by Jamie Knight
“Yeah, she did, but—”
I wanted to say that nothing came of it. That definitely wasn’t true. At least the pregnancy came of it.
“But…” Aiden sucked in his lower lip and shook his head. He looked into the dull New York sun. “But I wish you’d give us a second chance. I know I was a jerk that day you called—”
“Aiden.” I put my hands on my enlarged stomach again. “I’m pregnant. I’m really pregnant.”
“I am still not getting this.” Aiden didn’t seem to have caught the significance of where I was holding my hands. He didn’t know that I was showing him the very pregnancy I was talking about. “So, you wanted to know if I wanted kids…”
“Because I’m pregnant, yes.”
I tried to sound as not-impatient as possible.
“So, you’re pregnant? Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. I’ve always wanted to have a baby.” I patted my round pregnant belly again.
“Oh my God!” Aiden stared at my pregnant belly.
“Yeah, first time seeing a pregnancy, Aiden?”
“No. But. You. I had no idea. You’re pregnant. You’re really pregnant.” He shook his head. He smiled, or smirked, or just opened his mouth in incomprehension.
“I’m really pregnant, Aiden.”
“For real, you’re pregnant?”
“For real, I’m pregnant.”
“Wow.”
“There’s more, Aiden. The other thing—”
“Twins?” he asked, mouth wide open. Anything would’ve been possible in Aiden’s world now that he found out that I really, seriously was pregnant.
“No. I don’t think so. But the other thing I’m talking about is — you’re the father of my baby.”
“Oh my God. But we only—”
“We only what?”
“Well, we only did it just that once. On the sofa. The library sofa.”
“I don’t know what you were doing during sex ed, but once is all it takes.”
“So, I’m a father?”
Aiden’s undeveloped grimace-frown was definitely loosening into a smile. He was even showing his brilliant white teeth.
“If you want to be,” I said with a timid smile. “I mean, biologically, you’re definitely a father. As far as raising a child — I can’t make you. But I’d love to have you join me in the endeavor. I sound like a librarian, don’t I?”
“You do.” Aiden crouched up from the ground and walked to my cot. “And I do. I definitely do.”
He put his lips to mine. He smelled of smoke and chemical fumes and sweat, but it was the best smell and the best kiss I could imagine. His lips enveloped my lips, and Aiden’s full tongue entered my mouth.
I withdrew from him slightly. I stared into his brown eyes. “Aiden — you’ll, you’ll be with me to raise the baby?”
“I will. I definitely will help you raise him.” Aiden held me closely.
“Him or her,” I said with a smile.
“Yeah, him or her. So, you’re quitting your job for the pregnancy, right?”
“I think now’s a good time, after the fire. I guess I’ll go home and sleep, then email them my resignation.”
“I don’t think you should go home alone after what you’ve been through today. I mean, you still live alone, right?”
“Well. With the baby inside me.” I patted my pregnant belly. “Other than that, yeah, I still live alone.”
“Do you want to stay at my place? I mean, while you’re pregnant especially. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I don’t want to impose.”
“How can that be imposing? I love you.”
“Wow. I never even expected you to say that.”
“I always loved you. Even when you didn’t take my calls.”
Aiden pulled his phone from his side pocket. Smoky and dusty, it still worked. He swiped on his phone and showed me the call history. There was a page of Aiden’s unanswered or rejected calls to me at different times, on different days.
“I just wanted to give you your space,” he told me. “I thought that was what you wanted.”
He patted my arm.
“I want to be with you. I wasn’t good at showing it. Pregnancy has me all loopy.”
I held on to Aiden’s bicep as if it were a grab handle to safety and love. Maybe in a way, it was. Aiden had lifted me out of that fire. He would lift me out of that library parking lot and out of the months of pregnancy-induced loneliness.
“Maybe you’re all loopy for me.”
Aiden grinned. It was that beautiful, masculine, big-toothed grin. The same grin had fascinated me the first time he had shown up in front of me at the library. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, or maybe it was love, but I didn’t want to stop staring at that grin.
