There was no ‘See you next time’ or ‘I’ll stay until I know you’re okay’. There wasn’t a soft, tender gesture at the end. Anthony didn’t cast me a final, longing look like a character in a book. Hell, we’d probably never see each other again.
Slowly but surely gaining my mind back, tiny piece by tiny piece, I stared blankly through an aching, watery gaze at the wall.
Anthony didn’t leave me feeling degraded or humiliated. He didn’t leave me feeling anything at all. I was empty but for his cum seeping from my entrance to dribble down the edge of the table. The taste of his cock on my tongue frazzled my taste buds, and my body ached and throbbed hotly from the roots of my hair to my toes.
But there was nothing emotional swirling behind my ribs.
“Hailey…?” Sam’s gentle, cautious call caused my heart to stutter dangerously, and the chink of his switchblade flipping trilled in my ears as if coming through a long, wide tunnel. His deft, practiced fingers released my legs first, and I slipped forward on my own sweat as the tension around my neck gave way. “Oh—fuck!”
Lunging to keep me from face-planting into the pole that secured my wrists, Sam wrapped his arms around my torso to cut the rest of the ropes. The burning sensation as they fell away from my chafed skin was dull compared to the pain in my abdomen.
“It’s okay, I got you. That guy did this in just 20 minutes…” Mumbling more to himself than me, Sam gathered me up with ease to grumble almost inaudibly. “He just left, too… what an asshole—leaving you like this.”
“N- no-o-o-…” Slurring heavily, I winced hard when Sam jostled me in his arms and agitated my ruined insides. “I am p- pe-… f-f-fine…”
“If I get cum on my shirt, you’re paying for the dry-cleaning. I thought you were smarter than this, Hailey—you should’ve used a condom.” Sam’s gait rattled my bones and everything around them, and his chiding declaration bounced around inside my skull. My eyelids popped open, breath hitched in my throat as realization washed over me.
We didn’t use a condom.
I’m ovulating tomorrow.
Chapter 7
Hailey
“It’s a serious issue, H… how could you be so lax?” Marissa’s chiding tone gyrated against my eardrums, and I ground my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut behind the cold, damp cloth that blocked out the light. “I expected you to panic more considering you had unprotected sex with a stranger. You could’ve gotten an STD, or worse…”
“Or worse, she could be pregnant? Seriously, M, you’re making a big deal of nothing. Hailey’s always careful.” Long, nimble fingers ran through my hair hanging off the armrest of the couch, and Kelly very gently eased through the knots that tangled the strands. “There’s nothing to worry about, okay?”
“I just still can’t believe you read the Plan B box wrong and took the pill after three days had passed…” Tracy spoke up for the first time since I began my story, and sniggers bounced around the living room of my apartment. Carefully lifting my compress, I winced when the light streaming in from the windows speared my brain. “I mean, how did you even manage that, Hailey?”
“I was freaking out, okay—” Cut off by a scoff, I grimaced at the pain that beat against my eye sockets. Embarrassment flooded my chest, but this little get-together wasn’t supposed to make me feel better about the whole situation.
“You should be freaking out now. How are you going to work and take care of a baby, H? I think you should call the guy and tell him.” My first youngest sister groaned harshly, and I didn’t need to look at her to know Marissa was raking her hands through her naturally bleach blonde hair. “Not to say you need help or whatever, but he deserves to know. Just like K said, you know how to pick ‘em, right? So, why can’t you just pick up the phone and call him?”
Expectant silence sat on my chest like an elephant, and I pushed past my headache to contemplate that question yet again. Anthony’s face flashed in my mind’s eye, set grim and unhappy and intense, and a harsh sigh burst from my throat.
