by Blair Grey
“I know,” she said softly. “I love you, too.”
It was the first time that she had said it back to me. Not that I’d been too liberal with telling her that I loved her, either. She had heard me say it first to Ray when I was in the hospital, and the next time I had tried to say it, directly to her face, she had laughed it off as a byproduct of the meds I was on. But I could see in her eyes that she believed me.
She had to, I supposed. We were moving across the country together, and that wasn’t something you did with just anyone.
I felt a warm flush go through me. I love you.
Maybe this thing between us wasn’t so doomed after all. Maybe, in spite of everything, we just might manage to raise a kid. A kid who didn’t end up going down the same path that I did.
I bent down and kissed Leila, the promise of the future swirling around us. Yellow kitchens and porch swings, a dog and a baby and us. Maybe it would all work out.
It wasn’t long before I couldn’t think anymore, though. The kiss turned scorching hot as I backed her up against the wall beneath the spray. She wrapped a hand around my length, her movements eased by the water.
“I love you,” I repeated, and she smiled.
38
Leila
Saturday
It felt liberating to finally tell Marcus that I loved him. To be honest, it still felt like things were moving too quickly between us. Like I was going to wake up one morning and find out that it had all been some strange dream. I didn’t know why I was so convinced that this couldn’t be real. After all, I had heard him, there in the hospital, telling Ray that he had told my father, of all people, that he loved me.
Jesus, I could just imagine the look on Dad’s face. He wouldn’t have been happy.
I knew that I could go into the police office if I wanted to, to go in and see the man. He was my father, after all. But I hadn’t gone. I had nothing to say to him. I hardly knew him. He was a stranger to me at this point. And I didn’t particularly care what happened to him.
In the back of my head, I was worried that I had just made a serious enemy. That one day, he might get out of jail and come after me. But he wouldn’t know that the police had called me and told me about him. And he had never been part of my life; why should I go see him?
From the sounds of it, he was going to be locked up for a very long time, anyway. Possibly for life, if they could find enough evidence linking him as an accomplice to a string of murders that had happened in Texas a few years back. MC business, from the sounds of it. But I didn’t really want to know any more than I had to.
I wanted to focus on this. The future. My life with Marcus. When he had taken me up to Portland on the back of his bike, I’d been skeptical. Why Portland? I’d asked him. He hadn’t been able to give me a solid answer. But when we got there, I understood, somehow. The place just fit. It was comfortable. It felt like it could be home.
For all that, it was entirely the opposite of Las Cruces. Still, if we were going to start a new life together, why go to a place that was like the one we were from? Why not strike out for somewhere totally new?
All of my excitement and enthusiasm, though, was tempered by logical reasoning. Just ask Rachel: I had been to her house so many times while Marcus was still in the hospital. I’d been trying to rationalize all of it. He wasn’t perfect for me, and he wasn’t the kind of guy that I ever would have chosen for myself. And what if he regretted this? What if one day he decided that he’d rather be back with the MC and he just left our child and me? I didn’t want to end up like my mother.
“But you won’t,” Rachel pointed out. “You could never end up like your mother. You’re stronger than she ever was. If Marcus left you, you’d find a way. And I’d be right there by your side.” She paused. “Or maybe not, since the two of you are talking about moving. Do you really have to go?”
I laughed. “You know we do,” I told her. But I looked sadly toward the living room, where Gavin was playing with his trains. It was going to hurt to leave them behind. They were the closest thing I had ever had to family. And now that I was pregnant, I just wanted to keep my best friend close.
But I knew we were doing the right thing.
I still felt that way. We were doing the right thing. Our relationship might be moving fast, but I had never felt surer about anything in my whole life.
“Stop thinking so hard,” Marcus said, moving his lips along my jaw.
I groaned and tilted my head back to give him better access. As his fingers slid down my sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake, I really couldn’t keep thinking anymore. Just doing. Just feeling.
I love you. I love you, love you, love you.
He pulled back and grinned at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking. Like he was just as jubilant as I was. His lips claimed mine in a fiery kiss, his tongue sliding tenderly alongside mine in my mouth. He explored all the soft skin, expertly finding the spots that would make me moan and press my body into his. Things might be moving fast, but we already knew one another so well. Innately. Like we had never had to think about it.
He pushed one slippery leg in between mine, and I pushed down against it, turning my head to the side with a gasp as my clit slid along his hot skin. He copied the motion with his fingertips, playing with my nub, and I buried my head in the crook of his neck, unable to stop myself from biting a gentle mark into his skin. He was mine.
I love you, love you, love you. I couldn’t keep from chanting it, over and over again, in my mind.
He twisted his arms around me, holding my body tight against his, his breathing warm against my temple as he played his fingertips across my slick skin. I wondered how he would take me this time: if he would hoist me up into his arms and push me down slowly onto his length, or if he would turn me around and take me from behind as I bent to grasp my ankles.
