by Livia Grant
Chapter 11
Davis
“Seriously?”
Jess nodded her head, her eyes blazing. “Yes, Mr. Davis, seriously.”
This entire evening seemed to be one step forward then two steps back with Miss Jessica Bain, and it was growing fucking irritating. Davis had listened with incredulity as she’d clarified her ‘you just had to ruin it’ comment.
“Wait. I wanna make sure I understand this. You’re seriously pissed at me because I want to make sure you and my child are well cared for?”
She scooted back, bracing herself in a defensive posture, knees pulled up and an arm crossed around them while gesturing with her free hand. “Do you even hear yourself? ‘My child’…? Umm, let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Davis: if there is a child—which, bear in mind, is only about twenty percent likely statistically—it isn’t your child. It’s my child at best, ours at worst.”
Davis knelt on the other end of the couch, stuffing his now flaccid dick back in his pants.
“Worst?”
“After that comment you made…”
He glanced around, and saw the crowd watching what was going on with looks varying from anticipation to confusion. They couldn’t follow their conversation fully because neither he nor Jess had raised their voices, but the body language between the two of them right now clearly wasn’t post-coital bliss. Okay, time for a retrograde movement. Bending, he snatched up all her loose clothing and shoved it into his gear bag. Once he was done, he stood and threaded his belt back in place, gazing down at Jess’s defiant upturned face.
I should be using this to turn that ass of yours red.
“Get up,” he said quietly.
“I beg your pardon?”
Fixing the buckle closed, Davis took two steps until he loomed over her. “Get. Up. As I said earlier, we need to take this someplace private.” He kept his voice low but made damn sure the tone made it clear this wasn’t negotiable. Attempting to drag her to the cooldown area wasn’t likely to go well—if a DM saw him doing that they’d rightly intervene—so Davis had to rely on his command voice and her being the tiniest bit reasonable right now to motivate her. Two things she’d shown little inclination toward so far this evening.
Jess snorted, her glare nothing but disdain. She did, however, glance around her, and Davis could tell the wheels were turning. She had nothing to gain from a scene, and she’d given Davis no indication that was her style anyway. Her gaze came back to him, jaw set with begrudging acquiescence as she finally stood from the bench silently.
“This way.” Davis reached out to take her by the arm, pulling her toward the cooldown area.
She started to yank against his grip, but Davis dug his fingers in tighter, hauling her along. Glaring at him, she opened her mouth in protest.
“Don’t.” Davis growled under his breath, cutting her off.
The look she gave was jagged glass, but she relaxed her arm and followed as Davis led her across the room.
He found the first open space he could and tugged her inside. Once in, she jerked her arm free of his hand, spinning to face him with a look of heated defiance.
Fuck, why did she have to look so fucking sexy right now?
He shouldn’t be feeling this way about her, because she was being completely un-fucking-reasonable and obstinate as hell, but…
“Sit your ass down.” He stabbed a finger toward the seat.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she retorted, her voice blazing cold.
Davis had been measured and controlled with her all evening, but his patience had worn thin. Stepping until there was no space between them, Davis stood looking down at her. She held her ground, chin thrust forward with a ‘your move, asshole’ expression.
That changed the instant he lifted her up by the armpits and swung her to the settee.
“What the fuck!” she hissed, dangling stunned in his grasp.
It was all the time Davis needed. He plopped her down unceremoniously just as she began to kick. Crossing his arms, he towered above her. “It was a rhetorical request.”
“You arrogant prick!”
“So we keep agreeing. Now”—he pointed at her, his voice tight—“you are going to tell me exactly why my wanting to make sure you’re taken care of pissed you the fuck off, Miss Jess.”
“I don’t need your fucking help, asshole.”
“Jessica. Being a single mother is not something someone in your position needs to take on by themselves, especially when I’m more than willing to share in the expense—”
“Oh, my God. Oh my… fucking… God.” Jess cut him off, shaking her head in wide-eyed disbelief. “You are such an egotistical jackass. You don’t think I can take care of myself and my child? You think I’m too weak, or I don’t have the resources and capability of handling it on my own?”
