by Imani King
"Do you know how to change a tire?" I cut in.
"Nope," he replied, laughing.
We sat out on the balcony in the soft evening air until it was dark, talking and laughing and thinking of nothing else but each other. It was as close to perfect as it gets for us flawed human beings, as far as I can tell. Everything about me was warm and open and it was Blake who gave me the space to feel that way, the sense of safety and comfort that comes with being with someone who you know has your back. At certain moments it almost made me want to cry.
I followed him when we went back inside, carrying our plates and glasses and cutlery to the sink. If my hands hadn't been full, they would have been on him. He was six foot three, which put him a full ten inches above me in height and I confess that I loved looking up at him. I remember the shirt he was wearing that night, a white Prada dress shirt with a small pink floral pattern. Blake was one of those men who could wear a shirt like that and end up looking even more masculine than he would have in a plain white one. When he put the dishes in the sink I wrapped my arms around his big, solid body from behind and put my face against his back, just between his shoulder blades.
There was a window in front of the sink and I could see his smiling reflection in it, down to the cleft in his chin.
"I missed you, Nat," he said as we stood there, still and content, "I don't ever want something like that to happen again. Lisa is gone and I'm not going to hire a new publicist - if people want to hire me, they can. If not, that's fine too. I refuse to let the media have any more power in my life."
He turned around and looked down at me, taking my face in his hands.
"Are you sure?" I asked, cognizant of what a huge decision that was and the impact it could have on his career.
"Yes," he leaned down and kissed my mouth slowly so there was an immediate rush in my blood, "Nat, it's not even a heroic decision - I'm not a serial killer or a cokehead. I've had two serious offers for big films in the past week already, I'm not sure that everyone cares as much about any of this bullshit as the tabloids and the publicists and everyone who makes their living off of it would have us believe."
I wanted to answer properly but the look in his eyes was too distracting, too hungry.
"Blake..."
He bent down close to my ear, kissing his way along my jaw to my mouth:
"Nat, it makes me crazy when you sound like that."
"When I sound like what?" I asked, opening my mouth for his tongue and sighing as he pulled me against his body.
"That. That tone in your voice. It drives me absolutely fucking crazy."
He led me into the living room by my hand and pulled my shirt off over my head, standing back a little to look at me when my bra and the rest of my clothes followed. If it was possible to spontaneously burst into flames, I would have. I've never been ashamed of my body but the feeling with Blake was different than it had been with any other man. The total lack of self-consciousness was deliciously new. The way he looked at me, the way he touched me - it brought out a brazenness in me that I hadn't known was there. He made me feel like an object of desire and I loved it.
"Mmmm. Natasha, I think you might be turning me into a cannibal."
I giggled as he sat me down on the sofa and kissed my breasts, slowly drawing his tongue around each nipple until it was hard. I ran my hands through his hair as he worked his way down, listening to my breathing start to deepen as he got lower and lower.
"Why's that?"
He looked up at me, his blue eyes shining with lust. "Because every time I see you all I can think about is how edible you look."
I was inexperienced - men had gone down on me before but until that night, I honestly hadn't seen what all the fuss was about. It felt good, sure, but it had always been something that felt slightly rote, an act to be gotten out of the way before the main course. Blake Charlton changed all of that. In fact I was so aroused that I almost tried to stop him at first, just wanting him inside me as soon as possible.
"Blake you...you don't have to-"
And then he put his tongue between my lips and pushed it up to my clit - gently sliding it along the left side and never quite touching the most sensitive part and the rest of my sentence disappeared in a breathy, surprised sigh.
"Oh, Blake. Oh my God."
He looked up at me for a few seconds, completely aware of the effect he was having.
"What, Nat? Hasn't anyone done this to you properly before?"
Then he lowered his head again and anything I might have said in response melted into the recesses of my brain as pleasure took over. I watched him for as long as I could, playing distractedly with his hair as my body arched up off the sofa and the constant feeling of needing more just got worse.
