by Brill Harper
“I don’t think it’s that different. Do you?”
The way he looks at my belly, like he suspects it’s another bomb he might be responsible for, is kind of endearing and a little dorky. “I think it might be different. I think it just might be.”
Mac
One month later
“TELL ME WHY WE ARE watching this show again?” Tiny fucking houses. What is the point of that?
The show goes to commercial, and my only woman friend points the remote at the TV to turn it off. “Because it’s my turn to pick, and I am so tired of basketball. You’re like obsessed with it. I can deal with the constant bouncing, but my God, the squeaky shoes.”
I set my toolbox on the shelf and test the crib I just put together. It’s good and sturdy for Little Bloomer. I’m getting better at doing shit with my left hand these days. “Basketball is a great sport.”
She rolls her eyes and fidgets on the couch, so I join her and pull her legs into my lap and rub her feet while she moans, the sound of it like a steel jaw clenching my balls. She has no idea how sexy I find her little moans. Or pretty much everything she does or says.
After our first dinner together last month, I was worried that I had some kind of pregnancy fetish or something, so I took to the internet to explore the dark secrets of porn and no, God no, I am not perving on the fact that she is pregnant. Thank fuck. The internet can keep some of its dark secrets, pregnancy fetish included. It seems I’m just perving on her. I have a Hillary fetish. Everything about her turns me on.
But we’re just friends, for both our sakes. And it turns out, I like being friends with a woman. Except when she won’t let me watch the game.
Tiny fucking houses.
She shifts again, and I have to be careful to keep her from getting into close personal contact with my junk. I don’t need her to know how she affects me. Her trust is more important to me than the state of my ever-ready dick. Hillary needs me to be strong. So, I’ll be strong.
If it kills me.
“Thank you for putting the crib together. Are you going to tell me how the meeting was?”
“It was like every other meeting.”
The press of her lips tells me what she won’t vocalize. I wish I was one of those guys who could just talk about his shit for no other reason than it will get me back on the force faster, but I get there and close up tight. The only time I feel like the old-me is when I’m with Hillary.
Her breathing changes.
“Why are you so fidgety tonight, Hillz?”
She stares straight ahead at the television, but I don’t think she’s really paying attention. Since it’s off and she’s watching it so intently anyway. “I’m not.”
Okay, then.
I reach for the remote and turn the TV back on. I’m sure there’s a baking show on one of these channels. A commercial comes on for some sexy movie, and she groans and squirms some more. I turn it back off.
“What is going on with you? And don’t say ‘nothing’.”
“Nothing,” she says at the same time I say it.
“Baby, talk to me.”
She sucks in a deep breath. Shit. Baby is probably not the word you call your friends.
“If you must know, it’s your cologne.”
My face wrinkles up. I don’t wear cologne. “Do I stink or something?”
“No. It’s...” She covers her face in her hands. “Hormones. Just turn the TV back on, please.”
“What’s hormones? I am completely lost here.”
“I’m having some problems dealing with my hormones is all. And your cologne is interfering. I don’t know what it is, but it smells like sex and sin and orgasms.”
The air is sucked out of my lungs, and the ground is racing up to greet me like I’m falling out of the sky. Christ. “When you say hormones, do you mean you’re horny?”
“Oh my God. Can we go back to tiny houses now?”
She’s horny, and she thinks I smell like orgasms. My zipper cuts into my dick. I could give her orgasms. It would be my pleasure to give her orgasms. I’d love to make her come all over my hand. My tongue. My dick.
I take a chance that I know her as well as I think I do and can get her out of embarrassment mode and into what I like to call Spitfire Mode. In my most disciplined, authoritative voice, I demand, “Answer me.”
She glares, which is what I wanted. “Yes, I’m horny. Happy? It’s a little easier for you when you get horny, I’m sure. You just go pick a woman and let her smell you all the way back to your bed. But when you’re eight months pregnant and single, it’s a little more difficult. It’s just biology I’m dealing with. It’s not a big deal.”
