by Poppet
She giggles with obvious relief. “Thank God.”
Yes, thank you Father!
“When did you find out?”
“Five minutes ago.”
Standing, I flip open my phone, “Well let's make it official. I'll make an appointment for you with Seth, the surgery's resident doctor.”
She stands, pressing herself against me as she entwines slender arms around my neck, “Oh Victor, I love you.”
Holding her against me, my arousal is obvious as I press it into her abdomen, “Look what you did. A ring and a baby, I'm hot for you.”
She slides down me gracefully, unzipping me as Seth answers his phone. She takes me into her mouth as I tell my brother, “I need to book an ultrasound scan with you.”
Closing my eyes against her holding her ring above my penis, I suppress a moan while my brother asks surreptitiously, “Is she pregnant?”
Breathlessly, I confirm, “Yes.” Disconnecting the call, I drop the phone on the chair behind her, entwining my fingers into her hair.
~ Chapter 40 ~
You become the person you photograph.
You love that person as you love yourself.
~ Anonymous
Shauna:
With huge trepidation and curiosity, I walk into the modern glass building in Main Road with Victor. Staring at the large lettering behind the reception desk which reads Ward & Ward. I've recently discovered that the slope of mountain above Rondebosch, is called Devil's Peak. It's also the home of the University of Cape Town. No wonder Vengeance found me living here. And how lucky am I that Victor lives and works here. It's destiny.
Holding my hand he leads me through the reception to doors, which say 'Personnel Only'. “Morning Debbie.”
A severe looking woman nods at him from behind the long desk hiding her. Her platinum blond hair coiled into a tight bun. “Good morning Doctor Ward.”
Lordy, now it feels so official. I give her a half smile as she examines me with narrowed grey eyes.
He takes me down a long white passage, sterile in polished white tiles. His footsteps are silent, whereas mine click noisily. He opens another door, where an examination table waits, with a bunch of machinery. The window is letting in bright mid-morning sunshine through vertical white blinds.
A man walks in, smiling in a friendly manner, with a stethoscope hooked around his neck. He's wearing a lab coat and a light blue shirt. He smiles directly at me as he extends a hand, “Good morning Shauna. I'm Doctor Ward junior.”
Victor's laugh is easy as he slaps the man on the shoulder, “Seth, meet Shauna. Shauna, this is my younger brother Seth.”
Oh god! He's seriously not going to let his bloody brother give me a gynaecological examination, is he?
“Hi.” I shake his hand with my innards trying to strangle the dignity out of me.
Officially he leads me to the gurney type bed. “Just have a lie down here and lift your shirt up above your stomach.”
I stare at Victor helplessly when he steps closer, nodding, helping me and then holding my hand, observing Seth with a stern expression. Seth picks up a microphone-looking gadget and a tube. Oh Jesus have mercy. If he sticks that thing in me I'm going to scream blue murder.
“This is going to be cold,” he warns me.
I just can't handle this. Squeezing my eyes tightly shut, his warm hands pull my elasticised skirt down further. My eyes pop open and plead silently at Victor to save me! My lungs contract in shock as cold gel is splodged out in a goopy heap on my abdomen. Oh thank God! He's using the microphone looking thing to spread it around while staring intently at the screen hidden from my view.
Victor releases my hand to stand behind his brother, both of them staring intently at the box in front of them. They both look at me in unison and smile. Seth stands up, placing the gadget in a holder, and wiping paper towel over me to clean off the cold gel. He stands over me with his stethoscope, and tells me, “Just breathe in, deeply and slowly.”
The ice cold metal is placed in random order on my skin. Unclipping it from his ears he smiles at me. Pulling my skirt up and my shirt down, he nods at Victor.
Victor informs me, “Seth isn't going to examine you internally, but it's official angel. We're pregnant.” His smile could power an island.
I smile, sort of pleased. I'm still wrapping my head around this life changing development. I know he's far more excited about it than I am.
Seth gives my shoulder a squeeze, “We've all heard so much about you. And I believe you're going to be marrying this degenerate?” He shoots a grin at Victor.
