I come. Hard. Going still as I empty myself inside her.

Always.

This is always how I want it to be between us.

Open and raw and real.

Vulnerable.

This is what I’ve been after. This is what I’ve been looking for my whole life without even knowing it.

The truth. The trust. The connection.

Seeing and being seen. It’s a risk.

But now I understand it’s one worth taking.

Julia

I wake up early the next morning. Beside me, Grey is still sleeping. I peek underneath the covers and smile when I see his bare ass, pale and thickly muscled.

A pulse of desire flares between my legs.

Will I ever get over how sexy this man is?

I contemplate waking Grey up, but then I decide against it. The man danced that cute ass off last night. He needs his rest.

So I head to the bathroom, then grab my book and settle back into bed. Nothing like some quiet Sunday morning reading time.

I’m barely through a paragraph before I feel something, a flutter, low in my abdomen.

At first I think it’s just gas. It feels like little bubbles. A ripple of air moving through my stomach.

But then I feel it again. Stronger this time. Feels more like a distinct roll. Not the kind of stomach roll you get on a rollercoaster. But more of a sense of pressure, slight but insistent.

I feel it again.

My heart skips a beat. I put my hand over my stomach. I can’t feel anything from the outside, but I can feel another roll from within.

It’s Charlie Brown. Has to be. I’m feeling him or her move for the first time.

My heart starts to pound, and I smile. Hard.

Holy shit, there is a live baby inside me. And she’s doing backflips first thing in the morning.

The fact that I’m having a baby becomes suddenly—terrifyingly—real.

My smile fades as panic rises inside my chest, making my heart pound harder. Grey and I are going to be responsible for another human life. There’s no going back.

In a few months, life as we know it is going to be forever altered. Sexy nights spent in hotels? Quiet weekend mornings in bed together?

Yeah, we can kiss those goodbye.

The baby does another backflip. I try my best to breathe deeply, the way Katie taught us in yoga class.

“Hey.” I almost start when I feel a hand move down my leg. “Hey, Jules, you all right?”

Blinking, I turn to see Grey looking up at me from his pillow, brow furrowed.

I take his hand and move it to my belly.

“Baby’s moving.”

His eyes go wide. He bolts upright, the covers falling from the broad expanse of his chest.

“You can’t feel it from the outside,” I say, even though I keep his hand on my stomach. “But she’s definitely moving around in there.”

“Does it hurt? The way you were breathing—”

“Nah. Feels like bubbles. I’m just having a teeny tiny panic attack over the fact that we’re having a baby, and that she’s coming so soon.”