The Roommate's Baby

by Penny Wylder

  I bite my lip. Strain to keep a hold of myself as he tightens his grip on my hips again, hard enough to leave a faint mark, and lifts me up off his waist, forcing me to rise up, and his cock to fall away from me. He holds me there above him for a moment, just before letting me fall again, driving him straight back into me. I cry out loud, pleasure flooding through me. "What?" I manage to pant in between rising and falling above him, as I put my thighs into it and start to raise and lower on my own, matching his rhythm. "What happened in your dream?"

  He grins and rakes his gaze down my naked body to our waists where we join. Watches for a moment as I buck against him, as his cock glides in and out of my tight pussy. "In my dream, you were riding my big, thick cock, and screaming with pleasure. What do you know?" His dark eyes catch mine, full of humor as he smirks. "Dreams do come true."

  I half-laugh, half-gasp as he twists under me to get a better angle and starts to buck harder, faster. Soon I'm rocking my hips in tune with his, riding him as hard as I can. He uses his hands to keep me going, directs me here and there, and at one point, reaches up with one hand to caress my breast, grips them and presses my upper body backwards so I bend back over his legs. That angle makes his cock drag along my inner wall even more forcefully, and I moan desperately, struggling to keep from hitting my release too soon.

  He senses that, though, and in one smooth, swift motion, he rolls over, flips me underneath him, and flings my legs over his shoulders. My ass arches up off the bed, angled toward his hips, and he kneels in front of me, my body arched in front of him, and powers into me from beneath and behind me. My eyes flutter half closed as I moan, though I struggle to keep them open, to keep watching. I can feel his cock filling me completely, and it almost seems as though if I reached down, I should be able to flatten a hand against my belly and feel him there, that's how deeply he fills me.

  At this angle, too, it doesn't take me long to climax. I come screaming his name, breathless with ecstasy, and he comes soon after, growling my name aloud as he drives into me, pumping my belly full of his seed, coming inside me for so long that I swear it's impossible I'm not pregnant yet. There's no way that this kind of fucking can't lead to a baby.

  Finally, he unhooks my legs and lets me sink back to the bed, knees still up in the air, my now usual position. When he curls alongside me, I roll over and cradle my head against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, savoring his warm scent as it envelops me.

  "I love waking up like this," he murmurs, so low that I almost wonder if I misheard him.

  "Me too," I whisper. We lie in silence for a long moment, letting the words digest. Part of me almost wonders if maybe, just maybe, he's thinking the same way I am. Thinking about... more.

  But no way. Not Cannon. Not my roommate. Not my resolute, only-for-pleasure sex-loving coworker. Not the guy I've known for seven years. He never gets his feelings involved. Not once, ever. This isn't any different. I can't allow my own misjudgment to cloud my views. I can't let myself just imagine what I want to see, when I know exactly what this arrangement is. Hell, I set the terms myself.

  So, as much as it pains me to do it, eventually I force myself to slip out of his arms and stand up. I gasp again as a hot rush of our combined juices trickles down my inner thighs. But I ignore it and pad toward my own bathroom. "We're going to be late for work if we linger much longer," I call over my shoulder. I hear him groan and roll out of bed himself, headed toward his own shower. And I can't help but wish I were in there with him still. But I'm better off putting at least some distance between us. For his sake, and for mine.

  We make it into work just in time for me to reach my 9AM meeting and for Cannon to salute his boss before his boss heads into his own 9AM. I spent most of the morning engrossed in emails, catching up on all the things I've missed. There's a ton of extra work for me right now as my manager prepares for her own retirement, and to hand over a large portion of her work to me. I'm simultaneously excited to be trusted with this much important work and also wishing it could have happened at another time—any other time.

  Right now, I have enough going on. Between Cannon and the baby we're trying for, and Lacy and Chris, and my own screwed up head, which, in my hormonal state, won't stop trying to convince me that there's more between me and Cannon that I'm imagining...

