Nervousness assailed me. Christmas was, like, next week, and although I was thrilled that Nick was cool with meeting my mom, the first parent-slash-my-baby-daddy meeting made me want to hurl. Actually, when I went shopping for Nick last week, looking to get him something small and special for Christmas, I wanted to hurl then, too, because picking something was harder than I’d realized. I ended up settling on a nice, durable watch. It looked pretty in its box, but now I was thinking it was kind of a lame gift, even though he’d said time and time again that he needed to get a watch.

I told Mom around Christmas was okay, and then after a couple more minutes, I got off the phone to face Nick once more.

He was still shirtless.

I arched a brow as I dropped my phone on the bed. “Are you going to go out like that tonight?”

A cocky grin appeared. “I would, but then you’d be too ‘distracted’ to eat.”

“Shut up.”

Chuckling, he walked over and took my hand. He sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged me down so I was sitting in his lap. “Nick, we need to get going,” I protested. “If we don’t, we’re going to be late.”

“We’re not going to be late.” He curled an arm around my hips. “We have time. And we need time.” His other hand landed on my lower stomach. “How are you feeling? Are you still feeling pretty tired?”

After putting up the Christmas tree, I’d gotten hit pretty hard with exhaustion for about three days straight, and it had been intermittent since. According to the baby sites and my check-in with the OB/GYN, per Nick’s insistence, it was fairly normal. “I’m feeling fine today. Isn’t that obvious?” I teased, toying with the button on his jeans.

He grinned. “I’m pretty sure you could be halfway to a coma and still be horny as hell.”

I laughed. “I’m not going to even try to deny that.”

The smile slipped a little. “But seriously, I’m just worried. You were so tired last week, and you said you weren’t feeling that great.”

“Thank you for being concerned, but I am feeling fine,” I insisted. “And if it makes you feel better, I have my next appointment Friday.”

“I know.” His lashes lowered to where his hand rested on my pillow. “I can’t believe you haven’t gained any weight yet.”

I placed my hand over his. “Oh, I’ve gained weight. Trust me.”

A look of doubt crossed his face as his fingers curled, gathering the hem of my shirt into his fist. He tugged it up, revealing my stomach. “I’m going to start feeding you Whoppers every day.”

I laughed, but truthfully, I was also a little surprised by how flat my stomach still was. It had started to curve a little, but I guessed that was just bloat. My hips and ass were probably a different story. I’d looked at pictures of women who were in their thirteenth week. It wasn’t obvious they were pregnant, but there was definitely a small bump.

I didn’t have a small bump.

“Maybe I’ll be like some women who get a bump when they’re further along and not before then?”

Nick didn’t answer as he bent at his waist and pressed a kiss just above my navel, causing my heart to practically implode from the sweetness of the act. When he lifted his head, I captured his cheeks in my hands and tilted his head to the side, kissing him.

The kiss was just supposed to be that, but the moment the tip of his tongue touched mine, it turned into something far more needy. Nick stood as he twisted, taking me from his lap and laying me out flat on my back.

“Nick! We’re going to be late!”

He moved his long body over mine, one hand curling around my hip. “We’re not going to be late.”

“We so do not have time. We need—”

His mouth covered mine, cutting off the rest of what I was saying, and as his hand slipped under my shirt, slid up my skin, and covered my breast, I started to forget about the whole time issue. Especially when his agile fingers made their way into the cup of my bra, finding the tightened tip of my breast.

My fingers clenched his shoulders, digging in as he kissed the corner of my lips and then made a scorching trail of tiny, hot kisses down my throat. My pulse picked up as desire thrummed through my veins.

“Nick,” I moaned, my breath catching as his fingers did something truly naughty. “We need to get . . . going.”

“We will,” he said, slipping his hand out from my bra. Instead of getting up, he pulled my shirt up and then hooked his fingers between the cups of my bra, tugging it down. He bit down on his lip as he stared at me. “Fucking beautiful.”

I watched him lower his head to the straining nipple, drawing it into his mouth, sucking deep. “Jesus.”

He chuckled, and the feeling reverberated through me. When he moved to my other breast, nipping at the sensitive skin then soothing the sting with his tongue, I knew leaving on time was going to be a lost cause.

“We need to get ready,” I told him, my chest rising and falling sharply as the ache between my thighs blossomed.

“Uh-huh.” He left my breast, kissing his way down to my navel. His tongue dipped in, and my hips jerked up. Before I knew it, he’d undone the button and zipper and he was inching them down my thighs. “It’s my turn.”

His mouth was on me in a heartbeat, and there was no tentative, slow start to his seduction. He didn’t just taste me. He didn’t just please me. He reveled in what he was doing.

“Yeah,” he murmured against my flesh. His tongue swept across my center, heightening the tension building in my core. “We are going to be so late.”

Needless to say, we were a good twenty minutes or so late getting to the restaurant, but my muscles were made of jelly and I was too blissed out to really care that my hair looked like I just rolled around on a bed.

Which was sort of what I had done.

Nick and I walked back to the large round table, and it wasn’t until I saw everyone did it really hit home how weird this dinner was going to be. When Calla invited us, I hadn’t thought anything about it, but now that I was seeing Jase and Cam sitting there, all I could think about was how awkward this could turn out. Nick knew I’d hooked up with them in some form or fashion, and obviously everyone at the table knew, and yeah . . . this was different.

I sat down beside Calla, forcing a smile. “Sorry we’re late. Traffic.”

“Traffic,” Calla mused with a sly grin. “Interesting, on Sunday night.”

Teresa, who was sitting next to Avery, tossed the long length of dark hair over her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said, winking. “Jase and I ran into . . . ‘traffic,’ too. Really heavy ‘traffic.’ ”

Jase’s eyes widened.

On the other side of Avery, sitting next to Nick, Cam’s face contorted with disgust in response to his sister’s words. “Come on, man. I don’t want to even picture that in my head.”

Placing her hand over her mouth, Avery smothered her giggle but asked, “How heavy was that ‘traffic’ exactly?”

Teresa opened her mouth, but Jase spoke up, “Please, dear God, don’t answer that question. I really don’t want Cam punching me again.”

I laughed as Teresa narrowed her eyes at her older brother. “If he lays one hand on you, that baby is going to be the last Cam can produce.”