Distant Desires: Part 3

by Cambria Hebert

  I titled my head. “Is that why you dress like a preppy boy even though I know underneath it is all rocker dude?”

  He smiled. “Something like that.”

  I opened my mouth to ask him more, but he put his arm around me. “We’re talking about you.”

  Talking about him was easier. I sighed.

  “Tarek’s family doesn’t like me,” I said.

  “How could anyone not like you?” he asked.

  I giggled. “Right? I’m totally lovable.”

  His arm tightened around me. “You totally are.”

  My stomach flipped. Maybe I shouldn’t be talking to him about this. Maybe our history wouldn’t make him easier to confide in, but harder.

  As if he read my mind, he added. “It’s okay, Soph. We’re friends before anything.”

  “I need a friend right now, Matt.”

  “Good thing I’m here.”

  I rested my head against his shoulder.

  “His family doesn’t like me. They want him to take the baby when he’s born back to… back to his country so it can be raised there, with them.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’ve been fighting about it.” Okay, Tarek and I hadn’t really been fighting about it until now, but it’d been an ongoing worry for me. “Then Teagan shows up out of the blue. I feel like she came here to spy on me.”

  “Well, that would explain why she asked me a hundred questions about you.”

  I glanced up. “Really? What did she say?”

  He shrugged. “I thought it was just sisterly concern,” he said. “She wanted to know how you’ve been with your pregnancy, how you and Tarek get along, how he is with you… stuff like that.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said you’re great and Tarek takes really good care of you.”

  “You did?” Emotion welled up in my throat. Tarek did take good care of me. Just thinking about it hurt.

  “I can’t imagine she would want to take your son,” he said.

  “Well, she does.”

  “What the hell kind of country do they live in?” he muttered.

  I ignored him because I didn’t know how to answer.

  “I’m very afraid Tarek will do what they want. That he will take away my baby.”

  Matt was silent for long moments. Then he sighed. “Look, you know Tarek isn’t my favorite person. When he first showed up, the urge to punch him in the face every time I looked at him was pretty strong.”

  I laughed.

  “But,” he said, giving me a squeeze, “as much as I hate to say this, I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I see the way he looks at you, Soph. It’s like you hung the moon or something. You’re his entire world.”

  “You really think that?” I whispered, desperately wanting it to be true.

  “I really do. It’s kind of odd because when he looks at everyone else, he seems kind of… empty. It’d be creepy if I didn’t see the way he was when you were around. He loves you, Soph.”

  If I wasn’t so scared and overwhelmed, I would be overjoyed. “What if it’s not enough?” I said, the words ripping from deep inside me.

  Matt fell silent. I felt his thoughts turn inward, and I wanted to ask what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to pry. Instead, I rested my head against him and stared out into the dark yard, breathing in the cool summer air and trying to calm my tattered nerves.

  After a long time, Matt said, “If it’s not enough, I’ll be here.”

  My chest constricted. Did Matt still care about me? Like, as more than just friends? I knew it was probably terribly selfish, but his words made me feel better. Just knowing that he would be here made me less scared.

  “Matt, I can’t ask you to put your life on hold for me.”

  “You didn’t ask,” he rumbled. “I offered. And my life isn’t on hold. I’m still living it.”

  “With Teagan?” I teased, even though the thought of Matt with her made me sick.

  He chuckled. “She is smoking hot,” he said. “And I kind of like watching her reactions to my flirting.”

  “You’ve been flirting with her?” I said.

  “Jealous?” He grinned.

  I sputtered, not sure what to say. I wasn’t jealous, not really. I knew eventually Matt would find someone, but I didn’t want it to be her.

  “Relax,” he said, kissing me on the side of my head. “I’m just teasing.”

  I made a sound in the back of my throat.

  “Maybe I was interested. But if she’s seriously giving you problems, I’m going to steer clear. There’s no way I’d get involved with someone who was trying to hurt you.”

  Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him hard. “Thank you for being here, Matt. You mean a lot to me.”

  “Yeah,” he said, returning the hug. “Ditto.”

  The sound of someone clearing his throat behind us had me pulling away from Matt and looking over my shoulder.

  “Tarek,” I said.

  His eyes glittered in the dark, and his pale skin stood out in the moonlit night. “I do not like when you touch her,” he said, cold.

  “Chill, man,” Matt said, getting up from his seat beside me. “We were just talking.”

  “Looked like more than talking to me,” he said curtly.

  I sighed.

  “Why don’t I give you guys a minute?” Matt offered. “I’ll go see what Teagan is doing up there all by herself.”

  My back stiffened.

  Matt laughed. “She’s probably snooping through all your stuff.”

  “That’s not funny,” I growled.

  “Relax,” he replied, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll go keep her occupied.”

  He didn’t sound the least put out by the job.

  “Thanks,” I said as he walked away.

  I knew Tarek was still there, but I didn’t look at him. Instead, I stared straight forward, searching for the right words to say.

  He walked around to stand in front of me so all I could see was him. Slowly, he crouched down before me, bringing us face to face. “You turned to him,” he said, not angrily. Not even accusingly. It was more like it hurt him.

