All that would be left as a reminder of him would be the baby. While that was a monumental reminder, we had already talked about it. Ashley had already stopped thinking of the baby as being a part of Marshall. It was just hers, and that was all that mattered.
I brought her out front and introduced her to everybody. They welcomed her with warmth and acceptance just like they had for me. I could see how much it meant to her as her smile grew wider and a faint sheen of happy tears came to her eyes.
When she was done meeting everybody, we went back into the kitchen together. She wiped her cheeks and turned to hug me.
“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have you introduce me to your family. And to have them accept me like that.”
My heart swelled at her description of them as my family. I loved that she could see the bond so strongly already.
“They are amazing people,” I said. “And completely genuine. None of that was fake or put on as a show to be polite. That’s how they actually are. But I do have to warn you about something.”
Ashley braced herself like she was getting ready for terrible news. “What?”
“Now that they’ve met you and welcomed you into the fold, you’re going to be expected to come to all the activities and events. That includes family dinners and picnics at the compound,” I said. “You might even have to come to a race.”
She grinned, her shoulders relaxing as she realized that was the warning. “I think I can deal with that. It might be a struggle, but if I have to face hanging out with awesome people and eating really good food, it’s just a sacrifice I’m going to have to make.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I knew you’d fit in around here.”
The crowd at the bar started to pick, so both of us had to concentrate on work again. The next couple of hours went by quickly. I’d thought being in the scrub position was hard work but switching over to cooking was a completely different animal.
The shift in challenges and responsibilities was a lot, but I had an absolute blast doing it. It made time go by quickly, and by the end of the night, I was, as always, completely exhausted, but surprised my shift was already over.
That night, the end came even sooner than I expected. The Freeman family and everyone who had come along with them stayed well into the night, and when the last of them, including Greg, decided it was time to leave, Lindsey came over to me and nodded toward the door.
“Get out of here,” she said.
“What?” I asked.
“Go on home,” she said. “Get some rest. Remember we talked about you having new hours now. Well, that starts tonight. Clock out and go home.”
I hugged her and rushed to clock out. When I got back out front, Greg greeted me with a hug and a kiss. We walked out to the parking lot, and I saw he had brought his bike.
“Give me a ride home?” I asked.
“Seriously?”
“Have you forgotten the bikes you used to build when we were kids?” I asked. “You always gave me rides on them. I miss that.”
“Are you sure that’s safe for the baby?” he asked.
I nodded. “As long as I’m not doing it when I’m eight months pregnant, yes. This one time won’t hurt either of us.”
He finally relented, and I climbed onto the back of his bike with him. As we rode home, I thought about how much my life had changed. Lindsey bringing up the shift in my hours reminded me just how far I had come. The bar was transitioning over to having a full lunch service and dinner service followed by a late-night menu that went into action at ten each night, switching over to simple finger foods.
This meant rather than working the latest hours, I would be working at the end of the lunch shift and into the dinner shift. Being able to leave at ten at the very latest meant I would get home in time to see Greg every night. It mirrored how I felt I was changing and growing in life. Coming up from the bottom and building the life I wanted. The life that felt so incredible to have finally achieved.
Being wrapped around him and feeling the strength of the machine beneath me revved me up. By the time we got home, I only had one thing on my mind. I completely forgot about the envelope in my pocket in my rush to tackle Greg and drag him off into the bedroom with me. Just the thought of being able to do this every night was enough to make me almost insatiable.
38
Greg
Morning came earlier on Tuesday than it usually did. There was a race that evening, and it was a long haul, so we had to leave early. I told Maya she didn’t have to get up with me, but she said she wanted some time with me before I would be gone for another couple of days.
I hated that idea, but I felt like it was a good thing that we were getting used to it now. Neither one of us had the energy to make a huge breakfast like we usually had, so we settled for warming up some of the baked goods she had made a couple of days earlier and stored in the freezer. She was sipping a cup of her decaf coffee when her eyes suddenly widened.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Did something happen?”
“No,” she said. “It’s okay. I just remembered that Minnie gave me that envelope last night.”
“What envelope?”
“When you went off with the guys, I was talking to everybody. I got to her and she gave me a big hug, welcomed me to the family, and handed me an envelope. I had no idea what it was, so I just put it in my pocket. It felt weird opening it in front of everybody else.”
Maya wiggled a little bit like an uncomfortable feeling was going down her spine. “I put it in my pocket and completely forgot about it. I wonder what it is.”
“Why don’t you get it? We can open up before I leave for the race if you want to.”
She nodded and rushed off into the bedroom. A few seconds later, she came back with a plain envelope in her hands. It looked fairly thick like there were several documents in it. She sat back down and flipped the envelope over in her hands a couple of times. Larger than a standard-sized envelope, it didn’t appear to have any logos or indication of what might be inside.
“It doesn’t say anything on it,” she said.
