Hello all! So this chapter is a double one, but I wanted to write more about Sloan and Jeremy like when we discovered she was pregnant, and tie it back in to to Devon. Those of you who know me best will understand how hard this was for me to write, so I hope you love it.
Jeremy sat with Sloan, watching her rub the belly in rhythmic circles as she stared at the TV like a zombie. It had been her suggestion they watch The Reef for their in-house date night, which already put Jeremy on red-alert - a film about wreck divers who would be wearing tiny bikinis would be the last thing he'd pick since she was so sensitive lately about how she'd all of a sudden beefed up her pregnancy weight. She'd started out cheerful, but in the last twenty minutes or so she'd gotten very quiet, very still which was never a good thing.
'Where did you say this film was shot,' Jeremy asked, trying to keep his tone light.
'Saint Kitts. Do you think her ass is real or is it implants?'
Jeremy raised an eyebrow, wondering if this was a trick question. Her hormones had been so damn weird in her third trimester it was hard to know what was solid ground and what was quicksand. 'I...don't know,' he replied honestly.
'I bet it's real, since she's never had kids. Bet she has some hot Hollywood stud drooling over her perfect body.'
'Ava Carter is one of your favourite actresses,' Jeremy pointed out, mentally adding pregnancy brain was a real bitch. 'She got married a few years ago to an accountant and they had twin girls who are like eighteen months old or something like that.'
The moment he said it, Jeremy knew he'd stepped into a minefield, for Sloan sat up straight, moving away from him deliberately to look at him. 'Right, and I'm about to have my second baby and would only look that good in my dreams, is that it?'
'No, of course not-'
'Oh, so I don't look good anymore?'
'No, you're beautiful Sloan.'
'Stop kissing my ass, Jeremy and just admit it.' Now Sloan heaved herself to her feet and stalked around the coffee table as best she could being seven months pregnant. 'I'm disgusting, I'm so disgustingly fat, there's no way anyone would want to fuck me anymore.'
'I do,' he pointed out, 'or are you forgetting that nice round we had this morning?'
'You are the fiance and the baby daddy, of course you'd fuck me.'
'Sloan-'
'Even on my best day it would take two of Ava Carter to make up my pre-baby body weight, and all of it in the ass and face and gut. Forget giving birth in a hospital, I'll just go find a barn with some nice clean straw in the manger for the pig I am.'
'I don't know what to say, Sloan. I want to make you feel better but you'll counter everything with a comeback.'
'Then stop trying,' she barked. 'Reminding me I won't be perfect like Ava fucking Carter does not help me right now.'
'I never-' He stopped when she pulled off her top, stepped out of her maternity jeans. She pulled off the soft black bra and matching panties and stood naked in front of him. 'Sloan, waht are you doing?'
'Take a good look because this is what you have and that-' she pointed to the screen '-is what you wished you had right now instead of me, isn't it?'
'Sloan.'
He said her name so gently, so tenderly, it nearly shattered her defenses. 'I'm fat and un-fuck-able and ugly.'
'No.' Now Jeremy was firm and he got to his feet, the movie completely off his radar now. 'No, you are beautiful Sloan and before you tell me I'm full of shit, let me prove it to you.'
'Fine. Say it and be done with it. I want to go to bed.'
'And I want to go to bed with you.' Jeremy bent to scoop up her clothes since Sloan was wearing nothing but her earrings and a scowl, and took her by the hand to lead her to their bedroom. Once there, Jeremy laid her down on her side, and when he'd stripped off too so he was as naked with her he caught her beady gaze.
'Why are you naked?'
'You said you'd let me prove how beautiful you are.'
'Oh, right. Well, tell me your filthy lies tomorrow.'
'No.' Jeremy moved so that he was by Sloan's ankles. 'Let's start here. The first time I saw you barefoot, that night of our first date with your pink pedicure peeping out from my bathrobe, I was mesmerized.'
'By toes,' she replied in disbelief.