  “I didn’t turn to him,” I whispered. “We were just talking. I needed to talk to someone.”

  “You have me.”

  “Do I?” I asked, my voice cracking. I looked right into his eyes.

  “I’ll choose you,” he said.

  “You would choose me over an entire race of people? Your own people?”

  “You’re my people now,” he whispered, reaching out and hovering his hand above my stomach. I knew he wanted to touch me, but he wasn’t sure if I wanted him to. “You and my son are the only people that matter to me.”

  I made a sound and grabbed his hand, pressing it against the spot where our baby lay within me.

  “I’m really scared, Tarek.” The words tumbled out of me like rain from a storm cloud.

  “I’m going to make this right,” he vowed. “I’m going to protect you. And him.” He caressed my stomach.

  I believed him.

  God help me, I believed he would choose me and this baby.

  “They aren’t going to accept this.” I worried. “Right this second, Teagan is in our home, plotting against us.”

  “They won’t have a choice.” His voice reminded me of the way it was when I first met him. Cold, uncaring… lacking any kind of emotion.

  I shivered. What kind of fight was I bringing this baby into?

  “I’d like to touch you now,” Tarek said softly. “To hold you.”

  Before I could even finish nodding, he scooped me up and sat down with me in his lap. He held me close, his arms like steel bands around me. “It… hurt when you walked out with Matt,” he said, like he was trying to make sense of the emotion. “Like something inside my chest had broken.”

  “Does it still hurt?” I whispered, not lifting my head from his chest.<
br />
  “Not anymore,” he said, his lips brushing the top of my head. “I don’t ever want to feel that way again,” he murmured. “I won’t let them take you from me.”

  I wondered if he would have a choice.

  the bacon

  I

  woke to gentle, affectionate hands caressing my skin. He started at the small of my back, gliding his fingertips over my spine and into the dip of my hipbone. Slowly, he dragged them upward over the side of my ribs and over my arm.

  Little tingles of pleasure invaded my still half-asleep brain and made me settle more closely against the sheets. Tarek walked his fingers downward, across the side of my rounded, enlarged breast, and my body arched into his touch, demanding more.

  He palmed the heaviness of my breast, massaging the flesh and making me moan low in my throat. Immediately, my nipple responded, puckering into a hard pebble and aching for more.

  As he massaged me, I reached around behind me to grasp the thick, hard length of him. Tarek was so hard it excited me. I knew all too well what it felt like for him to drive his steely rod into me. To massage me from the inside out.

  Moisture dampened between my legs, and I rolled onto my back, forgoing the foreplay, wanting him inside me now.

  Tarek nuzzled the side of my neck. His breath fluttered the wisps of hair away from my skin as his lips nipped at the sensitive flesh. I rolled my head to give him greater access as he kissed his way down across my collarbone. He drew my aching nipple into his mouth and rolled it around on his tongue. He sucked it harder into his mouth, applying wanted pressure and making my toes curl into the sheets.

  I grabbed his bicep and pulled on him, impatient.

  His throaty chuckle only served to make me want him more.

  I spread my legs eagerly as he moved over me and settled between my legs. “Is this okay, my love?” he whispered as two fingers tested my entrance. Tarek never entered my body without knowing I was ready for him.

  “Yes,” I moaned. I wanted him inside me. I knew he was only concerned about me and the fact I was merely weeks away from delivering, but I needed him. Now.

  He slid into me with ease. I moaned loudly and gripped his arms. God, he felt so good. My entire body was a giant sensitized nerve, and he knew exactly how to touch me.

  He held himself over me. I wanted to feel his weight push me into the bed, but I didn’t bother to ask. I knew he wouldn’t. Ever since my belly grew like I was smuggling a basketball, Tarek wouldn’t let me support his weight.

  As if he knew where my thoughts were headed, he began to move within me, and thoughts of everything else fled my brain.

  All I could do was feel.

  Feel the rigid length of him spear me, feel his smooth cock glide against my inner walls and bury deep within me. He moved slowly until I panted his name and grabbed at the pillow nearby. Only then did he whisper my name and begin to move faster.

  I groaned and dug my nails into his forearms as he took me on a ride. Sensation after sensation rolled over me, and I began to meet his thrusts with my own, pushing my body against his, grinding my pelvis against his hard lower body.

  The orgasm came swift and hard, but it pulsated through me thoroughly and lingered even as he continued to move. My body fell spent against the mattress as I widened my legs so he could delve into me one last time before his entire body turned rigid and I felt him pump into me.

  I flexed my inner walls around him, and he shuddered anew.

  Moments later, he rolled away and settled back beside me. I rolled onto my side and tucked my hand under my cheek, studying his sculpted, marble-like features in the very dim lighting of the early day.

  His galactic gaze swept over me, and he pushed some dampened strands of hair away from my face. He whispered a string of words in the language of his planet, the most poetic, languid speech I had ever heard. He did that a lot these days. Ever since he told me loved me just over a week ago.

  He spoke to me in his native tongue, whispering the most beautiful things I didn’t understand. But I didn’t have to understand the exact meaning of every word he spoke because I knew the intent behind every single syllable.

