by kj lewis
“Let me go over her formula. Do you need me to teach you how to change a diaper?” she asks, opening Olivia’s diaper bag.
“No. I’ve cared for babies before. When did she eat last?” I ask.
“About an hour ago. She’s had a pattern of sleeping for a couple of hours in between feedings.”
“And how many ounces is she taking right now?”
“She’s been averaging around four. Need me to show you how to make her bottle?”
“No. We’re good,” I assure her.
“We are?” Graham isn’t as sure as I am.
Laughing, I try my best to soothe his anxiety. “Yes, baby. I know how to take care of a baby.” There’s a heat in his eyes I haven’t seen before.
“His mother is also a top OB-GYN. We will be fine.” Mrs. Burnett returns my smile as Graham continues to look at Olivia.
“I know you will be. I’m happy you two wanted to do this. Terrance and I had a long talk. He didn’t shy away from being a father when he found out; he took it seriously and thought it through. The things you said yesterday were true.” She looks at Graham. “He had his troubles, but he was also a good person. He would have been a good father. I’ll be back at seven to collect her. Once you sign the papers, it will take four weeks. I’m sorry it can’t be sooner.”
I see her to the elevator before coming back to Graham.
“She’s so little.” She is sleeping holding on to his finger. We move to the living room and sit. I prop Graham’s legs up on the coffee table and turn her against his thighs so she’s facing us and we can watch her.
“How does it feel?” I ask him.
“It feels right,” he says cradling my face and kissing me. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m no longer the only girl in your life. And I couldn’t want or love you more because of it.”
“Sweetheart, you will always be my only wife and my first girl.” His thumb runs across my lip before kissing me deeper.
“You love her.”
“How does that happen?” he asks, enthralled at the very idea. “How are you fine one minute and completely in love the next? Actually, you know what. That happened with you. I knew I had to have you on the plane. Just like when you put her in my arms, I knew I would move heaven and earth for her to be ours.” He watches her with wonder.
“Do you want to hold her?”
“No, baby. I’m good. Hold your daughter.” He picks her back up in his arms and I take a selfie of the three of us.
“I can’t wait to tell our parents,” I clap excitedly.
“I want to talk to you about something.” He seems nervous. “I called the decorators.”
“Why?” I’m confused.
“To decorate her room. I know it is something parents usually do on their own, and I don’t want you to feel like you have been left out of the process, but I also want to make sure it is ready for her.”
“I think I can handle pulling her room together in four weeks.”
“As do I, but you don’t have four weeks. We leave in the morning for three.”
“Leave? What are you talking about?”
“We leave in the morning.”
“Leave to go where?”
“Tomorrow we fly to Maldives. We’ll stay there for nine days, then we go to Santorini for eleven days. I’m taking you on an official honeymoon before we become parents.”
“But you gave me a honeymoon already?”
“That was a few nights at our beach house. I’m taking my wife on a real honeymoon.”
“Can you take three weeks off? What about the deals you are working on?”
“Dad and Adam can finish them up. What I have to do, I can do remotely. The mentor program is established and going strong. I texted Jackson last night when I decided. Henry is going to cover the couple of accounts you are still working on.”
“You thought of everything. I don’t know why I should be surprised.” I rub my thumb over Olivia’s little fingers.
“So I don’t want you to be worried about Olivia’s room. You’ll have a week once we’re back to handle any finishing touches, and shop for her clothes and personal items. Will that work for you?”
“That works for me, baby.” I lay my head on his shoulder and we watch our daughter sleep.
“Sir, ma’am. The designer will be arriving in fifteen minutes,” Smith says admiring Olivia.
“Would you like to hold her?” Graham offers and it’s impossible to miss the emotion on Smith’s face at Graham asking him.
“Of course,” he says. “She’s beautiful.” He holds her like a pro. “I have nieces and nephews.” Smith says in answer to Graham’s questioning look.
“You’re the first person to hold her besides us,” I tell him. Smith is with us more than anyone else, and I know sometimes it must come at a sacrifice. Despite the fact that I know Graham pays him extremely well, I want him to understand what he means to us and our family unit.
“I’m honored,” he says before giving her back to Graham when the elevator dings.
“Right this way,” he says to the husband and wife team we used for the beach house.
Graham takes Olivia into the other room and gives her to Vinnie. He’s not ready to show her to them yet.
“I would like to remind you of your confidentiality agreement,” Graham says, all business. Once they acknowledge it, he proceeds to tell them that we need a nursery, that we need it in three weeks, and which room we are going to use.
“She thought that might be why you would need to see us right away,” the husband smiles at his wife. “Let us show you a few ideas we pulled together this morning.”
An hour later, we show them to the elevator. They really were prepared and intuitive to our needs and wants. Working with them on Pemberton Place helped because they already know what I like. We made decisions for Olivia’s room both here and at the beach house.
“She’s ready to eat.” Vinnie comes out of the room she was rocking her in.
“I’ll feed her. Why don’t you call the parents to come early?” I tell him while Vinnie and I enjoy making her bottle and talking about expanding her duties to help with Olivia since I plan on continuing to work.
