The cork burst out of the champagne bottle, cracking into the wall and plopping down on the fluffy pillow where David's head had rested a few moments ago. Champagne frothed out of the bottle onto Grace's naked body. She shivered from the sudden hit of cold, and giggled from the tickly sensation of bubbles on her skin.
She gave him a sly grin. "You did that on purpose."
The bubbles foaming on her breasts captured his full attention and made his pupils expand into dark pools of desire. Her nipples pebbled from the chilled liquid, an invitation no man — not even a stoic warrior — could resist. At least she hoped so.
Bending his head, he licked the champagne off her skin. His deft tongue raced up the slope of her breast.
Her breaths quickened. "Honestly, David, I thought we'd use the glasses."
"So did I." He glanced up at the flutes on the bedside table. "This is more fun."
Grace lay sprawled on their new bed in their new house, on new sheets woven from silky Egyptian cotton. David had insisted on the highest thread count for their bedding, after she'd made the mistake of oooh'ing over the buttery smoothness of the silk sheets in the five-star hotel where they spent their wedding night. They couldn't afford silk, but Egyptian cotton did nicely.
Tonight, he subjected her to the sensual pleasure of soft sheets against her backside and hot, sweat-slicked male flesh smashed to her front side. The combination drove her batty with need, and transformed her into a sex-crazed idiot.
"Stop that," David said in the low, throaty voice he assumed whenever she was nude — and sometimes when she wasn't. His tongue flicked over one nipple.
"Oh… stop what?"
"Feeling guilty about stripping me naked every chance you get."
Damn. There were times she wished he didn't share her feelings quite so much. "You're the one who stripped me this time, so it's your fault."
He closed his mouth around her hard peak and suckled gently. When he set her nipple free, he flashed her a sexy grin. "We're newlyweds. Everyone assumes we're ravishing each other on a daily basis." He chuckled, dissolving her willpower — if she'd had any left. "Or twice daily, as needed."
"But we should be concentrating on Sean and Cari. They both have powers they can't fully control." She struggled to sound convincingly stern, but his talented tongue kept toying with her flesh. A woman had her limits. And this man knew exactly how to push her past them. Still, she had no intention of ending this conversational thread yet. "We also have defunct ALI facilities to check out, and abused psychics to rehabilitate."
He exhaled with an exasperated grumble. "The poor orphan psychics can wait, and we've helped Sean and Cari plenty, every day, for two entire months. For the first time in weeks, we're alone in our own house. Tonight is for us." He hissed a breath over her breast, eliciting a deep shiver. "It's our anniversary."
"Anniversaries are once a year."
"Grace, my eternal soul mate — "
"Cut the crap, David. This two-month celebration is just an excuse to goof off."
"I was thinking more about getting off."
The phone rang. Grace fumbled to grab her cell off the bedside table. The instant her fingers closed around the phone, David snatched it away.
He frowned at the caller ID. "Wickham. I thought Brits were supposed to have impeccable manners, but he manages to call at the exact wrong moment every time. I think Amador's given him instructions to interrupt us."
"As if he could know when we're in the midst of things." She grabbed for the phone, but he swung his arm behind his back. "David, it could be important."
"Then he'll leave a message and we'll deal with it later." He rubbed his body against hers with delicious friction. "Even world-savers get a night off."
"But it'll just take a sec — "
He hurled the phone across the room. It bounced off the wall with a thwack and clattered to the floor. "Amador may be funding out new project, but that doesn't give his lackey the right to pester us ten times a day."
"He's only making sure we've got everything we need."
"At least Amador doesn't call you."
Because he knew David hated him like a cat hated a bath. Sequestered at the private hospital he'd bought, Amador made no attempts to contact her in the last two months. She was fine with that, and with David's insistence she not visit Amador. She'd never intended to anyway. She might sympathize with the trauma that drove him to madness, but she didn't know if she could ever forgive the horrible things he'd done in the name of vengeance.
David patted her thigh. "You're thinking about Amador, aren't you? That ends this instant."
