"Damn. Enough already," he told his erection.
He picked up Mandy’s beach bag to set it on the table, marveling at how heavy the thing was. "Jesus. She got sand bricks in here?" He took a peek. Sunscreen, sunglasses, her wallet, and a really thick book.
"The Everything Guide to Pregnancy." He pulled it out and glanced at the cover. Some woman was grinning, which she really shouldn’t have been considering the ugly floral dress she was wearing.
Thumbing through it, he decided to read Month Four, which was where he thought Mandy was. Sitting back down, he put his feet on the chair opposite him and glanced at the drawn picture of a woman at sixteen weeks gestation. "That’s a freak out." There was an alien sucking its thumb in that woman’s stomach.
"What you may be feeling… fatigue, constipation, breast enlargement, nosebleeds, mood swings, weepiness." Well, he could attest to the weepiness.
There was advice on exercise, diet, and tests the doctor would be performing. "Measuring the height of the fundus? What the hell is that?" Suddenly getting a little nervous that there was a whole lot more to this pregnancy thing than he had thought, he used the index to look up Sexual Intercourse.
Thumbing back to page one hundred and twelve, he realized it might have been a smart idea to read this before he’d dipped his wick twice. Two paragraphs in, he was shifting uncomfortably reading about engorgement of genitals and colostrum leaking from breasts and bleeding of the cervix.
"If this happens, you may want to avoid deep penetration?" Damien felt a sweat breaking out all over his body.
He’d deep penetrated, he was sure of it. "A fear that the baby is ‘watching’ you is normal, but unfounded, as is the fear of ‘bumping’ the baby."
"Oh, my God!" That had never even occurred to him. He glanced over at Mandy, still naked. He’d read the baby already had eyes, and the image of Junior cringing as Damien’s you-know-what came hurtling toward him was horrifying and graphic.
He sucked down his Coke and turned the page.
"If air is forced into the vagina during oral sex, it can cause an embolism and prove deadly to mother and fetus. Oral sex is safe as long as you’re careful not to blow any air into the vagina."
Damien reread it twice to make sure he’d gotten it straight. He bit his fingernail and tried to remember if he’d blown into her vagina. What constituted blowing? His tongue had been in her, plunging, licking. And maybe air would go along with his tongue on the way in, but it wasn’t like he’d pursed his lips and whistled "Yankee Doodle" into her crotch. What the hell did they mean? Fucking A.
"I could have killed her!"
Rubbing his forehead, he closed the book, flipped it to the front, and opened it at page one. He’d be better off just reading the whole damn thing.
Mandy woke up naked with Damien’s hand resting on her bum. It was just about a perfect way to start the day.
Except she had to use the loo.
Rolling onto her back with a sigh, she was planning on easing herself away from Damien’s sleeping form and taking care of business. She jumped a little when she saw he was wide awake. Staring at her.
"Good morning," she said with a smile, brushing her fingers over his chest.
"Hi." Damien gave her a warm kiss. On the forehead.
Mandy wet her lips, leaning toward him, but he made no move to touch her. She decided she’d have to initiate a proper good morning. She didn’t want him to feel awkward about the night before, and she didn’t want things to end so quickly. They had a whole day and a half left before they had to go back to New York and she wanted to make good use of them.
Damien stiffened as she started wandering lower, fingers fanning out in feathery touches. Stiff was good. She was disappointed to find he was wearing briefs, but wasn’t about to let that deter her. Only she looked up again and found he was still wearing that same odd stare, a sort of reverent gaze of awe that was damned unnerving and not in the least bit sexual.
"What?" she asked, shifting a little under his scrutiny.
"Hmmm?" His hand touched her hip, but lightly, as though he was afraid she might deflate like a souffle.
"Why are you looking at me like I’m the Madonna? And I don’t mean the one who kissed Britney Spears with tongue." He was scaring her, the intensity in his blue eyes searching and expectant.
"I just think you look beautiful." His hand slid over onto her stomach, and he stroked softly. "I can’t believe the baby is five inches big. That seems so little, yet at the same time so huge, considering it’s growing inside you."
Mandy dropped her hand from the front of his briefs. He wasn’t thinking about sex. He was thinking about her baby. Good God.
"Five inches?" she said, not sure what to say. This wasn’t a conversation she’d pictured having with Damien.
"I know, it’s unbelievable." He shook his head. "And it has eyes and can suck its thumb and has fully formed sexual organs. It’s a boy or a girl already, a real live human being." His thumb went over her belly. "Right there. Amazing."
Had he slipped in the shower and hit his head? Something had obviously happened while she’d been sleeping, and whatever it was, he had lost his mind as a result. He shouldn’t be looking at her like that. He couldn’t. Their relationship couldn’t go there.
"How do you know all that?" She didn’t think fetal development was knowledge Damien had just picked up along the way. And they were facts he hadn’t seemed to know the night before.
"I read the book in your beach bag. Very informative."
"You read The Everything Guide to Pregnancy?" She gaped at him, shocked at the idea of Damien Sharpton, workaholic businessman, thumbing through the Labor and Delivery chapter. "The whole thing? When?"
"While you were sleeping." He frowned. "Hey, do you think I blew into your vagina?"
"What?" Mandy felt all the blood leave her face. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"It says in the book blowing into the vagina during oral sex can cause an embolism and is dangerous. I don’t think I blew any air, but what do you think? Did it feel like air was going into you?"
Mandy blinked. No one had ever discussed her vagina with such a cavalier attitude before, and she didn’t like it in the least. It felt uncomfortably as if she was at the OB/GYN, not lying in bed naked with her lover.