“You think I just pick a woman and she follows me home?”
She waves her hands. “Well, look at you. You’re all chiseled and scruffy and smell so good. Who could turn you down?”
I’m trying to hold back my laugh, but she’s so damn cute when she’s mad. “Hillz, have you seen me pick up a woman in all the time you’ve lived next door to me?”
“Well, no. But the point is you can get it when you want it, and you have regular, normal biology dictating your needs, not super-amped up hormones that take over your brain and body when you’re least likely to get another person to look at you naked without running the other direction.” I don’t think she’s noticed that I’m still rubbing her feet during her epic tirade. “I have needs, Stryker. And no way to meet them.”
She has needs. My God. It’s been hard enough to keep off her thinking the last thing she wants is sex. Now this beautiful goddess is telling me she needs the D. What’s a guy supposed to do?
“Are you even supposed to have sex—?”
“Not another word. Can we just pretend this conversation never happened? Please? Did I tell you that my tips have doubled this week? I started wearing that apron that says ‘Baby on Board’ and now people are throwing money at me.” She pauses and looks into my eyes, knowing she hasn’t distracted me. “I’m never going to get laid.”
“You got laid pretty good the last time, looks like.”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t. I’m probably going to die a virgin. It’s all so unfair.”
That’s it. “I think you need to explain this to me. I’m no scientist but...”
The shade of pink on her cheeks goes angry red. “Do we have to?”
“Yeah. The whole Virgin Mary thing isn’t ringing true for me.” I haven’t pushed her since she told me she was a virgin in the hall on our first day. As soon as I figured out she doesn’t need any kind of intervention because she doesn’t think she’s carrying the next incarnation of Jesus or anything, anyway.
Her face screws up into the look I see most often when she can’t remember why she walked into a room. Which happens more frequently every day it seems. I checked and it’s a normal pregnancy symptom. As is the crying for no reason sometimes, which worried me at first. “He was drunk. Really drunk.”
“Who was drunk?”
Hillary rubs her pregnant belly. “You’ll think less of me.”
I squeeze her feet. “Baby, just tell me.”
She squeezes her eyes closed. “I was interning at an ad agency in Chicago. My boss was showing me some special interest, and I let it go to my head because I was young and stupid then.” As if seven months ago, she was so much younger. “I didn’t know he was married. He took me to a business conference and we were fooling around in the hotel room and he was so drunk. It was the least sexy night of my life, and he was just rutting against me but never quite made...entry. There was a lot of fumbling and then he slid the condom off and...finished...in the general area. Apparently, sometimes close matters in more than just horseshoes.”
Wait. What the fuck? “You got pregnant from a guy coming on you but not in you,” I repeat to make sure I’m following the story.
I’ll be damned. She really is a pregnant virgin.
“He wasn’t...in the hole. Just next to it. The chances of it happening are
so rare. I have a unicorn uterus or something. If he’d left the condom on, it would have been fine. But he insisted the rubber was what was making it so he couldn’t come. He was such an asshole. Anyway, I guess he decided to just jerk it over me near my vagina, and I just wanted it to be over by that point.”
He came on her pussy, not in it. Fuck. I didn’t really think that could happen.
“When I found out I was pregnant, he didn’t believe me. Said we never had sex. Told me about his wife. And wrote me a check to leave town. So I came home. Got my college summer job back, alienated my parents, and here we are. A pregnant, horny virgin who makes coffee instead of ads for a prestigious firm. Who dropped out of college her senior year. Who is mortifying her best friend.”
I heard a lot in there, but I’m stuck on the last bit. “I’m your best friend?”
“Well, I hope so. I told you more than I’ve told anyone else.”
There’s something wrong with my ribs. They’re too tight and feel wobbly. Unstable. Everything could go wrong with this situation. But she has needs. What if she goes to get them served elsewhere? If I twist this enough in my head, it’s my duty to protect and serve her right? That’s my oath as a cop. Protect and serve. Fuck. I’m not just crossing a line, I’m barreling past it like a racehorse.
