by Brill Harper
“I’mabsolutelysure,” I ramble, hoping he isn’t about to take that straining package in his pants away from me.
He chuckles and lowers his pants and boxers all the way down, revealing himself to me entirely as his big cock springs up, finally free. I gasp. It’s enormous, so swollen and thick. “This is how hard you make me. Do you like it?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Oh God, I want it so bad.”
A rumble shakes out of his chest. “I’m going to give you every inch of it tonight. More than once, but I think you were right about taking the edge off first. You want to help me with that?”
Is he kidding me with this? My whole world just became that giant dick. “I will do absolutely anything you want, Mac. Tell me and it’s yours.”
He freezes, his jaw constricting and his whole body tightens. “Fuck, you don’t even know what you’re doing to me with that kind of talk.”
“I have a pretty good idea. And that’s what I want.” I raise up on my elbows, licking my lips at that giant dick. “I’m going to be real with you, the way I always have been, even when it’s TMI. Mac Stryker, I want you to make me your plaything. I’m so horny. I want to know what everything feels like. All of it. Teach me everything. How you taste—”
He crashes over me and kisses me fiercely. “I’m going to come all over myself if you keep talking like that.” He buries his face in my neck. “Don’t stop.”
I feel so light when the laugh bubbles out of me. “Please do wicked, dirty things to me.”
He raises his head up, looking me right in the eye. “How dirty, angel?”
“I...” Shit.
“What’s wrong?”
Everything in my body tightens, and I lose focus.
“What’s wrong, Hillary? Is it the baby?
I pant a few times, and then my mind clears again. “Braxton-Hicks. That one was a doozy though. I’m so sorry.”
“How long have you been having them?”
“Off and on all day.”
“All day?” He flies off the couch and starts getting dressed.
“It’s too early for labor. It’s fine, Mac. I’m just mortally embarrassed—fuck!” The pain seizes me, squeezing me from the inside out.
“We’re going to the hospital.”
He helps me sit up and hands me my shirt. I want to argue, but then someone jabs my spine with a lightning bolt. And my water breaks. And fuck, I’m still a virgin.
Mac
I PUT ON COP FACE BECAUSE if I don’t, I will dissolve into a panic that will not be useful to Hillary or the baby currently on its way out.
These are not Braxton-Hicks contractions. I trust my gut when my gut says trouble, and we are in serious shit right now. Yes, I read the fuck out of every pregnancy book I could find, and I trained on emergency delivery, but this is scarier than a fucking bomb for damn sure. It shouldn’t be happening this fast. All my spidey senses are overloading my network of logical thought processes.
Get it together, Stryker.
I dial 911. The rest starts blurring moment to moment, like I’m swimming underwater but somehow managing all the right things. Baby’s not waiting. Better make a birthing nest. I tear the shower curtain down and cover Hillary’s bed, piling blankets on top. I don’t think I even have time to boil water.
“C’mon, sweet girl. Let’s get you on the bed.”
“I have a bag packed for the hospital. Maybe we can get a cab and stop for a ginger ale? For some reason, I really want a ginger ale.”
Great, she’s in denial.
“Let’s just stay here for now and wait. The ambulance is on the way. I’ll get you a ginger ale from the hospital cafeteria.” I put my arms around her shoulders and lead her into the bedroom.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t finish the job. Once again.”
The job? Oh shit, I think she’s talking about sex. It’s the last thing on my mind. “All I care about right now is you and Bloomer.”
I leave the apartment door open for the paramedics, and get Hillary settled on the bed when she starts to panic. A little late, but not unexpected. “Wait. No. I can’t do this now. Here. We have to go. I can’t have my baby in this apartment.”
“We don’t have time to go, honey. All you need to worry about right now is breathing. I’ll do the rest.”
“No. No. No.” She screws up her face in pain. “No! Not now. Why is this happening so fast? I’m supposed to be at the hospital.”
I don’t know why this is happening so fast, but something isn’t right. I’m scared as fuck. The last time someone’s life depended on me, I let him down.
