by Amy Brent
Liam’s mouth hung open while he tried to process what was happening. “All right, man, that’s cool. Don’t be a stranger, okay? We’ll get together soon.”
“Yeah. Yeah, sounds good,” I said, shrugging into my coat.
“Ethan?”
“What?” I asked, fixing the collar of my jacket.
“Don’t let what I said fuck things up for you, okay? I was just messing around.”
I forced myself to smile. “It’s all good. I get it. Have a good night. Try to take that girl home,” I added. “She does have great legs.”
Liam raised his beer to me as I left. I slipped through the bodies in the bar and reveled in the crisp fresh air once I emerged outside on the sidewalk. My breath left little clouds in the air in front of me as I walked.
I needed to clear my head. Everything Liam had said had brought reality to the foreground of my brain. I hadn’t considered the ramifications of getting too involved with Devon. This was serious. I didn’t want to hurt her.
Maybe I needed to rein it in a little bit. I could pull back so that when the break happened, it wouldn’t be so abrupt. That would make it easier for both of us. Devon definitely deserved easier. She deserved the world. She was going to leave my place in a couple months to get started on her new life.
I was going to stay behind with my newborn son.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and kept walking. I wandered around downtown for a while, trying to digest my thoughts, until I finally called Eddison to pick me up. The limo ride home was long and quiet. I found myself thinking that I wished Devon was there to talk to.
The thought made me internally roll my eyes.
I had let myself get too deep with this girl. I needed to create space, and I needed to do it sooner rather than later.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Devon
The fire was crackling happily behind the frosted glass, and the crystals beneath the flames were sparkling radiantly, casting flickering amber light on the carpet on the living room floor. Music was thumping out of Ethan’s wall-mounted speakers, and I was dancing like a fool in my bare feet and pajamas. I could feel the bass from the music in the soles of my feet with each and every beat, and as I shimmied my shoulders and shook my butt like a Go-Go dancer who needed to be fired, I realized something that froze me in place.
I had never felt so damn happy before.
This epiphany only made me dance like more of a fool, and as I spun around the living room, I was grinning like a madwoman. I put both hands on my belly as I started to sing along to the song and continued rocking out until I heard the front door close.
I hurried to the coffee table to grab the remote to turn down the music. Just as the volume adjusted to a more appropriate noise level, Ethan emerged from the hallway. He was dressed nicely in dark denim and a black jacket that framed his broad shoulders well. A dark gray shirt was tucked into his jeans, and a silver watch flashed on his wrist beneath the cuff of his sleeve.
He gave me a smile that wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was used to seeing and then went straight to the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge. He popped it open, returned the bottle opener to its home in one of the top drawers, and then leaned one hip against the counter as he took a sip.
“Hey,” I said, waddling over to the island to join him in the kitchen.
He was still leaning against the counter and didn’t turn to face me like he normally would. He took another mouthful of beer, sloshed it around his mouth a bit, and then after he had swallowed, lifted his gaze to finally meet mine. “Hey,” he said, “were you dancing in here?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, wiggling my shoulders playfully.
“I could hear the music from the elevator. Be a little more careful about the noise. The neighbors downstairs won’t appreciate it.”
“Oh,” I said, my cheeks getting hot. “Sorry. I got a little carried away, I guess. I didn’t realize how loud it was.”
He shrugged, remained quiet, and sipped his beer again.
I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was acting weird. Quite weird. Normally, the first thing he did when he got home was ask me how I was feeling. He wanted to know about my day, about how the baby was doing. What had I eaten? Had the baby kicked at all? Had I slept well the night before?
But now he was distant, closed off, and would barely meet my eye.
I slid off my barstool and padded around the island to join him on his side. He remained where he was, stiff and still, one hip still pressed to the counter.
I reached out and rested a hand lightly on his elbow. “Is everything okay, Ethan?” I asked.
He pulled his elbow away from me, stepped back, and put his beer down. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, why?”
I followed his retreat. Something was definitely up. Had I done something? I ran things over in my mind.
No, I couldn’t have. Everything had been so good lately. Actually, things had been pretty magnificent. Now that I had Heather back, I felt like I was living on cloud nine. Ethan had been as thrilled with my reunion with my best friend as I was. I couldn’t understand why he was having such a shift in behavior.
“Did something happen at work today?” I asked.
He shook his head, his eyebrows drawing together as he took another sip of beer. “No, nothing happened.”
“Was your night with Liam not a good time?” I asked.
Ethan shook his head. “No. It was fine. What’s with the interrogation?”
“It’s not an interrogation,” I said defensively. “You seem upset about something, and I want to make sure you’re okay. Since when is that such a big deal?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Ethan sighed. It wasn’t a small, end of the day kind of tired sigh. It was an annoyed sigh. It was the kind of sigh that basically yelled “shut up.”
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked. “Besides listening to music too loud? What did I do that’s making you treat me this way?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation right now,” Ethan said, waving me away like my question didn’t matter.
