“No!” I took a step back and he smiled at me, straightening to his full height.
“Don’t be afraid of the delivery,” he said, taking my hands. “I’ll be there with you and before we know it, she’ll be here.”
I don’t think I’d ever seen a person look as happy as Adrian with the gleam in his blue eyes and the grin spreading across his tan face. Even his hair seemed to glow. I thought I was supposed to be the one glowing.
“I am afraid.”
“Hey,” he said, pulling me back in and putting his arms around me. “That’s what the Lamaze class is for next weekend. Right?”
Lamaze! “Shit! Adrian, I forgot to sign us--”
“Shh…” He put a finger over my lips. “It’s taken care of. I got us in the all day Saturday class.”
Again, my heart rate slowed to normal. “You did? How did you know I’d forget? I never forget anything.”
“You’ve been stressed lately and that’s normal. You have a lot on your mind. Didn’t you read the pregnancy book I bought you?”
I bit my lip, hating to admit I hadn’t. I flipped through the pages, saw a few illustrations and fought of the urge to hide in the closet crying. “No.”
“Well, I did. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Your job is to be in expectant mother bliss. My job is to make sure you are, so come here.” He took my hand, led me into the master bathroom and started the water in the whirlpool bathtub. “Strip for me, babe. I want to remember you with that beautiful baby belly for as long as I live.”
He alternated lighting candles and watching me undress, holding his arms out to me once I was completely naked. I padded over to him, my bare feet cool on the tile floor. He held the sides of my stomach in his hands and ran his eyes over me from head to toe, reverent. “When you told me you were pregnant, I wasn’t sure what you would say next. We’d only known each other a little while and you could’ve easily not told me at all and taken care of it without me ever knowing. Instead, I’m sitting here with my hands on you, feeling my unborn baby inside you.” He took a shaky breath. “I never thought about having a kid. I mean, I figured someday… But this is insanely amazing, Kay. Thank you for giving me the chance to be a dad.”
Too many thoughts and words and emotions rushed to the surface. I opened my mouth and only a sob came out. I slapped my hand over my mouth and felt the tears again, falling down my cheeks that had to have grooves carved in them from all the crying I’d done lately.
How could he be so wonderful and how could I be so insecure about him, us, the baby and everything our future held?
Adrian
She wasn’t fooling me. Karen might not open up and confess her deepest, darkest fears, but she was scared shitless to have the chicklet. All I could hope was that tomorrow at her baby shower, she’d be happy and Bess would boost her confidence.
I lathered a cloth with body wash and rubbed it over her belly, up under her breasts. Kay had amazing breasts and they were even fuller since she was pregnant. My hands wouldn’t stay off of them. Her nipples were darker, more a plum than a deep pink that they had been, and they were larger. Watching her body change over the months she’d been pregnant with the chicklet was like being initiated into some religious cult where God let you in on the secrets of life that only other dads got to witness firsthand.
The female body was amazing. All a man’s body did was make a deposit. Woman’s body nurtured and protected, grew and reshaped. I always knew the basics, of course, but really thinking about what was going in inside Kay and seeing the change happen day after day was nothing I expected and I definitely didn’t expect to be so awe-stricken. “No wonder women can bring men to their knees,” I said, lifting her foot and massaging her instep.
A crease cut through the center of her forehead as her eyes roamed her body. “What are you talking about? I’m huge! I’ll never get this ass to go away and the stretch marks and--”
I shut her up with a kiss. Her lips were wet and salty from all the tears she’d cried and her cheeks and chin were slick from the bathwater. “I love your ass,” I said, wrapping my arm around her to get a handful of it.
She let out a breathy chuckle. “You’re getting all wet.”
I whipped my t-shirt off over my head and threw it across the bathroom. “You worry about the silliest things,” I said. “Like stretch marks. What mom doesn’t have them? You have a growing person inside you.”
She looked up at me with her blue eyes searching, like she was trying to see inside me or thorough me. “What?” I said.
