by Cari Quinn
How it felt to connect to someone.
Foreign now that it was just the two of them, but good. Almost too good.
Part of her started to push back. It couldn’t be good without Randy. They’d made sure things were so knotted up between them that the three of them were always involved during sex. Whether it was Tristan watching them via Skype or the three of them in the same space—it had never been so narrowly focused.
Never been solely just two.
“Jules?”
God, he must have felt it. He’d always been very attuned to her. Whether it was to add a little pain into the pleasure, or to back off—to dominate or to soothe.
Now, she needed both.
She twisted her top half to line them up in a kiss. It was messy and wonderfully inept. It was different and stumbling and it dragged her out of her head as she relearned how to kiss just one man without another kissing her somewhere else.
He opened her wider and peered down between them. He lightly strummed his thumb over her clit, then circled it tight and fast as only a man who knew her body so well would ever think to do. She arched, scrabbling for the headboard and the ability to breathe around the onslaught of emotions and pleasure. His name was a prayer and a wish as she finally relaxed and let go.
He chanted her name in between a string of swear words that made her laugh even as she was still shuddering through her own release.
“I swear I saw God.” He collapsed behind her, starfishing across more than half the bed.
Jules peeked over her shoulder at his heaving, sweaty chest and the sweet curl of satisfaction bloomed larger in her chest. “Only if God is a woman, baby.” She stretched her arms up and resisted the urge to purr.
“I think she might be. Sweet fucking shit. I swear I lost brain cells.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “You were shaking so hard, tightening around me so good. I didn’t think that would ever…”
“Be us again?” she finished.
He draped his arm over his face. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
She wiggled onto her back then onto her other side to face him. God, she was so tired and so huge. Good thing she hadn’t thought of that before they’d gotten into sexy times or she would have stopped. But finally, she got onto her other side and burrowed under his arm. She pulled his other arm away from his face. “Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I miss him just as much. Sometimes it feels like even more because at least you have him right here.” He stroked her belly.
They didn’t know for sure who actually fathered their baby, but they liked to think it was a piece of Randy left behind. And they’d never know for sure. They didn’t want to know. It was simply their baby—the three of them. Always.
She settled her cheek against his chest. “I know. Do you think he’d mind?”
He stroked his fingertips lightly over her shoulder. “Mind?”
“That we…you know.” She swallowed down the boulder in her throat. “And it was…” She blew out a breath. God, why was this so hard?
“Good?”
She pressed a kiss to his chest. “Yeah.”
“I’d like to think so. Maybe his ghost is watching us?”
“Perv.”
A laugh rumbled out of his chest. “I know I used to love to watch you two when you were on tour. So maybe ghost Randy is jacking off to us now?”
“You’re terrible.”
He wrapped his arms around her. “It’s good to hear you laugh, babe. So good.”
She peered up at him. “Pretty soon we’ll have a little one to make us three again.” Could have been four, but she took a little solace in the idea they’d be a unit again.
“Yeah, we will. Still think it’s a girl though,” he said mid-yawn.
“Boy.”
“We’ll see.” He shifted under her. “Comfy?”
Her lower back was still killing her, but she felt like she could actually drift off. A good orgasm or two always did the trick. “For once.”
“Then sleep, Rockstar Mama.”
For the first time in a long time, she fell asleep with a smile on her face.
Nine
Tristan Eves was in a rocking boat and it had sprung a damn leak. He kept bailing, but there was no hope for this stupid boat. He looked over his shoulder at a sound. A baby’s cry.
Fuck.
He looked down at his hand and instead of a bucket, it was a red cup. The kind he’d drank many a beer out of at parties. Certainly nothing that would help him right now.
The cries got louder and the water kept rising.
He came awake with a start. The bed was wet and Jules was curled into herself beside him. God, had he pissed himself, for fuck’s sake?
Jules?
Or…
“Oh, crap.” He leaped out of bed. “Jules.”
She only moaned her response, curling into herself tighter.
“Shit.” He rushed around the room, but it wasn’t their bedroom, goddammit. Well, not the one they’d been staying in for the last few months. He ran into the en suite bathroom to grab a towel so hopefully she wouldn’t freak out.
Maybe.
Or maybe to stop himself from freaking out.
Jesus.
Towels. He could hear Juliet’s voice ringing out not to use the good towels, but fuck. It didn’t matter. What the hell were towels for if you didn’t use them? Fuck the guests. He ran back in and knelt by the bed.
Fuck, he should have looked for pants.
Crap.
“Babe? Jules?”
She rubbed her nose into the pillow. “Just a few more minutes.”
He huffed out a breath. How long did they have from water breakage to labor? She wasn’t in—
She moaned and curled around her belly.
Or not. Could she be in labor in her sleep? Was that a thing? “Fuck.”
Her big brown eyes opened, then squinted at him. “What’s wrong?” Then she gave him a wide-eyed look. “Whoa.”
