For the first time in my life, I felt like I finally had something to be proud of. But with those four words -- “we’re having a baby” -- Brady had managed kick me right back down to the place I had spent my entire life trying to crawl out of; I was right back in his shadow.
Once again, Brady was the noble big brother leading by example…and I was just the fucked up prodigal son who always managed to do things the wrong way around.
Brady’s kid wasn’t even born yet, and he or she already had everything that I was unable to give my own child. Brady’s kid would grow up with parents who were married and madly in love with each other. Brady’s kid would grow up with home-cooked family dinners and family vacations to the beach. Brady’s kid would be spoiled by doting grandparents. Brady’s kid would get to feel proud of their father’s legacy…
I couldn’t give my kid any of that. Brady had already provided more for his child than I could ever provide for my own. He was probably going to be a better ‘dad’ than I could ever be, too. How could he not be? He was Brady fucking Hudson. Everything he touched turned to gold.
As feelings of insecurity and inferiority consumed me, I felt suddenly protective of my unborn son or daughter. I didn’t want my child to be born into the same shadow that I had spent my entire life trying to escape.
I didn’t want my baby to be compared to Brady’s kid, either. But how could people not compare them? Brady’s son or daughter was going to be born into the perfect, loving little family…while my own son or daughter was going to be born out of wedlock, to two parents who lived separate lives in separate apartments...
I could already imagine how Brady’s big announcement would go over with they guys. He’d be greeted with cheers and high-fives. Everyone would congratulate him, because his baby was planned, wanted, intentional…
But nobody was going to think that about me. They’d assume that my baby was an accident…a mistake. My fists balled in anger and I saw a brief flash of red, just thinking about anyone having the nerve to call my perfect, innocent baby a ‘mistake.’
I can’t tell the crew now…I decided. No matter how proud I felt of my unborn child, I knew I couldn’t submit him or her to that kind of judgement.
“Josh?” Brady asked, his voice filling with concern. “Everything ok, buddy?”
“Fine,” I snapped, realizing that I had let my thoughts wander for too long. I forced a stiff smile and swallowed my rage.
“Congratulations,” I told him. “That’s great news. I know you’ll be a great dad.”
I knew that it was true, but it still fucking killed me to say those words. Why? Because I knew that if I had been the one to reveal my news first, there’s no way that Brady would have said those same words to me…
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | VANESSA
Thirty Weeks
“Let’s talk about sex!” the spry little woman sitting criss-cross applesauce on a yoga mat at the front of the classroom announced, punctuating her statement with an over-eager fist pump into the air.
My eyes flicked immediately to my right, where Josh was sitting by my side on our own yoga mat at the back of the classroom.
At the behest of my OB-GYN, I had reluctantly agreed to attend a ‘couples pregnancy workshop’ at a local yoga studio in Hartford.
Considering the venue, I had been under the impression that this would be a glorified yoga class, focusing on poses and stretches that would ease the many pains of pregnancy. If I had known that this was actually a class about having sex while pregnant, I would have firmly declined.
“Ladies, raise your hand if you have experienced an increase in libido during pregnancy,” the instructor said. I kept my arms planted firmly at my side as I glanced around the room, scoping out the other couples who were sitting around us as a few hands lifted into the air.
“Come on ladies, be honest!” the instructor said. A few more hands lifted.
I felt Josh’s shoulder nudge against mine.
“Come on Pinky,” he whispered with a dirty grin. “Be honest…”
I whacked his knee with the back of my hand and shot him a glare. I had no intention of sharing the status of my libido with the other couples in this room.
“Now, raise your hand if the changes in your body have made it difficult to satisfy those urges,” the instructor said.
More hands lifted up.
“It’s completely normal to feel frustrated with the changes that take place during pregnancy,” the instructor assured the class, “In tonight’s class, we’ll be discussing different sexual positions that can help expecting mothers achieve intimate and fulfilling penetrative intercourse with their partner!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” I grumbled in a voice that only Josh could overhear.
“You never know,” he shrugged, “This might be useful…”
I doubt it, I thought darkly. Josh still hadn’t lifed his unspoken ban on ‘penetrative intercourse,’ and going over all the different ways that I wouldn’t be getting fucked tonight was just about as cruel as forcing someone on a hunger strike to watch you devour a steak dinner.
“First, we have the Emperor position,” the instructor said. “Ladies, you’ll get into position first: lay down across the mat on your side, with your knees bent and your elbow on the mat supporting you.”
“Come on, Pinky,” Josh grinned. “Let’s get you into position…”
I glared, but I joined the rest of the women in the class by reclining on my side and propping myself up on my elbow.
“Good!” the instructor said, glancing around the studio. “Now, gentleman: you’ll position yourself on your knees behind your partner. This is a rear entry position, so you’ll need to position your legs far apart, until your groin reaches the correct angle for penetration. Let’s all try!”
Josh got on his knees behind me and slowly slid his legs apart, until I felt his firm pelvis align with my behind. Then he thrust his hips forward gently, pressing himself against me.
