by Emerson Rose
“Like what?”
“How to share.”
He lolls his head to the side on the pillow where he has flopped back to pout and rolls his eyes at me.
“Can’t he learn that another way?”
I lean back and rest my head on his shoulder pulling Grayson up on my chest where he snuggles in between my swollen breasts. “Parenting’s not an easy gig, you sure you’re up for all this?” Taking on another man’s child can’t be easy for him. He worked hard for weeks convincing me that he was okay with raising Caleb’s baby as his own when we first met. Nothing about our relationship was conventional.
We met for the first time on the beach in California when I was five months pregnant for starters. We had a bit of a long-distance relationship for a couple months while I lived in San Diego and he was in Oceanside. He asked me to marry him when I hadn’t even been divorced for a year. Then we moved from one coast to another when he received PCA orders sending him to North Carolina. And now on top of all of that, we have a baby. Wham bam thank you, ma’am – we’ve had one whirlwind of a romance. Other than our upcoming wedding I’m hoping the next five or ten years will be less eventful.
“You’re kidding right? I fucking… I mean, I really love you, Kimber, and now I love our son, too. I’m not going anywhere, ever. No matter how hard parenting gets, I’m in this for the long haul because I am incredibly in love with you. Got it?”
I smile and he buries his face in my neck again. “Got it.”
“Good. Now hand him over, I need to kiss my fiancé and teach my son how to share.”
Chapter 4
Garcia
You ready to go?” It’s 2000 hours and Kimber is bending over the hospital bed dressing Grayson in what she calls his going home outfit, which is somehow more important than the other two hundred outfits he has. Grayson doesn’t seem to give a shit about his clothes right now, he’s in a milk coma with his limp arms splayed out on his sides and tiny mouth hanging open.
Kimber looks at me sideways with a, I’ll-never-be-ready-for-this look and I know exactly how she feels. Things have gone perfectly here in the safety of the hospital with nurses and doctors to reassure us that what we are doing is right. When we go home and it’s just the three of us who will we turn to when we have a question or a problem? Who’s going to tell us oh that’s totally normal or, oh no, that’s too much or too hot or too tight?
I come from a big family but my parents weren’t the ones raising us. Dad was busy running a drug-dealing empire and covering it up with a fake Fortune Five Hundredinsurance company. Mom was busy making sure dad was always happy. They were the worst kind of criminals because they were considered white-collar and blue-collar criminals. Nannies and security guards raised the six of us except for the three or four hours after dad got home from work every night. That was family time according to my dad but we didn’t play Yahtzee or watch TV like the other kids.
Kimber doesn’t know about my family. I haven’t lied to her, I just didn’t tell her the whole truth. She knows I don’t get along with them due to moral beliefs and a less than appealing upbringing and that’s true. But she doesn’t know the details and that’s for her own good.
“I know, I’m nervous too but we’re going to handle this together. Everything we do we do better together, remember?”
“Yes, you’re right, people have been doing this for millions of years. We are two well educated intelligent adults, this little guy isn’t going to bring us to our knees.” She taps Grayson on the nose and he makes a little grunting sound but his eyes stay closed.
The only time that kid opens them is to scream to be fed and then he slips right back into a coma after he eats. Can’t say I blame him though, if I got to snuggle with Kimber’s breasts every time I ate I’d weigh five hundred pounds and I’d be the happiest and the fattest Marine in the Corps.
“On your knees…” I say wistfully starting up a daydream in my head about Kimber dressed in sexy black lingerie with stockings and garter belts and stiletto heels kneeling in front of me about to wrap her perfect red lips around my thick cock.
I met Kimber when she was five months pregnant so we haven’t had the opportunity to explore sex without our little cock-blocker. She looked fantastic pregnant, I mean drop-dead gorgeous supermodel-having-a-baby kind of fantastic, but I’m really looking forward to pulling out all the stops with her in that department as soon as she’s able.
She’s amazing, you’d hardly know she just had a baby. She works out every day. Even through her pregnancy she had her workout modified every few weeks so she could keep it up. Before she had Grayson she looked like a healthy, sexy, woman who swallowed a beach ball and now that the ball is gone and she’s left with long lean muscles, breasts that have to be two sizes larger, and an ass so perky you could set a glass of water on it.
“I think I might be able to arrange that.” She winks snapping me out of my fantasy and my cock twitches. I wouldn’t ask that of her mere days after having a baby but knowing that she’s willing makes me hard as fuck.
Her eyes drop to where my cock is growing harder by the second in my jeans and she licks her lips.
“Stop, it’s not nice to tease, another lesson we can teach our son.”
She straightens up and I drag my gaze down her body and back to her shining green eyes. She’s wearing her own clothes for the first time since she delivered Grayson. Her lightweight black sleeveless sweater clings to her augmented breasts and her jeans hug every luscious curve of her body and she’s even wearing heels. She really doesn’t look like she had a baby. If someone saw her carrying Grayson they’d think she was a visitor ogling somebody else’s kid.
“Who’s teasin’?” She places one hand on her hip pushing it out to the side making her curves even more irresistible.