Chapter Nine - Eleanor
“So, are you gonna take the rest of the day off?” I asked.
“I am if you are.” Aiden pointed at the UPS truck with his eyes. “I have to return the truck, though. Can I come back in about half an hour with my car and pick you up?”
“I don’t want you to leave me.”
I had been without Aiden for three months. But now, after he had taken me out of the fire, I couldn’t spend even half an hour without him.
“There’s no passenger seat in the truck. Sorry.” Aiden bit his lower lip. “Wait, I know.”
He took out his phone and walked a few steps away. A minute later, he came a few steps back and gave me a smiling thumbs-up.
“My buddy from work will come over with my car and go back with the truck. So, I don’t have to be apart from you.”
He ran his hand slowly through my hair as if inspecting it, maybe inspecting the smoke and soot that must have still been in it.
His colleague brought his car back and took away the UPS truck. Aiden crouched down and put one arm under my legs, the other under my neck.
“No, no. That’s fine. I can walk.”
I smiled — not because trying to carry me was humorous, but because it made me ecstatic that he cared for me so much.
I pushed myself up with my one non-burned hand, then walked to the front passenger seat of Aiden’s Camry. He got in on the other side, then leaned over to the right side to set my seat all the way back.
Leaning back, Aiden above me, I raised my head and went in for a kiss. His mouth was hungry and eager and horny. He smelled like smoke and sweat and pheromones. It was sexy, in a firefighter-fantasy kind of way. His tongue pushed into my mouth. His lips were scruffy, scratchy.
“I don’t have any reason to shave when you’re not around,” Aiden explained.
I closed my eyes, leaning back in that passenger seat. Then I embraced the father of my child, held him closer, and kissed him ferociously, sending my tongue up into his mouth to run over his teeth. I smelled Aiden’s neck and patted his sweaty, matted brown hair.
“Let’s get going.”
Aiden pulled his mouth away from me and buckled first my seat belt, then his own. He looked at me once again before starting the car and shifting into drive. I looked back at Aiden.
I gazed at his face, his quick eyes, his fingers turning the steering wheel as if it were a UPS truck wheel. At every sudden stop in traffic, Aiden extended his arm in front of me, to protect the baby and me.
He pulled into an underground parking garage.
“This is where you live?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Underground parking and everything. Do you mind if I ask how you can afford this place?”
“Little-known fact. I make six figures as a UPS driver after bonuses and overtime. We’re Teamsters.”
“Wow. Not bad. I don’t think any librarians are making that much.” I smiled, thinking of my own salary, not even halfway to six figures.
“Yeah, but being a librarian is a lot more fun than driving a truck around. And librarian. That sounds so hot. Like a fantasy.” Aiden grinned
mischievously as he pulled into a parking spot marked A. Green.
“A hot UPS driver isn’t a fantasy?” I reached over to his solid torso with my unburned right hand and gently squeezed his arms and pecs.
“We’ll see whether the fantasy lasts when you see how messy my condo is.” He pointed upward with his finger. “I wasn’t expecting anyone coming over today. I wasn’t expecting anyone coming over ever, actually. And now I have two dear, beloved guests coming over.” He patted my pregnant belly.
“Maybe my librarian instincts will swing into action, and I’ll start organizing and tidying up your place while you’re at work.”
Aiden shook his head with a smile. “First, I like the way my place is. Second, you shouldn’t stress yourself while you’re pregnant. Third, I’m not leaving you alone for a few days after the fire. I’ve already taken tomorrow off from work.”
“For me?”
It was a rhetorical question. Yes, of course, it was for me. I just wasn’t used to it.
Aiden unbuckled both our seat belts, then got out and went to my door to help me out of the car. He held my arm as we walked to the elevator up to Aiden’s condo.
Aiden swung the apartment door open. The apartment wasn’t messy at all. It wasn’t at all the cave of used pizza boxes and underwear that I would’ve expected of a single UPS driver’s bachelor pad. But then, Aiden wasn’t an average man. He was Aiden Green. Aiden Green, Ph.D.