“Yeah, guess we kickstarted stuff, huh?”
She rubbed the side of her belly. “Holy craaaap.” Then her cheeks flushed. “Oh, did my water break?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure that’s definitely a yeah.”
She awkwardly rolled to a seated position as she blew out a breath. “Okay. This is happening.” She glanced at him. “First of all, you get dressed. Possibly shower.”
“I don’t have time for a shower.”
“Take a shower. It’ll be your last one for I don’t know how many hours. At least based on the status of this bed.”
He stood, then handed her the towel. “I’ll just clean up then—”
“Tris, we’ve got time. I’m just…oooh.” She breathed out slowly. “They’re not very close together.”
“Seemed close to me.” He scooped her up. “Let’s both shower, huh?”
The one good thing about the en suite bathroom was that it had been renovated with the three of them in mind. It was massive.
“Good plan.”
“Okay, good.” How she was calm enough to want to take a shower, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to ask questions. Handy, since his brain was currently out to lunch.
She was breathing evenly and rubbing the sides of her belly. She was so damn tiny save for the basketball trying to break out of her. And the flash of Alien in his head would not be denied. Nope. Not going to think about that, thank you very much.
The woman he loved was going to be just fine.
Yep.
Fine.
He set the taps to a light spray and Juliet actually hummed a little as she soaped up. She piled her hair up on top of her head and slowly moved the bubbles around her shoulders and down between her glorious breasts. Breasts he actually got to touch for the first time in…forever. And a little secret caveman part of him hated that she was cleaning him off her.
There was the whole water breaking thing, but yeah, he was just being a ps
ycho now. Shut up, man.
She turned around and held the puffy thing over her shoulder. “Do my back?”
“What?” He blinked and took the frothing soap dispenser. Those puffy things never seemed to stop squeezing out suds. Citrusy suds. A lump formed in his throat as he got closer to her. She was wearing his scent.
His soap.
“Wash my back.”
“Yeah.” His voice was thick. From the back, no one would even know she was pregnant. Maybe she was slightly fuller in the hips now, but she still had that sculpted back that made him insane. The heart-shaped ass that made legions of men drool, including him.
She leaned back against him and he pressed his nose into her thick hair. She blew out a slow breath as she pulled his hand to her belly. “Guess this is happening today. Hope you’re ready for this, Daddy.”
He closed his eyes and laced their fingers over where the baby was kicking. So not ready. Beyond not ready. “As I’ll ever be.”
He quickly washed up and helped her out of the shower, drying her off as gently as possible.
“Okay, because I think it’s go-time.”
“Right.” His entire brain froze.
“Don’t give me that deer in headlights look. You run a staff of twenty every night. You can do this.”
“Right. I can do this.” More like a staff of thirty-seven at last count. But who was counting? Wait, he was supposed to be counting something. “Contractions are how far apart?”
“Six-ish.”
He turned her to face him. Ish was not a good word. “How close to five are we talking?” One of the magic numbers he kept in his head was five. Because that was the one that had left him waking up in a cold sweat for the last three months.
“Not five, exactly.”
“Jules.”
“How about you just get my go bag and I’ll get dressed?” She slowly walked out of the bathroom.
Yeah, that didn’t tell him jack.
But he did as he was told. He grabbed his towel at his hip and ran out of their master bedroom. He skidded on the hardwood with his wet feet and lost his towel right before he got into the guest room where they’d been sleeping. Sure enough, there was her go bag right next to the door.
He grabbed the nearest clothes available for himself and the neat pile she had stacked in the little alcove above the bag. Orderly and perfect just like the rest of the house. She’d said she was in nesting mode. Whatever the hell that meant. All he knew was that if he wasn’t at the restaurant, he was putting together something for the nursery, or kid-proofing something in the apartment.
At the time, it had been the only thing she’d actually do with him. Finally, tonight she’d actually wanted to be close to him and now here they were, knocking on the door of Baby Town. And that made him sound like an asshole, but dammit, it had been the first time she’d actually touched him, let alone kissed him and…
More.
So much fucking more.
But he didn’t have time to go down that damn road.
He stuffed his feet into sneakers and gathered all the supplies she told him she would need. Go bag, clothes, and the squeaky duck she’d been obsessed with. Ducks were always a thing with her and Randy. Handily, it was right on top of the little unit holding the rest of the holy-fuck-the-baby-is-here essentials.
He raced back out into the living room. “Jules?”
“Still naked in here.”
“Shit.” He had her clothes right in his hands. Holy fuck, his brain was pudding. His sneakers squeaked on the hardwood floor as he backtracked and headed for the master bedroom.
She was sitting on the bed in her towel, her cheeks a little rosy, but otherwise, she was freaking glowing. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders in the endless waves that he loved to put his fingers in. Whatever was in the vitamins she was always taking had turned her glossy straight hair into thick waves.
She was so goddamn beautiful it hurt him to look at her sometimes.