“I can, I just won’t. It’s hard to explain…” The excuse was bad even to my own ears, and a chorus of disappointed groans filled the air. It’d been a week since Anthony left, but he’d circled around in my head every waking second. Maybe he was just having a bad week; maybe he was stressed about his trip, and we got off on the wrong foot. After all, he said it himself—we got off to a bad start, supposedly.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to call him and tell him that I was pregnant. Shame built up in my throat at the lingering, incredibly tense memories of that night and what had led up to it. The more I told myself to think of Anthony as nothing more than a passerby in my life, the more the idea infuriated me. Phantom muscles and words had kept me awake at night, and the glorious globs of makeup on my face was the only thing stopping him from noticing as I drove him around.
Because he would’ve definitely noticed.
The burning, throbbing desire I had for Anthony—I still had for him—was senseless, and even a week later, I couldn’t think of a time when I had been more gratified. I had never enjoyed being dominated; I never considered it part of my kink. The few times I’d attempted it, I was left feeling shamed and humiliated.
“Are you going to tell Mom?”
“No!” Jerking up to sit, my shout burst from my throat to join Marissa’s and Kelly’s equally harsh denials, and my cold rag fell from my face to plop in my lap. Tracy blushed bright red at her own, stupid question, and I couldn’t help but glare hotly at her.
“Fuck her- seriously. I don’t want her having anything to do with any of this. We can’t just poof and our relationship will be fixed because I got knocked up. If anything, it’ll make it worse.”
“She’s right, you know, Mom made a comment at my announcement trying to set H up with one of Sam’s cousins…” Twisting in disgust-tinged horror, my expression pulled a laugh from my youngest sister as she waved me off with a shake of her head. “Don’t worry, she got shut down real quick, H. No one wanted to entertain her fantastical matchmaking notions. Especially because Sam’s cousins are all kinda grimy and gross…”
“Yeah, we’re definitely not telling Mom.” Irritation laced my voice, and the conversation came to a stalemate as I stared at each of my sisters. Marissa was the only one of us that didn’t have a variant of light brown hair, but we all looked pretty much the same. Kelly was paler than the three of us, with freckles, and Tracy was the shortest. My blue eyes set me apart.
“You’ll help me out, right?” My sisters’ surprise thickened the atmosphere, and I nibbled furiously on my bottom lip before opening my mouth. “You know, I don’t want to expect it and put you out or anything. I just… was wondering.”
“As long as I get to design the nursery!” Tracy’s declaration pulled a strained smile from me, and I slowly pushed myself from the sofa to stretch my stiff muscles.
“Oh, oh, I want to help you get all your stuff—’
“I get to be in the delivery room ‘cause there’s no way I’m dealing with your hormonal self 8 months in.” Marissa smirked broadly, propping her fists on her hips and puffing out her swollen chest. “I called it! No takes-backs-sies.”
“What! That’s not fair!” Laughing at the argument that only grew louder and more intense, I sat down heavily and leaned into the sofa cushions to watch the scene. Even in our early to mid-20s, we acted like pre-teens when we were together. This was how it’d always been, and just because we were starting families—even unexpected ones—didn’t change anything. The worst thing about it was getting a babysitter, so these get-togethers didn’t happen often.
“Wait, what about your promotion, Hailey?” Pausing the argument loudly, Tracy locked worried eyes with me as I shrugged carelessly. I’d spent years working my way to where I was, including sucking up to the main brass. A little thing like a pregnancy wasn’t going to jeopardize my cushy desk job, and security lightened the load weighing down my shoulders.
“I’m supposed to
get the call this week, but I think I basically got it. I’m not going to get fired or anything for being pregnant—that’s illegal.” Tracy frowned, shuffling between the coffee table and the sofa to perch next to me with a slight inhale.
“No, but they could snuff your hours or something. I mean, you’re in this mess because they didn’t give you reproductive health care coverage on your company insurance.” My chest deflated a little at that, but I shook my head anyway as faith in my work ethic burned away the doubt.
“It’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. Even if I don’t get the promotion, I have job security. If I need to, I’ll just bring the baby to work. It’s not like it’ll do anything more than sleep and poop and eat for the first couple months, anyway.”
Smiling reassuringly, I reached for Tracy’s hand to squeeze. “I know it’s not the same, but I got this. I’ll be fine, T.”