'Yes, by your toes. Then there's your feet, which are adorably petite despite the fact you're five-eight, one of your many contradictions, and those lead up to your ankles here, which make me think you should be a ballet dancer.'
A ittle worm of hope wriggled somewhere inside Sloan and she began to see through the black and red of her insecurity. 'Tell me more,' she said warily, and Jeremy wanted to jump up and do a victory dance.
'Then we reach these calves which look like they've been sculpted by artists. I love watching you shave your calves in the bathtub because you flex your foot and all those muscles ripple and man it's so hot Sloan.' He moved his hand up to the scar on her knee, a remnant of a childhood injury. 'And yes you have a scars, and stretch marks but I don't see those as defects, Sloan, I see those as visible history.'
'Visible history,' she repeated, the worm wriggling harder now as her fingertips began to warm.
'That's what counts with children, and with me, the stories. The way your nose crinkles when you tell the tale, how your eyes light up with enthusiasm.'
'Keep going.'
'And then we have the rest of your legs, soft but powerful and skin so smooth the water just runs right off it when you're in the shower with me. And one of my favourite spots.' He was stretched out beside her, tucked behind her now, as his hand slipped between her thighs, cupped against her to touch her. 'The first time I felt this, it was the most nervous I'd ever been with a woman since the first time I had sex.'
'And here I thought you were such a smooth operator.'
'Are you kidding And every time since then, that sensation has never gone away. A woman who could make me feel that every time we're together, like I'm the luckiest guy in the world, that's the one for me.'
Jeremy sat up, rolled her to her back and straddled her leg, so he could leave his hand where it was. He put his hand on the mound of her severely pregnant belly and laughed when he felt the baby moving inside. 'And our baby boy in here, there wouldn't be a baby in the first place if we didn't make love like we do all the time. And with the baby so big inside you now, that means there's proof of you being very fuck-able, as you so crudely said.'
Sloan laughed through the tears that had come as he'd shown her, literally inch by inch just how sexy he still found her, and put her hand to Jeremy's cheek. 'Okay, you've made your point.'
'Not done yet.' His hand slid up over her belly to the valley between her breasts, sliding over to cup one and brush his thumb over her nipple. 'And this, right here, the first time I saw your naked, I didn't think she looks good for a mother, I thought she looks sexy and soft and kissable.'
Jeremy walked his fingers up her collarbone, followed it with his lips, then up her neck to her earlobe which he caught in his teeth and heard her little sigh. 'And all these things you hear, about not being slim enough or having a perfect complexion, or any of it, none of that matters because your ears have a much better, bigger, improtant job. Listening to Devon, to our baby boy, to our family and friends, and most of all, listening to me when I tell you I love you, and that I would make love to every last square inch of this wonderful body that is Sloan Marguerite Machado, almost Sloan Marguerite Machado Channing.'
'No. Just Channing.' Sloan turned her head, and let a little tear trickle out. '
'Sloan.' Now Jeremy's chest hitched, and he laid his lips against hers, began to move his hand once more between her thighs, and he heard her softly moan in his mouth. 'I love you, so much.'
'I love you right back, Jeremy, and I'm sorry for being so awful tonight.'
'Sloan, you're allowed to be insecure about your body, it's perfectly natural to be scared. Think back to when you were seven months pregnant with Devon. What was your life like?' As he watched her eyes glaze while she thought back, he nodded when she came back to the present. 'You are scared, of me and what I'm doing.'
'A little bit,' she admitted, and pressed her hand to her eyes. 'God, we've been together almost two years and...and there are times when I still don't have my feet underneath me because of you. You treat me like I'm the first woman to have children.'
'You are.'
'Jeremy-'
'You are the first woman to have my child.'
When said in such simple words, Sloan shuddered as tears flowed freely now and she sobbed against his chest, holding him as close as she could. She felt his hand slide away, drift down her leg and she shook her head. 'No, I want to make love with you Jeremy, I want...I need to feel who I've become with you.'
'Whatever you need Sloan, I'm here for you.'
