power of creation. It sinks into me like a soothing balm, much like the flutter of Verity’s fingers in my hair, stilted but unwavering.

She whispers, “Why did you come here, Pace?”

“Because I’m a fuck up.” Her skin is soft. So fucking soft. Sometimes I touch her and wonder if it’s wrong—if I’m tarnishing the very thing that drew me to her to begin with. “Because I needed to know he was okay,” I answer, remembering Adeline’s confession from earlier.

Her baby was only ten weeks.

Strawberry.

I look up, brushing my lips against the bump of her belly as I meet her gaze. She looks scared, her brows knitted together, but she also looks beautiful. Fiery, like an avenging angel. I almost regret coming, dimming her brightness with all my darkness. Maybe that’s why, for the first time in my life, I decide to be brutally, painfully, terrifyingly honest.

“Because the only time anything feels right is when I’m inside you.”

Her hand is warm when she cups my cheek, her expression collapsing in despair. “Pace…”

I clutch her hips, willing to beg. “Don’t make me leave.”

She sighs, her thumb rubbing the tender, tired spot beneath my eye, and I’m pretty sure I see her make the decision in her mind, the crevice in her forehead smoothing. “Get under the covers. You’re freezing.”

I tug her with me as I go, curling around her body like a desperate, needy thing. She’s warm and soft against the cradle of my body, a contrast in all the ways that matter, and if it takes me a few minutes to get us both ready, then she doesn’t resist.

She nestles back into me as I get her wet, my cold lips skittering up the column of her neck.

When I finally push inside, pressing her close, it’s just like I knew it would be: hot and slick andright.

18

Verity

It’s the scent,I realize.

Ever since coming back to West End and reacquainting with the Dukes’ loft, I’ve been trying to find out why sleeping in this bed is so discomfiting. Not discomfiting in the way it used to be, either. It’s a discrete dissonance, like something’s been missing. Notbad, just not quite right.

It’s only now, with Pace’s scent on my pillow, that I think I know what it is.

My Princes, for all their flaws, always smell so good. Masculine but clean, spicy but fresh. I slept in those scents for a month. That shouldn’t be long enough to form associations, but apparently, it was, because I draw in Pace’s smell with a quiet gasp and almost forget where I am.

“Oh my god,” I whimper, digging my teeth into my bottom lip.

Between my thighs, Pace makes a rough, gritty sound, his fingers digging divots into my hips as he spears his tongue into me. Through the foggy haze of sleep, all I can think is,wow.

What a way to wake up.

I can’t even see him as my eyes flutter open, straining against the morning light. He’s beneath the sheets, the shape of him as unmistakable as the way he touches me, greedy and unyielding. I’d never admit it, but I’ve been achingly horny for the past two weeks, the pregnancy hormones working their dark magic against my libido.