“Yes.” I smile awkwardly. I mean come on, until ten minutes ago I didn't even know Victor had family living in South Africa. Why haven't I ever met 'the family'.
Much to my horror, Seth leans over and plants a kiss on my mouth, “Welcome to the family.”
I stare at him, frozen. Taking in his hazel brown eyes, lighter brown hair, but now that I'm looking, same height and similar build. Yes, I can see they're brothers. “Thanks.” I can still smell his aftershave. It's fabulous!
My head spins as he unwraps a clean needle and syringe, “We're taking some blood to tell you how many weeks along you are. We'll have the results in about three hours.”
I nod, looking away as the blood drains from my brain into my knees. Victor appears in my vision blocking my view of the window, kissing my forehead, “Shauna, I love you.”
Feeling shaky, I whisper, “I know.”
“There you go. All done. That wasn't so bad, was it?”
Smiling bravely at Seth I manage a nod, “Not at all, it ranks right up there with bungee jumping.” Deep male baritones fill the suddenly claustrophobic room with laughter.
“I see why you like her.” He pats my hand, “Aside from the obviously good gene pool.”
My smile is still frozen as I return Seth's smile, as he keeps speaking to me, “You're lovely to look at, Shauna. I'm glad my brother was forced to finally introduce us. I think I understand now why he wanted to make sure it was official. I've stolen a few of his catches in the past.”
They share a brotherly laugh. The warmth feels natural. They have a special bond. Is that why I have never heard of you? Is Victor secretly afraid you'll charm me away from him?
Seth hooks my hair behind my ear with creepy familiarity, “Nice earrings.”
The only earrings I have in come from Vengeance. After the confrontation, I've been too insecure to remove them. Forcing a polite smile, I mumble, “Thanks.”
Seriously feeling anxious, I look nervously at Victor when he drives straight past Mariner's Wharf into industrial scariness. There's nothing here. We're staring at the disgusting backs of factories and their spill of clutter. Metal and tall diamond mesh fences.
“Where are we going?”
“Trust me. It's the best secret.”
Hysteria churns me, I'm trying to remain calm but I can hear the raised octave of my voice, “There's nothing here.”
He glances at me, one hand casually on the wheel, driving with two fingers; a teasing smile lifts the corners of his mouth. It's odd how he can scare me and thrill me in the same moment. There's no denying that I'm dangerously attracted to him. It's the kind of attraction that sees me leaving my dignity and morals at the door. He's been so supportive, so happy, more relaxed than ever. Rubbing a hand over my thigh, he squeezes it slightly while my focus watches his sensual lower lip move, suggestively framed with a centimetre of stubble. That stubble does very bad things to me.
“Relax angel, it's not a surprise if I tell you.”
I can't shake the fear. I have no reason to fear him. Is it because he murdered for me? Swallowing the dry lump in my mouth, the reality finally hits me. Victor murdered for me. I turned a respectable doctor into a killer. I've fucked up his life with the Shauna curse. He must seriously, deeply love me, because he's proposed, is ecstatic I'm carrying his child, and murdered my demon with his bare hands to protect me. Hot prickles sting my eyes as I watch him. Th
e realisation steals my breath, my entire body stalls as if imploding silently. Stuck in a vacuum of sheer emotion. No longer watching where we're going, even though I hear gravel under the tyres.
We slow and stop, he's staring at me with worry. I love his wrinkles. They make him suave and somehow sophisticated. Yet they make his face seem gentle too. He could easily be like those vain men that have work done, especially as he's in that profession, instead he's authentic. He's the most genuine and precious thing to ever happen to me.
“Shauna, baby?” Releasing his seat-belt, he turns to me, cupping my face, but I can't quell the tears. Hotly they roll, blurring him briefly. “Look, it's nothing sinister. We're here.”
Shaking my head I don't look, staring in broken devotion at my future husband. “I love you.” It comes out hardly more than a whisper.