He made to walk around me, but I caught his sleeve and turned with him. “Ethan. Enough. You are a grown ass man, and I’m carrying your child. I don’t care if you don’t want to talk right now. We’re talking. End of story. Spit it out already.”
He stood there staring at me for an agonizing thirty seconds before concluding that the gig was up, and he had to put words to his thoughts. I wasn’t going to put up with this cold shoulder treatment. There was no way in hell.
“I just think I need a little bit of space right now,” he said.
“Space?” I asked, feeling a cold hand clamping around my stomach.
Ethan nodded. “Things feel like they’ve been moving really quickly, and I don’t know where my head is at. It’s all a little overwhelming.”
“Is this because of Liam? Did he say something to you?”
“No,” Ethan said crossly. “It has nothing to do with him.”
“I don’t understand where this is coming from,” I said, the hand around my stomach tightening even further until I felt like I could be sick right then and there. “I thought everything was going well. I thought we were happy. I thought—”
“I get it,” Ethan said, holding up his hand to get me to stop talking. “But this … all of a sudden, this became ‘us.’ I need to take a step back. We both do. Things are going to change in a couple months.”
I stood there like a fool blinking at him while I tried to get the words in my brain to my mouth. “You haven’t said any of this before. I had no idea you were feeling this way. How long have you been needing space?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan said.
“Yes, it does!” I said, feeling like a complete idiot. How had I let myself get so caught up in him? How long had he only had one toe in?
“No, Dev, it doesn’t. We both need to be practical, here, and—”
“You�
��re sure Liam didn’t say something to you? Because it sure feels like this came out of nowhere, and Liam is always spewing moronic bullshit out of his mouth.”
“This isn’t about Liam,” Ethan sad flatly.
“Then where is this coming from?” I pleaded. “What is all this really about?”
“It’s about you sleeping in my bed almost every night,” Ethan snapped.
I stared at him. He stared evenly back. Those perfect brown eyes of his were startling to stare into now. The warmth I was so used to seeing there was gone.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” I whispered.
“It isn’t.”
“Liar.”
Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. We stood there separated by only two feet of space that felt like miles until he let his hand fall from his face, and he regarded me with a neutral expression that I couldn’t read.
“I’m going to go stay in a hotel room for a few nights,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
He nodded, polished off the last few gulps of his beer, and left the empty bottle on the counter. Then, he went to his room where he started packing a bag. I lingered in the doorframe, watching as he tucked a pair of jeans into a duffel bag. He grabbed a small bag of toiletries and put those in the duffel bag as well.
I tried to think of something to say to change his mind. Nothing came to me. I felt empty and hollow and weak and terribly hurt. What could have happened in one day that made him feel so put off by me?
He squeezed past me in the open doorway to his bedroom and made his way to the front door. He stepped into his shoes, looked up once at me, and then opened the door.
“Bye,” I said quietly, my voice hitching in my throat.
He paused, his back to me and his hand still resting on the door handle. He turned his face to the side so that I could hear him, but he didn’t look at me. “Bye,” he said, before closing the door behind him.
As soon as the door closed, I crumpled to the ground. There was nothing I could do to hold on to the emotion that poured out of me. I buried my face in my hands as I sat on his floor and sobbed. My shoulders shook, my back ached, and within minutes, I had that all too familiar headache one suffered from after a really hard crying session. My nose was running, my eyes were swollen, and all I wanted was for Ethan to come back through that door telling me he was sorry and that he had made a mistake; I wanted him to tell me he had only been scared, but he knew what he wanted now.
I wanted him to want me.
How had this all become so one-sided? Twenty minutes ago, I had been feeling like everything in my life was going right. I knew I loved Ethan Garrison. I’d known deep down for a couple of months now. I loved who I was when I was with him. I loved how he made me feel.
I felt powerful and sexy and smart when I was with him. He built me up and complimented me, and I thought I complimented him. The way he looked at me sometimes had been enough to convince me I wasn’t the only one falling in love.
But it was all clear to me now I had been the only one who’d let my feelings take over. He had kept to the contract. This relationship was, at the end of the day, just a business deal. My role was to carry his child. After that, I would return to my normal solitary life, get an apartment back by NYU, and continue focusing on my career and building my own life.
My own life without Ethan.
I surprised myself by sobbing harder than I thought I physically could.
It had been so easy for him to walk away from me. He hadn’t even looked back. He didn’t need to. I was a business partner that he happened to have sex with on a near-daily basis. I was the one who had let myself get too caught up in him.
And now I had to pay the price.
My heart was broken. My soul was crushed.
And his child was still inside me, his little feet pushing up against my bladder, forcing me to stand on wobbly knees and make my way to the bathroom.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ethan
The room looked like my living room. The floors were an inky dark obsidian, which were so shiny, they reflected the dancing flames in the fire. There wasn’t a single thing in the room except for a white fur rug in front of the fireplace. At the top right corner of the rug was a silver tray, adorned with six chocolate dipped strawberries and accompanied by an ice bucket with champagne. Two empty glass flutes lay on their sides on the rug. They were nearly swallowed up by the plush white fur.
