by Emerson Rose
“Stop thinking so much and take me, Liam. Take me away from all of this. Make me forget. Show me how much you love me.”
I release her wrists and stand on the bed over her, watching her slip out of her panties and bra. She tosses them both off the bed and wraps her hands around my ankles.
“Now you. Please, Liam,” she whispers.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath in, and release it before peeling off my briefs. Her eyes widen when she sees my cock spring forward, hard and long.
I kneel over her while she runs her hands all the way up my calves to my thighs and then to grip my ass. I reach behind me and take her hands, lifting them over her head again. My cock is heavy on her belly when I move, and the tiny gasp that comes from her lips is so fucking hot that I consider sliding into her without warning. When she arches her back and slides her feet up my legs, she spreads open wide, and I feel her hot, wet lips against my cock.
I can’t hold back one second longer. I lunge at her mouth and cover it with mine while my free hand slips between her legs into her soaking wet folds. I slip two fingers inside and slide them out and up over her clit.
“Oh God, Liam,” she moans between kisses, and I begin to work her mouth and her clit in time together. When I feel her body tense and I know she’s close, I stop and place her hands around the slats of the headboard.
“Hold on here. Don’t let go, understand?”
“Yes,” she says, nodding her head up and down. I start a path of kisses behind her ear and kiss and nip at her skin as she writhes under me. My hands wander all over her skin, searching, mapping, learning as much about her as possible before I arrive between her legs. Her tummy is fluttering with anticipation and she’s panting when I hook my hands behind her knees and spread her open. I can see all of her now. She’s exquisite. I can’t believe I’ve been able to deny myself the pleasure of tasting her for so long.
I kiss her perfectly bare mound. She arches off the bed, and I dip down and lick her from back to front. I bury my face between her legs and circle her clit with my tongue until she’s trembling on the edge. Sliding my hands under her gorgeous ass, I bring her closer so I can feast on her and suck her clit until she cries out so loudly, I worry she may wake Toby, but there is a baby gate at his door that he doesn’t know how to scale, so I know I’m safe to work her up and bring her to orgasm again with my mouth.
“Liam I—I—,” she stutters. She’s in that place where it feels so fucking good, you don’t think you can handle one more second of pleasure when I sink my cock into her ripe folds. Slowly, I slide in until she is completely full of me.
I lower myself down onto my elbows and bury my face in the curve of her neck and whisper, “You can let go now.” She releases the headboard and begins exploring my shoulders, my back and my ass. She’s fucking killing me with her little whimpers, and now her hands are all over my body. I pick up the pace, and she locks her ankles around my back, pushing against me with her heels, tilting her hips up, encouraging me to go deeper. The only sound in the room is that of our bodies slapping against each other and our heavy breathing until I can’t hold back any longer. After over three months of wanting her, dreaming of her and figuring out a way to be with her, I’ve finally got her wrapped around my body, writhing in ecstasy and pulsing on my cock. I let go with a roar that is only mildly muffled by her neck and the pillow under her head, and I come harder and with more intensity than I ever have before.
We lie locked around each other, both feeling the aftershocks of our orgasms while our hearts return to their rightful places in our chests and our breathing slows to a normal pace until we are able to speak again.
“I’m not as scared now,” she says. “I mean, I’m scared, but this thing we have . . . it’s real, isn’t it?”
“It’s always been real for me.”
“I wasn’t sure until . . .”
“Until you heard the words?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me something?”
“Anything.”
“Promise me you’ll never doubt that again. From this moment on until the end of time, I want you to know that I’ve never loved anyone before you. You’re my once in a lifetime, my once in a blue moon. I am in love and out of it I will not go.”
We roll to our sides, still tangled in each other’s arms, and I hold her face in my hands and look deeply into her eyes so she will connect my words to my feelings.
“C.S. Lewis,” she says with a smile.
“I knew you were a smart girl,” I say, kissing the tip of her nose.
“Thank you.”
“For what? I don’t think I had anything to do with your being smart. You should thank your parents for that.”
“No, silly. Thank you for turning this day into something good.”
“I promise that part of every day from now on will be good. Even if only for a minute or an hour, we will infuse even the worst days with a little bit of good.”
“I like that.”
“I like you,” I say.
“I thought you loved me?”
“That too. Yes, I do, I do so love you. I love you more than a foot loves a shoe, more than a boat likes to float or an alligator loves a moat . . .”
She covers my mouth and laughs. The sound of her laughter is bittersweet. This is just a moment stolen in time, but I’m glad I’m able to give it to her on this shitty-ass fucking day. The day that we started our battle with the big C.
“I have my very own Dr. Seuss,” she says when she has control of her giggles.
“Yep, if you need a rhyme, just ask anytime. Ask in the morning, ask in the night, ask when you’re finally boarding your flight . . .”
“Oh my God, stop. I’m going to pee the bed!”
“Okay, okay. We can’t have that. It’s not a very good example to set for Toby.”
“Toby. Yeah, we’d better get dressed before he catches us,” she says with wide eyes.