I let Graham give her the second half of her bottle then show him how to burp her by applying pressure to her tummy. Not long afterwards, he gets a lesson on changing his first diaper.
“Your parents are on their way up,” Graham says before heading to the elevator.
“Eloise. Harry,” Graham says.
“How’s Emme?” I hear Eloise asks.
“She’s great. In fact…” he trails off and I come around the corner.
“Graham and I would like to introduce you to your granddaughter.” I smile and giggle at the look of shock on their faces.
“Oh my God.” Eloise covers her mouth as I come closer. She looks from Harry back to Olivia. “How?” is all she can manage before I place Olivia in her arms.
We tell them the story, and Harry is so moved that he still hasn’t said a word. Eloise finally shares Olivia with him.
“Dad?” I slide my arm around his waist while he wraps an arm around me, holding Olivia in the other.
“Next to marrying Eloise, you continue to make me the happiest man alive.” He kisses my head before he and Eloise fuss over Olivia, who is awake and smiling. I take some great pictures of them with my camera, and Eloise takes some of us.
“My parents are on their way up.” Graham says about thirty minutes later.
“It’s nice out. Why don’t we step outside and let them have a minute?” Eloise suggests to Harry.
This time I let Graham be the one to bring Olivia around the corner while I take pictures of the surprise and joy on Ruth’s face. Ben, who already knew about the adoption, is finally able to bask in the joy of becoming a grandpa. Harry and Eloise join us, and we have a hilarious conversation about what Olivia will call each of the grandparents.
An hour later, Jules, Adam, and
Lucy arrive, followed by Jackson and Patrick. Graham and I take Olivia to our room for her last thirty minutes to be with just us before Mrs. Burnett arrives to take her back. She takes a few minutes to meet the family, and regrettably we let her go.
“It’s okay baby.” Graham wraps his arms around me from behind as we watch the elevator doors close.
“I wish I could tell you it gets easier son, but it doesn’t,” Ben says.
Over dinner, we talk about the honeymoon and what’s next for us. I show them the renditions of the nursery the designers left. Eloise and Ruth talk about adding nurseries to their houses. It’s an evening with family. It’s perfect.
“What time are we leaving tomorrow?” I ask, heading into our bedroom. Just as I’m sliding my shirt over my head, Graham lifts me and throws me on the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“Fucking my wife.” He undresses, revealing he’s already hard and ready. “Do you know how painful it is to have a hard on for an entire day?”
“Can’t say that I do.” I raise a brow humorously at him.
“Strip. Now.”
“I believe that is what I was doing.”
“Emelia.”
“Graham,” I respond, slowly getting up. I remove my bra, making sure my fingers brush my nipples as it falls off me. Turning my back to him, I watch him over my shoulder as I undo my jeans and slowly lower them over my ass before kicking them off. Turning naked towards him, my tongue darts out when I see his hand moving over the length of his cock.
“On your knees,” he commands
“Yes, sir. My pleasure.”
I revel in the thought of bringing CEO Graham to his knees, continuing my plight even when he’s instructed me to stop. I smile as my ministrations pay off when he comes down the back of my throat.
“That’s how you want to play this?” he challenges once he’s emptied himself. Lifting me, he slaps me on the ass before he lays on the bed.
“Come here, Emelia,” he demands.
I straddle him, moaning when my clitoris rubs against his stomach. The friction heavenly.
“Again,” he says, and I repeat the movement. “I can feel how wet you are, Emelia.” He positions himself under me, sliding a finger in before pulling my hips down onto his mouth, tongue fucking me deep this way. My hands grip the top of our headboard while Graham feasts on me, his finger moving in and out of my ass, continuing until I detonate over him, barely able to hold myself up.
Without giving me time to adjust, he lowers me to the bed while lifting my ass in the air, and then slams into me from behind. The air hisses out of him as he sinks all the way into me in one swift motion.
I brace myself on my elbows, savoring the way it feels when he moves in and out of me.
“Emelia.” Graham calls my name between gritted teeth, signaling me to get there. I push him as far as he can go before I collapse on my shoulders calling his name. Slowly I lower my knees and he rests on top of me. My body massages him as my orgasm continues to ripple through me.
“That’s the most amazing feeling,” Graham says. “I love to stay inside of you after you’ve come. To feel your body gripping mine. I swear it’s enough to set me off again.”
“What else do you love?”
“I love that you aren’t a hanger girl. I can lay on top of you and not feel like you’re going to snap like a twig.” He kisses my shoulder. “I love your curves. The weight of your breast in my hand. How you taste. The smell of us mixed together. I love how soft you are after I’ve made love to you. I love how your body was made to fit mine perfectly.” He wraps his arms under mine, interlacing our hands together. “I love the confidence you showed with Olivia today. Seeing you with our child is what set me off to begin with. I already love her. I promise to make Terrance proud he chose us.”
“I’m in love with you, Graham.”
“And I you, Emelia.”
“This has been the most amazing honeymoon,” I tell Graham as we lay in a hammock at the end of our three weeks, overlooking the blue waters of the Mediterranean.