  But at least work gives me something different to focus on. Something that doesn't require any sort of investment of feelings—or at least, not any more feelings than I would normally invest in work. There's no danger of me accidentally falling in love with my legal assignments, at least.

  So I throw myself headlong into paperwork for the better part of the morning. In fact, I stay there for most of the day, until late afternoon when I finally allow myself to get up and go for a much-needed coffee refill.

  On the way there, I run across Chris and Cannon in the break room. I wave as I enter, since the two are deep in conversation, and I don't want to interrupt.

  Cannon breaks off for a moment, telling Chris, "We can talk later," but Chris waves him off.

  "It's fine, I don't mind if Rina knows. Me and Lacy decided we're keeping things on the DL, but we don't want to straight-up lie about it or anything. Our close friends can know."

  My stomach leaps, and I can't help the bright grin that immediately explodes on my face. "You mean you guys are...?"

  "We're... not not together," he concedes with a shrug. "I mean. We're not labeling it."

  "Aww, congrats!" I squeal. Then I check my volume and glance over my shoulder at the open break room door, embarrassed.

  Luckily Chris just laughs. "Thanks. So anyway, what do you think, man? You up for it?" He turns back to Cannon.

  Cannon, for his part, shoots me a sheepish sideways glance. "I don't know..."

  "If you'd rather not, it's fine. Just, she seems like your type. I thought you'd make for a good double."

  My stomach does another flip, this time of the altogether unpleasant variety. "Double... what?"

  "Date," Chris says with a smile.

  My mouth goes dry, but I force my smile not to falter, my gaze not to flicker. "I see."

  "You're welcome to come too," Chris says. "I'm sure we can find you an eligible bachelor to bring. Unless, that is, you have your eye on someone already." He locks gazes with me, almost challenging.

  Was this a set-up? I'm going to kill Lacy, if so. I lift my chin and narrow my eyes at Chris. "No thanks. I'm not really in the dating mood at the moment." Then I raise my head, go for the throat. "But you should bring Cannon. It'll be fun. Right Cannon?" When I glance at him, there's a quick flash of something in his dark eyes—an unreadable emotion, one I've never seen before. For a second, he looks almost... angry? Upset? But that can't be right.

  At any rate, he suppresses it in an instant, gaze locked on mine. "Definitely," he says, but he's looking right at me now, not Chris. "I'd love to come. What did you say your friend's name was?"

  "Karen," Chris says.

  "Karen. I love Karens. They're fun. Blonde, you said?"

  "Bottle, but who cares these days, right? It all looks the same."

  "Absolutely." Cannon keeps his gaze fixed on me, his expression unreadable. I can't tell if he's upset, angry, or actually excited about the prospect of this double date.

  Doesn't matter. The thought of him out with Karen, whoever she is, churns my stomach into a solid mess of emotions already. "Excuse me," I stammer, reaching past the boys to hurriedly refill my water bottle. I bolt from the kitchen as fast as I can, though not before, unfortunately, I overhear more details from Chris about this Karen person. Her measurements, her intellectual properties ("she's not a genius, but she's pretty, I'll give her that"), a slew of other characteristics that only makes me hate this poor, innocent woman all the more, for nothing more than existing and being a pawn in this twisted game we're playing.

  It's fine, I try to tell myself once I'm back in my own seat. Cannon is a free agent. His own person. He's totally free to do whatever
he wants, with whomever he wants. Including going on a double date with Karen.

  Half an hour later, my phone buzzes with a text from him.

  Cannon: Are you sure you're ok with me going on this? I don't mind canceling. I can make up some excuse to Chris that won't give us away.

  Me: No, really, it's fine. You're free to do what you want. Same as me. Have fun.

  Cannon: I'm only going if you're really okay with this.

  I lean up in my chair and swivel around until I catch his eyes across the office. Then I force the biggest, dumbest grin I can possibly manage.

  Me: Of course I'm okay with it, dummy. NSA, right?

  I add a winky face for good measure.

