Nicole and Ozzie leave shortly after dinner, with a passed out infant snoozing on her dad’s shoulder.

“That was nice.” Theo starts a conversation as I walk into the kitchen.

He’s washing dishes at our large, white farmhouse sink, and I join him, picking up a dish towel to dry.

“It was, they’re always so much fun.”

“I’m glad you and Nic squashed whatever it was that came between you. It’s … good that you have someone in your corner.”

My heart stutters, because I realize that Theo probably thinks he has no one in his. His parents are gone, I was the only family he had …

“They are there for you, too. Ozzie adores you.” I try to cheer him up.

He hands me a dripping serving bowl and I begin to wipe it down. “Yeah, he’s always been a cool guy. Odie is so sweet, too. Getting so big.”

“She is, I just love the way she giggles whenever you nuzzled her with your beard.” Imogen laughs quietly.

“She looks so different than when we visited her in the hospital when she was born. Her whole face has changed.”

“Yeah, I feel like she looked like Nicole so much at first, but now she has Ozzie’s features.”

We go quiet for a moment, and I know that Theo is probably thinking about what our children would have looked like. Meanwhile, I’m wondering if the baby inside of me will look just like her father.

Theo hands me the platter that held steaks a little while ago, and I’m just about to tell him the biggest secret I’ve been keeping from him, when our hands touch.

My fingers have splayed over Theo’s wet ones, and we grip the platter together. His eyes slowly make their way from my collarbone to my eyes, and then to our joined hands, raised in the air holding the ceramic dishware.

Heat pools low in my core, and from just this accidental meeting of hands, I’m reminded just how much my body has missed his touch. Just how much I missed his voice, his smile, talking to him … like the way we did tonight. Just how much his company puts me at ease; of how sexy and handsome I find him.

Theo’s gray eyes grow, interest turning to lust as they dilate. He has the better grip on the wet platter, and sets it back down in the sink, removing my hand by just pulling it away from me. At first, I think he’s trying to stop whatever electric current just sprung up between us. I begin to turn away, my eyes unable to tear from his as I will my shoulders to set straight.

But then he’s on me, scooping me into his arms. Every nerve ending sparks and crackles, the swell of arousal that I’ve pushed down for weeks now cascades like a tidal wave over me.

His gray eyes bore down into mine, and he hasn’t even kissed me yet, but I am so sure of the passion flowing between us that I know he will.

Everything I thought I knew before I decided on divorce has been flipped on its head. My world has tilted so violently on its axis, that the only thing I can recognize as real is Theo holding me, his obvious attraction pressed into my hip.

So when he bends down, gently, and sweeps his lips across my own, I don’t hesitate to bring my hands up to cup his face.

The coarse hairs of his beard scratch against the palms of my hands, the sensations zinging down my arms and electrifying my spine. Now he’s kissing me, really feasting on my mouth as he plunges his tongue in, coaxing mine to dance erotically.

His hands move down my body, lighting a path of lust as they go, and I have to rub my thighs together to alleviate the burn building between them. Theo’s hands come to rest on my hips, and I push myself closer to him. I’m not showing that much … I mean to the untrained eye you probably can’t even tell I’m pregnant. He can’t feel my stomach though, he can’t see it … he’ll know the minute I undress that I’m carrying our child. That’s how much Theo has studied my body.

And so I mold myself to him, bringing my hands to his and pulling them both to my rear, which he kneads as he kisses me. So good, it’s all so good … but I need more.

As if reading my mind, Theo hoists me up, my legs wrapping around his solid waist as he walks me to the stairs. The friction between my spread thighs and his steel-like erection knocking into my core as he works is maddening. I want to press further into it, spread myself wider, jump out of my skin trying to get onto him.

The pregnancy sex beast has awoken, and she’s starving. I have to bite my lip … well, Theo’s since my teeth are nearest to his, to keep from giggling. Nicole warned me that I wouldn’t be able to live on my sex diet for long while this baby pumped hormones into me, and I guess she was right.

