by Lynn, K. I.
I wouldn’t.
I felt it then, the first barrier as it slipped into place, shielding my heart from that pain again.
There was a strange feeling in the air when I woke up shortly before we arrived deep in the heart of downtown Chicago. Almost as if there was an invisible wall that had been erected between us, dividing the car in two. It hadn’t been there before, and its appearance now was a foreshadowing that made my heart ache.
“Why don’t you go take a nap,” Richard said after we walked in.
“I just woke up.”
He nodded. “What sounds good for dinner?”
I brushed my hair behind my ear, my brow furrowing. I didn’t like the distance in his gaze but what scared me was the physical distance that he placed between us. This wasn’t the same man who dropped in to my office hours ago. What had happened when I was asleep?
“Pasta. Does that work?”
He nodded and walked into the kitchen and the drawer where he stored menu copies. “There’s an Italian restaurant that’s good.”
I watched as he flipped through them, his concentration focused until he found what he was looking for. He handed me the menu before his attention turned to his phone.
I glanced at it. Some ricotta stuffed shells sounded good. Along with a side salad and breadsticks, and some tiramisu for dessert.
“Do you know what you want?” I asked.
He nodded and turned his phone toward me, showing off the online menu. “I’ve already got my order in. What do you want?”
I rattled off my order, knowing I wasn’t going to be able to eat half of it, but pasta always made great leftovers.
“Thirty to forty-five minutes,” he said before moving to the bedroom.
The air was stifled between us and I didn’t understand why. I watched as he changed clothes and admired the way his muscles moved. All the while I yearned for the space between us to disappear.
He barely looked at me as he moved past me. I grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” He pulled me close, but it wasn’t the warm swaddling I was used to. It was stiff, and the kiss to my forehead was mechanical. “I’ll be in my office.”
But things weren’t fine. I practically ate alone, and went to bed alone. When I woke in the middle of the night, the balcony door was open and he was sitting, staring out into the darkness of the lake. The full moon bounced off the glassy surface and in the distance, lights twinkled.
“Hi,” I said as I stepped outside.
He started, his head snapping in my direction as he drew in a breath. “Hi.”
“What are you doing out here?” I moved to stand in front of him, trying not to shiver in the cool air.
His brow furrowed, and he opened up the comforter surrounding him, beckoning me forward. I straddled his hips, my hands resting on his chest, and earned a groan from him before he wrapped the blanket around me.
“You shouldn’t be out here. I don’t want you getting sick.”
I cupped his neck with my hands. “I could say the same thing. How long have you been out here?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
I moved my hands up to his ears and gasped at how cold they were, so I kept my hands in place to help warm them up.
His arms wrapped tighter around me, pulling me closer, and he let out a sigh as he rested his head in the crook of my neck.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“I just…got locked in my head. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. Though I could tell that wasn’t all of it. Something had shaken him, and maybe it was all an internal struggle, but I could tell pressuring him to open up on this one wasn’t going to go well.
Whatever the subject, it was something he had to work out at his own pace. While I didn’t like that, I did feel a little bit better about his behavior, even if I didn’t approve of him brushing me off. I’d give him some slack.
I pulled back to find his eyes in the moonlight. They shone bright blue even in the dim light. His forehead was wrinkled, and I smoothed the lines away. He was so handsome, and every time I looked at him, I was awestruck that he was mine.
“Just don’t forget about me.”
His brow furrowed again, deeper, almost sad. “I could never forget about you. Not ever for the rest of my life.”
My heart skipped and I closed the distance between us, my lips pressing lightly to his. Low in his chest, a hum vibrated. His hands moved down my back to my thighs, running down to my knees and back up to the hem of his T-shirt, which I was wearing.
“I love how tiny you look in my shirt,” he whispered against my lips while his fingers kneaded my ass.
He stretched up to capture my mouth, his tongue brushing against mine. Another moan vibrated in his chest and he pulled me down harder onto his lap, the hard edge of his cock rubbing against my clit.
I drew in a sharp breath, my hips rotating against him. Each twist of my hips had me whimpering into his mouth.
I slid my hands between us, slipping them under the waistband of his sweatpants. He jumped when I wrapped my hand around his hard shaft. He nipped at my neck as I pulled him out. I lifted my hips and pushed my panties to the side.
His eyes locked with mine, lips parted as I sank down on him. It took a couple of tries before I was fully seated.
“Fuck,” he groaned before raising his hips. He held me tighter to his chest as I slowly rose up, then fell back down to meet his thrusts.
It was slow and sensual, and I felt our connection again.
With one hand he held me in place and began to thrust up harder and faster. His lips ghosted my parted ones as we breathed each other in.
Another groan as he buried his head into my neck again, his hand tangled in my hair, pulling my head back as he licked and kissed, little sharp nips of his teeth as the pace picked up.
“Natasha,” he whispered before a strangled sound left him. He slammed his hips up and pulled me down until there was no space between us.