“You’re not going to die a virgin.”
“I’ll tell the line of men outside my door.”
That inflames me for a second, rage changing my vision to red. The thought of other men... Down, boy. “You’re not going to die a virgin because I am going to fuck you.”
Chapter Four
Hillary
NOT GOING TO LIE. I just choked on my breath. Mac slaps my back until I push his arm away. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t want a pity fuck, but thanks all the same.” I keep thinking I can’t humiliate myself more with this guy than I already have, but I keep finding new and wonderful ways.
“You need to pay more attention if you think I’m not attracted to you. This isn’t a pity fuck. This is a two friends are horny fuck.”
Right. He’s so attracted to me. Whatever. “We can’t. What if it ruins our friendship?”
“Do you have no faith in me at all?”
Now would be an awesome time to pull the quilt over my head and just die of embarrassment. “Of course I do. You’re a good man. The best man. But this is a lot to ask. Too much.”
His big frame shifts, reminding me of all those glorious muscles. “I’m a guy. Asking me to have sex is not even on the radar of a lot to ask.”
God, he smells so good. I have to shake my head to focus. “I don’t want to change us. I’m not looking for a boyfriend or a baby daddy.”
“Friends with benefits. I get it.”
Can we really do this? No. No way. There is no way I can let him see me naked. It’s hard for me to look at myself naked. “I’m a cow right now. There’s no way you’ll get it up.”
“We can put money down, but you’ll lose. I promise.”
I think back to the grouch I met in the hall a month ago. He’s not exactly the kind of person who lies to make someone feel good. He’s more like Dr. House than Mister Rogers. Dr. House inhabiting He-Man’s body. I’m getting off track because now I’m thinking about a very strange ménage situation with He-Man and Dr. House and myself and it’s not helping with the hormones.
There is a long pause, the space between us this invisible forcefield. Heat surrounds us like a thick, syrupy steam. Who will break through it first? I want it to be him. I want him to say or do something irrevocable so that if this doesn’t work, it won’t be because I misread something. “How much money are we betting?”
He swallows hard. I try not to get mesmerized by the Adam’s apple and fail.
Focus, Hillz.
“I mean, if I’m making a bet with you that you won’t be able to get it up for me, I should know how much money I can add to Bloomer’s college fund.”
His eyes blaze warm fire, and he growls before reining it back in. “Before you break into your piggy bank to pay me when you lose, you should have all the facts.” He reaches down and unzips, pulling out his dick for presentation.
Oh. My. God.
He’s gripping it in his huge hands, and it’s this enormous stalk sticking straight up, his balls and pubic hair still nestled in the opening of his jeans. Liquid beads at the top of his cock, and my core clenches hard around the ache that I should be used to by now. I’m hearing fewer arguments in my head and feeling more zapping in my underwear.
One big hand strokes up and down, spreading the sticky wetness until the whole shaft glistens. I have to squeeze my thighs together as heat pulses between my legs and my eyes lock on his huge, hard cock. My nipples tighten unbearably into aching hard little points.
“Take your clothes off, Hillary. I can guaranfuckingtee I’ll stay hard.”
Not once have I ever tried to be enticing to this man. He sees me in my most comfortable clothes, in my sorriest of mood swings. And right now, he could still hang a flag, a good-sized one, from his dick because he’s hard for me. But my body doesn’t look like me anymore, and I’m so nervous. So shy all of the sudden.
But I am also salivating at the sight of his cock.
Mother Nature is such a bitch.
This is crazy. But it’s not like we can go back from here. He’s got his cock out. We either move forward or we don’t, but we can’t go back to five minutes ago. He stands up and rips his shirt off and throws it to the floor, raising an eyebrow for me to do the same.