“You can’t be seen with a stretch-marked fat ass. You’re Adrian!”
A door slammed inside my head. Or maybe it swung open and crashed into a wall. “The reason you’re so freaked out about your body is because of me?”
She sat up, sending a wave of water up over the side. “See!” she screamed, pounding her palms on the surface of the water, splashing more out of the tub. “I move and it’s like an elephant submerged in a lake! I can’t touch my toes! I can’t even shave my freaking crotch!”
“I thought you went and got waxed,” I said, running my fingertips from her knee, up her inner thigh, between her legs. She was a little prickly, but hair on a woman never bothered me.
She grabbed my hand and pulled it away. “I’m not letting anyone see me like this! There’s no way I’m going to get waxed!”
Being irrational wasn’t like un-pregnant Kay. The closer we got to the chicklet’s due date, the crazier she became.
I took her hands and stood up. “Come here.”
She tried to let go, but I squeezed tight. She rolled her eyes and pulled herself up, grimacing as I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her out of the water. “Light as a feather,” I said.
“Whatever,” she grumbled.
I scooped her legs up and carried her to the bed. “I’m all wet,” she said, as I settled her in the middle.
“Don’t move.” I strode back into the bathroom and came out with a razor and shaving cream.
“What are you doing?” she asked, eyeing me like I was insane.
“You can’t reach your crotch.” I crawled up from the bottom of the bed and pushed her legs apart. “Luckily, I can.”
“No way!” She tried to close her legs, but I planted my shoulders between her knees and wasn’t planning on moving. “You’re not getting anywhere near my—put the razor down!”
“I shave my face every day. I know how to do this.” I wrapped my arms around her thighs and lowered my face to her pussy, keeping my eyes on hers over the chicklet’s mound of belly. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever been with,” I said, teasing her pussy lips open with my tongue.
She arched her back and dropped her head onto the pillow. “This isn’t shaving,” she said, her voice husky.
“I couldn’t help myself. You smell so good, I had to have a lick.” I prodded her clit with the tip of my tongue, rubbing in circles, and slid a finger inside her. She moaned and slid her fingers through my hair. I could practically feel her melting into the bed.
When I was gone from her side for even an hour, she started letting her mind churn with negative thoughts. All she needed when I came back to her side was to be soothed and relaxed. I knew when the baby was born she’d eventually become herself again, my confident, bossy woman. For now, I didn’t mind being the man she needed to hold her together and calm her mind and body.
“You’re so beautiful, Kay.” I parted her labia with my thumbs and traced my finger down her center. “Like a soft, pink butterfly.” I nuzzled the soft, golden hair beginning to grow like peach fuzz with my nose and suckled her clit. She rocked up into me and pinned my head with her hands, letting out soft whimpers of pleasure. She was about to come for me. I knew her responses and the reactions from her body now—knew when to suck harder, rub faster, thrust and circle my cock inside her. She was mine. Mine to know this well inside and out.
All it would take was a second finger.
I slid it in wi
th the first as I kept my relentless, pulsing sucking of her clit. The thrust and pull of my fingers had her heels digging into the mattress, grinding her pussy into my face with her head thrown back. She started to throb around my fingers and I groaned, my cock and balls ached with a raging erection. When Kay came, my entire body reacted to her, wanted to come with her. “Fuck,” she cried. “God! Yes! Yes! Fuck yes!”
Her taste and sounds, her wetness sliding down my fingers into my palm, these were what I never got enough of.
I kissed her pussy and held myself up on my elbows to look at her. Relaxed, sedate blue eyes looked back. “That’s what I like to see,” I said, kissing her inner thigh. “Bliss.”
THREE
Karen
For as much money as our best friends, ex-rock star, Derek Bast, and my ex-boss, entertainment magazine The Scene’s founder, Bess Halprin, made, their home and production studio, True North, was modest in size even if it was oceanfront in Santa Cruz.
“I don’t understand why you had to bring so much stuff,” Adrian said, lugging my second suitcase out of the trunk. “We’re only staying tonight.”