“Race you to the shower?” I say, hopping up, and she rolls her eyes.
“Do you really want me jumping out of bed and racing anywhere?”
“No, you’re probably right.” I scoop her up to carry her to the shower instead.
“We have to hurry. No hanky panky. He’s going to be awake soon—if he isn’t already,” she warns.
“Do it quick in the shower, do it quick in a chair. Do it quick in every room, every where.”
“How do I shut off Mr. Seuss?”
I smile a wicked smile. I’ll show you where the off switch is, baby.”
“I’ll just bet you will.”
Chapter 28
Lourdes
It’s been a long month of doctor’s appointments, MRIs, Ultrasounds and a biopsy of a lymph node in my neck. My final diagnosis after all of these tests is just as they originally suspected: stage one Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. At eighteen weeks pregnant, they are confident that chemotherapy is the best treatment and will still be safe for the baby. I’ve done so much research, my head is swimming with risks, facts, percentages and treatment plans. When this is over, the only doctor I ever want to see again is my baby’s pediatrician, and even then, only for routine vaccinations and checkups.
Liam has been my rock. I would have fallen apart if not for him. And my family has been nothing short of miraculous. They even fought over whose house I should live in when I go through chemo. I told them I’m not leaving Liam. Toby is settled and comfortable, and everyone is within a two-mile radius.
Everyone is so supportive. Kit and Devin, and even my new friends, Felicia and Steve, have been here doing anything they can to help.
I’ve never felt more scared or more loved in my life.
This morning is my first day of chemotherapy. We are dropping Toby off at Rachel’s, and Mom is meeting Liam and me at the hospital. My parents love Liam almost as much as I do. They had a hard time for a while with the whole marriage/surrogate/girlfriend thing, but now they see how deeply he cares for me and how much Toby loves him
.
“You ready to go?” Liam asks, standing just outside my bedroom door. We haven’t slept apart since my diagnosis. He spends every night down here in my lowly Queen-sized bed when he could be much more comfortable in his California King upstairs. He says he can’t stand to be apart from me and that sleeping up there only reminds him of Amira, and he hates to be reminded of her. She is still in Nigeria. It’s been months, and sometimes I wonder if she will ever come home. She has the divorce papers, but she’s been refusing to sign them while her father is still unconscious, and she asks about the baby obsessively. Liam has text after text every day asking about the pregnancy. He doesn’t answer any of them. She is completely in the dark about anything that’s going on. She has no idea I’m sick or that I’m living in her house.
“Yeah, I just need my bag and Toby’s things.”
“I’ve got all that in the car already.”
“Did you get my book?”
“Book, yes. Check.”
“My laptop?”
“Yes, laptop. Check. I put everything you wanted in there last night. You watched me, remember?”
“Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry, I’m just a little nervous,” I say, fiddling with the fringe on the throw pillow I’m hugging. Liam approaches and sits on the edge of the bed with me.
“You don’t ever have to apologize to me about anything, especially being nervous. Hell, I’m nervous and I’m not the one having chemo,” he says. He removes my hand from the pillow fringe and turns it over, palm up. He begins to draw letters on my palm that spell I love you and ends them with a heart. He’s been doing it for weeks. It started one night when we were talking about alternate forms of communication such as sign language and brail. I have no idea what got us on that subject, but it led to the tracing of letters on my hand and it stuck.
“It’s going to be fine, right? Everything is going to be okay?” I ask, and he looks at me with heavy seriousness and resolve.
“Absolutely yes. Everything is going to be fine, you’re going to be okay, and so is the little butterball in here,” he says, rubbing my now protruding belly.
“Thank you. I just need to hear it said out loud sometimes so it feels real.”
“I love you,” he says, pressing a reassuring kiss on my forehead.
“I love you too.”
“Okay, let’s go before Toby tears up the living room. He’s on a roll today.”
“I feel so bad that he’s spent so much time with Rachel and Mom, and when I’m here, I’m too tired to play with him.” He helps me from bed and holds my elbow unnecessarily all the way thorough the house. I’m able to walk, but I let him feel useful because he says he doesn’t feel like he’s doing enough. I don’t know how. He’s brought someone in to fill most of his time slots at the club, only keeping the Saturday night spot because it’s the most popular night. He spends the majority of his time during the day taking me to and from appointments or watching Toby while Mom takes me. And when there is nothing to do, he does nothing right alongside me. He reads to me, watches sappy chick flicks, takes my temperature, and forces naps on me. Actually, that’s a lie. I don’t have to be forced to nap.
“He’s fine, look at him,” he says as we make our way through the living room.
Toby is sitting in the middle of no fewer than five decks of playing cards spread out all around him in a circle. He’s turning them over and chatting with himself about pades and mimonds. Which are spades and diamonds if you don’t speak two-year-old Toby.
“He’s gonna be a famous Texas hold ‘em player in Vegas someday,” Liam says.
I groan. “Not if I can help it, he’s not. I want him to go to college and meet a nice girl and have babies.”
“That life isn’t for everyone, babe. I’m living proof.”