My eyes had first gone to the lack of a mess. Then to the view. Aiden could see out onto the library from his living room window. Then to the books on the shelves. Aiden’s apartment’s walls were lined with books; hardcovers, paperbacks, photo books, everything. He definitely had more books than me. And he was a UPS driver, not a librarian.
He hadn’t taken his arm out from supporting my arm, even inside his apartment. Aiden led me to the bedroom. “Just lie down on this bed. Rest. And tell me what you need.”
I lay back and smiled. I’d never felt this secure and this comfortable in my life. Pregnancy was supposed to make me miserable and uncomfortable. And it did. A fire in my workplace was supposed to make me feel endangered and in fear for my life. And it did. But then Aiden fixed everything. In Aiden’s bed, with Aiden sitting next to me, Aiden offering all his support, I felt safe. I felt terrific, perfect.
I looked at him and nodded.
“I only need you.”
It sounded cheesy, but it was true.
“And the baby,” I added. “You and the baby.”
That made it entirely accurate.
It was amazing, how his apartment was filled with books. It was all the bookishness and intellectual stimulation I could ever want — not to mention Aiden himself.
Aiden had a literature Ph.D. He could give me more intellectual stimulation than a building full of books.
Aiden grinned at me. Quivering and slightly unsure, it was a naughty, mischievous grin.
I lay back on the bed, and he moved in to kiss me. He kissed my pregnant stomach through my shirt, circumnavigating the pregnant belly, planting loving kisses everywhere. Then he kissed up to my tender breasts and up to my neck. I only moaned in acceptance.
I hadn’t had any kisses since that last time with Aiden in the library. I’d thought that would be the last time indeed, the last time I’d experience romantic affection for a long time. I’d prepared myself to be a mother, a sexless mother who’d be carrying a pregnancy, giving birth, raising a baby.
But now I was with the father of my baby, and everything felt complete.
Aiden’s hand moved to my sweatpants, my crotch. He stroked and tickled through the fabric of the sweatpants. I was wet instantly. A lack of any romantic contact for months could do that.
He pulled down my sweatpants, revealing my pussy. Maybe it looked smaller in comparison to my very pregnant belly.
Aiden smiled his Aiden-like smile when he saw it. He kissed my lower lips and inner thighs, then my lower stomach. I had to look to the side around my pregnant belly to see what my lover was up to. I felt Aiden take one of his fingers, lick it, then slowly insert it into my waiting pussy.
Hot breath enveloped my clit. Aiden’s breathing on me felt incredible, and I shivered with anticipation. I was definitely aroused enough to be dripping from my aching pussy. Meanwhile, the rest of my body felt hot as Aiden breathed on the length of my slit.
Aiden’s sharp, wet tongue drew a line up from my ass, up along the valleys of my folds. His venture up culminated in his rough tongue twirling on my clit. Then his entire tongue pushed into my pussy opening.
My folds pressed against Aiden’s cheeks. His tongue was warm and loving and hard.
He moaned as his tongue fucked me. The vibrations soared through my eager, sex-starved body. It was the first sexual experience I had in months, other than awkward masturbation during pregnancy — made pretty much impossible now by my growing baby belly.
“Mmm.”
Aiden vocalized just how much he was enjoying my juices. Even if I couldn’t see his face, I could hear his moans of pleasure.
Then Aiden slid his tongue out of my pussy. He sucked my lower lips into his mouth. He seemed hungry, taking both sides at once. Then he slowly spit out one and focused his licking and sucking attention on the other. Then he switched. Then it was back to making oral love to my pussy. All this, I felt with my eyes closed, with my baby belly blocking the view of Aiden making oral love to me.
He went down on my slit tongue-first, licking downward along the entire opening. Then he started licking, tongue fucking, and bobbing his head up and down.
Aiden slurped at my pussy, and I couldn’t hold back anymore. My thighs spasmed as I thrust my pussy into his mouth. Even my pregnant belly shook a little bit. A big orgasm was coursing its way through me.