“I brought…other things…to show Bess.”
“What other things?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You know. Just things.” I strolled ahead of him up the driveway to the sidewalk. The last thing I wanted him to know was how I’d stuffed the second suitcase with all of the onesies, bibs, and baby t-shirts he’d had made. Like the teeny white shirt with pink sparkly letters that said, ADRIAN’S BABE on the front, and the ruffled diaper cover that said, GROUPIE POOPIE on the butt. The man was out of control in the same way people who bought little dogs and dressed them up in sweaters were. Still, it made me grin like a lunatic every time he opened a package with one inside and came rushing over to show me.
“Jesus,” Adrian said, panting behind me at the front door. “I need less time in the studio and more time in the gym lifting weights if this is how you plan on packing from now on.”
I patted his cheek and gave him a peck on the lips. “Wait until we add all the baby’s stuff—diaper bag, Pack ‘N Play, bouncy seat, bottles, diapers--”
“Why did I buy you an SUV? We’re going to need a cargo van.”
The door swung open and Bess squeal-screamed, jumping up and down with her arms around my neck. “Look at you! Look at you! Look at you!” she said, over and over, her eyes huge behind her glasses. A giant black and white dog—or pony maybe—darted out between us, knocking both of us back a step.
“You’re all baby in there!” she said, her hands hitting my stomach the same time Derek yelled, “Goliath! Get back here!” Lately, my stomach had its own magnetic force that attracted hands of women who knew me and even ones who didn’t. “Oh my God, she kicked!” Bess said, grabbing Derek’s hand as he came up beside her and placing it on my giant belly.
“It does that,” I said, trying not to feel too awkward with Derek’s palm pressed against my gut.
“Hey, let’s move this inside before I strain something,” Adrian said, sweating and holding his suitcase under one arm and wheeling my two with my laptop bag swung over his other arm.
“Give me that before you hurt yourself,” Derek said, taking Adrian’s suitcase out from under his arm and relieving him from one of my pull-alongs. The dog, Goliath, galloped back through the door, whapping his tail against Adrian.
Bess grabbed my arm and pulled me in behind the guys and the dog. “I can’t believe you’re so big already! Last time I saw you, you were barely showing!”
“Gee, thanks.” I shot her a dirty look. “That was four months ago, so you know, the thing does grow.”
“She gets a little testy when you mention the size of the bell-ehy,” Adrian said, rubbing the bell-ehy and kissing my cheek.
“Enough with touching it,” I said, turning away.
“You never were a touchy-feely person,” Bess said, grinning. “Come on, I want to show you what I’ve done for the shower.”
She and I walked to the patio doors and out across the cedar deck planks to a walkway that led to a gazebo. Not just a regular gazebo, more like a small house shaped like a gazebo with three levels, fully furnished, running water and electric, the works. The best part—it was situated on the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean with stairs that led down to the beach.
“I hung pink and blue lanterns, see?” Bess said, pointing to the Chinese paper lanterns hanging from the exposed beams under the gazebo’s roof. “And the guests will each get a silver bracelet like this,” she held up her wrist and showed me the bracelet with a circular silver charm dangling from it. “The charms are engraved with: Thanks and Love, A & K.” Bess held up the silver charm for me to read.
“Wow, Bess. That’s…wow.” I couldn’t find words. It was over-the-top. It was too much. I wanted to run and hide.
“What?” she said, grabbing my shoulders. The sun shined down on her head, a couple inches below mine, and lit up the blue highlights in her black-brown hair. “You hate them?” she asked.
“No. They’re more than I could imagine. I’m just so, God, so blown away by everything. It’s all happening so fast. I didn’t plan it—I don’t—I…” Words failed me.
“Inside,” she said, ushering me through the gazebo doors to a round, red swivel chair where I collapsed.