“I know, angel. I know. Shhh, come here.” He releases my seat-belt, pulling me into his chest, kissing my eyes closed. “It's all been too much for you, hasn't it? And now you have erratic hormones playing an opera with your body.”
Nodding, I bury my face into his stubbly neck. I love the abrasive loving sandpaper of him against my cheek. He smells good too. Relishing the haven he's become.
“I didn't mean to scare you, honey.”
Pulling back, I stare into his eyes. They're like smoky oak matured liqueur. The light from outside illuminates them just enough to show the chestnut highlights next to his pupils. These are the eyes that gaze on me with unconditional love. I've pulled him into my hell, he did not flinch, he did not run. He stood firm, enabling me, empowering me, loving me. Saving me.
Softly I hold his face in my hands, licking the tears off my lips before pressing them gently against his. Some people have hard lips, that don't yield when you kiss them. Ours seem to melt together, warm, soft, fusing together in affection. I can feel him smiling. When I break the contact to stare into his soul again, he asks, “What is it?”
“You've done so much for me. I don't deserve you. You've been my super-hero, my rock, and somehow, despite everything, you've managed to love me.”
“From the darkness into the light. You're my angel, you deserve all of it baby.”
Shaking my head I reject his perspective, “I'm not an angel, but you've treated me like one.”
He smiles, kissing me as if it's a punctuation, “Come, let's get lunch and go and sit on the rocks.”
I stare out of the windscreen at a tiny shack of a place. This place is so dodgy it's enough to make me paranoid for my safety, “You go. I'll wait here.”
He nods, pausing to kiss me with undeniable passion, before stepping out of the car and walking into the shack. Appreciating the view of him, I watch him walk away. He has a silent resilience hidden by self-assured confidence. I can't believe how I've argued with him. I've fought with him over Vengeance. Over my memories. When all he did was try to help, to be there for me. How did I get this fortunate? I'm so afraid, living in fear for so long, a part of me still fears this will all end.
If my parents couldn't love me, how can he? I was born into hell, and I've simply descended through the many levels of it with age. Maturity simply brings new lows, new pain, different degrees and shades of silent anguish. Sometimes the pain of being alone, rejected, struggling, it's been agony. My life has been endless agony. Vengeance was the manifestation into the physical of what I experienced silently inside myself.
Victor comes striding up to the car, opening my door and offering me his hand, “Come.”
I won't ruin this for him. He wants to show me something. Plastering a smile on my face, I catch the tears before they fall. I feel humbled. That's what it is – he humbles me.
Carefully we pick our way over huge light grey boulders that line the shore behind the shack. Sitting with me close beside him, he hands me a wrapped, blistering hot package. “Eat.”
I unwrap batter-covered, deep fried hake with good old fashioned chips. This reminds me so much of home, it gives me a new level of ache in my chest.
“Despite the shoddy appearance, that shack makes the best fish in Cape Town.”
My eyes are veiled now by sunglasses, so instead I squeeze his hand, kidnapping it and kissing his palm, “Your love humbles me.”
His smile dissolves as he stares at me from behind his own sunglasses, his face seems so serious. Suddenly gripping my hair and yanking my head urgently to his face. Off balance I grip his knees for support as his now gruff voice speaks intimately into my ear, “You have no idea how those words turn me inside out for you.”
A quivering ripples up my spine. His tone, it's so much like Vengeance. I know it's just emotion but for a split second, I was back in the blindfold. Tears burst out in fright.
He laughs, smiling at me, holding my head now by pressing the same fingers into my scalp, his mouth smothers mine, his kiss is brutally invasive. My logic shoves back at me as it dawns that his attraction to me is this deep, it's this basic.
We connect on a primal level, I can feel it in his kiss. I can sense the unspoken desire to throw our lunch up into the air to the waiting gulls hovering a mere meter away from us, gliding on the warm breeze, making a ruckus, he'd throw it away and screw my brains into the boulder I'm sitting on. He would, if society allowed it. It shakes my core, strength deserts me as his hot breath somehow sucks the air out of me.
