“Your face says it.” He walks over to me and bunches my hair in his hand, tilting my head back. “You don’t like it.”
His grip isn’t hard, but the way he pulls my head back makes me press my legs together. I like his domineering attitude when he’s got his hands on me. I have a sinking feeling he knows it, too. There’s a silent understanding between the two of us. He won’t take me to bed till I ask him to. But every touch, every chaste kiss, every sweet gesture, they all make me want to ask.
So why aren’t I?
“W-What?” I ask, dazed.
“The furniture, Natalie,” Ethan asks in amusement before bending down and whispering in my ear. “It’s my turn to tell you not to look at me like that.”
I feel the blood rush to my face as he releases me and walks out of the gym.
“I wasn’t looking at you in any way!”
“Sure you weren’t.” The frustrating smugness in his tonemakes me want to wipe that smirk right off his face. “You’re coming back to work tomorrow, right? We’ll go shopping after that.”
“Shopping? Shopping for what?” I trail after him.
“For furniture.” He takes out a bottle of water from the fridge and pours himself a glass. “We’ll go to the guy who usually does my offices, the same one who furnished this place. If he doesn’t have what you like, we can keep looking. Unless, of course, you want to hire an interior decorator. I’ll have Clarice compile a list of the best ones?—”
“What are you talking about? Why would I—?” I look around the kitchen. “I wasn’t saying I wanted to change anything.”
“But you don’t like it,” he points out, pouring himself another glass.
“Sure, okay, but to buy new furniture is insane. Besides, this is your apartment. I don’t want to?—”
He puts the bottle back in the fridge and the glass in the dishwasher before approaching me.
“Our apartment.” His hands come to clasp my cheeks. “Repeat it after me.”
“It’s your?—”
He squeezes my cheeks, sternly. “Wrong. That’s not what I said.”
My hip is jutting into the marble counter as he stands before me. “Stop it.”
“Not till you say it.”
“Fine. I’ll go! Stop squeezing my face!”
“That’s still not?—”
“Our apartment! There! Happy now?”
He releases me, and I rub my face, muttering, “You’re such a bully.”
He makes a sound, and I glare after him. “Did you just scoff at me?”
“Of course not,” he lies through his teeth. “We also have toget the baby’s room ready, so we’ll have to pick out furniture for that, too.”
I feel my heart flip-flop in my chest.
The baby’s furniture.
I forgot the baby is going to be out of me in a little over seven months. It’s going to need a place to sleep, its own room.
Making my way into the living room, I sink onto one of the leather couches. Dazed, I look at my reflection in the dark screen of the television. In a few months, I’m going to start showing, and soon after, this apartment will be filled with the sounds of an infant.
Anticipation fills me, followed by a hint of excitement.
