by Amy Brent
“Dad?” I called.
“I’ll be just a second, Ethan,” my dad called back. I could hear him pushing something heavy toward the opening. “Can I pass a box down to you, son?”
“Yeah,” I said, waiting as he inched closer to the opening, his whiskery face appearing over the edge. He gave me a smile and then eased the box through the opening. I grabbed it, surprised by how heavy it was, and walked it over into the corner with the other boxers.
“What is all this?” I asked, peering at the boxes.
My dad climbed down the ladder and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Just old stuff your mother wanted me to get down. She’s in one of her cleaning phases. You know the ones.”
“Where she goes through every room and throws out a bunch of junk?” I asked.
My father nodded.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m familiar with it. Last time she did this, you were laid up in bed with a broken leg, and I had to do all the work.”
My father grinned. “That wasn’t such a raw deal on my end. By the time I was on my feet again, the house was clean, and she was filling it up with more shit from her shopping addiction. Don’t tell her I said that.”
I pretended to pull a zipper across my lips.
“Good lad,” my father said, slapping me on the back.
“So,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Where do you want to start?”
“Actually, let’s have a seat. I’ve been working my fingers to the bone all morning, and I need to take a breather.”
I followed my father into an addition he had built on the side of the garage eight years ago. It was a heated room with windows, and it was his official man cave. It had a television mounted on one wall with two couches on either side. I dropped down into one, and my father went to the mini-fridge he had in the corner. He grabbed us each a beer, tossed me mine, and sat down across from me.
After popping the tab on his can, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “So,” he said officially. “Give me the scoop on what all went down with you and Devon. Heather told us about the mess you made.”
I should have known there was an ulterior motive to cleaning the garage. I sighed and leaned back on the sofa. “There’s nothing to tell. Things aren’t working out, and we needed some space, so I’m staying at a hotel for a few nights.”
My father raised his eyebrows and sipped his beer. “So, she’s all alone in your penthouse? What do you imagine she’s doing with her time?”
I shrugged. “Watching movies and hanging out with Heather. I don’t know. She spends a lot of time reading, actually. She’s probably curled up on the couch with a book right now with the fire on. I’d bet money on it,” I said, unable to help the small smile that tugged the corner of my mouth.
“Why did you need space from her?” My father asked.
“It’s complicated, Dad, I don’t really want to get into it right now. It’s still fresh.”
My dad leaned back and shook his head disapprovingly at me. “You don’t want to talk about it because you can’t understand why you’ve done it.”
“What?” I asked.
“Listen, Ethan, you’re a smart man. No, you’re a brilliant man, and I’m so proud of you. You’ve built an incredible life for yourself strictly out of sheer will and determination. But what you have isn’t what you need. You’ve been missing that final piece, that piece that makes you whole and makes everything feel small. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“So what? Devon is my piece?” I asked, a little irritated at the analogy.
“That’s not my call to make. All I know is she makes you incredibly happy. I see the way you look at her when she’s around, and I see the way she looks at you. The love you have for one another is obvious to everyone but you. Even just now, when you told me Devon was probably at home reading, you lit up like a Christmas tree. I’m not blind, and I’m not stupid. You’re in love with the girl, Ethan.”
I looked at the beer in my hands.
“If you’ve nothing to say for yourself, I’ll keep going,” my father continued. “If you don’t man up and tell her how you feel and tell her what you want, you’re going to lose her. Women like that don’t come around often. You’re lucky one came around even once. And not to mention, she loves you, Ethan. Not your money or your house or your cars. You. Now you have to decide what you’re going to do. Staying at a hotel for a few nights is not a solution. It just delays the inevitable. Step up. Talk to her. Tell her what you want. Stop lying to yourself.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and finally met my father’s eye. I could feel the truth of everything he had just said in my bones.
“I’ve never felt this way about someone before,” I said, “and it scares the hell out of me.”
“It should,” my father said with an assertive nod. “This is an all hands on deck kind of situation. We don’t talk much about your other female pursuits, for lack of a better word, but those are a crutch, Ethan. You can’t get hurt when you only give someone two percent of yourself. Giving one hundred percent is a lot. It’s terrifying. But believe me, it is so worth it. If you let this girl get away, you will regret it for the rest of your life. I know you.”
“How do I even know if this is real?” I asked, standing up and pacing back and forth.
“What if I only feel like this because she’s carrying our son? What if this is temporary? What if the baby is born, and all of a sudden, everything goes back to how it was and we’re just friends?”
“I don’t know,” my father shrugged. “You tell me.”
I rubbed my temple. “She moves out. I raise my son. I go back to how things were.”
“And if you end things now?”
“Same thing,” I said quietly.
“Exactly,” my father said. “Go for it. The outcome is the same regardless of whether you try and fail or don’t try at all. You both deserve to give this a real fighting chance. That girl is head over heels in love with you, my boy. She isn’t going anywhere. Not if you fight for her.”
I sat back down and rested my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hands. We sat in silence together for a while until my father cleared his throat, stood, and joined me on my couch.