“It’s has been.” His hand rubs up the leg that I have curled over his thigh. “What was your favorite part?”
“Aside from amazing sex every day? Hmmm…I would say this. You, me, and the sea. Here and Maldives. I love being on the water with you. What about you?” I burrow into him more.
“Aside from amazing sex every day? Hmmm…would say this,” he smirks. “You, me, and the sea. Here and Maldives. I have loved it being just the two of us.”
“Me too. I’m ready to be home and with Olivia though. Any regrets about us becoming parents so soon?”
“None. I’m ready to be with her, too. It feels like a piece of us is missing.”
“I can’t wait to see her rooms. The pictures look so great, and I love how different they each are.”
“You have some shopping to do when we get home. Maybe now I can get you to spend a little money. Do you know that since we have been married, you have only spent $183 on your Amex?”
“I have everything I need. I don’t need to buy anything. Anything I may need to buy, I can buy with my own money. I have more than enough with Harry taking care of Addie’s expenses.”
“I just never thought marriage was for me. I never thought I would find someone who loved me and not my money. I never thought I would find someone I trusted.”
“I didn’t marry you for your money, honey. I married you for your dick.” I pinch his nipple when I say it.
“Ouch!” He pulls me over him before slapping my ass.
“Do that again and you’re going to get a replay of what you asked for last week.”
I think back to being tied to all four posts of the iron bed in our room. My eyes covered, him dripping hot wax down my body. I didn’t think I would like it, but it’s similar to dipping your hand in the hot wax at the nail salon. It feels hot for just a second then soothes as it hardens. He used a plethora of toys on me that night, including some he had bought on our stroll through the streets of Santorini where we came across a specialty shop that had several interesting things to try out.
Reaching up I pinch him again, and with a grace that only he has, he extracts us from the hammock in one swift move carrying me over his shoulder. Walking by the table, he grabs a thin wooden cheese board with a handle carved into it, and cracks it over my ass as I pinch his.
“Emelia.”
“Graham.”
Jim and a co-pilot are waiting for us the next morning when we board. Smith and his wife are already seated and are sectioned off in the area in front of us since we’re on one of Graham’s planes that conveniently has a separate living and sleeping section. It’s the largest plane in his fleet. We encouraged Smith to bring Stefanie because we knew he would have a lot of down time, and Graham felt like we only needed security when we were out and about. For my part, I never saw either of them. Smith and Graham had worked it out so that it would feel like we were on our own.
“What is that?” Graham asks when we are a couple of hours into our flight.
“A snack. Want some?” I lift the fork to his mouth and he takes a bite. His head is resting in my lap as he reads. The sapphire ring he bought me on our honeymoon sparkles on my finger.
“That’s a snack?” he asks with his mouth full. “Where did you get that?” he sets his book down, gets up, and comes back with a fork of his own.
“It’s left over from dinner the other night. You didn’t think I would throw away our pasta from Italy did you?”
“I didn’t think you would keep it.” He dives into another bite.
“And I didn’t think when I said that day that I wanted pasta for dinner that you would fly us to Italy just to eat.”
We finish our snack and he lays his head in my lap again while reading the end of To Kill a Mockingbird aloud to me. My fingers and nails run over his scalp as he reads the last pages.
“Thank you. I loved it,” I tell him when he reads the last word.
“You’re welcome,” he says as he continues to lay there watching me as I watch him. No conversation needed. His eyes tell me everything. There’s a buzz and I hit the button letting the steward know he can enter.
“Dinner will be served in an hour,” he says checking our drinks and making sure we have what we need.
“Why don’t we eat with Stefanie and Smith?” I suggest.
“I don’t know that I want to share you.”
“We’ll still have over eight hours after dinner together.”
“Okay. But maybe they don’t want to eat with us?”
“Not possible,” I tell him, making my way to the front to ask.
Dinner is delicious. Steak with veggies accompanied by a bottle of red from the several cases of wine Graham picked up when we were in Italy for the evening.
“Did you have a favorite place you visited in Santorini?” Stefanie asks while we eat.
“There were so many great ones to choose from.”
“The bookstore?” Graham suggests, passing the butter.
“Yes, that was definitely one of my favorites.”
“We visited there. It was really cool,” Smith says.
“I know. Did he tell you that he was from Memphis?” I refer to the owner that works the store. “He went to high school and then college with the same friends. They loved Santorini so much that they decided to open a bookstore together and take turns living part of the year in the states and part of the year there. Each running the store when it’s their turn.”
“Really? What a cool idea. Honey, we could run a bookstore somewhere like Santorini.” Stefanie looks dreamily at Smith whose look sends me and Graham into laughter.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. But we live in the greatest city in the world. New York. I don’t know that I could slow down enough to live in Santorini full time.”
“Just part time. We could share it like they do.” Realizing she isn’t getting anywhere, she turns her attention back to me. “Are you disappointed you didn’t get to run in the marathon?”
“No. I’m okay with it. I didn’t want to do it without Teague. Of course, being in Maldives lessened the blow. Teague and I will be signing up again next year.”