Especially when it was just her sitting on that big bed. Sparky wasn’t sitting behind her with a goofy grin.
Never would be again.
Tristan’s knuckles went white on the bag as he pushed down the ache that never quite went away.
“Hey.”
He cleared his throat. “Hey. How are you doing?”
She gave him a big, beautiful smile. “Looks like I’m having a baby.” She held out her hand. “We’re having a baby.”
“Yeah, we are.”
“But it would be really great if I was able to wear clothes for a little while longer.”
“Shit. Sorry.” He held out the pile of wildly patterned scrub pants. The only ones that didn’t make her feel like she was wearing a tent—according to her anyway. She looked gorgeous in everything as far as he was concerned. And one of Randy’s old baseball shirts. All stretched out and nearly threadbare—but she would not be deterred. And he wasn’t arguing if she wanted to wear Sparks’s clothes to feel better.
Maybe someday she’d be soothed by one of his shirts.
He helped her get dressed, then was smoothing her hair back away from her flushed face when she grabbed his arm. “Having one now?”
“Yeah.”
“Breathe?”
“Got that part down cold.”
He snorted. “All right, smartass.”
“Queen Smartass today, pal. Holy—”
“Yeah, breathe out against the pain.”
“Thanks for the tip.” But she blew out a steady breath and finally stood up straighter. “Okay, we’ve got about four minutes to get to the elevator and downstairs.”
“Four? You said six.”
“Yeah, well, they’re coming a little closer now. I don’t make the rules, this little kid does.”
“Girl.”
She rolled her eyes. “As long as it is pink and screaming on the way out, we’re good.”
He rested his hand at her back and urged her out of the bedroom. “My thoughts exactly.”
When they got to the door, she shoved her feet into the neon green Crocs she’d been wearing for the last month. “You know it’s bad when my feet barely fit in these things.”
He grabbed his keys and wallet by the door. “You’ll have your gorgeous dainty feet again in no time.”
“Promise?”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and hustled her along. “Promise.” He was pretty sure they’d go back to normal.
He pulled the gate down on their huge elevator. Their place was part of a converted warehouse. He’d actually paid for an upgrade on the elevator with his last bonus from the restaurant. Their building was a co-op of sorts, but he was too worried about safety after Randy to wait for a vote or a decision.
It was the only thing he could do to control a truly insane situation. For the first few months after Randy died, he’d practically needed a GPS tracker on Juliet. The only people who’d been able to knock any sense into him were Hunter and Noah. That may have been after he cornered Noah about a protection detail and his friend told him he was being a dumbass.
It hadn’t been pretty. He couldn’t put Jules in a bubble, no matter how much he wanted to. But he could make sure the locks and the damn elevator were top of the line to protect her and the baby.
And okay, he might have gotten a few extra cameras for the doors and the baby’s room. Maybe. There were blind areas in the room. He had to cover all the bases.
That was his story, dammit.
On the ride down in the elevator, she dug her super-strength claws into him—hello, another side effect of those crazy vitamins she took. What the hell was in them? Superman juice? But he held on, and gathered her in as the contraction took hold. When it passed, she gave him a weak smile.
“Well, that was a big one.”
Fuck.
They so needed to get to the hospital. Was he supposed to call her doctor? Or did the hospital do that? Did he know this stuff? It felt like he should know it already and yet, he was working at about h
alf a cylinder of brainpower.
The doors opened and he slowly led Jules down the hallway to the door.
“Hey, how about you go get the car?”
He frowned. “Leave you alone?”
She patted his arm. “Bet you’ll be faster than me.”
He bent down to her. “Right. I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
She tapped his nose. “You’re so cute.”
He stood up straight. “I hate you.”
“Get the car.”
“Right.” He opened the door, then backtracked and rocked her back with a hard kiss. “We’re having a baby.”
“Get out of here, you goof.”
He ran to the brand new Volvo SUV he’d bought last month. He wasn’t going to lie—it had hurt to sell his sports car for a family car, but safety was his concern now. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—think about anything else but taking care of his family.
He pulled around to the front of the building and swore when he saw she was walking out on her own. Before he could open his door and come around, she was opening the passenger door.
“Save the chivalry for the hospital.” She slid into her seat with a long, slow breath. “Maybe break a few speed laws?” she asked as she buckled up.
“You got it.” He pulled out of their parking lot, never so happy that they were only a few streets over from the highway. Or that she had decided to go into labor in the middle of the night instead of high traffic time in Los Angeles. In fact, the highway was eerily empty. Maybe there was a time that the city actually slept.
However, checking in at the maternity ward wasn’t nearly so easy. His car was practically on autopilot to get to the birthing center. The staff was more than welcoming. Even sunny even though the sun wasn’t even cresting in the skyline. But he didn’t want sunny. Even if Jules seemed to be of a similar mind. Her contractions made themselves known a few times, but she was chitchatting over paperwork, for God’s sake.
He was going to lose a head of hair by the end of the night.
