It was damn kind of her.
She was an unstoppable organizing force of gestating nature. A few days ago, in a three-hour block of frenzied pregnancy persistence, he’d awoken to find that she’d assembled the baby’s crib and had reread half of Pride and Prejudice—at the same time. She’d explained that the process of going back and forth, her mind nourished by Austen’s prose, gave her the wherewithal to decipher the assembly instructions he would have sworn were crafted by a drunken toddler.
God help any piece of clutter, non-assembled furniture, or stray item that entered Georgiana Jensen-Marks’ orbit.
But it wasn’t only the nesting that signaled the progression of the pregnancy. Clocking in at twenty-three weeks, there was no hiding the little human residing in Georgie’s belly. With her rounded abdomen and smelling of pineapple, she was beautiful and radiant—the picture of citrus-scented maternal bliss. Still, it also wasn’t the nesting instinct that had ushered in the return of her easy smile and sparkling eyes.
After their night babysitting little Ollie, a weight had lifted from his wife’s shoulders. He’d seen the distinct shift with his own eyes because he’d experienced it himself.
When it came to the question of fatherhood, he’d wrestled with his own demons. While other couples planned when they wanted to start trying to conceive, he and Georgie had landed right in the thick of it. And with the most stressful of times, he and his wife were prone to fall back on the things that served them the least.
For him, it was that itch to be the best.
The drive to push harder hadn’t vanished. It would always be there. What he’d learned from his wild Georgie-Jensen-infused life was how and where to focus that energy.
Did he always get it right?
No.
Had he gone to the baby NFL website six thousand times and almost registered a non-existent child to join the tot league? Maybe. Fine, yes! But he knew better.
Their journey to the altar had taught him that while he wasn’t about to change her and she wasn’t about to change him, they could refocus and reframe any situation to make it work—and that happened by supporting one another.
That was their path. A continuum of learning and laughing and falling more in love with this woman with each twist and turn the universe threw their way.
He listened as Georgie’s footsteps drew closer, reached beneath the bed, then swiped a bottle of an electrolyte-infused sports drink.
She may be eating for two, but he had to maintain his strength as well…for other activities.
While his wife enjoyed nesting on her own in the early morning hours, there was one particular activity where she sought his company.
Namely, doing the naughty—a lot.
If he had to name this portion of the pregnancy, he’d call it the Nesting and Naughtiness phase.
This little pregnancy perk wasn’t something he’d been expecting.
They had a terrific sex life. Cars, couches, tents, more cars, offices, barns, beds, chairs, tables, in front of an alpaca—there was not a bad place to get down and dirty with his wife.
Scratch that. He didn’t recommend having a member of the camel family intrude when knocking boots in the great outdoors—otherwise, he was always game.
All the same, when it came to pregnancy and sex, he’d figured there might be a lull or at least a drop in demand. She was, of course, growing a person. If it were him, or probably any other male on the planet tasked with being a walking incubator, he’d take the entire forty weeks off.
But holy hell! He’d misjudged that assumption by a mile.
A clickity-clack coming from outside their bedroom sent his pulse racing. He took a quick swig of his sports drink, then slid the bottle back into its hiding place under the bed as a heady jolt of excitement coursed through his body in anticipation.
Who would he meet this morning?
Georgie opened the door, and he gazed at her silhouette. Yesterday, she’d come in wearing boots and a cowgirl hat. They’d reenacted the naughty rancher’s daughter scenario, which had become one of his favorites. They had to get more creative with their sexual positions, thanks to his wife’s blossoming body, and that’s where a well-loved book came into play. After consulting their worn copy of the Kama Sutra, his dirty cowgirl rode his hard length like the rodeo beauty queen temptress she was.
That was the best part of this nesting business. It usually ended with his wife organizing her old costumes, and then, modeling an outfit for him in the wee hours of the morning.
He narrowed his gaze in the dim light and took in the splendor of his wife. The hem of her costume caressed her upper thighs, revealing her smooth, toned legs. The bedroom door creaked open a few more inches and let in the light from the hallway. And anchors away, his blood supply headed south.
Standing in front of him was the sexiest sailor he’d ever set eyes on. In a short, pleated dress with a folded collar adorned with shiny gold stars and a red bow resting below her ample breasts, his wife had him giving her a morning salute.
“What do you think?” she asked.
But before he could answer, the clickity-clack was back as Georgie busted out a four a.m. tap routine—all with Faby in her arms.
“I think you’ve sold yourself short on the skill set you developed when you were a teenager on the pageant circuit,” he said as his wife tapped out a rhythm, then set the fake baby on the bedside table with a pizazz not often exhibited at the crack of dawn.
“Oh yeah?” she replied, doing a shimmy twirl that revealed her bare ass hidden beneath the pleated layers.
He should take another gulp of his sports drink, but that would mean taking his eyes off his sexy sailor wife. Nope, that one sip would have to sustain him, no matter what sexual acrobatics his wife demanded.
He propped himself up and took in the full splendor of this morning’s randy role-play costume. The snug white sequined sailor dress accentuated her baby bump as well as her heaving breasts, which had him at full mast. And while the costume designer of this gem probably never would have predicted that this garment would be worn for a session of early morning hanky-panky, he sent a quick thank you out into the universe for seamstresses everywhere.
But he forgot all about costume design when he watched Georgie tap dance her way to the other side of the room. With her back to him, she leaned over and pressed her palms to the top of their dresser. The pleats of the sailor suit skimmed her legs, exposing the taut globes of her ass, and he flexed his fingers—his digits aching to grip the supple flesh.
Georgie glanced over her shoulder. “The captain says we’ve got rough seas ahead, and I need a strong deckhand to get me through the storm.”
She’d gotten damn good at the role-play dirty talk. But two could play at that, and he was always up for sharpening his skill set.
Naked as the day he was born, he maneuvered his large frame out of bed and sauntered over to his wife. These days, it made things easier to go to bed naked. And he was rewarded for the gesture when Georgie’s gaze dropped to his hard length, and a mischievous smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
This sexy sailor didn’t mind his lack of sleeping attire one bit.
He came up behind her and met her gaze in the mirror that hung on the wall above the dresser.
“Sounds like you’re in need of a seaman.”
God’s honest truth? Seaman is a funny-ass word—except when your wife is dressed in a sequined sailor suit, bent over in front of a mirror and beckoning for a deckhand. Then, the word sounds as naughty as hell.