"Blake!"
I was close and he was holding me off, refusing to let me get where I wanted to go until he'd had his fill.
"What, baby?"
He smiled up at me, his whole lower face shiny with my wetness and then he bent back down and gave me what I needed, speeding up, keeping his tongue in just the right spot and reaching up to cup one of my breasts in his hand, pinching the nipple gently as the sweet agony built up and overtook me completely.
I lay back, my arms and legs like jelly as my orgasm spread out into my limbs and watched him as he stood up in front of me pulling his clothes off. He was so hard his cock barely moved when he did and the tip of it was glistening with pre-cum. I sat up and kissed it, sliding my tongue underneath the head until Blake exhaled heavily and pushed his hips forward.
"Nat. Wait, Nat. Nat!"
I stopped, looking up at him questioningly.
"I need to be inside you, Natasha. Right now. If you keep doing that I'm going to come and I want to come in your pussy, baby."
He didn't need to ask twice. Blake in that state could probably get me to do literally anything he wanted, I have no power to say no to him when he's like that and no desire to, either. I was lying back on the cushions before he'd even finished telling me what he wanted, opening my legs for him and reaching up for his shoulders, desperate to feel his bare skin against mine. He looked me in the eyes when he pushed himself into me and I watched as his face suddenly relaxed as felt me around him.
"Mmm, Natasha, oh God, baby..."
Blake wasn't just the most skilled lover I'd ever had, he was also the most verbal - and I could have listened to him saying those things to me for hours, catching every little hitch in his voice and every little deepening of tone as he got closer and closer. I didn't think I was going to come again, either, but seeing him get there suddenly got me there was well. Nothing in my life has ever been as sweet as Blake Charlton five seconds before he comes - it makes me utterly crazy, it turns me into an animal. As soon as his body started tensing up and his thrusts started to get hard enough to be just on the edge of painful I felt a few little tightenings in my sex. There was no warning, I was coming before I even realized it was happening, spasming around him and digging my fingers into his muscled shoulders.
"Nat, Natasha, oh my sweet little girl, fuck..."
Blake buried himself into me one more time as he came, pinning me down on the couch as I writhed around like a crazed woman underneath him and holding himself inside me until his fingers, buried in my hair, loosened their grip a little.
He pulled himself out of me and tried to stand up, only managing a couple of seconds before he wobbled and I pulled him down beside me.
"What are you doing!? You look like you're going to pass out," I admonished him as he sprawled out on the sofa, his chest still heaving and his whole body sweaty with exertion. He turned to look at me:
"I - uh, I have no idea what I'm doing. I think my brain just stopped working, Nat. I think you've ruined me."
We lay there, recovering and naked, for a few minutes
"No one ever made me come from - that - before." I told him shyly, when I could talk again.
Blake turned his head towards me, a wicked grin on his face:
<
br /> "From what, Nat?"
"From - well, from, uh-"
"Eating pussy like a goddamned champion?"
I burst out laughing and curled up against him, resting my face against his shoulder.
"Yeah, that."
We showered together in his gigantic shower - the glass-walled one that looks out over the sea, and then we went to bed. I fell asleep quickly, snuggled up against Blake and listening to his breathing.
When I woke up the next day it was just past ten in the morning and the smell of coffee was in the air. I pulled on one of Blake's t-shirts and padded barefoot down the stairs to the kitchen. He wasn't there, but there was fresh coffee in a French press on the counter and an empty mug sitting beside it. The smell of it was sharp, almost oddly unpleasant but I poured myself a mug anyway, adding the usual three teaspoons of sugar and way too much milk.
"Good morning, sweet one."
Blake had a handful of mail in his hand and a distracted look on his face. He walked over and bent down to kiss the top of my head.
"How did you sleep?"
"Really well," I answered, lifting the coffee to my lips and taking a small sip before my stomach turned and I put it back down.