I stop and wait for him to scoop Toby up, “How is that? You went to college while you were on tour, you met me, and now you’re having a baby.”
He pauses to think. “You’re right, aren’t you? Let’s just work on never letting him be drugged by a crazy Nigerian woman and tricked into marriage.”
“Deal.”
Two hours later, we have dropped Toby off and I’m sitting in a huge recliner in a treatment room, and Liam is in a less comfortable chair at my side. I’ve had forty-five minutes of teaching on my particular kind of chemotherapy, and I’ve been given my pre-meds. Now I sit and wait. I feel pretty good, all things considered. The anxiety medication is working well, so I’m not freaking out, although Liam could use a few milligrams of what they gave to me. Poor guy is going through so much with me. I feel guilty every time I feel grateful.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He cocks his head with one brow lifted high, “Are you really asking me that right now?”
I chew on the inside of my lip before answering, “Yeah, I guess so. Is that wrong?”
He heaves a deep sigh and takes my hand. “I am perfectly fine, Lourdes. It’s you we are supposed to concentrate on today. Relax and don’t worry about me. Just let me be here for you and help you if I can.”
He squeezes my hand tight, and I agree to try and relax.
My nurse is very kind. She’s been patient and understanding when we ask questions, and she’s attentive without being smothering. She hung my medications, checked my vital signs, and made me feel as at home as I could in a sterile hospital room. When I was done, she gave me instructions to drink a lot of water and take my nausea medications as needed.
Our best-case scenario, as they put it, is to do two rounds of chemotherapy, which consist of four total infusions, and if things look good, deliver as close to full term as possible. If things don’t go well, we will be delivering early, and I’ll have another round or two of chemotherapy again after I have the baby. Liam says we will definitely have the best-case scenario, but I’m not as optimistic. It seems like we’ve had the cards stacked against us from the start, so I’ve begun expecting the worst, and I figure I’ll be surprised with the best.
Chapter 29
Liam
She made it through her first treatment like a champ. I couldn’t be more proud. I almost lost my breakfast a few times watching them access her port, but I sucked it up. I also checked her pulse every five minutes when she took a nap. She was so knocked out it looked like . . . I can’t even think about what it looked like.
We’re all home now, and everyone is tucked into bed for a much-needed nap, but my brain won’t shut off. I can’t figure out what is going on with Amira. She’s been gone for five months, but she just started driving me crazy with text messages about the baby two weeks ago. I told her it was no longer her business and to sign the damn divorce papers so we could be done, but she hasn’t.
She hasn’t messaged me once today. I’m not complaining, but it’s such a strange change in behavior. What am I saying? All of Amira’s behavior is strange. I can’t understand why her father is still in a coma and no one will tell her what’s going on with his will. She’s still receiving her trust fund money, so I’m sure she sees that as a positive. That only lasts until he dies though.
My question is this: If she wants to be married to me so badly, why doesn’t she just come home and wait to hear about her father from LA? I mean, he’s unconscious. He won’t know unless he wakes up. That’s got to be it. She’s worried he will wake up and find her gone and erase her forever.
I grab my computer and gently climb into bed next to Lourdes so as not to wake her. I’m not tired, and I’m sick of thinking about Amira, so I may as well work. Lately, I work best when I’m with Lourdes.
She’s curled up on her side with her hands pressed together under her pillow, breathing softly. I reach out and lay my hand on her growing belly. I’ve never seen a more adorable pregnant woman in my life. She’s only gained eight pounds, but it’s all baby. I’m amazed she’s gained any weight at all. Her appetite has diminished progressively over the past few weeks, so much that I practically have to bribe her to eat. She’s craving things she nev
er eats like marshmallow peeps, which are not available in October, so I have to order them from Amazon. She wants peanut butter anyway she can get it, in a candy bar or a cookie or just on a spoon, so that’s what she gets. Whatever she wants, she can have, even if she won’t ask for it—which she won’t. Toby has become my little spy. He tells me when she mentions she likes a particular food, and voila! It’s in the kitchen. I’m sure she’s caught on, but if it works for her not to ask directly, then it works for me.
I haven’t felt the little butterball move yet, but the doctor says Lourdes should be able to soon. She moves in her sleep, so I take my hand off her bump in case I’m bothering her. When she’s adjusted herself onto her back with one arm over her head, I kiss that palm and trace the words I love you onto it. She stays sleeping and I’m glad. She’s been through so much that I think sleep is her only escape.
Ninety minutes later, I’ve abandoned my laptop to lie and watch her sleep. She rolls toward me without opening her eyes.
“I need some of that stuff for nausea,” she says.
“Okay, hold on. I’ll be right back.” I slip off the bed and grab her prescription off the dresser and a bottle of water.
“Can you sit up a little, babe, or do you think you’ll puke?” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“No, I think I’m okay. It’s mild. I just want to prevent it from getting any worse.”
I hand her the water and watch her swallow the pill.
“Where’s Toby?”
“Your mom came to get him a little bit ago. She wanted to take him to that new Pixar movie that just came out.”
“Oh. I’m glad he’s not here. Is that bad?”