I felt each twitch as he emptied inside me. I rested my head against his shoulder as he came down. Light kisses peppered my cheek and neck.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s okay, just…talk to me.”
He nodded, and when I tried to sit up, he held me to him. “Not yet.”
I reached up and caressed his cheek. “Okay.”
We sat there for a while, so long that I was jostled awake by Richard standing. He held me close as he carried me inside and placed me on the bed, where I promptly fell right back to sleep.
“Dinner is here,” I said. There was no response, so I walked over to Richard’s office and leaned on the door frame as I waited for him to look over from his computer screen.
As much as I loved coming to his house, I wasn’t too happy about only seeing him for a quickie on the deck at two in the morning. Sadly, that was how it had been since we arrived on Friday.
All day Saturday he was locked away in his office while I lounged on the couch and surfed movies on Annex all by myself. Not much different than what I would be doing at home, but I would have preferred to be wrapped up in him while we watched. Just have him near.
Around noon he came up for air and a quick bite, and a promise of just a few more minutes with a quick kiss before disappearing for hours again.
By five, I was going through the menus and getting his opinion before ordering.
“Mr. Bennett, your food is getting cold,” I said after ten minutes of him ignoring my call to come to dinner once it arrived.
“Don’t call me that,” he said coolly.
My spine straightened at his tone. “Excuse me?” The weekend had me at highs and lows, and I was ready to have it out if need be.
His jaw twitched, and he turned to me. “If you call me that again, you’ll set me off and I’ll fuck you into the wall and won’t stop until you’re coming all over my cock again and again, and you won’t be
able to stand when I’m done.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Taking your frustrations out on me won’t help.”
He leaned back into his chair and blew out a breath before running his hands down his face. “I should go down to the gym.”
I shook my head and walked over to him. “You should shut that off and come eat. Spend some time with your girlfriend.”
He leaned forward, his head resting on my small bump. It was one of those moments that I knew no matter what was going on, he needed me. Even if it was just to run my fingers through his hair. A small comfort, but it seemed enough to calm him.
He stood and placed a quick kiss to my lips before taking my hand and pulling me toward the kitchen.
“Come on. My little girl said she’s hungry.”
“Oh, I see how it is. I ask and get threatened with hot, frustration-fueled sex, but when your son asks, you’re out of your chair in a fraction of a second.”
Finally his eyes softened, as did the line of his mouth, and his shoulders relaxed a tiny bit. “It’s my job to keep my girls fed.”
The air cleared a bit more as we ate. He seemed to relax as we worked hard on a deep dish from Gino’s East. I could get them in the freezer section at the grocery store now, but there was nothing that compared to a fresh-made, hot Gino’s pizza.
“So, football was your dream, and sadly that crashed and burned early,” I said in my quest to know more about the man who’d stolen my heart, despite his recent irritable personality.
“Correct.”
I sawed into my piece, practically salivating. Hunger had taken over. It’d been weeks since I’d been this hungry. “And then you went on to get a degree in finance, then an MBA.”
“Yes.”
“Was being a VP of Finance your goal?” I asked.
He shook his head before spearing a piece of pepperoni from my plate with a smirk. I stared at him with what I was certain was “you did not just steal a pregnant woman’s pepperoni” look and got only a cheeky smile in return.
Too bad I couldn’t have a beer. Nothing went better with Chicago-style pizza than a cider ale.
“I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I was good with numbers, it was something that made money, so it seemed logical.”
In retaliation, I stole the remainder of his breadstick. “If you could use your degree for anything, what would you do?”
“I miss football.”
“You can’t use your degree for football.”
That made him chuckle, and he shook his head. “I see these players that came from nothing get offered more money than they could ever dream of, then they get hurt and they’ve blown all their money. Or they are just bad at money and are making millions a season and are broke.”
“Don’t they have advisers?” I asked.
He shook his head. “They get some financial planning help, but not enough, in my mind. Keenan played ten years for the NFL. He was a lower-paid player, but he was with the NFL, and what he got was still millions.”
“Is that how you two met?”
He shook his head as he chewed his bite. “No, we played together in college. He was on the field when I went down, was the first standing over me, calling help over. But when he got signed, I went to him and we put in a plan for him to have a sustainable future outside the game. He was never going to be one of those names everyone knew, and that was fine by him because he was doing what he loved.”
“What did you do to help?” I asked. In the last few months Keenan was the only friend I’d ever heard Richard talk about. And it was a true friendship, not a work one or a casual one.
“Okay, one thing I had him do was invest in Annex.”
My eyes popped open wide. “That’s insider trading.”
He held up his hand. “It would have been, but it was years before Michael came to me. Streaming content was the future, and Keenan agreed. I also had him purchase a fast food franchise. Then when that made money, another one. He owns four stores now that keep him in a steady income that he just plugs into savings.”
“What about his divorce?” That had to have hit hard.