He opted for the former, staring deep into my eyes as he lifted one of my legs. He speared me easily on his length despite the different angle. His burning cock pushed deep into my body, and I gasped, all the air pushed out of my lungs. He smiled gently at me, and even something that simple, combined with the movements of his hands against that bundle of nerves between my legs, was enough to make me come undone already.
I whimpered, my eyes falling shut as my head fell back. The water cascaded over me as I hung suspended in perpetual bliss. He was still buried, unmoving, inside of me, as my walls squeezed tight around him and then released. I clung to him, barely able to keep myself upright, but he held me easily, letting me recover, his fingers soothing anchors against my hips.
Finally, I managed to open my eyes. He was still staring at me, seemingly shocked at how easily I had spilled over into bliss. I wanted to blush, but I didn’t feel embarrassed. He knew me by now. He knew exactly what to do to me. He knew that I came easiest in the mornings and that I came easiest with his fingers on my clit. This wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about.
He loved me. And we were building a future together.
I smiled shyly up at him, and he leaned in for a tender kiss. Slowly, he started to move his hips. He was impossibly gentle with me. We had never made love like this before. Not that all of the sex we’d had in the past few weeks had been straight fucking, either. I would catch these little moments where he would just look at me in a certain way. Or he would slow it down, drag it out, really tease me, and I could tell we were both thinking the same thing:
I love you, love you, love you.
But it had never been quite like this before.
He traced his fingers over my breasts, and I could see naked awe in his gaze like he was still stunned that he got to have me like this. And I, for my part, was no better. I could never seem to keep myself from trailing my fingers down his long, tattooed arms, across the marks on his chest. I leaned forward now, tracing one of the tattoos with my tongue, delighting in the way he shivered at the sensation.
I wanted to do this again and again, forever. Or else I never wanted it t
o stop.
As though reading my mind, Marcus slowed his thrusts even further. When he wanted to, he could have the speed and the force of a piston, his hips jetting back and forth, his dick slicing in and out of me, cutting me in half, cleaving me into a state of pleasure that I had never felt before.
But there was something incredibly intimate about doing it this way. Like every moment mattered, like each slow drag of his skin inside of me was something to savor, something to remember.
His fingers found their way between my legs again, and I cried out, my fingers sliding down his arms as I tried to find something to anchor myself to. He pinned me back against the wall, his lips hot against my neck, against my jaw, moving tantalizingly slow along my skin, the perfect counterpoint to the movements of his hips.
It all sped up at once. I clung to him as he changed the rhythm, changed the force behind his thrusts, and sent me spiraling ever higher. I had already cum once, and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to again. Did I have enough left in me? I couldn’t even tell.
I trembled against him, my teeth chattering as though I was cold, even though the water spilling all around us was hot enough to make the entire bathroom steamy.
It was certainly steamy there in the shower, with Marcus grinning at me with that devilish charm of his.
We came at the same time, our bodies convulsing as one, Marcus’s groan joining my hoarse cry of ecstasy. In that perfect moment, it felt like time had stopped, like we might stay twined there forever in absolute, white-hot bliss. I could feel Marcus cumming, spilling wave after wave of his seed first inside of me and then, as he slipped out of my depths, against my leg, the sticky liquid washed away by the cascading shower.
It was a long moment before I could breathe again. I forced open my eyes, hardly remembering that I had closed them. Marcus pulled me into a tight hug, cradling me against his chest, kissing my hair.
I love you, love you, love you. It echoed all around us like the droplets from the shower against the drain, and I smiled against his skin.
Marcus pulled back and grabbed a loofah, squirting some body gel onto it. Then, he started to wash my whole body, starting with my shoulders and breasts and ending with my toes. There was something soothing to the rhythm of it, a rhythm that matched that slow rhythm of his hips. Gentle circles, all across my flushed skin.
We didn’t say a word as we changed places beneath the spray.
Finally, Marcus broke the silence with a soft laugh. I laughed as well, unable to help it. We grinned goofily at one another until Marcus shut off the shower, herding me out into a big, soft, fluffy towel. “Was that what you were looking for this morning?” he asked.
I cocked my head to the side like I was thinking about it. “Hmm, follow that up with some breakfast, and I might just promise to love you forever,” I told him mock-seriously.
Marcus laughed and sighed, just as teasing. “It’s never enough with you, is it?”
I reached out and stroked one finger down his soft member. “Oh, it’s enough,” I said, this time very serious.
Marcus snorted. “So not what I meant,” he said, but he pulled me into his arms again, towel and all, and kissed me soundly on the lips. “I’ll see what I can do about breakfast.”
We both pulled on house clothes, sweatpants and T-shirts, and then padded into the kitchen. I busied myself with the coffee while he started making eggs. “Which are you hoping for?” he asked suddenly. “A Rachel or a Ray?”
I groaned. “Those cannot be the name choices for our baby.”
Marcus grinned at me, but it was clear that he was still waiting for my response.
“A boy,” I finally said. “Someone that Gavin can be best friends with.”
