by Kira Graham
She’s going to soon enough, though, because I see that need in her eyes, and, God help us all, she’s a wild filly when she’s in need. I proved it that day out by the cabin, and every day after that—before she cut me off and demanded to go back so that she could make it to her doctor’s appointment.
It didn’t sit well with me that she didn’t want me there, and it was harder on me because I’ve decided that I really don’t want her having a procedure done while she’s pregnant with…potentially my baby. How I feel about that, I can’t say for sure. All I know is that seeing her belly swollen and ripe with life is a turn-on like nothing else, and I want her like hell.
Which is why I’ve been at the gym for three hours straight, letting this sadist run me ragged. I hate those damn ropes, and if it weren’t for the fact that Adonis was right there with me, tossing those things with an ease that would put a bodybuilder to shame, I’d have quit five minutes in.
“I’m not being clingy. I’m concerned. She’s fragile right now,” I grouch, wincing when I push up to sit, and my legs tremble beneath the water.
“Fragile? Boy, have you met that woman? She’s about as fragile as a lump of cement. She’s just annoyed, which you’d know if you stopped hovering long enough to pay attention. I thought for sure that she was going to kill you when you spent an hour reminiscing about the first time that the two of you had an official date,” he laughs, his amusement causing a blush to steal over my cheeks.
“What? It was our first date.”
“Dude, you followed her to the church and watched her take a piss in the holy water.”
“So? I saved her from discovery, and it was our first date, technically, because I copped more than a feel while she was spitting and hissing at me because I was trying to shove her in the trunk.”
Okay. That was poor form, but I wasn’t about to put her in my car to make a getaway, only to flip the thing when she attacked me. And she would have, because this is Tee we’re talking about.
“Christ. You Harts are the worst at romance,” Grange mutters, chortling because Heath walks into the room and snorts, his eyes twinkling.
“Remember when he took her to the aquarium, and she tried to shove him into the shark tank?”
I remember that and shudder so hard that the water around me ripples, because she didn’t “try” shit. She did shove me into the tank, and I can’t be blamed for screaming like a girl and thrashing around. I didn’t know that the tank was empty at the time. All I knew was that I have an unreasonable fear of sharks, and I was convinced that one was swimming up from beneath me.
Tee laughed so hard that night that I could swear I kept getting whiffs of urine, as if she’d wet herself a little. Adorable minx.
“Stop.”
“Or that time he went on a date at Helos, where she was serving because Sin was short-staffed? Was there spaghetti in your pubes later that night?” Heath asks, sputtering when I grunt and feel my lip twitch.
Yeah. I guess I should have realized that Tee liked me more than a little when she stormed up to me, ripped my waistband back, and dumped a plateful of piping hot spaghetti down my pants. In my defense, I was more than a little distracted by the blonde I was with, because she had lips the size of two half-inflated balloons. I’m a pig. What can I say?
“I plead the fifth, but I will tell you that I woke up two mornings later with cold glue dried to my sack,” I murmur, smiling anew at the memory.
Ah, the memories, I think, a grin splitting my face when one of two things jumps out at me. Now that I’m not trying to keep Tee at arm’s length anymore, there is so much that I realize about how we got to this point. We’ve had a weird and unconventional courtship, to say the least, but looking back on it, I wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s kept me on my toes and cracked me out of the mold that I seem to have made for myself and my life. To be honest, if she hadn’t come along and forced me out of that role I’d taken, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now.
“You hear that Brent’s hand moved this morning?” Heath asks, smiling so widely that his cheeks go white at the edges.
I jerk forward at the news and bark out a whoop, my happiness eclipsed only by the possibility that I’m going to have to owe Beau something so spectacular that it’ll be able to be seen from the moon.
“No shit! That’s awesome,” I breathe, leaving the hot tub to grab a towel. “What did Beau say?”
Heath snorts, and for once, I see his easy charm slip as his eyes go hard and distant.
“Wouldn’t know. She’s got me banned from the hospital. Get naked in a woman’s office one time, and she puts you on a stalker list,” he mutters, his smile growing wider when I snort and roll my eyes.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I wanted her to see my dick.”
“You couldn’t buy her dinner first?” I quip, chuckling as he and Grange follow me to the bedroom, where I change in the closet and come out in jeans and a light blue button-up that would make Adonis call me a fashion disaster.
“Dude, I was supposed to be dinner. And she was gonna be dessert,” he says lasciviously, his mirth turning to mock sadness as he pouts and pushes his lip out dramatically. “She’s a stubborn little filly.”
“She isn’t stubborn; she’s just gun-shy. The trick to winning Beau’s heart is to remember that all she wants is your undivided attention, twenty-four hours a day for the rest of your life, and you’re in.”
“Sweet!” Heath growls, pumping his fist as if I’ve just given him the world instead of made a joke. “Well, she’s already got that, so this should be as easy as fuck. By the way, Tee’s at home right now. Nate mentioned that you may want to get over there. He said something about ‘hormones.’ Hell, I hope to hell that she isn’t on the rag. She’s as crazy as a batshit-soaked cave on a good day. I don’t want to be around if she’s PMSing.”
