It should've stopped there: A slip, a moment, to be tucked away, all the other unspoken things between us.
But it didn't.
The silence extended and then Ethan moved that much closer. He kissed my lips again, but not quite as hard, almost like he was asking. When I picked him up and pulled him to me, my answer came.
He wasn't the Blackwood heir who gathers women like trophies as the tabloids described him. He touched me so there was no distance between us. As he traveled down my arm, his hand shook a little, his chest heaved up and down against mine.
We walked to the couch, and we laughed, and when we sat down, it wasn't about control or dominance. It was a matter of close-up.
His forehead was resting against mine.
My name was precious to him, "Grace…" he breathed.
The only thing I was thinking of was not contracts or deals, not the gossips of society, not anything else but that. I thought of his eyes, and how they looked like they relished seeing me, not just as his wife, not just as the woman who was carrying his baby, but as me.
The rest was laid out in a slow and gentle way—much as we were both frightened of breaking some spell. His touch was not hasty, but reverent. These walls fell to me with each kiss, each sigh, each breath of the name whispered in the night.
It came to an end, and I found myself nestled up to him, his arm over me for protection. He breathed out, but he wasn't finished.
Neither did I.
The first time it wasn't the matter of living under the same roof. It wasn't for the world to see.
It was about us.
Maybe, just maybe, we had made the first move towards something real.