Chapter 1: Sticky Fingers and the First Contraction
The greenhouse hummed, a low, vegetative thrum felt in the teeth more than heard. Golden afternoon light, filtered through a film of mist and the dusty glass panels, fell in solid bars across the rows. The air was thick with the scent of skunk and damp earth, sweet resin and warm, wet soil. It was the smell of money, of life, of Mila’s whole world.
She moved down the row with methodical grace, her swollen belly leading the way. At eight months, her center of gravity was a joke, but she’d learned the new rhythms.A hand on the hip, a slight rock back before snipping. The silver shears in her fingers flashed, closing with a crisp, final snick. A fat, frosted cola fell into her palm, sticky with trichomes. She held it to her nose, inhaling the complex, piney aroma.Perfect.She dropped it into the basket at her feet.
A dull ache had been pulsing in her lower back for an hour.She’d ignored it. Her body sent all kinds of complaints these days; to listen to every one was to surrender. She reached for another branch, her stretch pulling the thin cotton of her tank top taut over the curve of her stomach. The damp warmth of the greenhouse had plastered the fabric to her skin, outlining the heavy swell of her breasts, the sheen of sweat in the hollow of her throat.Then it came. Not an ache, but a clench.
It started deep, a band of iron tightening around her spine and cinching forward, squeezing the breath right out of her.Her fingers went nerveless. The shears clattered to the concrete floor, the sound absurdly loud. The pain was stunning, a total, all-consuming takeover. She grabbed the greenhouse table, her knuckles bleaching white, and bent over, a low groan escaping her as the world narrowed to the vicious, internal pressure.
Footsteps, quick and heavy on the damp concrete.
“Mila?”
Leo was there before she fully registered the sound of her own distress.He didn’t touch her at first. He just stood, a solid presence in her peripheral vision, his shadow falling across the shaking leaves of the plant beside her. She could feel his eyes on her, taking in the clenched profile of her body, the way her free hand had splayed against the enormous dome of her belly as if to hold it in place.
The wave peaked, held her in its fist for five endless seconds, then began to ebb. The release was almost as shocking as the seizure. Her lungs unlocked and she dragged in a wet, ragged gasp of the humid, skunk-scented air.
“Okay,” she breathed, more to herself than to him.“Okay.”
Only then did his hands come up. They hovered, hesitant, inches from her shoulders.She saw them tremble. Big, capable hands, scarred and stained green from the harvest, fingers permanently slightly curled from years of trimming.They were shaking.
“Was that—” His voice was tight.
“A contraction?” Mila finished, straightening up with a wince.She rolled her shoulders, forcing a smirk onto her face.It felt thin. “Probably.The fake ones.Braxton-Hicks. They’ve been messing with me all week.”
She bent, slowly, to retrieve the shears. The movement made her tank top ride up, exposing a strip of olive skin stretched tight over the side of her belly. She saw Leo’s gaze flicker down and then away, fast, like he’d been burned. His jaw was rigid.“You’re soaked,” he said, his voice strangely thick.She glanced down. A dark patch of sweat had bloomed across the front of her shirt, between her breasts and down over the curve of her stomach.“It’s a greenhouse, Leo.It’s a hundred degrees. I’m growing a person and ten thousand plants. I’m supposed to be soaked.”
She tried for her usual defiant tone, but another aftershock, a lesser squeeze, made her breath hitch. She pressed the heel of her hand hard into the small of her back.He moved then. One of those trembling hands settled on her upper arm, not to restrain her, but to offer stability. The heat of his palm bled through her damp shirt. His touch was frighteningly gentle, at odds with the coiled strength she felt in his arm. He was close enough now that she could smell him—sunshine, clean sweat, and the faint, sharp scent of the cannabis sap on his skin.
“You should sit,” he said. “Just for a minute.”
“I have a row to finish.”
“Mila.”
The way he said her name—a quiet, strained command—made her look at him.Really look.His hazel eyes weren’t on her face. They were fixed lower, on the slope of her belly where her hand still pressed. His gaze held a reverence, a haunted focus that was more intense than any pain.He wasn’t just seeing her discomfort. He was watching the event.The process.It should have felt invasive. Instead, a weird, electric calm settled over her.Her bravado faded, replaced by a simple, exhausting truth. “It hurts,” she admitted, the words barely a whisper.
His other hand came up, slowly, as if approaching a wild animal.He didn’t touch her stomach. He covered her own hand where it pressed against her back, his fingers slotting over hers, increasing the pressure. “Here?”
She nodded, swallowing hard.He applied a firm, circular massage, his thumb working into the knot of muscle. His trembling had transferred to her, a fine vibration she felt through her skin. It wasn’t nerves.It was a sort of awful, focused excitement.He was too good at this. He knew exactly where the pain was.His breath was coming a little faster.
“You need water,” he murmured, his eyes still locked on the place his hand worked her flesh. “And to get off your feet.The baby…” He finally glanced up, meeting her eyes.The intensity there was almost violent. “You can’t ignore this.”
Another ripple, smaller but insistent, passed through her. She leaned into his hands, into the solid wall of his chest just behind her. For a second, she let him hold her weight.He bore it effortlessly, his body immovable. The relief was profound.Then she pushed back.Gently, but firmly. She couldn’t think straight with him this close, with that look in his eyes. It was distracting in a way that had nothing to do with pain.“It’s false labor,” she insisted, pulling away from his touch. The cool greenhouse air felt sharp on her sweat-slicked skin where his hands had been. “I looked it up.They can be intense. They don’t mean anything.” She grabbed the basket, hefting it onto her hip.The weight grounded her. “I’ll finish this row, drink some water, and it’ll stop. It always does.”