I know better than to go there now. I push thoughts of the last call out of my head and focus. Hillary needs me. Her baby needs me. Whatever is going on isn’t going to pause so I can have a mental breakdown. I have to focus.
When the paramedics come in the door, Little Bloomer is already crowning. One uniform tries to take my place, but I shake my head, my focus solely on the baby. I don’t trust anyone else. It’s too important. The woman crouches on the floor next to me and the other EMT supports Hillary’s back.
“She should push now,” the woman next to me says.
I nod. Hillary is too pale. “I need you to push, angel. Can you do that?”
“I’m scared, Mac.”
I lock eyes with her. “You’re doing great. You’re going to be such a great mom. I promise. I’m right here.”
“You make everything easier, Mac.”
She fucking detonates my heart.
And then she screams, and the pushing begins. In between pushes, Hillary won’t look at anything but me. I want to take all this pain into myself, free her of it. I couldn’t stand it when she cried about her ankles, so this screaming in pain is killing me.
“Get it out of me, Mac!”
“We’re working on it, angel. Let’s do the breathing again.”
“Fuck you.”
The EMTs know better than to laugh, but I have a hard time keeping it in. I guess if she’s swearing at me, she’s still herself. She screams again, giving it her all, and I catch Little Bloomer sliding out.
Holy fuck. I just caught a baby.
The baby looks at me with these eyes too wise for someone brand new into this world, my heart explodes again.
Words. There should be words for what I’m feeling. The way the whole planet just started turning the other way. I don’t have words. I choke on what might be tears balling up in my throat.
“It’s a girl, Hillary.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s perfect.”
We clean up the baby and put her onto Hillary’s chest. We still need to get to the hospital, and that’s a process with the stairs and the stretcher and the ambulance. I ride near her head and she looks up at me. “I want to call her Kenzie. MacKenzie Bloom. Kenzie.”
I kiss her temple and the adrenaline rush I’ve been on starts to dissolve, leaving me shaky. Kenzie. “I like that,” I choke out, hoping my voice just sounds manly and not obvious that I’m trying not to cry.
“Thank you for bringing her here safely, Mac.”
“You did all the hard work, babe.”
She smiles and closes her eyes for a little hard-earned rest.
The machine screams, and I look on the floor for a loose cord. We must have hit a bump. The EMT thrusts the baby at me. “Sir, you need to scoot back. Your wife is in cardiac arrest.
THE HELL WITH THE WORLD spinning the opposite way. Now it’s upside down.
Hillary won’t wake up.
She came out of emergency surgery three hours ago. I’ve been pacing the halls since we got here. I can’t fix this. I can’t show up in my gear and defuse anything. I can’t take down a bad guy. Nothing I know how to do applies now.
I don’t know how to be a man who paces a hall.
“Detective Stryker?”
I turn, my heart stops while I wait for the nurse in scrubs to fill me in about Hillary. “Your daughter is ready for a feeding. Wou
ld you like to feed her?”
“I—”
Compassion and patience soften the nurse’s face. “There’s nothing you can do for your wife but wait. Your daughter can benefit from bonding with her daddy, though. And I think your wife would want you to take care of her while she can’t.”
My wife. My daughter. Daddy.
The paramedics just assumed we were married. It didn’t occur to me to correct them while they were trying to stabilize Hillary’s heart. Then, it made things easier in the hospital. I’ll probably get in trouble for lying, but nobody would have kept “the neighbor” in the loop about Hillary’s surgery. So, I’m now a husband and father.
Pacing isn’t helping, and the nurse is right. “Yeah, okay. I’ll feed Kenzie.” I take two steps then stop. “I don’t know how.”
“I’ll help you.” She brings me to a nursery and sets me up in a rocking chair before she hands me the baby swaddled up tight in a pink blanket.
“Is her blanket too tight?”
“Most babies love it. It’s reassuring to them. They’re used to not having much room.”
That makes sense.