I gasped as I felt him -- all of him -- poking through the denim of his pants.
“Josh…” I hissed, my eyes flicked up to his. “You’re…”
Hard.
He just winked back down at me, and I felt my insides turn to hot, molten goop.
“Some of you may already be familiar with this next one,” the instructor said. “Reverse Cowgirl. Men, you’ll start by laying flat on your back--”
I pushed myself up and Josh took my place on the mat. My eyes shot to the bulge protruding from the front of his pants, and I wondered if anyone else would notice. How could they not notice?! It looked like he had stuffed a fucking brick down the front of his jeans…and it felt like it, too.
I quickly turned around and straddled his waist, hiding his erection.
“Someone’s tried this one before!” the instructor giggled, pointing us out to the rest of the class. I blushed, and when I felt Josh’s hands grip my hips and his cock press through the seam of my yoga pants, I blushed even harder.
“With this position,” the instructor continued, making a lap around the classroom, “The woman is in control of the speed and depth of each thrust. Ladies, try moving up and down to see how this feels.”
Unbelievable…I thought to myself. My skin sizzled as I simulated a thrust, grinding my ass down on Josh’s thick shaft. He responded by tightening his grip on my waist, then bucking his hips up so his cock pressed harder through my pants.
I had to bite my lips shut to stop myself from moaning.
“If this is too challenging, we can try another variation called the Chair position,” the instructor said. “Men, lift your torso into a sitting position while keeping your legs stretched out in front of you…”
I shimmied off of Josh’s lap so that he could sit up.
“Ladies, position yourself so that you’re sitting in your partner’s lap with your legs on top of his.”
Josh tugged me back onto his lap and pulled me close. I couldn’t force myse
lf to pay attention to anything that was happening around us anymore. All I could focus on was how badly I needed to feel Josh’s cock. Not through denim, not in my hand…but inside of me.
I leaned back, pressing my shoulders into his chest. Before I could say a word, his lips grazed my ear and he hissed:
“We need to get the fuck out of here. Now.”
***
Bordered on all sides by a dense wall of trees, the yoga studio parking lot felt like a secluded clearing in the middle of a forest. A single lamp post made a small circle of amber-colored light around the studio entrance, but the rest of the parking lot was drenched in total darkness.
Josh’s truck was parked at the far end of the lot, in a particularly dark and isolated corner. Under any other circumstances, I would have found this locale to be less than ideal. Creepy, even. But tonight? Tonight, it was exactly the kind of seclusion that we needed after making our daring escape from the classroom.
While the rest of the class was clumsily attempting the Waterfall position, Josh and I had slipped out of the yoga studio as discreetly as possible. Once we made it out of the building, we had bolted across the parking lot towards the truck.
“My apartment is just a few blocks away,” I huffed desperately, as I reached for the passenger side door handle.
“Fuck your apartment,” Josh said. He twirled me away from the car door and pressed his body against mine. His lips crashed into my neck and he kissed me hungrily.
“That’s too far away,” he grunted, “I need you now.”
“Here?” I asked, pretending to protest as my hands slipped down towards the zipper of his jeans. “But…what if someone sees?”
“So let ‘em see. Some of the people in there looked like they could use a demonstration.”
He pulled me towards the back of the truck. My eyes drank all of him in as he popped open hatch on the end of the truck bed, then lowered it flat. His muscles, his face, his hands, that fucking tree trunk that was jutting out of his jeans…
All of him. I want all of him.
“Pants off,” he said. I tugged down the waist of my yoga pants, shimmied them down my thighs, then kicked them away. I was about to do the same with my panties but before I could, he shoved his hand forward and gripped onto a fistful of my pussy. He dug his fingers in, gripping through my panties until I moaned.
“God, you feel fucking incredible…”
Then he released his grip and hoisted me up by hips and set me on the bed hatch. My legs dangled over the edge, and the cool plastic of the truck bed licked through the undersides of my bare thighs.
Josh jerked my thighs apart and thrust his hips between my legs.
“Tell me what you want,” he said as his lips made contact with my shoulder blade.
“You,” I moaned, “I want you to fuck me, Josh…”
“Is that all?” his mouth was buried in my chest, biting at my stiffened nipples through the fabric of my t-shirt. “Just sex?”
My head was spinning and my body was on fire. I dug my fingers through his black hair. I felt the words spill onto the tip of my tongue, but I hesitated. Somehow, I was still too afraid to say them outloud…
“Tell me what this is, Pinky…”
I buried my face into the corner between his neck and shoulder and pinched my eyes shut. I had never felt more vulnerable than I did in that moment…but I wanted to tell him the truth:
“It’s not just sex, Josh,” I whispered. “I want it to be more than that. I want us to be more than that…”
“I do, too,” he whispered back.
“But I’m scared…”
“Trust me,” his arms folded around me, and my vulnerability vanished. I felt…safe. “I’m not going anywhere. Pinky promise.”