Slipping her finger under the edge of the seal, Maya inched the envelope open. Once it was open, she reached her fingers in and pulled out the first folded stack of papers. She unfolded them, and I watched her eyes scan over the documents before she handed them over to me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Insurance information,” she said. “They put me on your policy.”
“Oh, good,” I said. “I’d ask them to do that.”
“You did?” she asked. “When?”
“When you were feeling so sick and worried about going to the doctor. You mentioned you didn’t have any insurance. At the time, I had no idea what was going on. But I wanted to make sure you could get the medical care you need at any point, for any reason. So, I asked Minnie if she could figure out how to add you to my policy through them.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Maya said. “That’s so sweet.”
“I just want to take care of you,” I said. “In any way that I can. And it might not be the most romantic gesture in the world, but I hated the idea of you not getting care or suffering needlessly just because you didn’t want to go and face a high bill. Actually, now that I say it out loud, that is actually the least romantic gesture I could ever make for you.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “You’re taking care of me. Us.”
She ran her hand over her belly, and my heart warmed. I put my hand over hers, and we took just a moment to savor the feeling of being the three of us.
“What else is in there?” I asked a few seconds later.
She reached into the envelope again and pulled out another stack of papers. This time when she opened it, her mouth fell open and her eyes widened.
“I can’t believe they did this,” she said.
“Did what?” I asked. “What is it?”
She handed
the papers to me. “It’s stock papers. They gave us stocks for the baby.”
Suddenly, her face crumbled, and she burst into tears. I wrapped my arms around her and held her while she cried. I was still trying to get used to the waves of emotion that came with her pregnancy, but I was willing to be there by her side through any of it.
I hated that I had to leave. I didn’t want to be away from her, and I especially didn’t want her to be alone when she was so emotional.
“Promise me you will keep in touch with Lindsey and Ashley until I get home,” I said.
Maya pulled away from me and nodded, wiping tears from under her eyes. “I’m supposed to have dinner with them at the bar tonight. I guess it doesn’t really count, since we’ll all be working. But tomorrow, Ashley and I are going to get together before work to shop for a couple of things for her new apartment.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’ll miss you so much.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
I had already used up all the time I had that morning, and I had to rush to get ready and leave. I kissed her at the door and promised to call her that night.
The race was nothing short of uneventful. My competitors were having a great run, and I didn’t even end up in the top five. Darren placed third, which was incredibly low for him. It was still in the top three, and he handled it well, but there was definitely a dampened feeling over us as we rode back to the hotel from the track.
As I sat there in the bus contemplating the race, I started thinking about my future. Maybe with a baby coming I should think about retiring and moving toward a safer position with the company. I had already gotten severely hurt once racing. There was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again, and maybe the next time it would be worse.
I thought about Maya riding with me back to the apartment from the bar. She was clinging to me securely, and we weren’t going all that fast, but I was terrified every second. I didn’t tell her. She was so excited to ride with me again, and I didn’t want to take that away from her. But the whole time, I was worried about what could happen to her and to the baby.
If I was thinking about that, I needed to be thinking about the risk I was putting on myself every time I got on a bike. Especially when I was racing. I resolved to talk to Maya about it when I called her to say good night from the hotel. If I was really serious about this, I needed to tell her and get her input about it. These were decisions we needed to be making together. And there were far more of them to make as well. Our future was coming fast, and we needed to figure out what it was going to look like.
Though I never had a chance. As soon as I heard her voice, my body reacted, and things turned hot fast.
“I thought about you all day,” Maya said, and something in her tone suggested the thoughts were more than just missing me.
“I thought about you, too. Especially now that I am all alone in this hotel.”
“Oh no,” she said in an exaggerated mock empathy. “You don’t have me there to warm up the bed for you.”
“Well, to be fair, we warm up the bed together.”
There was a giggle on the other end of the line, and I smiled.
“I was actually thinking about warming up the bed quite a lot at work,” she said, a lilt in her voice. My cock twitched in the loose pajamas, and I ran my palm over it.
“Oh really,” I said. “I thought you were more professional than that.”
“I just couldn’t help myself,” she said, the smile evident in her voice. “My mind just kept wandering to how much I wanted to strip you down.”
“That’s interesting, because stripping you down is what is going through my mind right now.”
There was a pause and a rustling on the other end of the line, and then when she spoke again, her voice was a conspiratorial whisper.
“I’m naked right now,” she said. “I’m on my side of the bed, and I can just imagine you here beside me.”
I closed my eyes and imagined her soft, gorgeous body under our sheets, her fingers sliding between her thighs as she spoke to me. Quickly, I unbuttoned the single button on the crotch of my pajamas. I pulled my thick cock out and began to stroke it.
“Are you touching yourself?” I said.
“Yes,” she said, her voice breathy. “Are you?”
“Yes. Now, tell me what you imagined us doing while you were at work.”
“Well, it started with me not wearing panties and you bending me over the prep station,” she began.