I had given a lot of thought to it, and there was more to it than that. I wanted a boy who could look up to Marcus. Who would one day grow up to be just as strong and handsome as his father. Of course, we’d have to keep a close eye on him. Make sure he didn’t get caught up in the wrong things, but I was pretty sure we could handle it.
“You think Rachel and Gavin are going to follow us up to Portland?” Marcus asked, glancing over at me.
“They might,” I said. “If not, I’m sure they’ll come to visit. And we’ll come back here to visit, too, won’t we?”
“Of course we will,” he said, sounding surprised that I would even ask.
I would miss Rachel, definitely. But again, this felt like one of those things that we just had to do.
We were quiet for a moment, each thinking our separate thoughts. I watched Marcus’s deft hands as he chopped up vegetables to throw into the skillet.
“I want a girl,” Marcus said after a moment. “Less to worry about.”
I laughed. “Except that one day, she might decide to marry a biker dude who’s just like her father,” I said, winking at Marcus.
Marcus snorted. “Hopefully we can raise her to have more sense than her mother,” he teased. “How about this, we’ll have a girl this time, and then we’ll give her a little brother. The boy won’t be able to be too terrible with his older sister to keep an eye out for him. And the girl will have to learn that the world doesn’t belong to her.”
I giggled. “I like that idea,” I said, moving over to him and putting my arms around his waist, nuzzling into his shoulder. Then, I let go, stepping back so he could continue cooking. In my head, I was already picturing the family we would have. “Three little kids,” I said softly. “That’s what I want.”
“Two,” Marcus said, but I knew he was mostly joking. “The most I’ll give you is two.”
“Then I guess I’ll go right back to the sperm bank,” I said, winking at him.
He burst out laughing, shaking his head.
39
Marcus
Monday (months later)
Our life in Portland couldn’t have been going better. Things weren’t perfect, of course. There had been a bit of a learning curve. Some days, Leila and I were still safely in what you might call the “honeymoon stage” of our relationship. Other days, it was like nothing I said was the right thing.
That was partly to do with the pregnancy, too, though, and I tried not to let any of it get to me. I had learned pretty early on that if Leila was upset about something, I could always win her over with one of her favorite snacks. At least, when she wasn’t yelling at me for making her fat.
We still hadn’t come up with a name for the little angel inside of her yet. We didn’t know the gender yet, either. We had decided to wait until the baby was born. A little surprise for the both of us, as though this whole pregnancy hadn’t been such a surprise to begin with.
Things were working out well, though. We were both happy, even on our bad days.
I finished up one of the classes I was teaching and turned to wipe down the board as the students filed out. When I turned back around, Ray was standing there in the doorway. “What are you doing here?” I asked in surprise. “I didn’t know you were coming for a visit.”
Ray grinned at me and shrugged. “It seemed like a nice time of year for an extended ride,” he said. “And since I’ve started handing off some of the Red Eyes duties and doing more delegating, thanks to you, I’ve started trying to get out of Las Cruces more. See what the world has to offer. Figured I’d come visit you.” He wrinkled his nose. “Of course, the weather turned to shit right about the time I reached the state border.”
I laughed and moved to give him a hug. “Yeah, it has a tendency to be pretty gloomy up here. For most of the year, from what we’ve seen.”
That, too, had taken some getting used to. But to be honest, after the heat and sunshine of New Mexico, it was kind of nice to escape into the drizzly overcast of Oregon. At least for a little while. Until we figured out where we were off to next.
“Never thought I’d see the day when you would be a professor,” Ray said, looking around the large classroom. “And they really cram the kids in here, huh?”
“It’s a freshman seminar c
lass,” I explained. “So it’s mandatory for all the incoming students, and they can’t find enough teachers to actually teach it.”
“So the new guy gets stuck with it, is that how it works?” Ray asked, laughing.
I shrugged, grinning ruefully at him. “To be honest, I like this one. Good group of kids. We have some good conversations.” I paused. “There are a couple of them whose heads I’d like to knock together, but they’re generally on their good behavior.”
“Your tattoos probably scare them,” Ray said, shaking his head. He leaned back against my desk while I packed up my things. “So how’s that missus of yours doing? She popped yet?”
“You’ll be the first to hear about it when she does,” I told him. “There’s probably a couple more weeks to go. Nothing more.”
“Getting very real, huh?” Ray asked. “You nervous?”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Good,” Ray said seriously. “You should be.” He paused. “I’m still terrified for Belle most days, even though I know Will is taking very good care of her.”
“Leila’s hoping for a boy,” I told him. “I’m just hoping we don’t screw the kid up, either way.”
Ray waved his hand dismissively. “You’re probably going to do that anyway, but you’re going to make a great father.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “What about you?” I asked. “How are things going with the MC?”
“They’re really good, actually,” Ray told me. He cleared his throat. “I still can’t thank you enough for everything you did with the Unknowns.”
“They haven’t been back to bother you, have they?” I asked worriedly, wondering if he was up here to try to get me to do another favor. I didn’t really think that would be the case. He had been nothing but supportive when I told him that I wanted out. That I was too old to keep doing this and that I wanted to focus on my baby and my family.
