“Probably,” I agree.
“And I should probably stop acting like I know what is best for this baby.” Ella crosses her arms over her chest and looks down at her feet, only to notice the mismatched shoes. She laughs out loud. “I can’t even dress myself.”
“I know you’re scared, but you’re going to be a great mom,” I say.
“Promise?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“You’ll help me?” she asks.
“Yes.”
Ella presses her lips together, looking away bashfully before saying, “And you’ll never leave me?”
“Don’t fuck with me, Smella.” My voice cracks. My heart cracks. My fucking head cracks.
She shrugs as a single tear falls from her eye. “I mean, you kept Phish alive, so that has to mean something.”
Whatever she’s saying hasn’t completely passed her lips before I’m pulling her in my arms and crushing my mouth on hers.
And just like that, the entire fucking world lights up.
Now
There’s nothing like kissing Teller.
For a man who lives such a fast life, he knows how to slow it down for me.
“I crave you,” his kiss says. “I miss you. This is the rightest thing there ever was.”
His mouth is my favorite flavor, peppermint and tobacco and worship. Teller’s arms circle around my lower back as his tongue moves past my lips. He inhales, taking my breath and making it his own, just like he does with everything he wants. It’s his to have. When devotion has me trapped up this way, I don’t even belong to myself.
I belong to him to do with as he pleases.
Which has always been and will always be, to please me.
Teller Reddy’s brand of passion isn’t a drug that loses potency as addiction ages. It gets better with time. Each high is greater than the first. But like the effects of narcotics, his kiss, his touch, his swagger takes the pain away. It leaves me hot and burning from my core, fever-like and delirious. Every single tiny hair on my body stands on end, the nerve endings inside of me are alive and reaching, and I’m filled all the way up with never-ending, never-dulling want.
“Tell me what this is,” he whispers. Teller’s hands slide up my body, scratching skin and marking me.
“Everything,” I repeat the words he said to me not long ago. “This is everything.”
He rests his forehead against mine and licks his lips. I slide my hand around the back of his neck, running my fingers over his short, just-cut hair.
How do we move forward and survive this life?
How do we break away and live normal lives when it’s this good, this heated, this all-encompassing when we touch? Nothing else makes me feel like this. Unpolluted anticipation pushes through my veins, packing my heart with so much righteousness, it’s three times too big.
Maybe that’s why everything falls apart when we try to live separately. Maybe we were made to be like this, caught up and dependent. There is no me without him, and maybe, just maybe, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
There are no maybes about it.
Teller is so wrong, he’s perfect for me.
“I love you,” I say softly. I run my nose along his jawline, filling my lungs with Marlboros and ginger. Filling my lungs with the pieces I’ve been missing.
His lips make trails down my throat. He cups my breasts, pushing me into the glass door. I cry out, gripping his head of curls.
“We should go inside,” he says, red-faced and smirking.
What I want to say is, “Fuck me on the patio table.” But there are no words when riding this high, so I nod and reach blindly for the door handle.
Teller and I fall through the opening in a rush of exhilaration and why-do-we-have-clothes-on? We collide into the kitchen counter, where my elbow hits the fish bowl, nearly knocking it over.
“Whoa,” Teller says playfully. He rights Phish’s home and leads us away, lifting my shirt over my head. “We can’t lose him now.”
“You’re insane.” I walk backwards toward the living room, where the stairs to the bedroom are. We can do this anywhere, everywhere, but the bed is the safest place—the place where we can last the longest.
After unhooking my bra, I expose my already-larger breasts and throw black lace at Teller, hitting him in the face. He laughs as my bra falls to the floor, and I like the way his eyes widen when he takes me in.
“You look so good, baby,” he says in a husky tone.
Baby daddy follows me upstairs, and I’m magnificent under his eyes. There’s no shyness, no second-guessing, and it feels like I never left. He lets me back up into the bedroom before he advances, capturing me in his arms and stalking toward the bed. I wrap my legs around his waist as he wraps his mouth around my nipple, and we fall onto the mattress. My skin recognizes home, and my heart knows we should never leave again.