39
Maya
Greg had told me he didn’t know when he would be getting back home from the race on Wednesday night, so as soon as I got home from work, I took a shower to relax the tension in my shoulder muscles, then crawled into bed. I had every intention of reading a few chapters of the new book I had started. After all, it was still several hours before when I was used to going to sleep.
But my hard work and the baby growing in my belly had other plans for me. By the time I got through the first chapter, my eyes were heavy, and I was drifting off to sleep. I closed the book and put it aside, turned off the lights, and quickly drifted off into sleep.
Greg showed up at some point a little bit later. I barely felt the bed move when he slid in next to me. I was just awake enough to snuggle up to his side and sigh happily. It felt better knowing he was home. The next thing I was aware of was waking up with morning light slanting through the window and illuminating Greg’s face.
He was sitting up in bed, staring down at me. The baby seemed to have started a furnace inside me, and I was always hot, so I went to bed wearing nothing. Greg’s eyes were locked firmly on my naked stomach, and his expression was pensive and slightly strained. I was still tired and really should have gotten more sleep, but his expression was so serious I knew we needed to talk.
I got out of bed and freshened up a bit, put on some clothes, and climbed back in beside him. He had thrown on some cotton lounge pants and a shirt. As much as I liked to look at him with as little clothes on as possible, this situation felt like it warranted clothing.
“I think you already know we have a lot to talk about,” he said.
“Yes. We definitely do. What do you want to start with?”
He looked around, like he was taking in the entire apartment. “How about this place?”
“You know how much I love this apartment,” I said. “But I think a lot of that comes from you taking care of me when I was so broken. As much as I don’t want to leave those memories, I think you’re right. This isn’t the right place to raise a baby.”
“It’s not,” he said. “And I want something that’s ours. Like you just said, this apartment is mine. I picked it out, and I decorated it. I chose its features for what works for me. I want us to find a place that’s perfect for us together, and for our little family.”
“So, we’re moving,” I said.
He nodded. “Sounds like it.”
“Wow. That’s so grown-up.”
He laughed. “It is. Now, how about you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You don’t really need to work at the bar anymore,” he said. “I have more than enough money to take care of us. If you want to stop working, you can.”
I immediately shook my head. “No. I’m not quitting. Especially not now that I finally got a job I love. Maybe that’ll change sometime in the future, especially after the baby’s born, but for now, I’m staying exactly where I am.”
“That sounds fine,” Greg said. “But what if I don’t want to stay where I am?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean?”
“After the race last night, I got to thinking about my future. About our future. I think maybe it’s time for me to consider retiring. Or at least limiting my races. I don’t want to even think about getting hurt or worse now that we have a baby coming. I’m thinking about talking to Gus and Quentin and seeing if there’s another place for me on the team,” he said.
I was struck by
that. “You would be willing to do that?”
“Absolutely. I would do anything for you and the baby. I don’t want to take that much of a risk when I don’t have to. What do you think?” he asked.
“It would definitely make me feel so much better if you weren’t racing so much. I worry about you every single time you get out on the track. If there was another position for you, and you would be happy doing it, I think that would be the best choice.”
“Speaking of choices,” he said, and I laughed at his transitions. “What about us getting married?”
My eyes widened. “Are you proposing? Like this?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not proposing. I’m just asking how you feel about it.”
“Honestly? I don’t want to get married just yet. I’m as surprised by that as you are by the look on your face, but I just don’t feel the need for us to rush. You are my future, Greg. I have absolutely no doubt about that. So, I don’t think we need to hurry through anything. I’m really happy with where we are right now, and I want to enjoy every stage of our relationship. How do you feel about that?” I asked.
“I know without a doubt that you’re the only woman for me. I will spend the rest of my life with you. And we will get there whenever we get there,” Greg said.
That brought a smile to my lips and a tingle to my stomach.
“So, why don’t I show you just how good of a place we’re in before you have to go to work?”
His fingers had been tracing up and down my lower chest and upper stomach while we talked, and I reached over, taking his hand and placing it on my breast. I slipped the shirt off and wiggled out of the pants quickly as he massaged it for a moment and my nipple hardened under his touch. I let out a breath as he dipped his head down to take my other breast into his mouth and swirl his tongue around the sensitive, taut nipple. My hips squirmed, and my core burned with anticipation as he slowly moved his kisses up my chest to meet with my lips.
Rolling over onto his back, he pulled me with him, and I laughed at the sudden weightlessness. When he was settled, I let my legs fall on either side of him and dipped down my head to kiss him again, this time our tongues sliding into each other’s mouths for a taste. I felt his hands slide down my sides to my hips, and I rolled them in response. His thin pajama pants were the only thing separating him from my body, and I longed to take them off him. His hands made their way to my ass and squeezed tightly, and his cock twitched under me. It pressed against my clit through the silk pajamas, and I moaned, rubbing my core down the shaft.
The Freeman Brothers: A Secret Baby Romance Collection Page 105