  Across the office, Cannon reads the texts, then glances up at my smile. Back and forth for a few moments, his own expression still inscrutable, just like earlier. Finally, he responds.

  Cannon: OK. I'll be home late tonight then.

  I sit back down in my chair to disguise the way that message hits like a blow to my gut. It will be fine, I repeat to myself, over and over, as the afternoon progresses. You're used to this. Cannon used to bring home girls all the time and it never bothered you, remember? He was the biggest player around.

  But that was before. And if nothing else, this double date has proven to me, more than any other incident so far has, that things have changed. I have changed.

  I just hope that for the sake of our friendship, I can pretend I haven't, at least until our arrangement ends.

  10

  Cannon

  Great. Today started out amazing. My dream with Rina literally came true less than half an hour after I woke up—I got to fuck her and savor the view the whole while, enjoying the sight of her lithe, sexy, curvy body rocking up and down on my big cock as she gasped and moaned. And work was going fine too, things were starting to calm down after our business trip a couple of weeks ago. Everything was going perfectly. Hell, even Chris and Lacy were working out, which, who the hell could have predicted that outcome?

  And then, this.

  Chris, and his stupid fucking bright ideas.

  His goddamn double date plans.

  He kept egging me on the whole time he was suggesting the date in the break room, knowing exactly why I was declining, trying to push me into admitting that I didn't want to go on the damn date because I only want one woman now. Rina.

  But I promised Rina I wouldn't tell anyone at the office about us, and that includes Chris, so instead I had to keep dancing around rejecting him, offering slimmer and slimmer excuses that he talked his way through every time. And then, out of the blue, Rina walked in.

  I don't think either of us expected that.

  But Chris, damn him, had to turn that into an excuse to push me even harder. He tried to get Rina to admit to things too. And that made her defensive, which, I don't blame her for, but goddamn it all, the last thing I want to be doing tonight is hanging out with Chris, Lacy and some random woman named Karen, even if she is totally a 10 out of 10 bombshell, as Chris enthusiastically described her.

  Old me would've been down for this in a heartbeat. Old me would've jumped to attention the minute Chris said blonde, bottle or not. That was before Rina and I started to hook up. That was before I got a taste of her wild redhead sex drive. That was before I developed a whole new type.

  Her.

  I tried to convince Rina to give me an out. Tried to ask her, without outright begging, to tell me not to go, so that at least I'd have a good reason to blow Chris off. I thought maybe, once she admitted she didn't want me going on this date, we could brainstorm an excuse together.

  Instead, she told me I should go.

  No, really, it's fine. You're free to do what you want. Same as me.

  The thought makes my stomach churn and my chest do weird, painful, annoying shit. I don't want to do this. I don't want to sit through some boring dinner with some other girl, pretending I'm interested. Pretending I'm still the old Cannon, the one who just wanted to get his dick wet and didn't care who it was with or what she was like.

  But I have to. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place—namely, between Chris's prying and Rina's insistence on maintaining a purely professional NSA agreement.

  Maybe it's better this way, I think. Or try to convince myself, anyway. From her texts, it sounds like Rina doesn't even mind the thought of me going out with another woman. She must really have a handle on her emotions. Must really be able to compartmentalize what we're doing.

  I had thought, especially over the last week, when we started to go out more, sneak around on dates, almost, that something was shifting. That our NSA was maybe, just maybe, starting to become something more, for her as well as for me. Now I realize I was kidding myself. She wouldn't be fine with me going on this date, not if she felt the same way I do.

  Which means, for her sake, I need to pretend that everything is the same.

  Even if that means suffering through this damn date tonight.

  I might as well get started, anyway. I'm going to have to get over Rina eventually. Maybe this will be good practice. A test, to see if I can handle hanging out with another woman, at least for one night. That's what I tell myself.

  Deep down, I already know, it can't possibly be this easy.

