Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires #3)(24)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Nah, I think babies just do that. Spew. When they eat.”

“Wonderful.” Corbin swiped at his own shoulder.

“I’ll take him,” Dave said, holding his hands out with a rapt expression on his face.

Corbin turned him over gratefully. “I’ll go try and wash my shirt off.”

“Hurry up.” Dave lifted Austin up and down, making the baby laugh. “We’re talking about sex next and you don’t want to miss the bad news.”

“Can’t wait,” Corbin said under his breath, pushed his chair back, and got the hell out of there.

Brittany was concentrating on the video showing a woman giving birth. Was it really necessary for the woman to be naked? She was no prude, but come on. A robe or gown would be nice. But this woman just had all her stuff flopping around as she grunted and heaved and shook her hair like a horse after a hard run. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

It was giving Brittany rather uncomfortable feelings about the birth and her ability to push a baby out of her body while Corbin Atelier and a team of hospital staff stared at her crotch. What if it altered Corbin’s perception of her permanently? They had enough to sort out without him seeing her looking so mammalian.

They were supposed to be taking notes, but Brittany didn’t know what to write beyond HELP, so she just sat with her pen lying on her notepad.

“I think someone is trying to get your attention,” the woman next to her said, pointing to the door.

Brittany turned and saw Corbin peering through the glass in the doorway, looking pained. He held up his watch and pointed to it. She shrugged. The class had just started.

She turned back around, but sighed when she heard the door open. Resolutely, she kept facing the front and the video, trying not to wince as the on-camera mother to be gave another guttural groan.

Corbin squatted down between her chair and the woman’s next to her. “Please forgive ze intrusion,” he said to the other woman, accent turned up high, charm dripping off him. “I just need a moment.”

Brittany rolled her eyes when the woman smiled and said, “Sure, no problem.”

“What’s the matter?” Brittany asked in a whisper.

But Corbin had caught sight of the video and was staring, a look of horror on his face. “Mon Dieu … ”

“Don’t look!” she hissed, grabbing his chin and turning his head toward her. This was not the image she wanted him taking into the labor and delivery room. “This video is dated, very eighties, totally earth mother weird.” She hoped. “Now what did you need?”

He shook his head and refocused on her. “The baby vomited on me. I’m going home to change and I’ll be back to pick you up.”

“They have a baby in there?”

“Yes, the instructor’s child. And he… ” Corbin gestured to his shoulder, which had a baseball-size damp spot on it.

“Just dry it off with the hand dryer in the restroom.” If he left, he’d never go back, she was sure of it. She wanted him comfortable with the idea of a baby, not fleeing in terror at the first opportunity.

“Brittany.” He gave her a look of total exasperation. “I smell.”

Her lip twitched. “That has nothing to do with the baby, honey.”

It took him a second. “Very amusing. Can you not see me laughing?” he asked, face deadpan.

She giggled and gave him a reassuring pat. “No one cares. I can’t smell anything. Just go back and enjoy the rest of the class.”

“But—”

“Go!” She lost her patience and pointed to the door. “It won’t kill you, you know.” How true was that?

He shot her a dark look, the masculine equivalent of a pout. “Fine.”

“Fine.” She smiled at him. “See you in an hour or so.”

Muttering in French, he slipped back out of the room.

“Sorry,” Brittany whispered to the woman next to her, who had turned to watch Corbin’s retreat.

“What was wrong?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing major.” Brittany waved her hand in the air. “But he’s French,” she added, like that explained everything.

“Oh. Right.” The woman nodded in understanding. Then she turned back to the video and made a face. “Oh, yikes, the baby is crowning.”

Indeed it was. Brittany suddenly knew how Corbin felt. She wanted to go home and pretend their child could hatch, already ten years old.

Seven

When Austin urinated on him, Corbin figured his night was complete.

“You need to keep a boy covered up at all times,” Sam said with a grin.

It would have been nice to know that ahead of time. Corbin sighed and wiped his arm by rolling it back and forth on the cloth Sam had laid on the changing pad.

“Dude, you’re not having any luck at all tonight,” Travis said, scratching the devil tattoo on his forearm.

“Maybe zat is because I am actually touching the baby,” Corbin told him, holding the clean diaper out in Travis’s direction. “Care to try?”

“No way, man, I’m just trying to, you know, sit back and take it all in. Observing. Learning from watching you.”

Either that or Travis was lily-livered. Austin kicked Corbin with his heel, regaining his attention. He undid the diaper the way Sam had shown him and, after a mere two tries, had it centered under the baby’s bottom. Rather proud of himself, he started to fold the front up and between the legs, when Austin took a roll to the left and flipped himself right onto his round belly and off the diaper. “What the… ?”

“That’s why you never leave a baby alone on the changing table,” Sam said sternly. “And why we did this on the floor. Babies roll. You can’t leave them alone for even two seconds.”

Clearly. Corbin gently hauled Austin back and laid him on his back again, realizing at the last second his head was going to smack on the floor, and shoving his palm under to cradle Austin’s skull until it rested on the pad.

“Good instincts,” Sam nodded.

Corbin had to admit, he was impressing even himself. This was foreign to him, but it really required just some basic training and common sense. He grabbed the diaper again.

Austin did a repeat roll onto his belly, bare bottom facing up. It struck Corbin then how completely amusing and bizarre human infants were, both in appearance and behavior. As he lifted Austin yet again, his plump warm flesh wiggling in Corbin’s grip as he struggled to get free, Corbin couldn’t help but smile.