  I understood he was sharing something about himself, showing me a part of who he was before he came here.

  Frankly, even if he hadn’t said I love you, I would have known.

  I felt it.

  I tasted it.

  I lived it.

  His love was tangible. It was authentic, and it was entirely mine.

  “I love you,” I whispered, knowing my words didn’t compare to his. But the look on his face every time I told him was like watching a full moon rise in his gaze and reflect off the stars that lived in the amethyst of his stare.

  I liked to hope my words affected him as much as his did me.

  He grasped my hand and pulled up to his lips, brushing a feather-light kiss across the tops of my knuckles.

  “Morning is my favorite time of day,” he murmured.

  I smiled. “Because every morning we have sex?”

  He shook his head and kissed the back of my hand again. “No. Because every morning when I open my eyes, I see you, and I realize it hadn’t all been a dream, that you, my love, are my reality. You’re more than I ever thought possible.”

  Well, damn.

  Those were some pretty English words.

  “You’re more than I ever thought possible, too,” I whispered.

  He grinned. “I like the sex, too.”

  I laughed. It was moments like these that gave me hope. Moments where we were so blindly in love that I didn’t think it was possible it could all be ripped away. It was times like this that made me believe Tarek and I would beat all odds, that whatever divine force brought us together would never have done so if we were to be ripped so violently apart.

  I closed my eyes as I did every single morning and tried to memorize the way I felt in the moment. It was a feeling that would carry me through the times of doubt. The times when Teagan was watching me like a hawk and it was all I could do to not stab her with anything in reach.

  Please. Like you didn’t expect that? I was fat, hormonal, I felt threatened, and I wanted some bacon.

  That’s like a recipe for murder.

  “You’re hungry,” Tarek said.

  He wasn’t reading my mind. I was always hungry. “I want bacon,” I announced.

  He rolled his eyes. “You ate it all yesterday.”

  I help up my hand. “If you so much as suggest I eat a banana instead, I might bite you.”

  “I might like it.” He grinned.

  His grin was sexy as hell.

  “Bacon.” I reminded him.

  He rolled swiftly and gracefully out of bed. I momentarily forgot about my craving for bacon as I stared at his naked butt.

  Too soon, he pulled on a pair of jeans and turned to me. He wasn’t wearing underwear—he rarely ever did—and the fly and button were still undone.

  The V-shaped muscle on either side of his hips cut deep and delved down into the open waistband of his jeans.

  “I don’t need bacon,” I said. “Come back to bed.”

  He chuckled. “I will not let you and my son starve,” he said, buttoning the jeans and earning a dirty look from me.

  “But after you have him, we are going to work on your eating habits.”

  It was like a switch flipped inside me.

  After.

  I tried to never think about after I had this baby. It was far too much uncertainty. Everything was still safe, still happy when he was inside me.

  It was the after that scared me most.

  Tarek talked like nothing would change, but I couldn’t help but be scared nothing would be the same.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning back onto the bed, bringing his face close to mine. “None of that.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I’ve got everything under control.”

  “You really think Teagan is going to abandon everything she was sent here to do and side with us?”
I asked doubtfully.

  She’d been here a little over a week. She watched our every move. She was like a permanent fixture in this house. I tolerated her because Tarek asked me to. Mostly, I tried to pretend she wasn’t there.

  Tarek was convinced if we exposed her enough to human life, to our relationship, to emotion, that she would come to realize that taking this baby was the wrong thing to do. Tarek seemed to think her siding with him would go a long way in convincing the other Sapiens they were wrong.

  I wasn’t as convinced as he was. But I’d try anything.

  So far, I didn’t seem to notice she was affected at all by our life, the way were together, nor did she show any signs of support for us.

  She was, however, keen on Matt.

  Big surprise there.

  Not.

  “I think it’s definitely a possibility. I know what it’s like to be surrounded by emotion for the first time. She can’t be unaffected. She’ll come around.” He gave me a hopeful, boyish look, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “I’m going to the store to get some more of that animal fat you like.”

  I gasped. “How dare you demoralize my bacon!” I threw a pillow at him and he caught it.

  “I’ll be sure and bring you some fruit, too.” Tarek grinned and tossed the pillow beside me. “I’ll be back, love.”

  “I’ll miss you!” I called after him.

  I heard his answering chuckle echo back through the hall.

  I wallowed in bed for long moments, inhaling his scent off the sheets and, pretty much, craving bacon. A sound from out in the kitchen caught my attention, and I listened harder. It sounded like the microwave was running and someone was rummaging in the cupboard.

  Tarek only left minutes ago; I knew it wasn’t him.

  I got out of bed and pulled on some necessary undergarments and a black cotton sundress. I loved the way the soft, roomy fabric didn’t constrict my ever-growing waist.

  I didn’t bother with a brush for my long, tangled hair, and I walked down the hall, listening as the noise in the kitchen grew louder.

  I knew exactly who I’d see when I turned the corner.

  I stopped in the doorway and stared, watching as Teagan made herself a cup of hot tea, added a copious amount of honey, and grabbed an orange out of the bowl on the counter. When she turned, her eyes met mine.