“See, this is why I think Mom has such a problem with you, H. You don’t need a man like a cripple needs a crutch. You got your head on straight—you have a plan, and you can do it all by yourself. She could never do that.” Marissa’s sobering comments tightened my throat, and I reached to scratch my neck as heat rushed up the slender column. “Hell, we probably couldn’t do that. Don’t forget that we got your back, besides, I bet Mom will never even realize you’re pregnant because she never wants to interact with you. I think it’s great that you didn’t get pregnant to please her after everything she did to you.”
“Why are we talking about Mom when we can talk about this mystery guy, huh? So Hailey, was he hot? Muscular? Beanpole? We need to know!” My blush intensified at Kelly’s excited questions, and I ducked my head in a sharp nod. Her squeal resounded through my living room like a crackle of lightning, and she sat on the edge of my coffee table as Marissa took the spot on my other side. “Spill the beans, we know you’re into the bondage stuff, was he good at it?”
“Um… well… it wasn’t so much he was good at it… he was just… intense. He was overwhelmingly intense. I don’t even know if I find him sexually attractive—I could never get past the look in his eyes.” Giggling a little in discomfort, I twirled a lock of my hair as all three of my sisters leaned into almost claustrophobic distance.
“I honestly can’t really answer. It wasn’t like he was the one that tied me up. But he was very dominating and stuff—which I don’t usually like, you know? But he didn’t make it feel bad.”
“And you guys didn’t talk a lot… like, get to know each other? That seems really awkward. What happened when you were done?” It was pretty crazy the kind of things I shared with my sisters and vice versa, and I shook my head slightly.
“He told me he’d get a cab to the airport the next morning and left. There was nothing else—he just put his pants back on and walked out.”
“What the Hell—he didn’t even take all of his clothes off?” Shock trickled from Kelly’s tone, and I nodded quietly as she stared at me under deeply furrowed brows. “Maybe he got scared? I mean, you said on the phone that you were in rough shape. Maybe he thought he went too far, you know? After all, you two don’t know each other, and that’s important, right?”
“Yeah, it is… I don’t know. Maybe.” My own thoughtfulness leaked into my voice, and I sighed heavily as my mind almost desperately tried to reconstruct Anthony’s expression.
But all I could find were blurred lines and fuzzy colors.
Chapter 8
Anthony
Swiping my palm down my face, I held back a groan as I leaned in my chair, and a sigh burst from my throat to billow up to the ceiling. The silence of my office rang in my ears, and I couldn’t fucking stand it.
“You looked stressed and unhappy…” Hailey’s phantom words trilled in my head, and I sucked in a sharp breath that whistled in the quiet. “I wasn’t judging you or anything…”
“You should judge me—” Murmuring to myself, I held my breath and closed my eyes to picture Hailey’s sweaty, rope-burn red body. Even now, two weeks after leaving, I could still picture the exact curve of bright red lines that marred her skin; I could see the glistening of her sweat beading down her thighs as sharply as if she was right in front of me.
If you knew the true extent of how much I hated myself, you would judge me.
“Mr. Richards, I’m going home for the night.” Popping his head in the door, Bryce offered me a wave as I nodded dully. If he noticed the dark cloud hanging above my head, he didn’t say anything before disappearing. He was always the last to leave, and I listened to his retreating footfall with a growing sense of roiling annoyance and hardening heartbeats.
A soft ping caught my attention, and I reached to snatch my phone off the glass desktop with a deep frown. Ophelia’s face popped up, and my frown twisted into a grimace as I scanned her text through narrowed eyes.
Ophelia: Do you want to come over? Relieve some stress from a long work week?
She was irritatingly persistent, and I didn’t bother replying to her message as I had all the others. Ophelia had her eye on me ever since my father dropped his lifelong success in my lap, but I had never found her even remotely attractive. She talked too much, had a primp, inflated sense of self, and she wore too much makeup most of the time.
Exactly the opposite of Hailey.
