The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

She automatically pulls her legs up when she gets flat. Her feet flat on the floor and knees bent and opening wide, I assume it’s the birthing position of women and not how she casually lounges around the house.

Her long dress is hanging to her ankles, and she is already panting again like an overheated dog. Another wave of panic hits me in the gut and I shuffle myself to her feet on my knees, shaking like a leaf and unsure how this is will go down. My eyes keep flicking to the hall, and every noise, making me pray for Jake.

For the love of all that is holy.

“You need to get them off, and my shoes.... If this is happening, then I want them off.” Emma frowns at me from her position, lifting her head up enough to see me over her knees, and I can see how badly she is clutching at the leg of a nearby chair. Squeezing the shit out of the chrome and I just thank my stars it’s not my hand. She could clearly crush every bone in my little dainty digits if she had a grip on me instead.

Taking a deep breath, I lift the hem of her skirt, push it up to her knees in a bid to see what I am doing, and lean in to try and get to the waistband of her surprisingly sexy black underwear, that looks decidedly non-maternal. I curb the urge to sit up and give her a raised brow look, chastising myself that she is married to Jake, and there is no way in hell she was ever going to dawn maternity wear and spandex, even when bulging like a whale.

I manage to locate the low waist, turning my head aside to make sure I do not get traumatized with a view of Emma that even brain bleaching can’t remove, and slide them down and off. Averting my eyes as I maneuver them over her ankles and throw them aside. Eyes down, unbuckling the straps on her flat sandals and definitely do not look up to see a full frontal of her lady parts. I seriously would never be able to look her in the eye ever again if I commit to memory this kind of intimate knowledge.

and overjoyed to see Jake skating across the marble floor with an expression of sheer panic across his face. Arrick in hot pursuit and looking a lot more together, although he is moving just as fast. Catching

as both heads snap my way. An extreme sense of relief that the cavalry has arrived, and Jake can take over, doing what Jake does. Help his

fixed on the scene before them. I genuinely feel like kissing

absolute shock. Bath temperature warm, sticky, and slimy, weird smelling fluid, soaks through my dress, down my legs and saturates my entire upper body. My neck and face splattered with it and I gawp in sheer repulsion, gulping, horrified, and unsure how to react at whoever just threw a bucket of watery goo

sat stone still with arms splayed out in

as I realize I just got hit, face on, with her entire body of birthing fluids. The blood drains from me as Jake skids down behind me and slides me over,

he catches me throwing him a hostile glare of ‘don’t you fucking dare’. Arrick takes off like his ass is on fire and I shuffle backwards on my butt and palms,

intense, I guess it’s not really going to wait on us getting a midwife. I mentally wonder if I should call emergency services, but my cell is way over there on the table

spot, he leans up and over her, caging her in his arms, working himself to hold his weight over her carefully and bends down to kiss her on the mouth. Eyes to hers, nose to nose, and breathing

her on the forehead, lingering tenderly. Emma seems

hard, he scoots back to between her legs, lifts the edge of her dress and shrugs down to look. Arrick reappears with an armful of towels, a boyish, unsure expression, and the nanny at his back, who starts