“Raising a child can be an expensive proposition, and for a single woman who—“
“What, Davis? For a single woman who… what? Doesn’t make as much money as you? Lives by herself without a man to help support her?”
Davis clamped his mouth into a thin line, staring down at her in silence.
Her eyes blazed back in an inferno. “I’m a fucking doctor, you son of a bitch. I’m a scientist at Caltech, well-recognized in my field. I probably make twice as much money as you do, and I damn sure know more about what it takes to raise a child than you ever will!”
Fuck.
He’d done it. Stepped right into a minefield then smack on the first landmine he could. She was right. He’d thought—assumed—that a young, single woman like Jessica Bain would need help. That she probably worked somewhere where the additional costs of raising a kid would tap her resources, and that only with his contribution could she survive comfortably.
Davis knelt in front of her. He drew his hand across his face, letting it come to rest covering his mouth. He stared into eyes which would sear flesh to a cinder if they could, and rightfully so. Davis deserved that. She was right to call him out. She was a doctor. A scientist. And this wasn’t the first time in his life someone had looked at him the way she was. As had happened in the past, the assumptions he’d made going with his gut hadn’t been right this time.
They’d been wrong.
His hand came away. “I’m sorry.”
“Really? Really, Davis? And do you have a fucking clue why you should be sorry?”
“For assuming.”
She gazed at him for a long moment before huffing out a breath. “Well, I’ll be damned. You might still have a tiny bit of brain left in that head of yours.”
“I’ll admit I’m questioning my own intelligence right now, considering how badly I just fucking stepped in it.” Looking up into her face, he saw anger layered with exasperation.
“You damn well should be.”
Nodding, he held her gaze in silence. She didn’t let him off the hook but stared back at him with mouth pinched to bite off words Davis knew he deserved. Finally, she blew out an elongated huff of irritation, the whistling sound a warning a shelling was coming his way.
“This evening has seriously been one for the record books, Mr. Davis. I’ll give credit where credit’s due: you helped me to fulfill a fantasy I never thought I would, and it was an incredible experience. But—Jesus!—you are without doubt the single-most maddening Dom I’ve ever had to deal with, and I assure you I’ve dealt with some doozies.”
Testiness narrowed her eyes. “I’ll be honest: it was in part the sheer ballsy-ness of your confidence that helped convince me to agree to do what we did. You seemed intelligent, and genuine, despite your arrogance and egotism. Those latter I could overlook because they’re not uncommon traits among Doms, nor ones I find entirely unattractive… in moderation. But you fucking take it next level. After all we talked about, all I shared and entrusted with you, how you’ve seen me behave this evening”—Jess turned her hands up in a V toward Davis—"why in God’s name would you think I’d go into this without having considered how to care
for myself if I became pregnant? What I know about you and you know about me after a few hours together wouldn’t fill a half-assed Tinder profile. But that being said, do you seriously think so little of me you believe I’d do what we did on the naïve assumption you’d be there for me if I really needed it afterwards?”
Davis wanted to be angry at what she was saying. He wanted to take offense at her skepticism and doubting of his intentions. But she had every right. Davis wasn’t gullible, and he knew the very things she was saying were legitimate concerns, all the talk of truth and trust within the community notwithstanding. There were bad Doms out there. Hell, there were probably bad Doms inside this very club right now. Men who would have taken advantage of this situation without a second’s thought if they believed they could get away with it. And if the submissive who’d agreed to do what he and Jess had just done had been someone other than her, it could easily have ended exactly as she was implying.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I wasn’t thinking, Jess. All I cared about was making sure you saw what a good, decent, honorable man I am. So, yeah, it was self-centered and self-absorbed, but I swear to you the intention wasn’t to demean or diminish you. I realize it probably came across that way—”
“Probably?” she snapped.
