by Cora Kenborn
I stepped forward, intent on getting my turn to touch and tease, but my husband had other plans. He escaped my grasp by bending down to remove his socks and shoes and my boots.
Instead of rising to my grabby hands, he lifted one of my legs over his broad shoulder. His large hands gripped my waist, holding me steady so I wouldn’t topple over. I could feel his harsh breaths feather over my wet and ready center, and it sent a shiver up my spine. I was done playing, I wanted him inside me.
Without warning, he stood, eliciting a shriek of surprise from me which he answered with a chuckle. The vibration had my empty pussy clenching in the most frustrating way. Before I knew it, my back was pressed against the mattress once again, and he was licking and suckling at my core through the lace. The contrast of his wet mouth and the abrasive lace had my mind spinning.
“Pope,” I ground out through clenched teeth. I was so close, just a hairsbreadth away from the precipice and the buildup was so strong I was actually afraid of it.
He grasped the sides of the flimsy lace and pulled, tearing them with ease. He discarded the roughened fabric slowly, letting the it drag across the sensitized and swollen skin. I let out a guttural scream, and my legs began to shake. He gave me two long licks with the flat of his tongue before he closed his lips around my clit and sucked, flicking his tongue and sending me flying off the edge. I could hear myself scream, but it was muffled like I was underwater. I was all sensation and instinct as I clawed at his shoulders and my thighs clamped down hard on either side of his head. I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to push him away or keep him close. Nothing made sense, yet everything felt right.
Pope rose to his feet and shed his boxer briefs, all the while grinning at me. “I love watching you come apart,” he growled, repositioning me on the bed. Climbing over me, he closed his mouth over mine. I could taste myself on his tongue when he slid it past my lips, and my breath hitched as I deepened the kiss, taking all of what he would give.
When we finally came up for air, he hitched one of my legs over his hip and pressed into my warm and ready body with ease. He whispered words of love and promises of forever as he rocked into me at a maddeningly slow pace.
“Pope, honey, faster,” I pleaded.
He nipped at my neck before answering. “Why? We have the rest of our lives.”
“Knock, knock, hide the knockers we’re here,” I announced, pushing open the privacy curtain.
Zep sat in the rickety chair in the corner rocking Charlee while my sister looked on from the bed. For the first time in years, she looked at peace.
“Hey,” she said, greeting me with a tired but joyful smile.
I motioned for her to scoot over and took my rightful place beside my sister in the bed. “How ya holding up?” I asked, nudging her with my elbow.
She must have been high on dopamine because she didn’t even glare at me. She just kept staring at Zep holding their little bundle. “We’re good.”
I laughed at her punch-drunk look. If 90s sitcoms were any indication, she wouldn’t be so serene once she got the little nugget home, but I wasn’t going to burst her bubble.
“I brought you a present,” I hedged, and sure enough, that got her attention.
Her eyes glittered with anticipation. “What is it?”
I rolled my eyes. “What do you think?” Lifting my bag to my lap, I dug around inside and pulled out a fifth of vodka with a crumpled bow tied around the neck. “Ta-da!”
Addie blinked at me twice. “Savannah, I can’t drink.”
“Why not? You already squirted out the kid.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I’m breastfeeding, Sav. Unless I want a baby Babs, I can’t drink.”
I wrinkled my nose at the thought, seeing her point. I wasn’t sure the world could take another Babs and survive. “Can’t you just give her a bottle and pump out the eighty-proof boob juice?”
She was shaking her head before I even finished. “I don’t want to risk the chance of nipple confusion.”
The hell?
“What the fuck is nipple confusion?”
It was Addie’s turn to roll her eyes. “It’s when you switch from breast to bottle, and the baby gets confused. She could end up preferring the bottle instead and stop taking my breast at all.”
“Well, if it’s her preference,” I hedged, still gunning for a sisterly drunk fest. My dear sister just glared at me. “Fine.”
