“Just tell me you’ll marry me,” he demanded against her neck, his voice filled with amusement, his body shaking with it and something very close to the feeling he’d had when his daughter first threw her arms around him stole into his heart.
“I’ll marry you,” she whispered and his arms, already around her, tightened like steel bands.
Something powerful and innate surged through him, something enormous and profound and unbelievably pleasurable. Better than the most intense orgasm he’d had (a cl**ax he’d had with Lily, he remembered it clearly, the fifth time they’d made love).
“But I have conditions,” she informed him.
He lifted his head and stared down at her already deciding he’d be willing to give anything.
Almost.
“We’re not moving to London,” she stated, “you’ll have to move to the house in Clevedon.”
Without hesitation, Nate replied, “Done.”
Lily seemed surprised at his quick agreement and it threw her off for a moment but then she recovered. “You have to accept Fazire, no matter what.”
This time he hesitated and she opened her mouth to speak but before she could say a word, he bit out, “Fine.”
“And he lives with us.”
Nate nodded. He’d accept her strange friend Fazire. He’d live with the entire British Army camped in his living room if it meant being with her, having her in his bed and having his daughter just down the hall.
“Say it,” she demanded.
“Fine,” he allowed.
“And if anything ever happens to me, he stays with Tash as long as Tash wants him.”
Nate watched her closely. He found this demand more than a little strange as if Fazire was a possession to pass along. Correctly reading from her face this meant a great deal to her, he agreed with another nod.
At that she relaxed against him.
“That’s it?” he enquired, finding himself relieved. She could have asked for more, much more, diamonds and pearls, jet-set holidays, mountain chalets in the Alps.
But she didn’t ask for any of that and this time she nodded.
“Now we’ll discuss my condition,” he told her.
Lily tensed again immediately. “What conditions?”
“Not conditions, condition,” Nate replied, “I only have one.”
She stared at him, her widened eyes had narrowed.
Nate carried on. “No more children. If you want another baby, we’ll adopt.”
Her eyes instantly grew wide again. “Nate, it was just a bad pregnancy. There’s no reason I can’t –”
He cut her off. “Just a bad pregnancy like your migraines are just headaches?”
Her mouth snapped shut and she pursed her lips.
Then he asked suddenly, “Are you on birth control?”
“No.”
This announcement shocked him. “Do you use another form of birth control?”
She was beginning to squirm and looking more than a little uncomfortable.
He couldn’t care less about her discomfort. “Answer me, Lily,” Nate demanded, giving her a mild shake.
“No.”
“Why the hell not?” he snapped.
She glared at him but didn’t answer.
“Answer me.” Nate was beginning to get angry.
She’d graduated from Oxford, for Christ’s sake, she wasn’t stupid. She’d nearly died during her last pregnancy, hell, she did die. She should be protecting herself.
He hated the idea of another man touching her, especially since, in the beginning she had only been his. But as much as he detested it, he understood he had to let go of that now. She was back, Natasha was theirs, his entire focus was on their future.
“Did they use it?” he asked, not exactly thrilled about talking about her lovers but he had to know.
Consideration to contraceptives wasn’t something he’d taught her in the brief time they’d had together, indeed, he’d avoided it with calculated purpose but he could imagine she’d learned a great deal in eight years.
“Who?” she queried, looking mystified.
“The men you’ve been with.”
Even in the dark room, he saw her face pale.
She kept her silence for a moment and then said, “Nate, I really don’t think it’s any of your –”
He shook her again, this was slightly-more-than-mild.
“Nate!”
“Lily, you’re going to be my wife. Considering my condition on our impending nuptials, this subject would eventually come up.”
“I didn’t agree to your condition,” she told him.
“You aren’t getting pregnant again,” he retorted.
“Really, I –”
He interrupted her. “We’ll get you to a GP tomorrow as well and get something arranged.”
He had decided to give up. She was definitely more stubborn than he remembered and there were other ways he wished to spend these moments, vastly more enjoyable ways, not arguing about birth control and definitely not thinking about her other lovers.
Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from muttering, “It’s stunning, someone as obviously intelligent as you would be so immensely dense about protecting herself with contraceptives.”
She stiffened in his arms. “I am not dense.”
“Considering the fact you nearly died in childbirth, yes, I’d say you were dense,” Nate bit out curtly because the subject was so important, considering what happened with Natasha, and Lily’s nonchalance about something that important intensely annoyed him, therefore he instantly decided he liked the idea of arguing about birth control.
“I hardly need to fill my body with pills or be fitted with… with… some sort of apparatus if I wasn’t taking anyone to my bed!” she snapped her eyes firing and a blush so fierce he could see it in the dark crawling up her cheeks.
His body stilled and his arms tightened. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“All right, I’ll ask another question. What did you mean?”
She seemed at a loss for a moment, clearly her agitation and her recovery from the migraine were slowing her processes. Then she caught up.
“You’re too smart for your own good, do you know that?” she enquired irritably.
“Don’t change the subject and answer the question.”
She looked skyward and for the first time she pressed against his arms to get away.
“This is mortifying,” she told the ceiling.