“Thank fuck he listened to me and got a prenup, though he still took a few hits financially. But so many of those guys don’t know the first thing about any of it. Some have money for the first time in their lives and suddenly blow millions on houses and cars and jewelry, then a year later they’re out of the game.”
I hadn’t ever really heard him talk about anything with such conviction before. It was obvious it was a subject close to his heart. And I loved seeing that side of him. The part always buried by the business-minded VP.
“That sounds like something you’re passionate about.”
He gave me a shy smile and looked down at his plate. “It is. I feel like it has value. I loved helping Keenan and seeing him financially stable.”
“Are there companies out there that do stuff like that?”
He nodded. “There is at least one I know of.”
It made me wonder. If he was so passionate about it, what was holding him back from doing it?
“You’ve been married to your job for so long you haven’t even thought about anything outside of it.”
“I do get enjoyment from my job, despite the hours and bullshit I have to put up with.” He chuckled and aimed his fork at another piece of pepperoni, but I managed to stab it, giving him a glare as I thrust my fork into it. A chuckle left him, and I turned to the pieces left in the box. “Annex has grown to be a major competitor in the streaming content market, and I was part of that. The size of the company monetarily has jumped leaps and bounds from where it was a decade ago. I feel proud that I was part of that. I helped a man make his dream come to fruition.”
“What about your dreams?”
His brow scrunched up as he thought about my words. “I’ve been going and going for so long that I’m not sure what my dreams are anymore.”
“That’s sad.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“Oh, you know I’m passionate about numbers. I just want to keep working my way up. Maybe bump you from your position one day.” I gave him a wink, which only made him laugh. “I’ve only been with Annex for five years, but I know it’s grown a ton in that time. We used to only take up one floor, and now we take up three, and we are only one satellite location. Technically Annex is a Chicago company.”
“I guess in a way you can thank me for your job,” he said with a chuckle.
My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“It was my idea to create a financial office in Indianapolis. It was a good-sized city that wasn’t too far away where rent was a hell of a lot cheaper per square foot and cost of living was less, so salaries aren’t as high, but we can still pay well. Plus different taxation.”
It made me curious. What if he hadn’t done that? What if he’d chosen another city? Would that have had a bearing on us meeting? Would I have gone up to Chicago for New Year’s Eve and met him?
How different would my life have been if it wasn’t for him?
I managed to keep him out of his office for the rest of the night, and in the morning neither of us seemed to want to leave the bed. We made love, soft and sweet, and after stayed snuggled in the warmth of each other.
I ran my hand around his torso, loving the feel of his warm skin covering layers of muscle. “How do you manage to keep this with the hours you work and the food you eat?”
He chuckled. “It’s more maintenance than anything. Plus, I work out every day I’m not seeing you, and those days it’s just a different type of workout. And I normally am a healthy eater. Lean proteins, lots of vegetables, whole grains.”
“You can get that delivered?”
“I get most of my food from the meal delivery services, not takeout. So I do get to use my kitchen some.” His fingers attacked my side, making me laugh. “Let’s get some breakfast.”
“Sounds good.”
I rolled over hi
m, then off his side of the bed. I threw my arms up in the air when both feet hit the floor.
“And she sticks the landing!”
He chuckled behind me, and I turned as he threw his legs over the edge of the bed. Isolated against the sheets, I got a good look at his leg, the scars that littered the skin, and the small difference in musculature from one leg to the other.
I kneeled down in front of him and wrapped my hands around his calves. I could feel the difference I’d seen. His once broken leg had never regained the muscle mass of his other leg, but it was only mildly perceptible. I trailed my fingers along his scar, noticing each tiny white dot that indicated where a stitch had been placed, and there were many. He twitched and pulled his leg back and away from me.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Does it hurt?”
His lips pressed against the crown of my head. “No, but the light touch doesn’t feel right. Some of the nerves never connected back together, and it makes it feel like you’re rubbing sandpaper against my skin.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing to be sorry about. You can touch me anywhere, just when you touch me there, be a little more aggressive.”
“Like this?” I asked as I put some pressure into my hand, running it along the scar. He didn’t shy away or flinch.
“Just like that.”
“Weird. So, just light touches?”
He nodded. “Something about it just causes an irritation.”
In all my life I’d never broken a bone, which really was surprising with Carson and Wyatt. The worst injury I could remember was hitting some loose sandy gravel on the edge of the roadway while riding my bike and scraping up my thigh.
By mid-afternoon, we loaded back up in his car and headed home. The drive home was better than the drive down, though it still felt off somehow. Then again, it could have just been my imagination, given his earlier attitude.
“So, I have drawn out telling my parents long enough, and I don’t want to do it alone,” I said about halfway home.
He nodded in understanding. “I’ll take the brunt of it.”
“It’s not that. Just…I want them to meet you anyway. And once they’ve met you, we can tell them about the baby.”
