Page 45

THIRTY-SIX

HANNAH

“You’re doing so good, baby. God. Watching you makes me so fucking hot.”

Daniel’s eyes are heated, his pupils blown wide. “I love when you coach me through it. Spread your legs wider, dream girl.”

I angle the phone down, giving him exactly what he wants. This stretch of away games has felt like a lifetime. It doesn’t help that our trips overlapped. I haven’t felt Daniel’s body against mine in far too long. Thank god for phone sex, or I’d be one pissed-off woman.

He works himself over, his piercing peeking out with every stroke. Each time that metal glints, I slide the vibrator inside me, mimicking his movement.

“Fuck, I’m going to come,” I tell him.

Daniel slows his jacking. We’ve been working him toward a non-ejaculatory orgasm, but we’re still on step one. He needs to jack off for at least ten minutes without coming, but every time I come, he does too.

“Strangle it,” I whimper as the orgasm takes me under. My back arches, and a cry slips from my throat. Covered in a sheen of sweat and a smattering of goose bumps, I come down, working to catch my breath. The orgasms are so much more intense now that I’m pregnant.

Daniel keeps a firm grip on his cock, eyes closed as he sucks in sharp breaths.

“Such a good boy,” I murmur, my eyes heavy. “You make me so proud.”

When he opens his eyes again, the intensity is palpable, even though he’s states away. “Say it again.”

“Good boy.” This time my voice is clear.

He works his hand over himself again, a man possessed. Like he can’t stop. Within seconds, his jaw flexes, and he loses the battle, coming with a long groan.

He disappears to clean up, but not before making me promise I’ll stay on the phone.

This is always my favorite part. When we’re sleepy and a little uninhibited after a good orgasm. We talk about everything and nothing until one or both of us fall asleep. I’ve woken up to his sleeping face, the FaceTime call still connected, more times than I can count. He never hangs up if I fall asleep first. Apparently, he prefers to watch me until he dozes off.

God, I love this man.

“Get any writing done today?” he asks as he settles the phone on the charging dock next to the bed in his hotel room and lays his head on his pillow, facing me.

I mirror the position, hand tucked under my face. “Just a few hundred words.”

Daniel frowns. “I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “It is what it is. The season will be over soon. I’ll have a lot more time then.” Just the thought makes my chest pang with longing for days where I can sit in front of my computer, uninterrupted, for more than thirty minutes. This season has proven harder than any other, and I’m beginning to see that it’s not just the pregnancy. I no longer enjoy it the way I used to. The thrill of fixing other people’s problems, of being needed and important, is almost nonexistent these days.

Maybe for the first time in my life, I feel wanted, important, valuable somewhere other than at work. I no longer want to be needed by a bunch of overgrown boys dressed up as baseball players.

For so long, my life revolved around my career. I was fine on my own for more than a decade, feeling complete as a single woman. Now, I’m struggling with this side of me that’s been hiding since college. The side that craves Daniel’s arms and his affection.

It’s so damn tempting to pull back. To put up walls so that it won’t hurt so much if he gets tired of me.

But then I see his face, or hear his voice, or unlock my phone and find a text that reads something like the one he sent the other day. A text that literally said It still amazes me that you exist. That you’re having my baby. That you’re mine .

Since I was a little girl, my mother’s life has centered around men. If the man she was with was kind, she’d be happy. If he was miserable, she was miserable. I don’t want to be like that. Is that what’s happening here? Daniel’s happiness is influencing mine? Because, god, does he make me happy. I can’t imagine a time when he won’t.

So I’m determined to give this a chance. To keep my heart open. As long as we continue to be honest with one another, as long as he talks to me, tells me what he needs, and I do the same, I really truly believe we can do this.

Even so, he can’t be my whole life. I need my career. My own identity. That’s where my mom always got it wrong. She had nothing but the man she was with.

And me, though I was never enough.

Our child will never, ever feel the way I did. The way I do.

“When will you be home again?” I don’t even bother to hide the neediness in my tone.

“I’ll be home in time for your birthday,” he reminds me.

Nose scrunched, I grunt. I’ll be thirty-four in a matter of days. I swear it feels like only a year or two ago, I was a twenty-one-year-old college student, depressed and hiding after my divorce. Now I’m in my mid-thirties and pregnant.

Dating a twenty-five-year-old.

At least he’ll keep me young.

“I thought maybe we could go to Pottery Barn and check out that baby furniture you like,” I tell him.

Daniel grins. “Oh, you finally checked out my Pinterest board?”

I snort. Seriously. This ridiculously sexy twenty-five-year-old hockey player created a Pinterest board and filled it with nursery decorating ideas. “Yeah, and you forgot to make your other boards private.”

Daniel chuckles. “Baby, there are no secrets with me. You want to see my dream kitchens, the man cave I’m planning for the house I want to build, or the vacations I want to take you on, then be my guest.”

I roll my eyes, my heart flip-flopping. “We all have secrets, Daniel. Just because it’s not hidden on your Pinterest board doesn’t mean there aren’t skeletons in your closet.”

“Password to my phone is 041825. Code to my computer is Iluvhannah. Bank card pin is?—”

Breath catching, I sit up, taking my phone with me. “ Daniel .”

He laughs, his dimples peeking out at me. “I’ve got nothing to hide from you. Was I a playboy before we got together? Yes. I couldn’t hide that if I wanted. But since the minute you gave me a chance, on April eighteenth, you’ve owned me.”

“Oh-four-eighteen-twenty-five.” I shake my head, breathing through the shock.

“Yeah, Han.” He leans closer to his phone, his expression open, his eyes dark pools of sincerity. “You’re my world. That day, our first date, the night we made our son, was the best day of my life.”

“ Daniel .” Tears flood my vision, and a love so big it can’t be contained fills me.

He makes it impossible to be scared of the future. Impossible to not believe that we have a future. That I can have it all. A family. A career. An epic love that not even I could write on the page.

“I love you,” he says, voice thick.

“I love you too.”