by Alice Ward
He scratched his head, looking embarrassed. “So… you don’t mind if I see your sister again?”
My grin was now threatening to break my face. “Of course not. I think it’s wonderful. I’m thrilled, really.”
He was grinning too, and it felt wonderful to not feel guilty about his happiness. He looked at my belly. “Well, good luck and I promise not to tell anyone.”
I stepped closer and gave him a hug. “Thank you,” I gushed. “Thank you for being so wonderful. I can’t tell you how happy I am.”
As I pulled away, I saw something out of the corner of my eye.
It was Ace.
He was standing in the doorway, a bouquet of roses in his hand.
Our eyes met then I watched his gaze lower to my stomach, then look at Jack.
He was out the door before the flowers hit the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ace
When I hadn’t found Holly at her place, I’d gone to the bakery on a hunch. I’d just gotten back from Florida, and she was all I could think of. She was my priority.
Picking up the flowers had felt so foreign. I’d never bought flowers in my life. But these roses had drawn my eye, an incredible pink that grew darker until they were a deep red at the tips. They seemed like Holly for some reason — soft yet strong at the same time.
I hadn’t felt as foolish as I thought I would carrying them from my Porsche and down the busy sidewalk. I’d seen Whitney’s car in the parking lot and felt pretty secure in my belief that Holly would be there too.
I wasn’t shaky.
I was solid.
This was what I’d been waiting for, working for, puking for, aching for. This moment. When Holly could look into my clear eyes for the first time and know I was serious about making a life with her.
Workmen were coming in and out of the bakery. There were guys on ladders, hanging a sign. I looked up. Ace’s Cake Batter.
She remembered.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside… and froze. Holly’s arms were wrapped around Jack, and she was smiling and laughing and saying something. “I can’t tell you how happy I am.”
Pain primal and raw ripped through me, I looked down to see if a knife was sticking out of my chest. It wasn’t, so I looked back up to see Holly pulling away from him. A different looking Holly. Fuller. Even more beautiful.
Then she saw me.
And I saw her.
She was pregnant.
She was with Jack.
I cursed how clear my mind was because it connected the dots too quickly.
I was a fool. And I needed to get out of here. I dropped the flowers and was gone.
“Ace!”
I heard my name. It somehow came through the blood roaring in my ears. Then I heard it again. I was at my car, getting inside, turning it on when she caught up to me. She pulled the door open and flung herself in my lap, her arms around me, the warmth of her harsh sobs against my neck.
She smelled so good, felt so good.
“Don’t go,” she was saying. “Stay. Listen. Don’t go. I’ll explain everything.”
Pulling her to me tighter, it was impossible to not feel the baby between us. The smallest biggest barrier in the world.
“Shhh,” I finally said, stroking her hair and her arm, willing her trembling to subside.
“Please take me home,” she said after another few minutes had passed. “We need to talk.”
Talk?
That didn’t sound good. But one of the things we’d talked about in therapy was not pushing the tough shit away, to not hide from it. To face everything head on instead of turning to the bottle, or pills, or coke, or sex, or whatever.
“You have multiple addictions, Ace,” Dr. Miller had told me. “Drugs, but also alcohol and sex.”
He had looked at me as if he expected me to react to those simple truths. But hell, really? Anybody who knew me for more than five minutes could have known all of that.
The doctor had kept talking, and he kept making more sense. About how I’d used drugs to avoid real commitment and as a security blanket against failure. After all, nothing feels bad when you’re floating. Or fucking. Or asleep.
My need to be the best had been instilled in me at a young age, but as I’d gotten older, I’d used it as a wall, a barrier of sorts to keep people at a distance. “From a distance,” the doc had explained, “people can admire you without seeing the real Ace Newman. They can’t see your perceived flaws. They can’t be disappointed.”
“Perceived?” I’d snorted. “My flaws are real.”
At the clinic, we had solo therapy and group therapy. Time to read and think. I’d worked out like a monster, pushing weights I hadn’t pushed since I was twenty. Running faster. Doing more pushups and sit-ups than I’d thought my old body could do.
“Don’t replace one addiction with another one,” Dr. Miller had advised me. “Find balance. Find a variety of coping mechanisms.”
When the detox tried to bring me to my knees, I meditated. I couldn’t do it for shit in the beginning. At first, every time I closed my eyes, I’d see different faces, hear different voices. The disappointments. Expectations. But after a while, I learned to close all that off and let my mind grow still. I learned to breathe.
I was working hard to breathe right now.
This was Holly, and she was looking up at me with black lines streaking down her face and a pink nose. She’d never looked so beautiful.
“Thought you were gonna buy waterproof,” I said, wiping at a tear and making a bigger mess.
She laughed, but it was also a sob, and tears began flowing again.
“Come on, let’s get you home.”
We were twisted together in the small space of my front seat, so we unwound, and I helped her get out. Damn. How pregnant was she? I couldn’t keep my eyes from her stomach. I couldn’t keep the questions from my head.
Later.
I’d get her home, and I’d hear her out.