"Something wrong with my coffee?"
"No, I think I just need to eat something first. Is something wrong?"
"Ahh, Nat," he ran both hands through his hair and shook his head, "No, not really. I mean, there are at least twenty paparazzi at the bottom of the driveway but other than that, no, everything's cool."
"Really? Do you think someone called them?"
Blake sat down at the table and pushed his iPad over towards me. "Oh, someone definitely called them. Probably Lisa, who is now on Vanessa's payroll and hungry for revenge."
I glanced down at the iPad. Another headline. Something about Blake definitively throwing his marriage away for an unknown party-girl famewhore. He picked it up again before I even had time to get a good look.
"On second thought, never mind. You know what, Natasha?"
"What?"
"Let's go back to Italy. Right now, today. I'm so utterly and completely done with this stuff."
"Are you serious?" I asked, unsure if he was being hyperbolic or not. He fixed me with his jewel-like blue eyes and nodded.
"Yes, Nat, I am completely serious. Let's just go. Let's pack up right now and go to the airport. Can you think of a single reason to stay?"
"Well..." I hesitated, thinking of Rosa and my friends. Blake read my mind.
"We can come back whenever you want, and I'll fly anyone you like over if you decide you're sick of me or I'm too boring."
If that was true then he was right, there was no reason to stay. A few weeks or a month away would - hopefully - allow everything to die down a little.
"OK," I said, not quite believing I was in a position to just decide on spur of the moment trips to Italy, "Let's go."
Chapter 18: Blake
Thirty-six hours later we were back at Villa Ambra, standing in the grounds in the early morning as the heat of the sun was just starting to make itself felt. Natasha was wearing a white sundress and a pair of sunglasses that made her look like a fifties movie-star and I was trying not to stare at her too obtrusively. We'd arrived about an hour previously and the first thing she'd done is vomited in the kitchen sink, turning to me afterwards with a confused look on her face and speculating about delayed airsickness.
I wasn't so sure that Natasha had airsickness, though. She was looking a little different. Nothing I could put my finger on, but I'd noticed it a few days ago for the first time - she had a plumpness in her cheeks and a glow to her skin. The thought that she could be pregnant had popped into my mind on the plane as she slept with her smooth, dark-caramel cheek against my shoulder for hours.
I was nervous, though. How would Natasha react if she was pregnant? And how would I react if she wasn't? The possibility had been with me for mere hours and I'd been making a conscious effort not to get my hopes up for the entire time, unsuccessfully. None of my dreams of a family had gone away. If anything, they'd intensified when I got closer to Natasha, even though I was aware that she was younger than me, eager to establish herself in a career of her own and probably not wild about the idea of settling down right away.
"What are you thinking about?" She asked, turning to me and taking note of the faraway look on my face.
"Uh - nothing."
"Are you sure? You look like you're pondering the mysteries of the universe."
Natasha has a very specific smile. It's playful, but also skeptical. I'd noticed that she only tended to use it on close friends - and me. Whenever she caught me in the tractor beam of that smile part my mind went blank and I would just stand there, as pleased as a plant placed in a sunny spot, contentedly absorbing the energy radiating off her.
"Do I? Well, maybe I am."
"Are you happy, Blake?"
The suddenly serious tone in her voice caught me off guard a little, but the answer was the same either way: yes, I was happy. More than I had ever been before. I told Natasha as much and pulled her back into my arms as we looked out over the valley below Villa Ambra but she turned around to face me again, a curious look on her face.
"Blake? I think I'm pregnant."
Without skipping a beat I looked back down at the woman I loved.
"I think you're pregnant, too."
"Do you?" She asked, "How can you tell?"
"I - I don't know, really. I just noticed something a few days ago, something different about you..."
Without thinking I reached down and put the palm of one hand flat against her belly, as if I would somehow be able to divine the presence - or not - of life growing within. The surge of desperate hope that welled up in my heart at the possibility of Natasha having my baby almost made me dizzy. I couldn't let myself believe in this until I knew it was true.
