Descent (Black Heart Romance presents Heaven & Hell)

“Let’s never use that terminology again,” I suggest.
“Why do you have to be such a life-ruiner?” she laments.
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s genetic.”
Her shoulders slump and she sighs heavily. “No one even knows about you. How will I explain a
pregnancy?”
“Whirlwind romance?” I suggest.
She glares at me sourly.
“What if we went away for a bit?” I suggest. “We’ll have to schedule your first appointment with
a gynecologist, of course, but then we could go away for a while. I could show you my place in Paris,
or we could spend some time at my flat in Italy. Go out on the boat, have dinners at the restaurant
downstairs, just spend some quality time together so you’ll feel better about things.”
“Why would that make me feel any better?” she asks.
“What about London? I have a place there, too. You could do some shopping. Maybe we could
catch another show.”
“I don’t want to go to any of your homes,” she says glumly. “I don’t even want to be in this one.
Why don’t you just let me go? Don’t they say if you love someone, set them free?”
“They do, but I don’t subscribe to such noble notions. Why would I want to let someone I’m fond
of go? Doesn’t make a bit of sense.”
“I don’t think, ‘if you like someone, imprison and impregnate them’ makes a whole lot of sense,
either.”
“Of course it does.”
She shakes her head no, but she’s just being silly. It makes perfect sense.
Nodding at the bowl, I tell her, “Eat your soup before it gets cold.”
She pouts those perfect, bitable lips, which seems to be a trigger for me. I find it so goddamn
adorable that I’d throw the tray off the bed and yank her under me right now if not for the traumatic
night she’s already having.
I’m tempted to anyway, but she starts eating the soup, and I know she needs her nourishment, so I
leave the tray undisturbed.
“Can I set an alarm for myself on your phone?”
“You’re still planning to go to work?”
“I have to,” she says. “Besides, I’m not sick.”
It’s hard for me to see her exhibiting signs of illness and not think she needs to stay snuggled