I didn’t know what I’d do after that.
After getting her settled in the passenger seat, I walked around the car and spotted a group of people standing down on the sidewalk. Looking closer, it was Whitney, whose hands were cupping her cheeks, clearly crying. Beside her was a woman who looked like Holly. Beside her was fucking Jack.
I gritted my teeth and got into the car.
With a roar, I drove out of the parking lot, heading back to Holly’s place. We didn’t talk. I’m not sure she even moved as my Porsche ate up the distance. I practiced my breathing while wishing with everything inside me that I had a drink. Just one drink.
Holly’s cottage was cute, but as I walked behind her across Calvin’s back yard, it might as well have been a prison. It was there that Holly was going to tell me the truth. Tell me it was over. She was going to, as gently as she could, break my heart.
She would thank me for the bakery. Promise to pay me back.
Yadda fucking yadda.
I stepped inside her little house, just wanting it over with. I wanted her safe, and I wanted to leave so I could…
Do what?
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked formally, wiping her hands down the sides of her shirt, bringing attention back to her belly. She blushed. “I mean, I have tea, soda, water…” she trailed off. Life would be like that from now on. People tiptoeing around my addiction. Not sure what to offer me or what to say.
Why did I ever think this would work?
“No, nothing. I’m fine,” I finally said to her, my tone carefully neutral.
I wanted to yell and scream and hit something. Break something.
Fuck something.
Drink something.
“I love you, Ace.”
I stared at her, waiting for the “but.” It didn’t come.
“I love you, and I’m having your baby. I’m due December third. I don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy. And yes I’m scared. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.” The wor
ds were spilling from her in a rush.
My baby? It was my baby in there, due to arrive in this world in only a few months.
“I’ll take a paternity test if you don’t believe me,” she was saying, “I can understand if you don’t. I never slept with Jack or anyone else, so I know you’re the father, but if you…”
Father.
I was going to be a father.
She was pacing now, her hands in her hair, still speaking quickly. “I won’t tell the press or ask for child support. Very few people even know I’m expecting. I’ll sign whatever you need me to sign…”
In three long strides, I was in front of her, then on my knees, my arms around her hips, my face in her stomach. My child. The woman I loved was carrying my child. And she loved me. And nothing else mattered.
All my past fuck ups melted away. All my cravings stopped.
Except one.
I pushed her shirt up and felt the warmth of her skin. I saw something move inside her, like an alien wanting to come out. I touched it, and it moved. I followed the movement with my finger. A baby. My baby. Playing chase already.
Holly was crying again. I could tell by the tears falling on her belly.
“Hey, little one,” I said to my child. “I’m your daddy.”
I was still having trouble wrapping my head around it.
I’d come back to New York, roses in hand, to ask Holly to be my girlfriend, for us to be in a relationship. Forge something solid and real between us.
Now this.
“Marry me, Holly.”
The words were out of my mouth like a speeding bullet, but I didn’t regret them for an instant.
“What?”
I stood up and planted my hands on her shoulders, holding her an arm’s length, looking into her gorgeous eyes.
“Marry me. Let’s be a family. Let’s…”
I stopped talking because she was shaking her head.
She was rejecting me. She was crying even harder than before.
Didn’t she trust me? Trust me to stay clean and take care of her and the baby? I couldn’t blame her if she didn’t. Not really.
“Can we talk about that later?” she asked and walked into the bathroom to wash her face. I followed her, then took over the task as I watched her trembling fingers drop the washcloth. Once, then twice.
Turning her, I lifted her carefully until she was sitting on the counter, then ran the cloth under warm water. I washed her face, then her neck and chest. Then lifted her hands and washed her fingers one by one. Anything to keep touching her, to stop her from sending me away.
“How are you?” she asked.
I met her eyes. “To be honest, I’m not sure.”
She lifted her hand to my cheek. “Not just today. How was rehab? You look good. Amazing really. Are you… well?”
I took her hand from my cheek and pressed it against my heart. “I’m good. Clean.”
For now. I didn’t let that part leave my mouth. Refused to give it any more thought.
“That’s good.”
I smirked at her. “Turns out I’m a sex addict too.”
She smirked back. “Really?” she said in full sarcasm mode. “I’m shocked. Stunned. Sur—”
“Okay, okay. I get it.”
God, it felt good to laugh.
The hand on my heart moved up to my shoulder. “Wow, I think you’re even bigger now, more solid.”
I waggled my eyebrows at her. “Prepare to be amazed.” I stepped back and bent down until my palms were flat on the floor. She clapped, and when I looked up, she seemed sincerely impressed. “Yoga,” I explained. “I’ve been working out like a fiend, but then also doing this yoga shit too. Lots of agility training, keeping my reflexes alive. I think I might be in better shape now than I was in my twenties.”
Her eyes glimmered. “I’m really proud of you.”
“So, how are you?” I asked her and placed a hand on her belly, hoping to feel the baby kick again.
“I’m good. Been staying busy opening Ace’s Cake Batter. Thank you for that. I mean it. Thank you.”