I peered around, wondering where all my furniture was.
I was distracted from my search when my gaze returned to the rug and found a new addition to the scene. Devon was standing in the middle of the rug. She wore a long, sheer white robe embellished with rhinestones and lace. It was done up around her waist with a silk sash.
I could see all of her through the sheer fabric, her muscular thighs, her lean stomach, perky breasts, hard nipples, and the curve of her waist and hip. She was beautiful.
She tossed her curtain of dark hair over her shoulder. Her bright green eyes glittered as she regarded me. The lust in her gaze was enough to set my soul on fire.
She undid the sash slowly and let it fall to the floor. The sheer robe slipped from her shoulders to join the sash on the rug.
Devon went slowly to her knees.
“Come,” she whispered.
I went.
When I stood before her, I realized I was naked too. My cock was hard and reaching upward. I was aware of how close she was to it. Her breath grazed my thighs as she leaned in, her mouth disappearing from view as she took my balls between her lips and sucked gently.
Her hands found my shaft, and she began working me up and down slowly.
I gathered her hair in my hands and guided her up until she lifted her gaze to meet mine. She never looked away as she opened her mouth for me. I eased my cock between her lips. Her tongue on the bottom of my shaft was warm and slick. Her lips sealed around me, and she puckered her cheeks, sucking me hard.
The tip of my dick hit the back of her throat. She held me, my hands still in her hair, until I let her breathe again, pulling out of her throat. She licked her lips and opened wide for me again.
I knew I was alone as soon as I opened my eyes. The ceiling I was staring at was not a familiar one. That’s when I remembered that I was at a hotel around the block from my office.
I remembered the fight with Devon the previous evening.
I remembered how she had waited for me to say something as I was about to walk out the door, and I recalled how no words seemed fitting enough to be spoken. So, I had left after muttering “bye” over my shoulder.
I wondered what she had done afterward. Those thoughts had kept me awake until nearly three in the morning.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. That’s when I felt the pressure in my cock. I was rock-hard and ready, and there was no warm body who smelled like coconut beside me for me to fill up with my come. It was a little unsettling to wake up with the desire to fuck the girl I had just left behind at my place.
I ripped the blankets off and went into the bathroom. I unwrapped the body lotion on the counter beside the sink, pumped a generous amount into my palm, and wrapped my fingers around my cock.
I braced myself with one hand on the full-length mirror beside the sink. I hunched over, my hand working vigorously, as I let my mind wander over the tantalizing images from my dream.
Devon, naked, waiting for me on the fur rug with those dazzling eyes of hers.
Devon, opening her mouth wide for me and letting me fuck her throat.
Devon, on her knees in front of me, her breasts full and firm, her mouth and lips feeling like velvet on my cock, the smell of sex lingering in the air around us.
My cock pulsed in my hand at the thought of fucking her tight, little pussy. There was no woman on the planet who could hold a candle to Devon. All I wanted to do was slip my cock in that wet, little slit of hers and fuck her with her legs in the air. I wanted to hold her ankles a
nd spread those legs wide and bury my cock so deep in her pussy that she screamed my name. I wanted to feel her come on my cock as she came.
My hand was a poor substitution for Devon’s body. It lacked the softness of her and the smell of her. I ached for the way she would rotate her hips above me, pushing my cock against her walls as she clutched her breasts and looked to the ceiling in breathless ecstasy.
I gritted my teeth as I worked myself closer to the edge.
I kept the image of Devon in my mind. I carried on from where the dream ended, imagining her falling on her back on the rug and letting her knees fall open for me. I imagined settling between her legs to taste her and eat her up while she writhed and moaned in the firelight.
As the soft sounds of pleasure from my waking dream reached my ears, I let myself finish. I came up my stomach, sending warm lashes of come onto my cool skin. When I was done, it was harder to hold onto the flashes from my dream, and the images started to flicker away.
Once I was in the shower, the ache I had woken with returned.
I wasn’t well-rested enough for the meeting I was struggling through. I was meeting with four board members of a company I had purchased over two years ago to discuss the previous quarter’s growth and hear any suggestions they might have to increase productivity. It was a small company that was just gaining momentum now.
The creator of the company, Joshua Brooks, was at the front of the room giving a presentation about their projected growth for the next three months.
I rubbed my eyes and nodded along, making sure I was soaking in every word he said. These meetings were important. My son was going to inherit responsibility for this company one day, and I was committed to making sure I put in the work now, so he didn’t have to struggle twenty years from now.
“So,” Joshua was saying, “in conclusion, we anticipate a margin of six-percent growth each quarter of the next year. That will put us at a total increase of twenty-four percent by January.”
The door to the office burst open. The blinds hanging in front of the window on the door clattered against the glass, and all five of us in the conference room swung around to look at who had burst in.