His pinky snuck down and snuck around mine, and I felt a rush of something that I had never experienced before...
“I trust you,” I said, and I knew that I meant it.
His lips found mine and he kissed me over and over again.
He stepped back and pulled open the front of his pants. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough that I could see his hand stroking the thick trunk of his cock. The sight made my head spin even faster.
I reclined on the truck bed, pressing my back against the rigid plastic as Josh dragged my hips towards the very edge of the hatch, where he was standing. He ripped my panties off with one swipe, then he wrapped my legs around his waist as he aligned the bulbous tip of his penis with my hole.
With one thrust he was inside of me, and by the third thrust I was screaming out his name to the entire empty parking lot.
His cock felt even better than I remembered, and I withered and whimpered and flailed around as he pumped in and out of me, dragging two orgasms from my body before he finally filled me with his hot spunk.
Afterwards, he crawled up onto the bed of the truck and collapsed next to me. We held each other as we panted for breath, our sticky bodies still twitching in the night air.
I had never had sex like that before, and as I gazed up at the stars, feeling Josh’s sturdy arms tighten around me, I realized why:
Joshua Hudson hadn’t just found his way inside of me; he had gone deeper than anyone had ever gone before. He had braved the minefield of emotional traps that I had placed for him. He had pushed through the layers of trust issues and cynicism and pain, until he had penetrated the deepest part of me.
And as much as that realization terrified me, I knew that I didn’t want this to end. I wanted him to have all of me, just like I wanted all of him...
CHAPTER NINETEEN | JOSH
“Have you seen a piece that looks just like this except, like, the opposite?” Duke asked.
I glanced up from the Ikea instruction booklet that I was reading and inspected the L-shaped wooden panel that Duke was holding up to me.
That L-shaped piece of wood was one of approximately two dozen oddly shaped segments, panels, and rods that littered the living room floor in our apartment; puzzle pieces that Duke and I were attempting to unscramble and turn into a baby crib.
So far, we had only gotten as far as building a flat rectangular frame.
“Try flipping it around,” I said.
Duke frowned thoughtfully, then he flipped the piece around in his hand.
“Oh shit,” he chuckled at himself. “Well now I feel like a dumbass…”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” I smirked. “I know the premise of building your own furniture instead of hiring someone to do it for you must seem really daunting…”
“Tell me about it,” Duke grunted, clearly missing the point of my joke.
Earlier that morning, Duke and I had made the hour-long journey south to Connecticut’s only Ikea store. We were only in New Haven, but we might as well have been on Mars: Duke had looked like he was a spaceman setting foot on Martian soil as I dragged him through the showroom. Apparently flat-packed budget furniture was still an alien concept to New England’s elite…
“What about a piece that’s shaped sort of like a rectangle, but--”
Before Duke could finish describe the piece that he was looking for, I handed him a flat panel that had been resting a few inches away from his leg.
“That’s it!” he said, grabbing it and holding it perpendicular to the other piece, creating a misshapen corner.
I turned back to the instructions without saying anything.
“So…” Duke said, dropping the pieces onto the floor and sliding back to grab his beer on the coffee table. “I noticed you chickened out the other night.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I grumbled, keeping my eyes on a printed diagram of the crib’s box spring assembly.
“Let me refresh your memory,” Duke said, taking another sip of beer. “Firehouse 56. Your anniversary party. A big announcement.”
Of course I knew what Duke was referring to: the ‘big announcement’ that I was supposed to make the other night, duri
ng my anniversary party at Firehouse 56. I had hashed the entire plan out with Duke beforehand, practicing what I would say and how I would say it. And then, moments before my big ‘reveal,’ the entire plan had gotten flushed down the shitter.
“You know why,” I reminded him. “Brady beat me to the punch.”
“Jeez, Josh…you really need to let all of this sibling rivalry bullshit go, already...” Duke shook his head at me. “Don’t you get tired of carrying around that chip on your shoulder all the time?”
“Sure,” I shrugged. “You know what else I get tired of?”
“Acting like a teenage girl?” Duke guessed.
“No,” I scowled, realizing too late that I was validating his guess. “I’m tired of always losing to Brady.”
“Losing what? What have you lost, Josh?”
“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” I said, chucking the instructions down and leaning back on the couch.
“This isn’t a contest,” Duke pressed on. “There’s no ‘first place’ or ‘second place.’ There’s no ‘winning’ or ‘losing.’ We’re all just trying to make the best out of the hand that we’ve been dealt.”
“That’s rich,” I snorted, “Coming from a guy who was born with more money in his trust fund than most people see in their entire lives.”
“You want to talk about my trust fund?” Duke asked, raising his voice. “All that money ever did was cripple me. I was a worthless, insufferable piece of shit who didn’t appreciate the value of anything.”
That’s…surprisingly accurate, I had to admit. And also probably the most honest and self-aware thing that I’ve ever heard Duke say.
“It took losing every penny that I had to my name to realize what I was capable of, but look at me now,” he paused to take a swig of beer, then continued:
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