Groaning softly at the comparison, I flopped forward to turn off my computer using the Power Button and grabbing my briefcase off the floor under the desk. Pushing myself from my chair, my legs carried me stiffly out of my office and towards the elevator. Jabbing the ‘down’ button with my thumb, I glanced back at the rows and rows of cubicles that sat abandoned for the weekend. Yearning slithered around my heart, and I leaned on the wall as my thoughts ran wild.
Memories of college, of my internship at a realty group that covered the country, filled my mind’s eye. Once, I had been the one in the cube farm, answering to a boss I felt was a little too strict. At one point, I was the unpaid intern that raced around doing menial, sometimes degrading tasks that no one else wanted to do.
And my father absolutely despised me for choosing the path I had.
More than once, my dad had barged into my boss’s office to demand I be paid more—have more reasonable realtor responsibilities—do something other than get coffee and fetch shit from the printer. ‘Do you know who I am’ he’d asked, going on and on about how he had so-and-so connections and being an all-around asshole.
My boss at the time told my father to go fuck himself, and my 21 year old self was in total awe.
Now, especially, I was glad for those four years during college and two after graduating that my boss had been such a hardass on me. I couldn’t even remember his name, but his lessons were branded deep into my brain.
Don’t make someone do something just because.
Always prove your gratitude.
Don’t fuck with your employee’s personal lives.
When in doubt, fire, fire, fire.
Those rules applied to life in general, and my entire work ethic revolved around them. They were the exact opposite standards my father held me to; he thought that paying people meant he owned them. He thought that his wealth and power made him invincible, and everyone should bow to his will.
“You look unhappy.” Blinking hard at that recurring thought, I turned back to the elevator just as the doors gave a loud clunk before rolling open. Stepping into the box, my muscles tightened at the almost claustrophobic sensation that washed over me. My thoughts scrawled across the mirrored walls of the elevator, and I pressed the ‘GF’ button with a grimace twisting my lips.
No one had ever told me I looked unhappy before. No one had ever run away from me before. No one had ever made me want to run after her before.
“You look unhappy.” Tightening my grip on my briefcase, I scoffed at my reflection before the elevator gave a shrill ping and settled in the shaft. The doors slid open, and I rubbed my jaw and neck roughly with my free hand as Hailey’s face that night flashed in my mind’s eye. Momentarily
blinded as I stepped onto solid ground, my heart stuttered in its cage at the mix of saliva, snot and tears that had streamed in rivers into her knotted hair.
My car waited for me in front of the building, and I didn’t so much as glance at the valet as I climbed into the driver’s seat. The smell of leather invaded my nostrils, but it only mixed with the memory of Hailey’s sexed-up scent. A groan lodged in my throat, and I buckled up and gripped the wheel tightly to peel off the curb.
“You look unhappy.” The truth was—I am unhappy. Hailey was the first thing in almost a decade that made me feel something other than unhappiness. Even though that something was an obsessive need to fuck her, at least it was different.
But when the time finally came, I lost myself. I didn’t hear her screams ringing with genuine torture. I didn’t consider her choking on my cock to be something she disliked. I hate fucked her, and shame tightened my chest to the point that I couldn’t breathe.
Stopping smoothly at the light at the end of the street, I glanced around through the windshield in search of something to distract me. But that was the thing; Hailey was my distraction.
The fucking irony.
A small sign was stuck in the window of a gym, and I leaned over the center console and rolled the window down. The cold air blasting from my vents was sucked out into the harshness of a California heat wave. Rolling my jaw, I stared at the writing on the sign before a horn honked, and I sat back in my seat before flicking on my blinker.
AA Meetings Friday 7-8:30pm.
Blood beat in my ears as I stared at the sign under furrowed brows. Clenching and releasing my fists by my side, I tried to find out how I ended up in front of this beat-up gym, but the thought train eluded me.
“You look unhappy.” That damn recollection hit me hard square in the chest, and I hoovered up a harsh breath through flared nostrils. I hurt someone because of how unhappy I was with my life. I had disregarded Hailey’s safety in a situation where she could’ve fucking died.
Needing Her Page 4