“This right here,” he said, “this feeling of anxiety and fear and doubt? This is proof enough that Devon is the one for you. This is how you know it’s right. When you’re so scared, you can hardly think straight, but you’re so damn excited that you want nothing more than to tell the girl you love her.”
He was right, of course. He was always right.
“I can’t just walk back into the house and tell her I’m over it. I can’t say I was just freaking out and hope she’ll understand,” I said.
“No, you can’t,” my dad said. “I guess you’d better start thinking of some ways to make it up to her. You left her alone at your place for three days when she was pregnant with your son.”
“What should I do? I’m no good at romantic gestures and big surprises.”
My father shook his head. “You’re overthinking it. In my experience, the best way to make it up to a woman who’s too good for you is to tell her exactly how you feel. Don’t hold back. Show her your soul. She’ll forgive you before she remembers she was ever upset with you.”
I arched an eyebrow.
“Ask your mother,” my father said, before giving me a wide, whiskery grin and slapping my knee with a laugh.
Chapter Thirty
Devon
When I finished all my classes for the day, it was nearly eight o’clock in the evening. As I walked from the front doors of the main campus building, I couldn’t stop thinking about getting comfortable on the couch with my new fuzzy socks and a good book. My brain felt like mush from six hours of lectures, and my feet were throbbing painfully. All I wanted was to relax and turn my mind off for a couple hours.
Ethan’s limo was parked at the curb, as per usual. When I was about fifteen feet away, Eddison got out of the driver�
��s seat, walked smartly to the back door, and opened it up for me with a curt nod and a wave.
“Thank you,” I said, giving him a warm smile as I ducked my head and climbed awkwardly into the back of the limo. Being pregnant made even the simplest of tasks more difficult, so it took me a while to actually get inside the vehicle.
Once inside, I sat in stunned silence.
Ethan was sitting on the long bench seat up the side of the limo. He had a bouquet of white and pink roses in his lap. Once I was settled, he handed them to me. I looked from the flowers to him and then back to the flowers.
When I opened my mouth to speak, he shook his head. I waited, anticipation swirling in my gut as I considered the words he might say.
“I should never have walked out on you on Thursday,” Ethan started. His eyes were locked on mine. “You were right. I was lying. It wasn’t about Liam or anything he had said, but it wasn’t about you sleeping in my bed either. I like when you sleep in my bed. I like waking up next to you, even if it means my arm is asleep and I have a mouthful of hair.”
I felt my eyes begin to tear. My cheeks were burning. My heart was pounding.
“I ran away because I got scared, Dev,” Ethan continued. “I was scared because what’s happening between us is real, and it’s intense, and it’s everything I’ve been specifically trying to avoid for the last six years. I’ve been terrified of commitment. And you were unexpected. I thought I could handle this like a business deal. I thought that once it was done, you and I could go back to how things were. Now, I see how painfully unrealistic I was being.”
“Ethan,” I said. “It’s okay. Don’t worry—”
“I’m not done,” he said, not impolitely. His tone was soft, almost pleading. I knew he needed to get all the words out before he could move on. “It was unrealistic because I had no clue what I was getting myself into with you. You’re an incredible woman, Devon, and you make me happier than I’ve ever been. I find myself smiling on my drive home from the office just because I’m excited to see you. I can’t begin to imagine what life would be like in my home without you.”
The tears spilled over my cheeks. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Was this really happening? Was he going to say what I thought he was going to say?
“Devon Mansfield, I am completely in love with you, and I want to give you the world. Can you forgive me for being a total fool?”
One sob escaped me before I threw myself forward. The roses fell to the seat beside me as Ethan wrapped his arms around me, and we held each other while the limo pulled away from the curb. I buried my face in his chest and clung to him. He drew me into his lap and put his hand on my belly.
“I’m so sorry, Devon,” he said softly in my ear before kissing the top of my head. “I’ll never do something like that to you again. I promise.”
“I forgive you,” I whispered back. Not only that, but I believed him. I believed every single word that came out of his mouth. “And just so you know,” I said, looking up at him, “I love you too.”
The smile I loved so much surfaced, and Ethan held my face in his hands and kissed me. It was a kiss unlike any we had ever shared. It was raw and sensual, and it felt like I was kissing a part of him I had never felt or seen before. This was a new Ethan, an Ethan who was ready for what we were about to become.
A family.
My heart was bigger and fuller than it had ever been. All the grief I had suffered for the past four days was behind me, so far behind me, it had almost been completely erased. I felt free and light, and all at once, I was overcome with the desire to fuck Ethan right there in the back of the limo.
I broke apart from our kiss. I needed to tell him what I wanted. I needed him to take me in this limo. I wanted his cock inside me. I wanted all of him.
His eyes followed me as if he was waiting for me to change my mind and tell him I didn’t want him anymore. The fear in his gaze hurt my soul, so I pulled myself to him again and kissed him gently and then more desperately. He returned my kiss with equal vigor.
Perhaps words were unnecessary.
I could show him how much I needed him without saying a thing. I began to slowly undo the buttons of his shirt, all the way down his chest, down his stomach, to the hem of the shirt which I had to untuck from his jeans. I kissed him all the while, letting my tongue caress his as I tasted his spearmint mouthwash.