The nurse shows me how to hold the bottle and promises to come back to show me how to burp the baby when she’s through. As long as her neck is supported, I guess I’m doing all right. The nurse walks away and leaves me almost alone with a baby for the first time ever. Am I supposed to talk to her? Sing? I don’t know what is going on.
Kenzie seems to have a better handle on things. She’s drinking from the bottle and watching me. I read everything about pregnancy I could find in the last month. It never occurred to me to read about how to take care of a baby once it’s born. I guess I assumed I wouldn’t have much to do with that.
“Hey, Kenzie. Um, your mom is sleeping. When she wakes up, she’s really going to want to meet you, though.” Kenzie blinks. “You’re really going to like your mom. She’s great. So funny. And she’s good at taking care of stuff. You won’t believe all the houseplants in your apartment. She talks to them. Well, you’ve heard her.” I swallow around that damn ball in my throat. I’m not a dude who cries. “We haven’t really met. I mean, I was the guy that caught you—nice form by the way, you nailed the dismount. I help your mom sometimes. I bet you’ve heard my voice, right? I’ve been hanging out a lot lately. Your mom and I are friends. Don’t tell anyone that though, okay? While we’re here, we have to pretend I’m your dad. I’ll explain later.’
Her little eyelids get heavy. Either I’m boring as shit, or she likes the sound of my voice.
“So, the thing is, if you need anything, you’re going to always just tell me. Okay? I mean, when you can talk. Until then, I’ll just have to guess. But when you’re older, if you have questions about stuff or want to learn how to make a three-point shot, you just call me.”
The nurse comes back and shows me the proper burping procedure. Kenzie lets a good one go. “Just like your mom,” I tell her and the nurse laughs. She leaves us again, and I just rock, not sure what else to do. Kenzie sniffles as she’s falling asleep. I’ll remember this moment forever. The sound of her tiny breaths, the sweet smell of her head, the slight weight of her resting on my chest.
I feel a kind of peace I’m not used to, and in that peace, the thoughts I’ve been keeping out of my head finally break through. What happens if Hillary doesn’t wake up?
She has to. She just has to. Now that my heart has inflated to full size, it would kill me if it shattered. I can’t lose her. I certainly can’t pretend to be Kenzie’s dad, but fuck anyone who tries to put her in foster care. And fuck the asshole who wrote a check to keep this tiny baby out of his life. She’s a fucking miracle.
Please, don’t let her lose her mom before she gets her.
Chapter Five
Hillary
THE BEEPING. WON’T somebody stop the beeping?
I try to reach for my phone even though I don’t think it’s my alarm. I can’t quite get my arm to move or my brain to think. Am I napping? What is even...?
“Relax, Hillary.”
I try to open my eyes, but it takes a lot of effort. “Mac?”
I don’t think my voice worked when I said that, nothing seemed to come out, but he starts talking again. “Relax. You’re fine. The baby is fine. You’re in the hospital. You had surgery, so you need to take it easy. Don’t try to talk. I’ll get a nurse, and we can get you a drink of water.”
The baby?
Bits and pieces start occurring to me. The labor, the ambulance ride. Then...it all feels too much, too overwhelming. I want to say that I want to see the baby, but I feel the fog of sleep coming back. I fight it. But it’s easier to sink back down than swim against the current.
When I blink my eyes open again, the light in the room has changed. I must have slept awhile. Mac is sleeping in the chair next to my bed. On his chest, also sleeping, is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. Her little nose, oh my God. Nobody told me her little nose would be so perfect.
I hear another noise and turn my head toward a nurse fiddling with the bag attached to me. “You’re awake.” She smiles. “Your husband is going to be so happy. He hasn’t left this hospital in two days.”
My husband?
Maybe I woke up in an alternate reality. It wouldn’t be so bad. To be married to Mac. Be a real family.