Davis raised his hand. “Okay, so it did come across that way, but I promise it wasn’t meant to. Yeah, I’m arrogant. I’m egotistical. And, yes, I do think I’ve got shit sewed up ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time because normally, I do. You can roll your eyes and call bullshit, but I have to believe that about myself because sometimes I have to make decisions that mean the difference between someone living and someone dying.” Davis held up a finger as her mouth came open. “And before you accuse me of being overly dramatic or some shit like that, I’m going to ask you to take another leap of faith and trust me on this, Doctor Bain, because, as I’ve said all evening , I swear to you I’m being one hundred percent truthful.
“I’m a dick. An asshole. And, yeah, because this is Southern California, and I know what it takes to live here, I assumed you were probably doing well for yourself, but just enough to get by. You want to know part of the appeal of the entire impreg kink for me? It’s this: in the end, I get to be the fucking hero. I get to be the white knight that rides in and helps save you if you did end up pregnant. That has always fed into this kink for me, and I didn’t stop to think it might not be reality, but just a part of my fantasy.”
“Davis…” Jess looked down and sighed. “It’s not that you wanting to help is bad. It’s thinking that I need your help that is. That I need a hero to save me.” Her face came back up to his. “Do you understand the difference?”
“Yes.” Silence stretched between the two of them, then Davis reached and placed a hand on her knee. When she didn’t flinch, relief washed through him. “Doctor Bain, if it should turn out that you are pregnant, with your permission, I’d like to offer whatever assistance I can with anything you may need.” He squeezed her knee gently. “I’d also like the opportunity to see our child as time and circumstances allow, if you’ll permit it.”
She stared at his hand, then to him. She shook her head slowly, breaking into a gentle smile. “You know as well as I do, I can’t stop you from that.”
“I do. And I’m still asking.”
She dipped her head. “Thank you.” Her smile, her eyes, her entire demeanor was more than he deserved after what he’d said. That she was willing to offer this to him now…
“Of course, you’ll be able to see our child.” Her emphasis on the word did not go unnoticed. “And if there is ever anything we need, I promise I’ll let you know.”
Davis nodded. “That’s all I can ask.”
There was warmth in Jess’s gaze. She didn’t need to do this. Given the way he’d acted, she’d be well within her rights to tell him to go pound sand. And yet here she was giving him a chance.
Fucking hell. He’d never met a submissive as strong, powerful and goddamn sexy as Jessica Bain, and as he knelt watching her, he was certain he might never again.
“May I have my clothes, please?”
Davis held onto her knee. “I dunno… what was it you said to me a little while ago? ‘I kinda like you just the way you are.’” He grinned, holding her gaze for a moment before he reached for his bag and gathered her things.
“You are such a dick,” Jess said, chuckling.
“Ah.” He rose, handing her dress across to her. “But am I a big dick?”
She halted with the hem of the garment gripped in her fingers, staring up as her face turned by increments from soft to serious.
“No.”
Davis choked, then burst into laughter. Taking the dress, Jess pulled it up and over her head. When the black fabric slipped downward and her face came back into view, she wore a wicked smile.
“Touché, Doctor Bain. Touché.” Davis shook his head. In the space of one night, she’d completely redefined his type, and it thrilled him.
She patted the cloth into place, then stood, gazing up at him. A second passed, then slowly she extended her hand. “Jessica.”
“Benjamin.” He took her hand into his, but what he really wanted to do was pull her into a hug. He wanted to hold her, reassuring them both that everything would be fine. That things would end on a positive note between them. That the experience they’d shared together less than half an hour ago had been as incredible for her as it had for him. Because his asinine act at the end aside, what they’d done together this evening…
It had been extraordinary. The feeling that even now his seed was inside her, quite possibly making its way to her womb to create their child… It did something he hadn’t anticipated: it flooded him with emotion. Even as that was happening, he caught himself.