“Are you sure about this?” Teller pauses with his fingertips hooked under the waistband of my pants.
I nod, squeezing my thighs together to relieve the pressure between my legs. My back arches away from the bed, and he might not even have to touch me to make me come.
“Look at what you’ve been missing,” my body screams as he pulls my leggings off my ankles. Teller parts my knees and runs his hands down the inside of my thighs, and I’m biting my lip so hard to keep from waking the entire world. My body calls, “Be inside of me. Be there. Live there. Never leave there.”
I’m naked. He’s not. But I don’t mind. I like the way cotton and denim feel on my bare skin. It gives me something to hold on to. Something to rip.
Then his mouth is on my softest, warmest spot. It’s more than I can handle, and with the first touch of his tongue, I come undone. Eyes as green as emeralds watch me as his mouth maneuvers the desire right out of me.
I dig the balls of my feet into the bed, and I circle my hips against Teller’s lips.
Up, up, up, up, up—up. I cry out when I reach the top and an explosion of effervesces spreads throughout my body, numbing the tips of my fingers and toes. A blanket of warmth cascades on top of me, and it’s been too long since I’ve felt this good.
He’s on his knees between my legs. I can’t move after that, so I blink and breathe and watch him remove his shirt. Teller is color. He is art. He’s supernatural.
“I missed you,” magic says. He unbuckles his belt and unzips his jeans.
Can we stay in this room, on this bed forever? We have time to make up for.
With his pants hanging low on his hips, Teller holds himself up above me. My nipples brush against his chest as I inhale, and I slowly run my hands up and down his sides.
“My baby is in there,” he says. Teller’s eyes stop at my belly.
“Yeah,” I whisper breathlessly.
Teller cups my heat in his hand. Still sensitive and sore from the ride he took me on, I hiss and smile in the best way. He slides his fingers into me painfully slow, and he sits back on his heels to watch. With my hands resting above my head, I’m weak to do more than lick my lips and pull oxygen into my lungs.
But I’m not too weak to know something is wrong when Dr. Reddy presses on my stomach and pushes his fingers into me with more force than necessary.
“Oh, my God, Teller,” I say. “You are not giving me a pelvic exam right now.”
“I’m just making sure everything’s okay,” he replies, pushing on my abdominal area with a smirk on his lips.
I smack his arm and say, “You’ve totally ruined the mood.”
The sound of our laughter replaces the noises of our sex, and it makes me feel as good as a long overdue orgasm does. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t administered a few simple tests on myself, like measuring my stomach, feeling for abnormalities, and searching relentlessly for spotting. As a labor and delivery nurse, I’ve seen my fair share of tragedies. I want to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen to us.
Even if I think the at-home pelvic exam was dramatic.
The goo
d doctor collapses onto the bed beside me and kisses my shoulder, tickling my skin with amusement. He rests his hand over my stomach, where our creation forms.
“Let’s leave our baby in the hands of an expert, okay?” I turn my head to look at him, and I place my hand over his.
“I know enough,” he argues. The right side of his mouth bends.
“I know more than you do, but we shouldn’t drive ourselves crazy doing exams before bed every night.”
During a long minute where we don’t say anything, my heartbeat slows with the rate of my breathing. In just over thirty weeks, it won’t be the two of us anymore. We’ll have a tiny human to love and care for. I will admit, especially after this night, I don’t know if I have enough love inside of me to split between two people. Teller uses it all up himself.
Only, being unable to love my child like they deserve is a tradition I want to kill.
Doing what I do best, I avoid the subject and straddle Teller’s legs. We’ll discuss the demise of our child another time. Or never. Perhaps we’ll avoid it until the day I die, and then our kid can tell everyone how emotionally void I was when I’m dead and gone.
“Are you okay?” Tell asks. He rubs his hands up and down my thighs. “You’re not backing out on me, right?”
