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His eyes narrow for a second before he remembers. “When we got the paternity results.”
“Yeah.”
Sumner watches me for a long moment. The amusement disappears from his face, and my pulse starts picking up because suddenly this feels a whole lot bigger than it did when the words accidentally fell out of my mouth.
“Did you mean it?”
The question knocks the last of the embarrassment out of me.
“Yeah.” My voice is soft between us. “I meant it.”
His hand leaves my stomach and slides around the back of my neck. The warmth of his palm against my skin sends a shiver down my spine, and I wrap my fingers around his wrist without really thinking about it.
“Then say it again.”
My throat tightens.
He waits until I meet his eyes. “Please.”
The first one slipped out while I was busy giving him shit. So much for telling him when we weren’t in the middle of baby stuff. Still, this time, I know exactly what I’m saying, and somehow that makes me more nervous, not less.
But I pull up my big girl panties and give him the words he deserves. “I love you, Sumner Wells.”
His eyes close for a second, and when they open again, they’re shiny and so, so intense. His jaw tightens like he’s trying to keep himself together, but the smile that spreads across his face ruins the effort completely.
“Fuck, Goldie.”
He leans in like he’s going to kiss me, then stops when our noses bump and my glasses hit him in the face.
I laugh, and Sumner reaches for them.
“Give me those.”
I let him slide them off my face, and he sets them onto the nightstand before coming back to me.
Then he takes my face between his hands and kisses me.
My palm slides over his bare chest and around his shoulder as I turn toward him, and Sumner braces one arm behind my upper back so I can lean into him without trying to fold myself around my stomach. There’s only so close we can get now, but neither of us seems particularly interested in giving up.
He kisses me until I’m a little breathless, then pulls back enough that I can make out his face without my glasses.
“You know I love you too, right?”
I don’t know what I expected him to say. I’m not sure I’d even let myself think that far ahead when I finally got the nerve to tell him.
But hearing it makes my breath catch, and then my eyes start burning.
Damn it.
I drop my forehead against his shoulder before the tears can really get going. “These hormones suck.”
Sumner laughs softly and wraps both arms around me, one across my upper back and the other settling over my thigh as I curl as close to him as my stomach will allow.
“Pretty sure this one isn’t the pregnancy.”
“Look who’s suddenly an expert on my tears.”
His chest moves beneath my cheek when he laughs again.