The whole main floor was decorated in pink, blue and yellow. There were ducks, bears and bunnies on napkins and stenciled on glass hurricane candles, a buffet was set up with china plates and a crystal punch service covered a round corner table. Then my eyes landed on the cake. It was a baby carriage made with elaborate fondant molding and shaping. A tiny foot popped out of the carriage, like the baby inside had lifted a little leg. “I’ve never seen anything so incredible,” I said. “Please tell me it’s chocolate.”
“Yes.” Bess sank onto the sectional across from me and propped her feet up on the glass coffee table. “Talk.”
I didn’t talk, I exploded. “I’m out of my freaking mind afraid! I don’t have enough time to prepare for this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing or how I’m supposed to do it or when or--”
“Okay, okay,” she said, holding her hands up. “I know who we need for this.”
“No!”
“I know. I don’t want to, but she’ll know…well, everything.”
Bess yanked her cell phone from the pocket of her flowing skirt that looked like it had been sewn together from Goodwill rags—she’d call it reclaimed materials—and dialed. “Karen’s here and freaking out and needs mom advice.” She nodded. “Oh okay.” She hung up and set her phone on the table. “She’s at Lindsay’s field hockey game.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Nothing like dodging a bullet,” I said.
“Emmy knows all. At least about being a mom.”
Emmy was Bess’s older sister, mother of three girls and even more bossy and bitchy than me if that was possible—without the pregnancy hormones.
Bess hopped up and padded across the floor, barefoot, into the kitchen area. “Want something to drink?”
“Vodka and cranberry. Thanks.”
“Virgin cranberry cocktail coming up,” she said, pouring the juice into a glass. “How’s Adrian? Not freaking out, I’m guessing.”
“He’s an unholy robot,” I said, taking the glass she held out to me.
She laughed and smacked my arm. “He is not.”
When Derek and Adrian joined forces to make a record, they used the name Unholy Union. Derek and Bess didn’t know Adrian very well and his inability to let anything bother him. It came off as lack of emotion, so their inside joke was to call him an unholy robot.
“He’s happy. Like out of his mind happy and that freaks me out too.”
“It freaks you out that he’s happy?” Bess’s eyebrow cocked up above the rim of her glasses.
“I can’t do this!” I said, shifting—unsuccessfully—to get out of the chair. “I can’t live up to his expectations!”
“What expectations?” She sat back down and kicked her legs up underneath her, like it was nothing to be able to do that when you’re not as big as a barn.
“I don’t know. That’s the thing. He’s got this vision of how things will be in his head, but I don’t know what it looks like! He just tells me it’s going to be so great. It’s going to be perfect, while the whole time I’m wondering where the hell we’re going to set up a crib.”
She gave me her cock-eyed look again. “Aren’t you guys moving? Derek said Adrian was going to buy a bigger place.”
I couldn’t help but to look around me because I was certain I’d been zapped into a parallel universe. “What?” I said. “I know nothing about this. When did he say that?”
“Just the other day. He said Adrian asked him where he thought the best neighborhoods were for kids. Like Derek has any clue about that.” She laughed. “He said you guys were moving as soon as he found a place. Then he started talking about learning how to build a bunk bed that looks like a princess castle or something.”
Bess looked as confused as I felt, but she was smiling and her confusion was over me not having a clue what she was talking about, whereas mine was—well, over me not having a clue what she was talking about! “What? Princess bunk bed?”
“Guess he wants that to be his first stay-at-home-dad project.”
I blinked. Rapidly. “Stay-at-home-dad?”
Bess exhaled fast and smacked her palms on her knees. “Why do I have the feeling I keep letting cats out of bags here?”
“Because you are?” I shook my head.
“He told Derek he’s ready to stop recording and stay with the baby while you work. He said you love your work and he would rather be home with the chicklet.” She put her hand over her mouth, silently laughing. “I love how he calls her chicklet.”
“We don’t even know it’s a girl,” I said. When he said chicklet it melted my heart, but I was hell-bent on being pissed at him at the moment. “He hasn’t said any of this to me, Bess.”
Listen To Me: A Rock Star Romance (True North) Page 2