I shake my head, reaching into his pants to circle my hand around his cock. The way his lips part and how his eyelids grow heavy silence my worries.
“I want you inside of me.” I work his manhood until his head falls back and he lifts his hips. Lowering my mouth to his ear, I whisper, “Now, prick.”
In one swift motion, Teller grasps me by the hips and flips me over. “It’s so damn sexy when you talk to me like that, baby.”
Using my feet to push his Levi’s down to his knees, I don’t miss the opportunity to watch his length break free from his boxers. It wasn’t something I appreciated during our night in the tent weeks ago. That night was strictly about giving in to old habits and fucking ferociously.
This night will be different.
This night will be about reacquainting ourselves with fate.
We’re heartmates.
Soulmates.
Don’t-ever-stop-loving-me-mates.
Euphoria fills me as Teller does, slow at first and then all the way to the brim. He stretches me, bends me, moves inside of me.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, heavy blinking and slow breathing.
Teller hitches my ankle onto his shoulder, opening me up impossibly deeper. He strokes hard and long, pressing against my clit, pushing against my everything. I hold on to his arms, transfixed by the way muscle moves beneath inked skin. I’m obsessed with his throat, his eyelashes, and his calloused hands that literally save lives, hands that save me.
We hold on to each other, stretching the moment for as long as we can. We’re small kisses and long gazes. We’re almost there, but not yet—please, a little longer. I drag my nails across his shoulder blades, and I taste the sheen of sweat on his chest.
Then he turns me over and enters me from behind. Teller grips my hair at the nape and pulls my head back. He presses his lips to the pulse point on my throat, letting it flutter against his lips before tugging the fragile skin between his teeth.
Unable to hold myself up any longer, I drop to my forearms and lower my head between my shoulders, frenzied and tingling all over. I come with a vengeance, with violence. There’s no holding back the cry that escapes my lungs or the tears that fall from my eyes.
Teller thrusts into me, smacking skin and holding tight enough to leave bruises. He fills me up, relentless until we’re exhausted and panting. Relentless until we’re lying side-by-side, incapable of breaking apart.
We’re a blank canvas, freed from bitterness and disorder. Until we mark it up again.
Seconds or hours later, we’ve buried ourselves under the blankets, sated and beat. I wouldn’t have it any other way, and I know now I was an idiot for ever leaving. What a waste of time. So much time wasted. If we would have seen what destiny had planned for us the moment we met on the front lawn at UCLA, our story would be different.
Joe and Kristi wouldn’t have been part of our lives. They might still be alive. They might have a future instead of being … wherever the dead go.
Heaven, I think. They deserve to be in a place so perfect.
“Do you think it’s our fault they’re dead?” I ask.
There’s no need to clarify who I mean. Teller understands, and he says, “You and I know better than anyone that good people die every single day, Ella. Let go of that guilt, because it isn’t yours to carry around.”
I worked in the part of the hospital that delivers life multiple times a day, thousands of times a year. Despite witnessing the miracle of life hundreds and hundreds of times, I’ve also seen my fair share of death, too. It doesn’t discriminate, and it will come for us all when it’s our turn to go. That’s not a fact we can outsmart with circumstance or wish away.
“But if I’d never met Joe, you’d never have dated Kristi. They wouldn’t have been here that night—”
Teller brushes my hair away from my eyes. He sweeps the back of his knuckles across my cheek. “If you want to look at it that way, then it’s my fault they’re gone. It’s because of me you were introduced.”
“I didn’t have to date him,” I state, swallowing down the lump in my throat. “I didn’t have to lead him on for so long.”
Shrugging, Teller says, “They were in our lives for a reason. In our line of work, we’re trained to think scientifically, like there isn’t something out there that’s watching over us. I don’t accept that, especially now that you’re pregnant. I’m not sure I believe the whole story, but there’s something out there calling the shots. Joe and Kristi were just part of our journey. We’ve got to trust that.”