“Don’t forget to support her head!” Addie called out suddenly. I turned to see what the hell she was talking about and froze. Pope was cradling the little bundle at the other end of the room and swaying from side to side. His giant frame holding a little human should’ve looked ridiculous, but it didn’t. It looked right.
“Wow,” I breathed.
Addie nudged me with her shoulder. “He looks pretty good wearing a baby.”
I grinned at her. “He does, doesn’t he?”
77
Boob Fruit Blues
Adelaide
New Orleans/Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana
“My head hurts.” I cuddled Charlee close to my chest as Zep and I climbed the steps to the front porch. Each one felt like a climb up the side of Mount Everest with the jackhammering going on inside my skull.
“Serves you right,” he chuckled, pressing his hand against my back and guiding me the rest of the way up. “I told you not to take that third shot of vodka. You haven’t had a drink in eight months. Your alcohol tolerance is probably on the same level as hers.” Giving me a gratuitous smirk, he kissed Charlee’s head before unlocking the front door and ushering us both inside.
I muttered a thank you as he maneuvered me toward the couch. As our daughter wiggled in my arms, I glanced around, feeling as if I’d stepped into someone else’s home. Although I knew it was ours, it felt foreign.
Physically, nothing had changed. The furniture looked the same, and all of my things were neatly put away and shined to perfection. However, the people who walked out that door forty-eight hours ago no longer existed. Our lives had flipped upside down at the hands of a miniature human who defied all rules outlined in any book. There wasn’t a manual for the sounds that came out of that child.
Every book I read ended with a perfect bundle that nursed like a pro and slept like it had an off switch. The mothers floated out of the hospital with birds and woodland creatures following after her because the miracle of birth was just that fucking spectacular.
Not me.
Apparently, Charlee would rather suck on a gas hose than my nipple, she screamed all night as if I were jabbing her with a hot poker, and the only thing that followed me out of the hospital were flies because I was too tired to shower.
I looked like death, and I’d given birth to a pissed off vampire.
Right on cue, the sun went down, and the undead awoke with a banshee wail.
“What do we do with it?” I yelled over her increasingly frantic screams.
Zep slung an arm over the back of the couch. “You mean you don’t know? I was kind of banking on you being the pro here.”
His nonchalant attitude, coupled with my amped up anxiety, sent my blood pressure through the roof. “Zep, I read every pregnancy book known to man. There wasn’t a chapter about your baby being possessed.”
Or was there?
Maybe I glossed over the demonic entity passage.
“Is she hungry?”
“I tried feeding her at the hospital. She won’t eat.” Then an irrational realization hit me, and I threw a hand in the air, my bottom lip starting to quiver. “That’s it. I’m starving her.”
He tried unsuccessfully to hide a laugh and took my chin in his hand, forcing my eyes on him. “Addie, you’re not starving her. Babies aren’t morons. They’ll eat when they’re hungry.”
I wasn’t buying it. “What’s wrong with me? I had this all planned out.”
“I think that’s your problem,” he said softly. “You can’t plan everything when it comes to b
abies. I mean, she ended up being a her, for Christ’s sake.”
His words prompted a new avalanche of tears as I thought of the evil blue room waiting upstairs. “Don’t remind me. I still don’t want to see the nursery.”
He shrugged, running the pad of his thumb across her reddened cheek. “Maybe she’ll be a tomboy.”
Of all the phrases Zep could’ve said to send me into a panic, that was at the top of the list. “Don’t say that!” I screamed. “I cannot have a tomboy little girl. There are dance classes, and pageants, and dresses…lots of dresses, Zep.” I had no idea what the hell I was saying. I just knew that once I accepted the fact that my baby boy was a little girl, my visions of frills and lace couldn’t be altered twice in one lifetime.
“Okay, calm down, baby.” As unbothered as ever, Zep scooped Charlee out of my arms and held her against his chest. For some reason, the constant screaming didn’t seem to bother him. Giving her one of his crooked grins, he leaned down and brushed his beard against her cheek as he whispered in her ear, “You can fish in a dress.”
