Nero - Page 173
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“Did he fall asleep?” I ask, finishing washing the dinner dishes.
“He did,” Nero answers, joining me in the kitchen. He looks at me strangely before averting his eyes. “Can I touch you now?” he asks, and my mouth forms a silentoh.
“So that’s what this is,” I state.
After what happened this morning, I kept the usual boundaries between Nero and me in front of Kael. I don’t think that’s what he expected.
“What did we do last night,Little Fae?” he asks, wrapping his arms around my waist, and I raise an eyebrow at him.
“I thought I’d only need to have this conversation with a man many years from now,” I tease.
“I’m serious,” he says, burying his nose in my neck. “I’m not demanding anything. I just… I’m trying to understand. When you said you didn’t want to waste time anymore, I assumed you wanted everything—not just sex.”
“I want everything,” I answer, pressing my palm to his cheek and kissing his chin.
“Then why the act this morning? Why run from me every time I tried to touch you?”
“Did you really want Kael to find us naked in your bed?”
“No—but there were other ways to handle it than pretending you’d never been in our bed.” There it is—theouragain. I’ve learned to love hearing him say it. I sigh.
“You’re right,” I admit. “I panicked. I wasn’t expecting to live a situation like that so soon. I’m sorry. We could’ve handled it differently. But I don’t think we should turn Kael’s world—one that just stabilized—upside down again. I want to do this calmly, Nero.”
“Do what? Us?” I laugh.
“I think we’re already a bit pasttaking it slow, don’t you? A kid, five years, all the drama…” I list the events, joking about them in a way I never thought I could.
“Very funny,” Nero grumbles, and I laugh harder.
“I mean how we approach this with Kael. I think we need to be careful. Not stall forever—just not do it abruptly.”
“So between us—”
“Without wasting more time,” I interrupt, reassuring him.
“Without wasting more time,” he repeats. “I want to ask something.”
“Something serious, apparently.”
“Yes. Something serious.”
“Can we do it in bed?” I ask, rubbing against him.
“Love, I don’t think I’ll be able to have a serious, real conversation with you in a bed for the next few years. So it’s better we stay exactly where we are,” he says, and I laugh.
“Fine. Go on.”
“I want to register Kael. Add my name to his birth certificate.”
I smile immediately.
“Why do you think you need to ask me to do that?”
“Because I want to do it in Khione.”
CHAPTER 72