"We should go to a pharmacy," she said quietly, noting the look on my face.
So we went to a little pharmacy in the village below Villa Ambra and I was forced to break out my terrible Italian to ask for a pregnancy test - well, for six pregnancy tests, to be exact - Natasha is nothing if not thorough. Then we raced back to the villa and Natasha disappeared into the bathroom, insisting that I didn't need to actually witness her peeing. A few minutes later she opened the door and beckoned me inside. All six tests were laid out one after the other on the Carrara marble countertop and I joined Natasha in studying them, my stomach in my throat as the seconds ticked by.
"I can't stand this, let's go outside for a few minutes!" Natasha wailed shortly afterwards and we went out into the garden with an air of surrealism hanging over us.
"This feels so strange, doesn't it?" She asked, looking up at me for confirmation.
"Yes," I replied nervously, again struck by a feeling of momentousness, "I can't even breathe right now, Nat."
We forced ourselves to stay out in the grounds for at least fifteen minutes, distracting each other with an impromptu game of I-Spy until neither of us could stand it for a second longer.
Each of the six tests showed two clear, bright pink, lines. Natasha and I looked up from the array of test sticks and at each other at the exact same moment, both of our eyes big and round with surprise.
"Oh my God, Blake," she whispered, tearing up.
It's hard to describe what I felt at the time. Elation, love and a tight fear that Nat's tears meant she was upset with the result.
"Nat," I started, taking her by the shoulders and looking into her eyes, "Are you crying because you're...sad?"
She took a little shuddering breath and slapped me on the shoulder and then spoke in a voice thick with emotion.
"No, Blake! No I'm not sad. I'm - I'm so happy. Are you sad?"
Then it was my turn to get choked up, so I just pulled Natasha against my chest and whispered in her ear so she wouldn't hear my voice breaking.
"No, Nat. I think this is the best day of my life."
Natasha w
as going to have a baby. My baby. It took a couple of hours for it to sink in but when it did I was truly amazed by the strength of the protective instinct that had already started to rise up inside me. When I looked at her, the same woman she had been weeks and days since I first met her, she looked the same. She felt different, though - to me. She felt suddenly vulnerable. I even caught myself following her up the stairs at one point, seized with paranoia that she was going to fall.
"What are you doing?" She asked, turning around with her eyebrows raised at me.
"I - uh. I didn't want you to fall."
"Good lord, Blake, are you planning to follow me around like a secret service agent for the next nine months?"
I considered her question. "Well, actually, yes. As long as it doesn't annoy you too much."
She smiled and reached out to caress my cheek with her hand.
"I'm not saying I won't ever get annoyed but that's so sweet I feel like I might explode."
"Don't do that, you know I don't know how to clean very well."
She laughed and kept going up the stairs and I stayed where I was, watching her, full of love.
Three days later a doctor confirmed the pregnancy with a blood test and all the dreams of a future that had always seemed ephemeral and faraway suddenly crystallized in my mind. I was going to be a father. I loved Natasha. There was only one thing to do...
Chapter 19: Natasha
Morning sickness wasn't too bad, as long as I made sure to nibble on bland things - bread, crackers and the like - almost constantly from the moment I woke up every morning. Blake renamed himself 'the bread man' a couple of days later, walking around like some kind of French stereotype with a baguette in one hand at all times. He was right about me being more 'rounded,' too. Although I didn't have anything like a bump yet I could feel myself plumping up as my body prepared itself to grow a baby - Blake's baby. It was actually a little stressful - before me, Blake's taste seemed to have been for skinny blondes and now, pregnant, all of the little insecurities that I've always done my best to put to the back of my mind came rushing back. I tried to contain myself but eventually I couldn't, asking him over a simple dinner of fresh pasta and a herb and butter sauce if he thought I looked like I was getting bigger.
