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PRETEND YOU MINE Her safe word
I lost.Lurching up. I ran for the closest bathroom, my mind desperately trying to remember the floor plan of this huge labyrinth of a house. My hand over my mouth, I stumbled into the powder room just off the solarium and flung myself over the toilet. I puked my guts out until there was nothing left to come up. I wanted to run away.I'd been here for the second time in less than twenty-four hours with my girl and it sucked. Especially for her. Talking seemed like a pointless exercise, so I didn't. I just held her hair and let her go to work on expelling the contents of her stomach. I wet a cloth with cold water from the sink and handed it to her. She took it from me, pressed it over her whole face and groaned. I felt completely helpless. You did this to her and she hates you for it.Fred tapped on the open door. "House call," he said kindly."Can you give her something. Fred?"Brynne took the cloth away from her face, looking pale and about ready to cry. Fred smiled at her. "I can gi
PRETEND YOU MINE Reap what you sow
Please give me the strength to do this. I prayed. All I could see was the way Ethan's face looked before I shut the door. What was he thinking right now? He probably wished he'd never heard of me. I felt so ashamed and foolish. It didn't change how I felt about him, though. I loved him the same as before. I just didn't know how we would get through something like this and survive as a couple. How could we?I turned on the faucet and drank about a gallon of water right from the tap, rinsed my mouth and washed my face. I looked like Frankenstein's bride from the old black-and-white film. My eyes looked frightening, as wide as Elsa Lanch- ester's were in that movie. I wanted to pretend this wasn't happening, but I knew I couldn't. Those are the thoughts of a child, and I'm not a child! I'm turn- ing twenty-five in two months. How could a person make so many mistakes in twenty-five years?I reached for a test package and opened it. My hands were shaking as I held the test stick with the k
PRETEND YOU MINE I will always find you
I wasn't ready to look at the test yet. I just wasn't. I guess it made me weak, but I don't claim to be all together in the head. That's Dr. Roswell's job, and I've given the poor woman plenty to work with over the last years. She would have a field day with this news. I'd need a third job just to pay for the extra therapy.So back to what could be. Pregnant. A baby. A child. Ethan's baby. The two of us parents... I'm quite sure that when Ethan suggested we should get mar- ried, he didn't have becoming a father in mind. He'd make a wonderful father, though. I'd seen him with Zara and the boys. He was so good with them. Playful but with some common sense. He would be the kind of father I had. The best. If that was something he even wanted. And I was terrified, because I just did not know the answer to that question.Picturing Ethan in the role of daddy is what broke me. The tears came then. and I couldn't hold them back for even one more second.I cried there on the grass lawn of a bea
PRETEND YOU MINE Need her badly
My baby looked awful. I'd never say that out loud, but she did. It didn't mean she wasn't still the most beautiful woman in the world, though. To me she was.My beautiful American girl.Fred came around to the other side of the bed and pinched the skin on her arm a few times. He took her pulse from her neck and then her temperature at her ear. "She's severely dehydrated with an elevated pulse. I'd like to stick her with an IV. She needs the fluids right away or she could be in trouble. Her body mass is low and she can't afford to ""Can you do that here so she doesn't have to go into hospital?""I can but I have to run 'round to the clinic to get what I need, and someone will have to monitor her the entire time.""I'll do it." I looked back at her sleeping, hoping she was having a good dream at least. She deserved that. "I'm not leaving her." "And what's the verdict? Am I going to be an uncle or not?""I don't know, Fred. She never said. We still don't know..." I wanted to know so ver
PRETEND YOU MINE I hurt you again
I opened my eyes to find Ethan dozing in the comfortable chair next to the bed. He had his arms folded in tight and his long legs stretched out on the matching ottoman. He was so beautiful to me it almost hurt to look at him for very long. I was still amazed that he'd come to find me. How could he want this? How was il possible? Why wasn't he running for the hills?My left arm felt funny and I figured out why when I saw the tube taped to it. which led straight up to the IV bag hanging on one of those poles on wheels.I sat up in the bed, looking for the clock to check the time. How long had 1 been asleep? The clock read just after ten-thirty. The afternoon's events came crashing back in a blasting wave and I braced myself for more pain and suf- fering, but it never came. I guess all the running and crying and puking had sucked all of the reacting out of me. Instead. I was warm in a soft bed with Ethan watching over me with an IV in my arm. Okay, that was a little scary. I must have be
PRETEND YOU MINE Only one who knows the truth
He shook his head and smiled. "Nope. I wanted to wait for you and do it together."I flung my arms around his neck and lost it. I tried to be quiet about it at least. Ethan just held me and stroked my back. He really was too good for me, and I did honestly wonder what I'd ever done to deserve someone like him."Get in bed with me," I said against his shoulder. "Are you sure that's what you want?" "Yes, I'm sure that's what I want!" I answered, blubbering through more sappy tears.Ethan must have liked my answer, because he wasted no time getting ready to join me.I worked on drying my eyes as Ethan slipped out of his jeans. He kept his boxers on, though. Not that they ever were much of a deterrent when we wanted to be naked, but I don't think either of us were capable of much more than sleep right now. We were both treading on ground that seemed entirely made of eggshells.Ethan slipped under the blankets and put his arm beneath me as he did often. I settled on my side and tucked in a
PRETEND YOU MINE We have to be together
"Well, he had to go to his clinic to get all the supplies needed for your IV and while he was gone, that's when I found it had fallen on the floor." He kissed the side of my temple. "I was just staring at it on the floor when Fred walked in. He asked me if I would look at it. I told him to read it, but not to tell me. And that's what he did. He looked at the test and then put it in his shirt pocket, I think. He was really focused on getting some fluids into you, and quite frankly so was 1. You were completely out of it. You never woke up even when I undressed you. You scared me to death." He squeezed me a little. "Don't ever do that again, please.""Trust me, I don't want to feel that sick again, thank you very much. It's awful..." I trailed off, realizing we still were without an answer to a question that really needed one."Wait, the second test-" I reminded him."Yeah, I was just thinking that myself. I wonder if it's still downstairs in the powder room." Ethan sat up in bed and re
PRETEND YOU MINE Submitting to him
When I opened the bathroom door to come out, test in hand, Ethan was still there where I'd left him when I'd shut it on his smirking face. God love him for trying to tease me and make a stressful situation a little easier. If I had to read him. I would say he was handling the possibility of being a father very well.Actually, he almost seemed to be hopeful I was pregnant. I wondered why. and could certainly tell that he and I weren't in the same place in the head about this at all. Far from it. Ethan was a lot older. Eight years older. Years that made a significant difference when faced with the imminent possibilities of marriage and a family. Life was happening much too quickly and it terrified me. The only thing keeping me from going bat-shit crazy was his attitude about the whole situation that we could do this.I still didn't really see how it was possible for me to even be pregnant at all. I had some major questions for my doctor, I knew that much. Like how in the hell do birth c
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