I kissed her nose. “You’re welcome. From what little I saw, it looks incredible.”
She frowned. “About what you saw. That was actually the first time I’d seen Jack in months. I’d been staying away from everyone because of this…” She looked down at her stomach. “Turns out, he and my sister might be hooking up. They met, had coffee. They seemed to like each other. That’s why I was happy when you walked in. I was happy for them.”
“I thought…”
“I know what you thought. There was no way you could have thought differently. The timing couldn’t have been worse.”
I rubbed her belly again. “Speaking of timing. December third? A Christmas baby?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m going to be big as a cow at Whitney and Calvin’s wedding.”
“You’ll be beautiful at their wedding.”
Silence stretched between us as we gazed into each other’s eyes.
“I do want to marry you, Ace. Some day when—”
“When you know you can trust me?” I finished for her.
She bit her bottom lip. “Not just that, Ace. We need to really spend a lot of time together, make sure we can work. We shouldn’t get married just because of the baby. I’ll be proud to put your name on his or her birth certificate, give him or her your last name if that’s what you want. I’ll love you whether I have a ring on my finger or not. Let’s not rush things. I want you to be sure, absolutely certain, that this is what you want. Because if we get married, and I find out you’re fooling around, I will personally cut your balls off and stick them up your ass, then pull them out and stuff them down your throat.”
Wow. That was hot.
And just a little scary.
“Okay, I understand. Will you come live with me then?” I saw the hesitation in her face. “I’ll sell my place, maybe find something closer to here. I noticed several for sale signs on our way in.”
Her eyes glittered again, making them even bluer, if that was at all possible. She nodded. “I think I’d like to try that. Hannah could have this place to herself and—”
She couldn’t finish because I was kissing her. And she was kissing me, then pushing my t-shirt over my head.
Lifting her, I carried her to the bedroom, being super careful of the precious cargo between us.
Shit.
“Is it okay to, you know, do this with—?”
Her tongue was in my mouth again, so I took that as a yes. Next to her bed, I put her on her feet and began the delectable process of undressing her, marveling at how her body had changed since I’d last seen her.
Her breasts, so full before the pregnancy, were even more so now, her nipples larger, darker, but just as sensitive. She groaned as I took them into my mouth, sucking. Knowing that our baby would be nursing there soon only added to the reverence of the moment. Her body was so strong and capable, doing everything that was needed to provide for the baby growing inside of her.
Lowering her to the bed, I took my time kissing every inch of her stomach, laughing when my son or daughter kicked me in the face. Then I was between her legs, lapping at her swollen labia that looked even more delicious in her condition. She cried out, sensitive to the extreme, when I wrapped my lips around her clitoris.
It was funny. I was used to being able to look up and watch her face from this position, but nothing but belly met my gaze now. And that was okay. More than okay. It was right. Real. Beautiful. And so very special.
After her second climax, I stood up and took off my clothes, then remembered the slip of paper in my pocket. I pulled it out and handed it to her.
She blinked a few times, still coming down from her explosion. “You want me to read this now?”
I grinned. “It’s my clean STD test. I wanted you to know for sure that being with me is okay.” I moved between her thighs and kissed her belly. “And since we don’t need to worry about birth control…�
� I raised an eyebrow in question.
She tossed the paper to the floor and grinned. “Skin on skin?”
I looked down at her, lifted her thighs, put them back down. “Yeah. If I can figure out how to get my damn dick inside you without killing our baby.”
She laughed and rolled to the side and pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Lay down,” she instructed. Who was I to say no?
When her body closed around me, tight and wet, my eyes rolled back into my head. It had been so long since I’d been with a woman. Been with Holly. It took every bit of control I could muster not to explode inside her on the spot.
“Open your eyes,” she instructed, and I did. Our fingers linked together while she rode me, slow at first, then faster. Wet heat slid up and down my shaft, over and over. The moment she exploded, I exploded too.
We made love several more times after that. Once with her on her knees. Once with me spooning her from behind. Once with me coming in her mouth.
She was insatiable, as greedy as me. And I loved it.
I loved her.
Loved our baby.
Much later, when she was sleeping in my arms, the little one seemed to roll inside her, her belly lurching and shifting under my hand.
I didn’t think about cocaine. Or pills. I didn’t need a drink to make me drowsy.
I knew I’d struggle with all of that in the days, weeks, years to come.
But not today. Not tonight.
Tonight, I closed my eyes and went to sleep, my reason for existing in my arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Holly
Here comes the bride…
I hummed the words as the cellist played the wedding march and Whitney appeared in the doorway, looking so beautiful and happy it made my heart squeeze.
I looked over at Calvin, watched his face struggle with emotion at seeing his bride for the first time. Then I looked into the audience. At the entire Beast team, all standing and looking at Whitney. Except Ace. He was looking directly at me, love shining in his eyes.
Glancing down at my hands, the ring he gave me shimmered under the light. I’d accepted it only a few days ago, on Thanksgiving, when he’d proposed so romantically.
