Page 74 of Wilde Flame

Drawing her to me, I held her tightly. Kissing her head, I closed my eyes and said, “I’m scared, too, Lili.”

Scared wasn’t the right word. I was fucking terrified.

Lilibeth

Caden reached for my hand and gave it a light squeeze. I was honestly surprised by how calm he was. At least, he seemed to be…except for his leg, which was bouncing.

“How do you feel?”

Trying to smile, I replied, “Better. Still a bit queasy, but the crackers helped.”

Earlier in the car, I’d started to feel sick, and Caden instantly produced a sleeve of crackers from the back seat of his truck.

“By the way, why did you have crackers in your truck?”

It was his turn to smile, and I tried to ignore the way it made my stomach flutter. “I remembered when my mom was pregnant with Emeline, she used to eat crackers all the time. Don’t ask me why or how I remembered that, because I was pretty young. But I grabbed them on my way out of the house this morning.”

Oh, dear Lord. This man is going to make it so very hard not to fall madly in love with him.

“That was sweet of you to think of that.”

He shrugged and started bouncing his leg again.

The door opened, and a nurse stepped out. “Lilibeth Asher?”

Caden and I stood and made our way across the waiting room. He placed his hand on my lower back and kept it there until we walked into the exam room. Once inside, the nurse began asking questions. When my last period was, my medical history, and lifestyle habits, then she took my vitals and asked me to go to the restroom. After that, another nurse came in and took some blood.

“The doctor is going to do a transvaginal ultrasound. That will give her a look at how things are going and an estimate of how far along you are.”

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

Caden sat in the chair, quiet as a mouse.

“If you can remove your pants and undergarments and put this over you.”

I did as the nurse asked and sat back on the table.

“What are those?” Caden asked, pointing to the stirrups.

“That’s where I put my feet when she does her exam.”

His brows shot up as he stood. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I chuckled. “Nope.”

“That’s crazy. Do you have to do it for each appointment?”

“Just the ones where you need a vaginal exam. It’s yearly.”

He looked at me and smirked. “Let’s try it.”

“I don’t think so, Caden.”

“Oh, come on. We can call it research.”

I frowned. “Research for what?”

“Playing doctor?”