"Yes, sir." Her thoughts circled back around to their self-imposed mission of aiding the people held captive by first JT, then Tesler and Nkosi, which led inevitably to more thoughts of Gabriel Amador. Christ. Here was she was, in bed with her new husband, and she kept thinking about a whackjob. "I'm trying not to, but my brain has other ideas."
"I can shut down your brain in a heartbeat."
Her body awakened at his words. Oh yes. He could do that. He'd proved it on numerous occasions.
With a flourish of his hand, he spritzed champagne along the length of her body. She willingly rewarded him with a long, husky moan. He wiped up the liquid with his lips, his tongue, lapping up every drop with impressive focus and thoroughness. She arched into his ministrations. He nibbled her hip. She plunged a hand into his hair.
The light glittered on her diamond engagement ring, and sparked on the gold of her wedding band. She was married. To him. At last.
She ought to tell him. He deserved to know. Well, maybe she could wait until after…
He abandoned his quest to cleanse her body of champagne, slithering up her body to settle down alongside her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She'd slammed that opening shut. Why? She longed to tell him the news, but she worried about his reaction. It was stupid. Then again, they'd yet to have that talk.
"Tell me, Grace. My wife, the love of my life, my most splendiferous goddess."
She laughed. "Splendiferous is not a word."
The contentment on his face faded into concern. "Are you okay? You said your doctor's appointment was nothing, just getting a refill on you allergy pills."
Yeah, she'd fibbed about that so he wouldn't get his hopes up, or freak out. "Well, you see, that's not entirely accurate." She clasped her hands over her belly, tapping one finger. "We're having a baby."
His smile beamed into her with the heat and brilliance of a hundred suns. His elation spun through her mind and accelerated both their pulses. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again as he finally rallied his voice. "Really? We're having — " He gasped for air, too happy to breathe. She knew this, because he fed his joy into her, and she accepted it with all her heart and soul.
The anxiety sluiced out of her on a wave of contentment. She stroked her fingers down his cheek to dance them over his lips. "Yes. Really. I'm about two months along."
"Two months?" She practically heard the cogs turning in his brain. Then realization sparked in his eyes. "The night in the cabin. When we merged our powers."
"Yep, I think so." A new kind of anxiety iced through her. "Do you think the process of merging our psychic energies will have any effect on our baby?"
"If it does… " He rolled on top of her. "It'll be a good effect. Nothing bad could come out of what happened between us that night."
He was right. She felt the truth of it deep inside, a glimmer of hope and faith she prayed would burgeon into a twinkling star in the form of their child.
David shut his eyes, his lips curved in a contented smile. He nuzzled her belly and painted kisses across the flesh. He raised his head to gaze at her with rapt adoration. "Our baby. This is… " He burst into laugher, startling a tiny cry from her. "This is the best day of my entire life."
"Just wait until our kid's born."
Their child, his and hers, another link bonding them on a new level, somehow more profound than even the psychic connection they shared. She focused on his sapphire eyes, letting herself dive into their gleaming pools, drowning in the passion and love she found there.
He swirled his palm over her skin, down to the sensitive skin at the apex of her thighs. "I hope our daughter is just like you."
"Daughter?" She raised her brows. "I thought I was the only one in this family who had premonitions."
"Let's call this intuition. It has to be a girl, because I love you too much for this baby to be anything but another version of you."
"You think you love me enough to affect the DNA of our baby."
"Damn straight I do."
"Okay, then prove it." She wrapped her legs his waist, pinning his arousal to the aching dampness between her thighs. "Show me how you did that."
His mouth found hers and his tongue explored with delicate strokes. She tugged his head down to deepen the kiss. When their mouths parted, she licked her lips. "You taste like champagne."
"Hmm… good idea."
He snagged the bottle and dumped the last of the champagne onto her chest. It splattered onto the sheets and fizzed on her breasts.
Then he showed her. Everything. And they both knew, with a certainty that resonated in their souls and empowered their psychic faculties, their daughter would be perfect. Their life would be perfect. They'd have ups and downs, and sometimes they'd drive each other nuts, but when it really mattered, they would stick by each other through whatever lay ahead for them. Nothing would tear them apart again. She knew.
Call it intuition.