How to Flirt With a Naked Werewolf - Molly Harper [121]
“None,” he agreed, wrapping his arms around me. “I guess I’m going to have to marry you now,” he muttered, his chin tucked over my shoulder.
“My parents aren’t even married,” I scoffed.
His warm hand closed over mine, skimming it over the belly that would be full and round in just a few weeks. He sighed, snuffling at my neck. “Please marry me, Mo. Raise our baby with me.”
I leaned into him, nuzzling his neck. “I have one condition.”
He sighed again, much more content this time. “Shoot.”
“We pick a normal, traditional name for this kid. The baby is going to have enough to deal with, what with the whole half-werewolf deal. So, no flower names, no tree names, no gemstones, no names of musicians who asphyxiated on their own vomit, no intellectual ideals as middle names—”
“How about Noah for a boy and Eva for a girl?” he suggested, his hands up in a surrendering gesture.
“I agree,” I said, thinking of how happy Evie would be.
“What, we’re not naming the baby after a favorite aunt?” Maggie demanded testily. When I arched a brow at her, she rolled her eyes. “All right, too soon. You could at least put me in the running for the middle name.”
“We are not naming my son Noah Margaret,” Cooper told her.
“Why are we making up again?” she asked grumpily.
“No idea,” he replied, wrapping an arm around each of us.
I made a sudden conversational lane change. “How do you have the big bad evil confrontation moment with a naked guy and keep a straight face? I didn’t know where to look.”
Maggie shrugged. “It’s a matter of eye contact.”
“Blech.”
Molly Harper
23
Smothering at 20,000 Feet
“TAKE IT EASY, SWEETHEART,” Cooper said as my parents’ little puddle jumper of a plane landed at the Dearly Airport. We were waiting at the airport’s single gate, watching through the glass doors as the plane taxied down the tarmac. I found myself wanting to rush out toward the plane, eager to set eyes on the very people who’d driven me to Alaska, to Cooper.
“I’m fine,” I promised as he buttoned my light jacket, skimming his fingers protectively over the ever-growing bump of my belly. It was hard to believe I was only four months along. If this were a human pregnancy, people would have guessed at least seven or eight. Other than the accelerated timeline, I seemed to be having a normal, healthy pregnancy. Well, almost normal. Dr. Moder had sworn that the baby wouldn’t be born with a tail, though a full set of teeth was a distinct possibility. This had me seriously reconsidering breastfeeding.
My stomach was quite the topic of conversation when Cooper and I had married a month before in a small civil ceremony in my front yard, overseen by a beaming Nate Gogan. People ribbed us good-naturedly about shotgun weddings and pretended to be highly offended by my fallen state. But there were worse reasons to get married, and most people forgot the “scandal” of an expectant bride by the end of the reception. Heck, some of the guests had forgotten their own names by the end of the reception.
I’d wanted our wedding to be traditional, as traditional as the union between a werewolf and his pregnant bride could be. I wore a white dress and flowers in my hair. Kara had made what she called a “once in a lifetime” trip from Mississippi as planned and served as my maid of honor. She hadn’t left yet. She and Alan started making goo-goo eyes at each other during the ceremony and hadn’t stopped since. Having learned his lesson from taking his time with me, Alan was more overt in his attentions to Kara. He asked her to stick around for the Big Freeze party, which was still months away. They were currently shacked up at the ranger station, only emerging for occasional trips to Bulk Wonderland for mega-packs of condoms. I was ecstatic for both of them.
As a wedding present, Evie and Buzz had offered me a twenty-percent share in the saloon, since I’d increased the receipts by at least that much since my arrival. They’d already set up a little nursery in the office at the Glacier, so I could keep working after my maternity leave. As wrong