Placing my palms on the bathroom counter, I leaned forward and braved a second look in the mirror. Unfortunately, it wasn’t any better than the first. I looked like something Kevin scarfed down and threw up.
Twice.
Since maternity clothes were too big and my regular clothes were still too tight, I’d thrown on one of Zep’s old white T-shirts, which made me feel as sexy as a bloated hippo. My normal peachy complexion looked gray and somewhat embalmed. I had so many dark circles under my eyes that it looked like someone had drawn them in with a black Sharpie. My smooth reddish-brown hair was dirty and hung in pathetic little strings around my face.
I didn’t look like Addie. I looked like a corpse pulled from the bottom of a river.
I’d told Zep during Charlee’s birth that she’d be an only child because I’d never go through that again. With me looking like this, I highly doubted it’d even be an issue. There was no way he’d find me attractive again. I’d always been perfect. Now, I wasn’t even human.
One more glance in the mirror did it. Covering my face, I broke down, tears streaming through my fingers. After a few minutes, I had no idea if I was crying because I was ugly, because my baby hated me, or because one boob was the size of a cantaloupe while the other resembled a watermelon.
I wondered if there’s an antidepressant geared toward asymmetrical boob fruit blues.
The more I cried, the louder Charlee cried on the other side of the door. Pretty soon it became a competition between who could scream the loudest, and damn it, this was one thing I was prepared to win.
A knock on the door pulled me out of my pity party. “Addie? You okay in there?”
“Go away.”
I didn’t know why I even bothered. I’d barely gotten the words out when the door swung open, and Zep stood there with his arms braced against the frame. My mouth went dry as I took him in. He’d changed while I had my meltdown and now wore loose black athletic pants slung low on his hips that accentuated his bare chest. My swollen eyes followed every tattoo that decorated his skin from his arms down to his waist, awakening a familiar stirring in my belly.
A cocky smirk curved one side of his mouth as he caught my stare. “See something you like, Dubois?”
It took me three tries to find my voice. “How…how did you get in? I locked the door.”
“No, you didn’t,” he insisted with a condescending chuckle. “You never lock the door when you want me to come in. You know that, and I know that. So instead of arguing about stupid shit, let’s talk about that come fuck me look you got going on.”
Before I could squeak out a protest, he had me pinned against the counter, his palms braced on either side of my ass.
“I don’t have a come fuck me look.”
“That’s a total come fuck me look. I think I know them by now.”
“Even if I do, it doesn’t matter. The doctor said no sex for four weeks.”
“Define sex,” he challenged. “You know, Addie, I may have needed your help to pass English, but I always got A’s when I worked with my hands.”
I was on fire. God, the things he could make me feel with just his words made me so…
“I’m wet.”
“Fuck, Addie,” he groaned. “You’re not making this easy on me.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head in embarrassment as I cupped my hands over my breasts. “I mean, I’m actually wet. I’m leaking.”
“I’m sorry?”
Flinging my arms out to the side, I sighed as the two massive wet spots over my nipples grew in size by the second. “Two things activate milk production. One is a baby’s cry. Guess what the other is?”
Zep’s amused laughter embarrassed me, and when he reached for me, I pushed past him, determined not to waste what was already in use. “Where is she?”
“She’s in a bassinet in our room. She’s fine for a minute.” Stopping me mid-stride, he palmed the back of my neck. “What’s bothering you?”
My lip quivered. “My boobs look like melons.”
“I fail to see the problem here.”
Fucking men.
I sighed, closing my eyes. “My mother was the perfect mother. She knew what to do all the time. Whatever was wrong, she could fix it. I don’t know what to do. I can’t fix her.” Raising my head, I opened my eyes and spoke my biggest fear. “What if I’m a bad mother, and she hates me?”