Leo didn’t argue.He just watched her, his hands hanging at his sides, fingers still curled slightly. The tremor was gone, replaced by a tense readiness. He was a man poised on the edge of a cliff, watching the one thing he both feared and desired most begin to unfold right in front of him, among the sweet-stinking plants he tended every day.
“I’ll be right here,” he said finally.It wasn’t an offer.It was a statement.
Mila turned back to the plants, shears in hand.She snipped another bud, the action automatic. But her focus was shattered.Every slight twinge in her belly now held her full attention. And she was acutely, uncomfortably aware of Leo, a silent sentinel a few feet behind her, his quiet, rapt attention more intimate than any touch.
The humid air seemed heavier now, pressing in on her. The rich, primal smell of the growing things, her own sweat, the damp earth—it all swirled together into something overpowering. She was a creature in this green, breathing world, ripe and ready to burst. And he was watching, his hunger as quiet and inevitable as the next contraction already gathering its strength deep in her core.
And he was watching, his hunger as quiet and inevitable as the next contraction already gathering its strength deep in her core.
She made it three more plants. Then the world narrowed again, not to a band of pain, but to a deep, grinding pressure that forced her to a halt.This one was different.Lower.More purposeful. It wasn’t a tightening.It was a bearing down.Her breath caught. She dropped the shears for the second time.They skittered under the table.She didn’t care. All she could do was sway, then slowly, carefully, lower herself to her knees on the cool, damp concrete.She let the basket tilt beside her, a few fat buds spilling out like a sacrifice.
She cradled the massive weight of her belly in both hands, fingers spreading wide over the taut curve. Her head dropped forward, dark hair falling around her face. She inhaled, a long, shuddering pull of the humid air, and exhaled through pursed lips in a low, focused whistle.
Leo didn’t move.He couldn’t. The sight of her kneeling, surrendered to the force within her, was the most profoundly erotic thing he had ever witnessed. He’d noticed the change in her shape earlier that afternoon—the lower, heavier hang of her belly, the slight waddle that had replaced her determined stride.She had dropped. The baby’s head was engaged, deep in her pelvis, a locked and loaded fact.He knew what that meant. He’d read everything, obsessed over every detail.The theory was one thing. The practice, unfolding here in the green glow, was another.Her knuckles were white where she supported herself. A bead of sweat traced a path from her temple, down the line of her jaw, and dripped from her chin onto the skin of her stomach, disappearing into the fabric of her shirt. The contraction held her, peaked. He saw the muscles in her neck stand out, the powerful ridge of her shoulders tense like a bowstring.Her breathing hitched, then deepened again, that controlled, sexy, rhythmic whistle. She was working with it.Riding it.A master of her own undoing.Time stretched. The greenhouse vents hissed.Finally, the wave released her.She slumped, a soft groan escaping her. She stayed on her knees, forehead nearly touching the concrete, breathing hard.
“Leo,” she said, her voice muffled and thick.“Yeah.” It came out as a croak. He cleared his throat.
“That one… that one was different.”
“I know.” He took a step forward.The distance between them felt charged, electric.“It’s in my back. And my…” She shifted her weight, a small, pained movement.“It’s so low. It’s pushing.”
A thrill, sharp and guilty, shot through him. He knelt in front of her, not touching, just entering her space. He could see every detail: the flush on her skin, the damp tendrils of hair at her nape, the incredible, vulnerable column of her throat as she lifted her head to look at him. Her eyes were wide, dark with shock and a dawning, practical fear.
“False labor doesn’t feel like this, does it?” she asked, almost a whisper.“No, Mila.It doesn’t.”
She swallowed. Nodded once, accepting it.The stubbornness bled away, replaced by a raw, animal focus. “Okay.Okay, so it’s real.But it’s early. I’ve got hours. Maybe a day.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m not going to the hospital to sit in a bed for twenty hours. I’ll go crazy.” She tried to push herself up.A small, pained sound escaped her, and she sank back down. “Shit.”
Another one was starting. He could see it in her face—the distraction, the inward turn.Her breath quickened preemptively.
“Just breathe,” he heard himself say, his voice steady now, a conductor settling into his role.“Like you were. That was perfect.”
She obeyed, sinking back into that rhythmic pattern, her hands kneading the sides of her stomach. He watched, mesmerized, as the contraction visibly shaped her, hardening the round dome, pulling everything tight.This was it.The secret, sacred process.He was inside it with her. His hands itched to feel what she was feeling, to map the progress he knew was happening millimeters from his touch.The head, already engaged, grinding deeper.When it passed, she was panting. “They’re too close,” she admitted, her defiance finally cracking. “I can’t… I can’t get up.”
“I’ve got you.”
He moved then. He slid one arm behind her shoulders, the other under her knees.He lifted her. She was heavy, solid, all warm, damp woman and ripened life. She curled instinctively into his chest, one arm hooking around his neck. He carried her out of the row, away from the fallen basket and the scattered buds, his footsteps sure and steady on the slick floor. She buried her face against his shirt as another contraction took her mid-stride, and he stopped, holding her securely, feeling the powerful clench of her body against his, waiting it out with her until she sagged, breathless, into his arms once more.
He carried her toward the greenhouse door, the golden light of late afternoon blazing on the other side of the glass.Her breath was hot against his neck. His own heartbeat was a wild, exultant drum in his ears, perfectly in time with hers.