“They haven’t been gone six months, Tell,” I say and press my lips together to keep my chin from quivering. “What will people think of us?”
A smile spreads across his face from cheek-to-cheek. There’s nothing Teller loves more than someone who underestimates him.
“We belonged to each other for years before they came along, baby.” He kisses the top of my hand before holding it against his chest. “They were an important but very small part of our lives. Look at the bigger picture. Consider how long we’ve loved each other and think about how long we will love each other. Their part in that is miniscule.”
I nod, letting my tears soak into the pillow under my head.
“Their time here is over, Ella. But ours isn’t.” Teller pulls the blankets down my body and lowers himself to kiss my belly. “We’re just getting started.”
Now
“If we get caught, you’re going to be in so much trouble, Teller.”
“We’re not going to get caught,” he says. He takes a long drag from his cigarette before flicking it into the parking lot between cars. The embers burn red midair before burning out. “That was my last one. I’m officially quitting.”
Drawing my arm around his waist, I snort and say, “You’re a rotten liar.”
Teller tucks me tightly into his side and leads me toward the emergency room like he owns the place and isn’t just an employee. I should have insisted we stay in bed when Mr. Bright Ideas came up with this plan. But when he has me wrapped in his arms, and he’s just given me the best orgasms of my life, I’ll agree to anything.
Pregnancy orgasms are the best orgasms.
“Nope,” he insists. “I’m going to try the nicotine patch. And the gum.”
To avoid being recognized, I don’t make eye contact with anyone as we walk through the emergency room and nestle closer to Tell’s side to keep safe. Senior Resident Reddy directs me through the wide halls of the hospital, nodding when acknowledged and pretending to be in a hurry to keep from being dragged into conversation.
The bright florescent lights and hospital grade oxygen fill me with homesickness. There were times when it felt like I didn’t le
ave this place for weeks at a time, and the only familiar faces I saw were Teller and Joe’s. The three of us stomped through these hallways, escaping reasonability whenever we had the chance, in search of a normal moment to break the monotony of our days.
Teller would smoke cigarettes in the back near the dumpsters, and I’d stand with him drinking crappy coffee while we contemplated giving it all up and escaping to Mexico to live the rest of our lives on the beach.
Joe would stick notes in my locker and sneak away from his post to lie with me in the mess room between my shifts, so I wouldn’t be alone.
I was friendly with my classmates and the other nurses when I was hired full-time, but it was always Teller and Joe. They were who I looked forward to seeing every day.
“Fuck, I want a smoke so bad.” Teller laughs. He drops his arm from around my shoulders and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together.
“Already?” I ask with a laugh. “You literally just had one.”
Teller walks us through a maze of halls and waiting rooms until we reach a private elevator. He presses the arrow pointing up and squeezes my hand while we wait for our lift. Standing side-by-side, hand-in-hand, we smile like giddy fools with anticipation and curiosity for what’s to come.
“Are you sure the room will be free?” I ask as the elevator dings and the doors part.
Baby daddy pulls me inside and gently pushes me against the cool elevator wall as we start our ascent to Imaging and Radiology. He smiles against my mouth, and it’s my favorite thing he’s ever done. Until he kisses me. And then this particular kiss is my new favorite thing he’s ever done.
“It’s all set up,” he assures me between lips and tongue and favorite thing after favorite thing. “I called in a favor.”
“Watch out, everybody,” I say playfully. “Big man in the hospital, running things and calling in favors.”
Teller presses the emergency stop button, halting the trip to an abrupt jerk. An alarm sounds and the lights dim, panicking me and amusing him. I’ve never been trapped inside an elevator before now, but I’ve seen it happen in the movies. A signal is going off at the local police department, and in two minutes, the entire hospital will be on lockdown and an emergency crew will be to the rescue. They’ll cut a human-sized hole above us with a chainsaw, and we’ll have sixty seconds to get out before the elevator plummets to the ground and we all die.
Sever (Closer Book 2) Page 14
