It showed he cared. At least in whatever way he was capable of. He’d promised to take care of Baby Girl and me, and he was doing it.
As always when I had a bath, Zohro disappeared into an adjacent storage room, taking my comms tablet with him so he could keep up his studies on human pregnancy. It gave him some quiet time and me some privacy, but he always kept the door ajar. Sometimes, I heard video playing, usually with someone narrating some kind of surgical technique. I’d heard him play the videos about C-sections and administering epidurals dozens of times by now.
The closer I got to the actual birthing process, the harder they became to listen to. Even now, the C-section video was starting up in that other room, the narrator droning on about cutting through human skin and the tough uterine wall. Growing up on a ranch, I’d never been too squeamish. But tonight, I found myself unable to stomach listening to the narration. When the narrator got onto the topic of controlling the bleeding, I took a deep breath and allowed my head to dip under the surface.
The warm water rushed in over my scalp. I listened to the sound of that submerging wave, and then the dully urgent rhythm of my own heartbeat. It was nice. Cozy. Quiet, and-
I gasped and then coughed as huge hands hauled me out of the water by my upper arms.
“What the hell? Zohro?” Waterlogged and confused, then indignant, I scraped soggy hair away from my face and blinked water from my eyes. “What are you doing?”
“You went beneath the surface!” A face with a thunderous expression and lightning-white eyes filled my vision. Zohro was bent over the bath, still holding me, his hands so huge they completely wrapped around my arms near the shoulder.
“So?” I squawked.
“So?” Some of the storm ebbed from his face. “So… So I heard you stop breathing!”
“Yes, Zohro. I typically have to hold my breath if I put my head under the water!”
“But you do not usually do that!”
“How the heck would you know? You’re always in the other room!”
“Because I listen!”
We stared at each other, both breathing hard. Me from holding my breath and the shock of being grabbed. Him from… I wasn’t sure, actually. Maybe worry. Maybe how fast he’d run here.
Maybe because of the embarrassment of leaning over my bath while I was completely naked.
Ugh.
“So you’re telling me, that all that time you spend in that other room, reading documents and listening to medical lectures, you’re also listening to me, what? Breathe?”
Of course he wasn’t. That would be ridiculous, not to mention impossible.
“Of course!” he snapped. “How else am I to know that you’re alright?”
“Well, I am! I was just going under for a second! It was on purpose, and I promise I was going to come right back up.”
“You’re not faint? Dizzy? Nauseous? Weak?” he asked in rapid-fire fashion.
“No! Though the speed of your questions might make me dizzy at this point,” I said. “You can let go of my arms now. Everything’s fine.”
He looked down, as if not realizing that he was still holding on to me.
And once he looked down…
He didn’t fucking stop. His eyes got bigger, and whiter, as they moved to my breasts, my belly, the junction of my thighs below. Heat – and not heat from the water – pulsed between my legs.
Oh. Now this just isn’t fair, I moaned internally. How was I supposed to accept being a stand-in for his pregnant sister when I was all naked and horny and he was staring at me?
I blew out a breath between tight lips, fidgeting under his stark and silent gaze.He is a doctor. And if he’s going to help me give birth, he’s going to probably see all of this, anyway…
Maybe that was why his eyes were fucking glued to the place between my legs.
I’d never been modest about getting naked in front of guys before. But maybe that was because I wasn’t a million months pregnant back then.
Or maybe it was because I’d never really cared about any of those guys.