Never in my adult life had I gone so long without cumming. My orgasm took over my body fast and strong. I was cumming hard.
Repeatedly, I thrust my pussy into Aiden’s mouth. He only pushed his tongue down in it more and fucked me hard. I bucked and spurted hot juices. Then bucked again and spurted again. Aiden was urging me on with his mouth, licking and sucking my clit, and teasing me with his fingers.
I felt like I’d never stop cumming.
I arched my back and raised my crotch up into Aiden’s chin. His lips kissed my pussy as it quivered and pulsed. Aiden licked my clit, setting me off again.
As I lay there panting, he lifted his head and shoulders, gave my pregnant belly a kiss, and lay his ear on it.
I had just cum hard, my first orgasm in months. Before that, I’d been in a fire. I was beyond exhausted. I lay my head back, closed my eyes, and then turned slightly to my left side — pregnancy sleeping position — allowing myself to drift to sleep.
Aiden crawled up to lie next to me. His lips touched my cheek. “I love you, Eleanor,” he whispered.
He lay at my side and hugged me, his scruffy cheeks in the crook of my neck.
“I love you too, Aiden,” I muttered and embraced Aiden just as tightly as he was embracing me. I couldn’t stay awake much longer.
I had just experienced the orgasm of a lifetime, the emergency of a lifetime, and the romantic reunion of a lifetime. We fell asleep hugging each other, basking in our mutual, loving warmth.
Chapter Ten - Eleanor
“Rise and shine, Mister UPS Man!” I whispered into Aiden’s ear while kissing his shoulder.
I knew to lie on my left side to help the baby get blood flow. I also knew to wake Aiden at 5:59 A.M., a minute before his phone alarm would otherwise sound. His shift at UPS would start at 7:00.
He was working overtime hours to make up the salary I wasn’t making while on pregnancy leave from the library.
“Still up, Eleanor? You couldn’t get to sleep?”
Aiden knew how hard it was to get a good night’s sleep during pregnancy. Or at least now he knew, after having lived with a very pregnant woman for three months. Aiden didn’t
need a phone alarm now that he had a pregnant insomniac girlfriend at home.
“The usual.”
I made a tired gesture of fingers walking back and forth between the bed and the bathroom. With the baby pressing on my bladder, I needed to pee every few hours. My pee didn’t care if I was in bed and wanted to sleep, and my tender breasts didn’t like me pressing into the bed too much. That and my hormones were still keeping me up.
I was lucky to get an hour of sleep in one night. I knew I’d be getting even less sleep once the baby was born. But those sleepless nights of pregnancy, followed by sleepless nights of baby-raising, were what I had wanted all along. I’d told Aiden as much every time he had consoled me about the trials of pregnancy.
“Can you make it to Dr. Williamson’s on your own?” Aiden sat down in bed, back against the headboard, and gently lay his hand on my pregnant belly. I had a regular checkup appointment that day. “That baby’s getting big.”
“It’s fine. I can make it to the doctor’s.”
“Let me know if you ever change your mind on that. I can help you get around. I’m a big, strong UPS man, you know.”
He pointed at his UPS uniform hanging on the closet door. Of course, Aiden himself was still naked. Maybe his muscular body was what he should have pointed at, not the uniform.
“You’re just jealous again about Dr. Williamson and me.” I looked at him mischievously and chuckled.
“Oh, man. I’ll never live that down.”
Suspecting that something was going on when he’d seen me and elderly Dr. Williamson at Starbucks wasn’t Aiden’s proudest moment. But he’d been in a weak state that day. Everybody, anybody, could be in a weak state sometimes. He had hoped I could forgive him for that silliness.
“Nah, everybody makes silly mistakes sometimes. Don’t worry.” I waved away the worry in Aiden’s thoughts, knowing what was bothering him. “And when all those pregnancy hormones were going wild in me, and I refused to talk to you?”
“Oh yeah. Well. At least you have an excuse, pregnancy. I was just — I was just stupid and a jerk.”
“I think you also have an excuse.” I lay on my back and looked up at Aiden. He nodded.