“You might not think so but you are. Even if we had the time, which I don’t think we will.” I glance over at our sleeping son and back to her. “You’re not supposed to do anything for six weeks.”
“I’m not supposed to do anything down here,” she makes a circle in the air around her apex. “But there’s no reason I can’t do anything here,” she makes the same motion but around her mouth this time.
I groan and switch my weight from one foot to the other uncomfortable with the situation going on in my pants. I’d love to fuck her pretty mouth right here before we leave the hospital so I don’t have to drive all the way home with my newborn son sporting a giant boner.
But I won’t because that’s not the kind of animal I am. I’m a combination of a monkey and a tiger according to my friends, a miger. I’m always the clown, confident, the center of attention but if I’m on your side, and you want me on your side, nobody’s fucking with you if I can help it.
“We’ve got all the time in the world, baby. Let’s go home and snuggle, I miss sleeping next to you.”
A quick upturn of the corners of her mouth is her tell and she just told me with that slight movement that I’m doing the right thing. She’s exhausted and stressed out trying to please everyone all the time like she does. Kimber’s a giver not a taker, one of the few I’ve ever known. That’s how I know she’s going to be the best mother ever.
She glances at the clock and then Grayson and then the door while I’m making sure all of our things are packed up. She thinks I don’t notice. She’s waiting, hoping maybe, that Caleb will show up before we leave to meet his biological son. The son he left her over, the one he doesn’t want and the one I would already give my life to protect.
I don’t understand why she even called and told him. At first I thought it was out of obligation but the disappointment that she seemed to feel when she got his voicemail was surprising.
He’s a douchebag who accused his own wife of tricking him into having a baby. They had been married for three years and she was on birth control but that’s not always 100% effective. Caleb seemed to think it was, however. They had planned on having kids in the future. I don’t know why a surprise
pregnancy was such a big deal.
I have my theories, though. I think he had a sidepiece that thought she was going to be the next Mrs. Caleb Johnson and if she found out that the real Mrs. Johnson was pregnant, she would have dropped him like a hot coal.
The sidepiece thinks she won that battle but she’s so wrong. I’m the winner, I got the loving gorgeous mother-to-be and sidepiece got a cheating bag of shit. Karma’s a bitch. It won’t take him long to find somebody to replace the blonde bimbo with if he hasn’t already.
“Did he ever call you back?” I don’t look at her when I ask. I don’t want to see if her face falls in disappointment if that’s how she feels.
“Who?”
“Kim, you know who. Caleb. Did he ever return your call?”
“No.”
I can’t take it anymore. I turn and face her where she’s sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands on either side of her on the mattress and her head bowed. Her hair falls around her face shielding her from me but I know she’s in pain. I know this because she’s supporting some of her weight with her arms and hiding behind her hair. I pay attention, I listen, I practically worship the ground she walks on but I’ll never understand what she saw in Caleb.
“Why didn’t you take the pain medicine the nurse offered you?” I close the distance between us and sit next to her carefully so I won’t move the bed and cause her more pain. The last thing I ever want to do to this woman is cause her pain.
“I didn’t want to be all doped up when we took Grayson home.”
I slide my hand under her hair and place it over her shoulder so I can see her profile. She doesn’t look at me.
“Baby, we don’t keep secrets from each other, right?”
“No.”
“Then will you please tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours? You got me over here thinking you’re having second thoughts about us. You said you didn’t want him to be involved, right? Have you changed your mind?”
A giant tear rolls down her cheek and plops onto her thigh soaking a spot on her jeans the size of a dime. Please God, don’t let this be happening.
She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. How can such an ordinary thing like wiping her nose be so attractive?
“I’m so confused, Julián. I had no doubts before he was born that I didn’t want Caleb to be involved but when I saw Grayson’s beautiful little face I felt, I don’t know, I guess I felt sad. Not for me but for Grayson. I felt an obligation to my son to give his biological father one last chance to be a part of his life and he didn’t want it. How can you not want your own baby? I don’t understand it…” She begins to cry and I pull her in under my chin and hold her tight.
She’s a good woman. Even after all he put her through abandoning her when she found out she was pregnant, hooking up with a slut who can’t hold a candle to Kimber’s beauty, and parading around with her on his arm like he was the fucking king of the world at their friends wedding. He makes me sick.
But Kimber was willing to put all of her pain and suffering aside for her son by offering an olive branch so Grayson could know him.
I’m glad he didn’t call. Grayson doesn’t need a shitty influence like him anyway. Blood isn’t always thicker. Nobody knows that better than me.
Chapter 5
Kimber
It’s been three weeks since we brought Grayson home from the hospital. I’m amazed more and more every day at how much I love this beautiful baby boy. I cannot fathom how his biological father could ignore his existence. I don’t know why it bothers me so much because Julián more than makes up for Caleb’s absence.
He is an amazing man. I’d go so far as to say he’s perfect. Maybe not for everyone but he is for me. Some women might not understand his goofy side or want to deal with his occasional bouts of immaturity but that’s what makes him, him. And I adore him.