When his shirt was undone, I pulled it open, exposing his muscular chest and stomach so I could run my fingers over his skin. He flinched at my first touch and then melted into it. I slipped a finger under the waistband of his boxers and ran it along his lower stomach under the band.
He caught my wrist as I reached to undo his belt. I opened my eyes to find him staring at me. His own stare was bright with need. I wanted him so bad.
He released my wrist but wouldn’t let me reach for his belt. Instead, he got down on his knees on the floor of the limo and began pulling my pants down. I rested my head back until it was against the window above the seat. I didn’t care that we were in a moving car. I needed him now. The windows were tinted. No one could see in. Eddison never opened a door without knocking first. We were hidden despite driving down one of the busiest streets in New York.
Once my pants were off, Ethan pushed my knees apart. I didn’t fight him. I settled lower in the seat so that my ass was perched right on the edge of the seat. My pussy was ready for him.
Ethan gave me a wry grin as he looked up at me. Then he disappeared below the swell of my belly, and before I knew it, his tongue was flicking over my clit. I gasped, gripped the leather seat, and looked up.
I was looking up out the window at telephone lines whooshing by overhead. The occasional bird speckled the wire as Ethan’s tongue tasted me.
Then his finger was inside me.
I moaned softly as his tongue and his finger worked as a perfect pair on my pussy. He pressed upward until his fingers hit my G-spot, and then he worked them in a circular motion inside me, stretching me, pulling me, until it was almost too much to bear. I quivered at his touch as he pushed further inside me.
Then he sucked my clit into his mouth and held it there. His tongue ran over it only a couple times before I came. I jerked and spasmed uncontrollably as my orgasm broke over me. Ethan never stopped suckling my clit or fucking me with his fingers. The pleasure was exquisite. For a brief moment, I was nothing but sex, and even after it passed, I felt like I was invincible.
I wanted to make him feel like that.
I asked him to undress and he tossed his pants aside. Our clothes now sat in a little pile on the seat across from us. I slid down the seat until I was sitting on the floor in the middle of the limo. Then I asked Ethan to straddle me. He planted a knee on either side of my hips and put the condom on the seat behind me.
His cock hovered right in front of my face.
He grinned down at me as he realized I was about to suck him off.
I licked my lips so they were wet and then pressed them to the tip of his dick. He closed his eyes as I took more of him, letting my lips glide down his shaft as I pressed my tongue against him.
I took him so deep that my nose touched his belly. I was so turned on. My pussy was pulsing. I could feel wetness gathering between my legs. I couldn’t wait until his cock was sliding inside me.
I pulled his cock out of my throat and played with the tip of his dick with my tongue. I stared up at him until he opened his eyes.
“Fuck my mouth,” I told him, opening my mouth wide for him and sticking out my tongue.
I loved that Ethan was the kind of man who would do what I asked him to do. He gathered a fistful of my hair and pulled my mouth down on his cock until his shaft was buried between my lips. I only gagged once before I got it under control. Then he began to fuck my mouth nice and slowly, easing all the way out and then back in again at a pace that was easy for me and apparently wonderful for him.
“I want to fuck that tight pussy of yours,” Ethan growled, his fingers tig
htening in my hair as he pulled my head back.
“Then do it,” I said, stroking his wet cock with my hand.
He climbed off me and lifted me back up onto the seat. We were confined by the small space of the back of the limo and obstructed by my belly. Ethan had me get on my hands and knees and face the window. He stayed where he was on his knees on the floor.
When I was comfortable, Ethan ran his fingers up and down my slit.
“You’re so fucking wet, babe,” he breathed before slipping two fingers inside me.
“Because I need you,” I whispered.
Ethan began moving his fingers up and down. I could hear how wet I was. I could feel the slickness of his fingers gliding in and out.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, arching my back and looking to the ceiling lined with pink lights. “I’m going to come.”
“Not yet,” he growled, pulling his fingers out and running them down to my clit.
It felt so good. I pushed back against him, trying to get him to put his cock inside me. I could feel it resting on the back of my thigh. It felt huge.
His fingers were inside me again. He fucked me hard and didn’t stop until I cried out with pleasure and turned to soup in his hands.
When I was done, I watched as he shoved his cock in my pussy. He stretched me open, demanding more from me. I gave him everything.
He took my hair in his fist once more and held me in place. I knew that if I wasn’t pregnant, he would have been rougher with me.
I looked forward to the day.
The limo came to a stoplight. Through the tinted window, I could see a car stopped beside us. There was a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat. She was well-dressed with cat-eye sunglasses that were useless at eight in the evening in the middle of winter. The driver had his hand on her thigh. It was inching higher and higher until it slipped beneath her skirt.
I found myself smiling. This was living.
Ethan’s cock thrust in and out of me. His thighs slapped against the back of mine. He slapped my ass and pulled my hair tighter in his fist. I cried out in surprise and excitement and rotated my hips on his cock. I heard him groan and knew I was done for.