Zep was quiet for a moment, his pale blue eyes studying me without giving anything away. Just as I was about to crack, he slid his arm around from my neck to my cheek and pulled me into him. “Addie, do you know what I remember most about seeing you for the first time?”
I didn’t know what I expected him to say, but that wasn’t it. “My pigtails? Zep we’ve known each other since we were kids.”
“Okay, that’s disturbing. No, I meant when I really saw you for the first time. When I looked at you and realized how tongue-tied I got around you, and how I forgot where I was or what I was doing when you walked by.” Pursing his lips, he inhaled slowly and pushed us both against the bathroom door while molding himself against me. “Do you know what went through my mind the minute I knew I’d fallen for you?”
I shook my head, barely breathing.
“I remember thinking, ‘This girl is perfect. I’ll never be good enough for her.’”
“Zep, that’s not true.”
He pressed his thumb over my lips, cutting me off. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, Addie. To me, you were perfect. When someone means that much to you, they seem invincible—in my case even unattainable. You feel that way about your mother. I felt that way about you. Charlee will feel that way about you too. How could she not?”
“How do you do that?” I choked out between gasps.
“Do what?”
I ran my shaking hands down his hard chest, letting my fingers trail down each divot and plane. “Always make everything okay.”
Zep winked before placing a reassuring kiss on the top of my head. “Because I’m just that good.”
“And modest too.”
The whole day had left me exhausted, so I didn’t protest as he led me to bed, both of us settling on either side of the small bassinet. Charlee’s screams had reached an all-time high, and I was sure at some point the bitchy neighbor next door would call 911 to report a murder.
“Do you think we’ll ever sleep again,” I sighed, stroking her flailing arms as Zep reached for my hand.
“Yeah,” he mumbled through a yawn. “In about eighteen years.”
“Great. Will you still love me when I look like a leather handbag?”
He grinned, his eyes flashing a wicked gleam that reminded me of the boy I fell in love with. “Depends, will your tits still look like melons?”
I couldn’t help but smack him. He deserved it.
After his hysterical laughter died down, he brushed his knuckles over my face, his expression turning serious. “I want t
o hear it again.”
“Hear what?”
“You know what. You’ve made me wait long enough for it, so I’m putting you on notice. You’re hereby required to say it every half hour until I say otherwise.”
Anyone else would’ve probably gotten offended at his dominance, but I found it endearing. Besides, he was right. “Am I on the clock?” I asked, leaning over the bassinet and brushing my lips against his.
Without breaking our connection, he lifted his phone and set the timer. “Yep.”
My laugh was big. “I love you, Zep LeBlanc.”
His grin was even bigger. “Damn right you do.” Holding up his phone, he tapped the screen. “Twenty-nine minutes till you do again.”
I smiled against his mouth as he deepened our kiss, the soft hairs of his beard tickling my chin and making me feel more at home than I’d ever felt.
“I have no control with you, Addie.” Just as he groaned my name, a high-pitched scream from below broke the moment, reminding us that it didn’t matter if we had control or not.
Charlee had enough for all three of us.
I kissed him one more time and flopped onto my back. “No problem. I’m pretty sure we’ll be fully awake for at least twenty more of them.”
78
Party Crasher
Adelaide
Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana
We’d only been at Babs’ house for half an hour when it happened again. I tried to silence it, but Zep was standing too close the third time my phone buzzed. Taking a long drink from his beer, he raised a questioning eyebrow at me, so I quickly darkened the screen and shoved it in my pocket. His gaze lingered on my ass where I prayed the damn thing stayed silent. Eventually, he shrugged and rejoined his conversation with Pope and Duck.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I scraped my sweaty palms over my face. After a sleepless night of Charlee’s screams and scheduled “I love yous” we were trying to find our party spirit at the dual “Welcome Home Charlee/Wedding Reception” celebration. There was no need to cause an argument, and that was exactly what would happen if he knew who’d been blowing up my phone all morning.