Don’t. Fuck. This. Up.
Because he could. He’d already fucked up once tonight, but as he stared down at her he was determined he wouldn’t do it again. He wouldn’t make some bullshit proclamation of love to her with a promise of marriage, a house in the ‘burbs, or any shit like that. He’d no right to assume—especially after all she’d just said to him—she even wanted those things. And that was fine because the reality was Davis wasn’t sure he wanted them either. It was just as he’d told Spencer yesterday: he didn’t know what the fuck he wanted. Except…
That wasn’t true. He did know one thing for certain: he wanted more of these feelings. The ones he was having right now at the thought of potentially having fucked a child into the extraordinary woman standing before him. He wanted more of this incredibly powerful need that was coursing through him. A drive to care and protect and provide that filled him and made him want to do it all over and over and over again. A junkie already looking for his next fix. If not with Jessica, then maybe with someone else out there one, two, four, or ten years from now, if that’s what it took.
Or maybe never. Because before tonight that’s what he’d believed. That it would be never. And right now, with Doctor Jessica Bain in front of him smiling a smile that made his heart feel as if it might go off like a grenade in his chest, he feared that belief might end up being true. That he’d never find someone quite like her again.
Ever.
He squeezed her hand. Fingers wrapping hers tightly as if he could trap and keep a bit of her inside him before he let go. The thing was, though, want and need did not equal necessity, and all things considered right now…
Patience.
Davis stood staring at her as people moved around them. They remained where they were, eyes locked, her smile a cocoon of warmth surrounding him. Finally, he broke the gaze, glancing at clock above the entrance.
“So, it looks like we still have a little time left before they chase us out of here. Buy you a drink?”
She glanced toward her belly, and the thrill Davis felt in that glimpse was a thousand volts of raw electricity shooting straight through him.
“Sure, why not?” Her face came up, her eyes glittering.
<
br /> “In three to four weeks… could be my last.”
Epilogue
Davis
Negative.
Davis looked at the image, and the stab of pain that shot through him was more than he’d expected. She’d texted no words, only the picture: a single pink line rather than two, the writing printed adjacent to the little window in the device making the verdict clear. The wind whipped the desert air around him, but even as the sand made him blink, he didn’t take his gaze off the image. Her words from the night they’d spent together at Black Light whispered in his head: ‘…only about twenty percent likely statistically.’
Where some might have felt they’d beaten the odds, as Davis stood there rigidly it felt very much like it was the odds who’d beaten him.
He glanced over at the small convoy of trucks assembled in the dusty lot outside the company HQ. He was headed out once more with his trainees to practice finding and killing the bad guys and keeping themselves alive. Driving out into the desert of Fort Irwin to train on a replica of some fantasy village set in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Maybe that’s where he should have left it that night at Black Light. Maybe it should have remained a fantasy. Maybe he should never have approached Jess, never let her know what he’d overheard. Just enjoyed making her ride the Sybian, then playing her with the TENS unit. And afterward, when he’d had her good and worked up, fucked her with a condom like a good Dom before walking away and forgetting her like any other number of casual play partners of the past.
Because this… this hurt.
“Hey, Captain, we’re ready to bounce when you are!” The lieutenant leaned out the open door of the Humvee, calling to him.
Davis looked down at his phone one more time. To the picture and the response he’d texted. His finger hovered over the screen, waiting to follow the command from his brain to type out the next set of words pounding in his head.
Can I see you again?
Negative.
He stared at the image, then his finger moved and pressed the button at the side of the cell. The screen went dark, and Davis pocketed his phone. His orders had come through. He had a few more weeks here in California, then he’d be shipping out to a new assignment. Time to move on, put this behind him. The fantasy had passed. Because even though he’d shared his kink with Doctor Jessica Bain that night at Roulette—the one they hadn’t rolled but would forever be the one he’d remember—in the end it had simply been that: a fantasy. A night to cherish with someone he’d never see again.