I’m stunned by his chest. He’s not model perfect. Not at all. The physique is flawless, but his skin declares the years of using his body to fend off things most of us never think about. I know the stories for some of the scars. The knife from the night in the alley when he was a rookie. The burns. The tattoo is from a drunken escape from reality after he and Ricky responded to a shooting at a school. Mac has got a lifetime written on his skin, and I know I do too now.
Silvery lines that show where I’ve grown.
God. Can I do this?
I pull off my shirt and undo the bra—the very supportive and least sexy bra ever—baring my humongous tits. Hopefully they will distract him from my humongous stomach.
“You’re even prettier than I imagined.”
Well, okay. That’s a pretty good start.
He leans over me, bracketing me between his beefy arms and the back of the couch. “Be sure, Hillary. Be very sure this is what you want. I won’t miss the target like the other guy.”
My breath catches at the reminder of my first failed attempt at sex and I look away, unable to let him see that far into my head. Maybe this is a bad idea.
“Hey.” He cups my jaw gently in that big hand and brings my gaze back to his smoldering one. “We don’t have to do this. But if we do, I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure you get what you need. Do you trust me?”
It’s in his eyes that I find my own courage. He’s so strong, so protective. The power ripples off him and surrounds me and I know I can just let go. Let him take control. Since I met him, he’s allowed me precious pockets of time where I don’t have to always be on guard and responsible. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. “I trust you.”
“I’m going to make this so good for you.”
He steals my breath with a searing kiss. Surprise and delight bubble up in my throat and come out in a needy whimper as I arch toward him. His lips brand me, hot and possessive, as they slide against mine insistently. His hands move down my body, tracing liquid fire under my skin, and he turns us so my back is against the armrest and he’s on top of me. He’s careful, maneuvering around my bump effortlessly, but when he glides against my chest and we’re skin to skin, he growls, sliding his tongue against the seam of my mouth until I open to him.
The kiss is unlike anything I’ve ever known before, transporting me to a new world. It’s like waking up in Oz. My body comes alive,
every nerve ending zapping, every inch of me trying to get closer to him. He’s hot and hard everywhere, crushing against me, yet protective like he cherishes me as much as he wants to ravish me. I’m trapped in the cage of his body, yet I’ve never felt more free. He feeds me his tongue, and I draw him in as much as I can, my heart pounding restlessly as my blood rushes hot under my skin. He’s demanding my total surrender to him, and he has it. I want him to take every part of me. I want to take every part of him. His lips move down my jaw, my neck, and when his hot, wet mouth opens on my breast, my nails score his back.
“Your fucking tits,” he groans into my cleavage.
Yeah, my fucking tits are sensitive and ready for more. But they are not perky like they used to be. Heavier now. A flare of self-consciousness makes the backs of my eyes prickle. I so want to be exactly what he wants and needs. I don’t want to be some kind of consolation.
“You aren’t too sensitive here, are you?” He tongues my nipple, and I shake my head.
“No. It feels good. What you’re doing.”
“That’s good news because I’ve been dreaming about these tits for a while.”
“You have?” Was that needy sounding? I don’t want to sound too needy.
“Baby, you’re gorgeous.”
“They’re big. Even my nipples are too big...”
“You’re kidding me, right? They’re perfect. Your body is lush and womanly, and I’ve fucking jacked off a thousand times while wishing I knew the exact shade these nipples were. You’re better than any fantasy I promise.”
I lean back and let my eyes drift closed while he sucks greedily at me. My pulse is beating deep in my pussy, and I’m wetter than I’ve ever been. My body jerks unexpectedly, and I wheeze in a breath. “Oh God.” He doesn’t stop, thankfully understanding that the crisis I’m having is almost an orgasm. “Oh God.” Just a little more. Just a little...
The cliff is sudden, and the fall fast and sharp. I lose myself and can’t stop the tremors of my limbs or the husky moans that fill the air.
“Hillary, damn. You’re so pretty when you come.”