My thoughts begin to unjumble as I take in more of my surroundings. I hear a muted television laugh track nearby, maybe the room next door. My mouth is dry and tastes like I’ve been chewing on chalk. There’s a soft drip near me, probably the bag of fluids I’m hooked up to. The nurse’s fingers are cold as she counts my pulse. She helps me sit up some, and Mac comes fully awake.
“Hey,” I say. He looks so tired and so beautiful. His new growth beard is dark. It’s a good look for him. The red eyes don’t even take away from how handsome he is.
“Hey yourself.”
The nurse tsks. “I’m going to see if the doctor is still doing rounds. I know he’d like to see you. An ice chip or two only until I get orders for clear liquids.”
Mac brings Kenzie closer so I can touch her. Smell her. “Thank you for being here. The nurse said you’ve been here the whole time?”
“Where else would I be?”
“She called you my husband.”
He grins. The Grinch is grinning. “Yeah. About that—”
“Congratulations.” We both look at the door where a well-dressed woman about ten years older than I am is holding a bouquet of balloons that look garishly cheerful next to her icy expression. Surely she’s not a hospital volunteer. She enters the room, setting the balloons on a chair that mauve color that dominated the ‘80s. “My name is Melinda Foster. I believe you are acquainted with my husband.”
“I don’t—” Then I remember Ashton Foster, my boss in Chicago. “Oh.”
“Yes, oh.” She peers at the baby like she’s a bauble in the window at Tiffany’s. “The baby is very pretty.”
Mac is quiet, but his presence is loud. Stable. Is she going to confront me here? Now? Why would she bring balloons? How did she even—
“I’m sure you have questions, so I’ll just get right to the point. While I’m not happy my husband chooses to seduce his interns every year, he was a bit hasty in sending you away. You see, I can’t have children.”
“I’m very sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. I am sorry she can’t have kids. I’m sorry that I almost had sex with her husband before I knew he was married.
“I know he paid you. That’s how I found out about you. I’m offering to pay you more.”
“Look, I’m not coming after him if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You misunderstand, Miss Bloom. I’m offering to double what he paid you. I want the baby.”
Mac
“EXCUSE ME?” HILLARY winces when she tries to sit up too fast.
“We can give your daughter the kind of life you can’t. Think about it, Hillary. She’ll never want for anything.
What can you give her? How are you even going to be able to afford her? I know he didn’t give you much. Certainly most of it will go to your hospital bill now.”
She’s ice-cold. All that’s missing is a shock of white hair and a coat made from Dalmatians. “I think you better go, Mrs. Foster.”
Hillary hasn’t said anything, but she’s blending in with her bedsheets in a bad way.
The puppy stealer turns her icy eyes to me. “And who are you?”
“Our daughter is not for sale. You need to go before I call security.”
“Your daughter.” She huffs. “Well played, Hillary. So you snagged yourself a good-looking man to trick into fatherhood. Just think, now you can let him off the hook. Unless of course, you want to keep him. In which case, I probably threw a wrench in your little plan. So sorry.”
She’s anything but sorry. “If you continue to harass my family, I will make sure you are very, very sorry indeed.”
Her face cracks. “Who are you exactly?”
“Well. I’m a cop, exactly. One who can arrest you for about four things since you got to town, including whatever lie you told at the nurses station to get access to my wife’s room. Maybe you should try to legally adopt a child instead of purchase a cop’s baby.”
The woman is shrewd and knows she won’t get any further here. She doesn’t even say goodbye, just turns and leaves.
Hillary hasn’t regained her color. I take her hand. “I’m sorry she got in here. You need to rest. That wasn’t good for your recovery.”
“What if she’s right?”
My stomach pitches uncomfortably. “What?”
“Kenzie could have a princess life. I might not even be good at this. Maybe she would be better off—”
“Don’t finish that. She belongs with you. Nobody will ever love this little girl more than you can. Nobody.”
I tuck the baby in under Hillary’s arm and the tension breaks as she looks down at her baby. “Oh, she’s so lovely.”
I grab a tissue and dab her eyes. “She takes after her momma.”