I must be hormonal. I'm over-feeling everything. The kiss ends, a perfunctory gentle peck is planted on my throbbing lips as he releases my head, smiling delectably. He has natural charisma and charm. He could have anyone, but he chose me.
“Now eat. Fish helps the baby develop cerebrally.”
Laughing I sit properly, the sun baptising me with a warm glow of happiness. The ice-age in my heart has ended. I finally trust him. I know he loves me. Now I know, I really, deeply, love him.
First I nibble it. Then the morsel informs my brain that he's certainly not a liar. It's absolutely yummilicious! He glances at me with a light-hearted smile which causes my heart to ache again with ecstatic joy. He throws a chip into the air and three gulls aim for it. One of them catches it, happily flying away. A laugh bubbles up, as I try, thrilled with wonder as mine too is rescued mid-air. I have never been this happy, ever.
Hout Bay is a beautiful location where the crème de la crème live. The last thing you'd expect to find here is a shack, ugly buildings, huge boulders, all keeping such a delicious secret. I feel like I've become a member of the Illuminati. Finally I have access to the secrets.
A reassuring hand caresses between my shoulders as he smiles, watching me throw more than half my lunch into the air, where it never hits the ground.
Turning to him after lunch, I give him the greasiest kiss I've ever had the luck to plant on his sexy lips, “Thank you.”
Arms wrap around me, lifting me to his level. I feel like one of those sickly sweet commercials for Viagra. Or incontinence tablets. I'm blinded with pure romance, for the first time in my life. Perfection has a name, Victor.
~ Chapter 41 ~
The camera can be the most deadly weapon since the assassin's bullet. Or it can be the lotion of the heart.
~Norman Parkinson
Shauna:
Last night was fabulous, so the way Victor is briskly moving about worries me. Propping myself up on an elbow, I watch him taking clothes out of the closet and putting them into bags.
“What's going on?” I ask sleepily.
“We're getting away for a few weeks.”
“Why?”
Stopping, he walks over to me, sitting down and putting an arm either side of my hips, leaning in and kissing me slowly. Sucking my lip delectably. “Angel, I love you. I want this baby to get the best start in life. You need time to sort your feelings and your head out, so we're taking a mini vacation.”
His thoughtfulness steals my lethargy. Instantly excited, I squirm to sit up. “We are? Where?”
“It's a surprise.”
Shooting me a wink, he grins cutely as if he's hi
ding a huge secret, “Get dressed, brush your teeth, we're running away from Vengeance and responsibility.”
Scooting out of bed, I have that five year old Christmas morning feeling. Giggling with excitement, I dash to do his bidding.
Driving us out to Hout Bay, my heart is singing celestial harmonies. I'm in love with a man who can do anything, whenever he wants to. Half excited and mostly flattered, again I'm reminded of how much my life is about to change. Glancing at the ring on my finger, a thrill skims through my nervous system. My life just got better. I've just become the luckiest girl on the planet.
The hand squeezing my leg draws my attention to him, suave and gorgeous in black, his heart-throb features partially hidden behind dark sunglasses. “Are you happy angel?”
Nodding enthusiastically, my heart pumps out an award winning smile, “Yes. Very.”
He parks the car on the edge of the bay, confusing me. Getting out of the car, he unpacks the bags, and walks to the rocks, calling to someone. A gruff, mean looking man appears out of nowhere, taking the car key from Victor, nodding as he gets instructions.
Concerned, I get out of the car, fear crawling my nape like a tarantula looking for an entry point to poison me. Victor smiles, waving me over as the bulky man starts taking our bags, throwing them out of my line of sight. Skirting the other man, I rush down to Victor, where I spy a speed boat waiting for us.
“Isn't she beautiful? That my angel, is a XSMG XSR48.” Holding my hand he steps off the rock onto it, helping me jump, then he leads me down into the interior with a warm firm hand supporting me. It's like being inside a space ship. It's absolutely fabulous.
He waves off the other man, while a new man packs the bags away. Victor's solid strength presses against my back, lining my spine with silent support, holding me against him before seating me in a lavish angular-lined seat. It's like a futuristic hotel in here.