My fingers twine in Theo’s silky, dark hair as he enters our bedroom, a place we haven’t slept in together for almost three months. He deposits me on the bed gently, scooting me back by way of prowling toward the headboard as he kicks off his shoes and unbuckles the belt looped in his jeans.

The action of his fingers, and the aching pulse between my legs, makes me flush with desire. Theo has never wasted any time making his wants in the bedroom completely known. It’s always turned me on more than I can describe, and it has me pulling off my leggings and long cardigan as my elbows hit the pillows.

No words are spoken between us, it’s all communicated in glances and tilts of the head. I think we both know that if we give a voice to this … someone will chicken out or the lust will evaporate. As long as we don’t talk about it, we can deny it’s happening.

And then Theo sits up on his knees and starts to remove the flannel he has on.

Button. By. Button.

I actually feel wetness coat my underwear as his broad, muscled chest comes into view. The smattering of dark hair, that makes him look as manly as he is, teases me all the way down to where his jeans now hang open, his navy blue boxers peeking out.

He pulls off the shirt, giving me a view of the lean arms and rough hands that have held my body so many times before. I think I actually lick my lips … yes, lick them, as if he’s the dessert I’ve been waiting for ever since I popped that first piece of steak into my mouth. After his shirt comes off, so do his jeans, and then there is nothing between us save for his boxers, my underwear, and loose tank top.

Those gray eyes go to my bare legs, which must be twitching on the bed because he grabs an ankle and gently pulls me to him. Kissing up the inside of my right limb, I feel like my skin is on fire under his lips and beard. Up, up, up they go until they meet the curve of my sex, biting at the plain cotton underwear there.

Theo’s fingers hook my panties and pull them down quickly, and I know he’s losing restraint. I pull him down as his fingers glide into me, the weight of his body on me and fingers pushing inside so supremely sublime that I can’t help but cry out.

I thrust my hand into his boxers, circling his hard cock with my fist. Theo breaks our cardinal rule by hoarsely saying my name, but we’re both too far gone for it to matter now.

There won’t be any way of stopping this.

“I want you bare,” he speaks again, those rough words caressing my ear.

I’m not sure if he means my skin, if he’s telling me to take off my shirt and bra, or if he means he wants to be inside me without birth control.

Not that we’ve used it for the past two years, considering we couldn’t get pregnant naturally. Or so we thought. But maybe he feels he needs to ask now … now that we find ourselves separated.

But when he goes for my shirt, pulling it up as his lips fasten to my neck and he adds a third finger, pumping it inside me, I push his hand away.

“I need you now.” I try to distract him, my orgasm right on the horizon.

Theo doesn’t question my need for the billowy tank to stay on … probably because he’s lost in the tunnel vision of sexual bliss. He certainly wasn’t asking to take me without a condom, because in a second flat, he’s pushing into me, his cock completely bare save for the wetness I’m coating it with.

Rising up over me, my legs stretching as wide as they’ll go, Theo’s intense stare studies me. One stroke, and then two, and I’m a goner. My hands clutch the comforter, balling it up as I writhe beneath him, my orgasm hitting me full force.

“God, you’re beautiful.” Theo’s sweet words register somewhere in my brain, but I’m too drunk on my climax to realize that they’re not his usual brusque dirty talk.

His hips begin to slam into my core, that big, beautiful tool of his hitting a spot deep within me. The orgasm settles, relaxes and then twists, building into another crescendo that has my body shaking uncontrollably. I gasp, trying to breathe air into my lungs, so surprised by the fact that he’s making me unravel this quickly, twice.

Theo’s face is contorted, a painting of pleasure, pain, and restraint.

“Let go,” I whisper, staring at him.

His growl is a thank you, and when he unleashes, he sweeps us both under, drowning us in the sea of numbness that allows us to forget everything for just a few moments.