  The double date starts out innocently enough. Lacy and Chris want to check out this new rooftop bar downtown, super swanky. We head straight from work, so at least I have a suit on, which means I blend into the crowd here. It's all lawyers from other firms—a few I recognize, from being across the bench from them in court. There's some hot shots here, big names in our field.

  There's a lot of hangers-on too. Guys and girls in skimpy attire clinging to their date's arms.

  To my chagrin, Karen turns out to be just one such girl. She sashays over to our table and plants a too-long kiss on Chris's cheek, right before looping her arm through mine as she joins our standing table, with a cocktail already in hand—and already almost finished, I might add.

  "You must be Cannon," she breathes straight into my face, her breath smelling strongly of liquor, among other things. "Chris told me so much about you." She tightens her grip on my arm as she says those words, practically purring.

  Across from me, Chris wiggles his eyebrows as if to say, you're welcome. And I get it. I know what he means.

  In another life—in a very recent life, admittedly, Karen would have been my type. But that was pre-Rina. That was before I started having sex with my best friend. That was before I realized that there could be more to the world than just hookups. Hell, it was before I realized that I was even capable of feeling or wanting more than just a hookup.

  Before Rina, I was half the person I am now. A shell. A fucking idiot. I thought NSA was the best way to be; I thought I could go through life never caring for anyone else, never falling for anybody. I thought love was for suckers, and that only dumbasses let themselves care so much about one person, one woman.

  That was all before her.

  And this is when it happens. I swear to God. Standing right there in that grimy bar, with cigarette smoke in my nostrils from the people taking advantage of the open-air rooftop and lighting up on every side of us, I realize.

  I love her.

  I love Rina Smith.

  "So, are you going to tell me about yourself?" Karen is asking, and her breath makes me want to cringe away from her. Everything about this situation makes me want to just not be here right now.

  So I listen to that impulse.

  "Hey, guys?"

  I hate to interrupt, because Chris and Lacy are engaged in a heated—and flirty—debate about which one of them is going to pick up the tab tonight, apparently based on some running game they'd been playing all day at work that hinged on which one made the most inappropriate jokes based on things their coworkers said in meetings. It's cute and all, but I need to break in.

  "What's up?" Chris takes one look at my face and frowns. I know it's written all over me right now. How uncomforta
ble I feel. And he can think whatever he wants about that, about why I'm acting so fucking weird. I don't care anymore.

  "I have to run."

  "What, really?" His frown deepens.

  "Is everything okay?" Lacy asks, her face a mask of concern as well.

  "It's fine. I just realized something, that's all. Something important." I disentangle my arm from Karen's. She's leaning harder on me, so it takes a minute to extricate myself properly. When I do, she stumbles a little before she manages to grab onto the table. "Sorry about this," I tell her, even though I'm really not.

  "Whatever, your loss," she mutters.

  "Probably," I agree, to be polite. "Catch you guys later," I add across the table to Chris and Lacy. Then I bolt. I beeline straight out of that stupid bar toward the exit, toward my ride, toward home. Because I know where I need to be, and it's not here on this stupid fucking other date.

  I need to be home. I need to be with her. I have to tell her.

  11

  Rina

  My pasta tastes bland.

  The TV show I'm watching is boring as hell.

  The next five shows I try to watch are also boring as hell. So is the book I try to read. The only thing I really want to do is sit here clutching my phone staring at my texts and refreshing them every few seconds just in case a message came through from Cannon that I didn't see yet.

  But of course, that's pathetic. So I can't let myself do that. So instead, I shut my phone off and shove it under a couch cushion and change the channel yet again, hoping against hope that maybe one of these damn shows will finally distract me once and for all.

  It doesn't. The only image that keeps playing over and over in my head, impossible to drown out no matter how loud I turn up the TV, is the thought of Cannon and Karen. I imagine them at the bar having a perfect date—laughing, chatting, touching one another's arms as they talk. Acting normal together in public in a way he and I never can. Shooting each other longing gazes over the rims of their cocktails as they chat about something mundane.