A streak of dust mot ridden sun streams in through the floor to ceiling windows this morning as I rock a content Grayson and I wonder if it’s even safe to breathe this air. Becoming a mother makes you worry about the strangest things. Becoming a father must do the same thing because Julián has suddenly become a neat freak.
When we met I was surprised that a successful Marine was so unorganized in his personal life. Being an interior designer, we made the perfect couple. He had a mess and I loved cleaning it up.
I took his bachelor pad disaster in California and turned it into a home full of character and charm just in time to be moved across the country and do it all over again. I was pretty excited about it to be honest. His house in San Diego sold for much more than it would have before I redecorated and did a few small renovations.
And as if Karma weren’t blessing me enough with Julián, his permanent change of assignment was a move to my home state of North Carolina. My life is surreal now, a new husband, well almost. A new baby, new house, and I get to be back home near my family, life is perfect… and that’s what has me worried.
The one drawback of moving back to North Carolina is that Caleb is here. That’s why I left in the first place. It was too painful seeing him in all our familiar places and running into our friends who couldn’t believe we had broken up. We were the ideal couple or so they thought. Caleb had them all fooled, even me.
He wasn’t physically or emotionally abusive. He was indifferent. I hadn’t experienced love like I have with Julián then. I didn’t know any better. We weren’t any different than our friends. We went out to dinner occasionally, had missionary vanilla sex once a week and went to a movie when there was something Caleb wanted to see in the theater. Our marriage was normal, boring, lackluster. I thought it was supposed to be like that.
Wow, was I wrong.
Now I’m engaged to a sexy Latin lover and we live in the sweet little town of Jewel Falls with our new son. We’re twenty minutes from the base and my family and a solid hour from Shipton where Caleb and I built our life together for three years.
I couldn’t be happier except for the annoying sensation that something or someone is out there waiting to steal my little slice of paradise. It’s probably stupid but after having the rug ripped out from under me by Caleb when I got pregnant, I’m leery of anything that feels too good to be true.
And Garcia and Grayson feel too good to be true.
“Hey there, my beauty and my little beast, how are you two doing this fine morning?”
I sensed him before he entered the room. I smelled the aroma of almond lotion on his warm freshly showered skin and felt the atmosphere lighten with the smile that is sure to be gracing his face.
I look up when he stops my chair from rocking from behind and find him, as I knew he would be, smiling down at Grayson and me. He winks and kisses the top of my head before rounding to sit on the coffee table in front of me. He places his hands on my bare knees and slides them up to my thighs. His eyebrows pop up and he whispers, “Only three more weeks.”
I chuckle because I know we will never last three more weeks. We have exhausted every avenue of oral sex, heavy petting, and even a touch of anal so far during our six-week no penetration prison sentence.
I had an easy delivery, Grayson was only seven pounds and I’m pretty surprised at how comfortable I am but Julián refuses to break the rules. He’s come close, pun intended. I’m sure we won’t be able to hold out. Technically, we are still in the early dating stage of a relationship, we’ve only been together six months.
We had a nonconventional start when we met, with me being five months pregnant and all. We had sex, a lot of it, but I could tell he was holding back, afraid he would hurt the baby or me.
It’s been like a slow burn building for months. When the doctor gives us the green light to go full-out we may have to get a babysitter for a few days.
He describes the things he’s going to do to me, the positions and sensations, everything in detail right down to the smells and how he’s going to make me orgasm over and over until I beg him to stop.
&
nbsp; He’s talented, the way he expresses his desire and whispers dirty scenes in my ear while he’s slowly, carefully having his way with me. He could make a fortune writing erotic romance novels but I’ll never suggest it. I want his dirty sexy thoughts to be all mine. His words turn me on but it’s the visuals that get stuck in my head on repeat like naughty little movies staring Garcia and me.
I can’t wait. I literally cannot wait.
“You have that look.”
“What look?”
“The I know something that you don’t know look. What’s going through that pretty head of yours this morning?”
I shake my pretty head and smile. “You. You’re so charming and handsome and horny.”
He shrugs and kisses the tip of my nose. “It’s your fault. I was born handsome, I’m naturally charming but if you weren’t so fucking… shit, I mean darn irresistible I wouldn’t be so horny. And look who’s talkin. You’re been pretty frisky when this little man goes down for his naps. What ever happened to sleep when the baby sleeps like we learned in Lamaze?”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“You’re gonna be one tired mama then.”
“Maybe so, it’ll be worth it.”
“You better believe it.” He smiles a I promise you that smile and glances toward the front door.
“Expecting someone?”
“Yes, I have a surprise for you. Remember Major Valentine that I met in California? The one who’s friends with my grandpa?”
“Yeah, the one who’s girlfriend’s brother is being convicted of murdering their aunt?”
He groans. “I was hoping you hadn’t heard about that part.”
I cock my head to the side, “Why, Garcia? Why were you hoping I didn’t know?”
“Well, Valentine lives straight across the street and his girlfriend lives with him now. She’s been having a really hard time since her brother kind of went crazy and I invited her over to spend time with you this morning until your mom gets here.” His explanation started out slow and calculated but it ended in a jumble like he was just trying to get it over with.