“Shut up, asshole,” I growl, ignoring my wet hair and damp feet as I shove on shoes and rush out the door.
The drive to Tee’s apartment is frustrating, thanks to mid-afternoon traffic, but I make it there in one piece, despite my driving, and bolt upstairs at a dead run, stopping only when I reach her door. Once I’m there, with my hand on the doorknob, everything inside me freezes, and a feeling of helplessness hits me.
What if the baby is mine? I ask myself, a lump of pure happiness forming in my throat until I consider the other option, and my stomach twists. I don’t want it to be mine, I remind myself, thinking about Paris and Sin and how happy they’ll be if Tee is having their baby. But I can’t escape…
A hand lands on my shoulder, pulling me into the apartment, and I lash out only to be pinned to the wall, with Nate’s face shoved into mine while his eyes flit to Tee’s bedroom door.
“What the hell took you so long?” he whispers, his eyes skittering around enough that I go deadly still against the wall and slump.
At this point, I don’t know how to feel, my emotions so conflicted that it’s hard for me to think straight. Tee wants this to be Sin’s baby for all the obvious reasons, but I can’t lie and say that I don’t want it to be mine, too. Jesus. I’m so fucking confused right now.
“Traffic is heavy. What’s going on? Christ, is she okay?” I whisper, my own eyes going to the closed door, behind which I can’t hear a thing, not even the TV that is always on in there.
“I dunno, man,” he whispers, gulping loudly. “We got the test results back, thanks to Doc Payne’s help, and, uh…the embryo took,” he sighs, sounding almost disappointed.
I hear the words, take them in, and, for a moment, I’m so happy for Sin and Paris that I could burst. Until the rest of it hits me. And then I don’t know how to feel, because truthfully…I haven’t let myself feel anything much in the last few days. The baby isn’t mine, and I should be happy for Sin and Paris—and, hell, for Tee, because I know that she was terrified of the consequences if it were…
But shit, I…
“I
t’s Sin’s and—”
“Yeah. Christ, she was so relieved for all of two seconds, and then she started bawling as if her heart was broken,” Nate rasps, his eyes looking as tortured as I feel. “I didn’t know what to do, ya know? All I could do was get her out of there as fast as I could, what with the doctor being obligated to call Sin and Paris. I didn’t want them seeing her that upset.”
“You did the right thing,” I murmur, slapping him on the shoulder as I disentangle myself and slump against the wall, my nerves on fire with the need to do something.
But what do I do? I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to feel about the fact that I’m not about to be a dad, after I sort of…got excited at the thought of it. Will Tee get madder if I show that I’m disappointed? Does it make me a dickhead if I admit that I’m also a little relieved, because now my start with Tee won’t be about a baby, but rather about how I feel about her?
I don’t know that it’s love, since I haven’t allowed myself to think that far ahead, because I didn’t want to cloud things with emotion while I was trying to be supportive, but I care, a lot, and I feel…empty right now, with so many conflicting emotions that I’m struggling to process them all.
“What’s right in this situation, man? She looks crushed.”
I feel crushed, and I’m not even the one who has to deal with another six months of pregnancy, I think, my throat working so hard that I have to clear it and hold my breath in order to keep in a snarl of pain.
“She’s going to be okay.”
“Yeah? How’s that?” Nate asks, stepping back to run a hand through his messy hair.
“I’ll make sure of it.”
Tee
I toss the dart again and take a sick amount of satisfaction in watching it pierce the wall, ruining the expensive paint and wallpaper that are only a few months old. After I found out that I was preggers, I went on a little bit of a decorating binge in here one Friday night, when Ares was at another one of his interminable business dinners, and Grange and Heath were sawing logs on the sofa halfway through a basketball game.
It took me an hour to realize that I was screwing it up and getting excess paint everywhere, which is when I slapped Grange awake and ordered him in here with orders to fix it. I like the soft yellow color, and the accent wall with its white-and-orange-striped wallpaper, but as with everything else in my life, I have the sudden urge to destroy it. Irrevocably.
I’m torn right now. On one hand, I am ecstatic that Sin won’t be coming after me with a cleaver in six months, but on the other, I’m as disappointed as hell. It’s worse when I think that I’m also relieved, because as great as it seems to have a baby and be a mom, I don’t know that I am ready for that right now. If ever.
Sighing, I try to ignore my feelings altogether and get up to collect my darts, sitting back against the headboard to start all over again. The wall is already so pockmarked that it’s beyond repair, and as I throw the dart in my hand again, I enjoy watching another hole bloom around the tip, its tail end dropping to create a gouge.
When I hear a knock at the door, I grunt and toss another dart, my annoyance spiking.
“Nate, I said I’m fine!” I yell, cursing when the door opens to reveal Ares stepping over the chaos that I’ve left on the floor.
Baby clothes of every size and color litter the entrance, and while I could go into some kind of psychological analysis about the significance of my earlier tantrum, I won’t. I don’t want to. I want to just get over whatever this feeling is, and move on.
I’m supposed to be ecstatically happy. I dodged a bullet, goddammit. But then why do I feel as if my chest is on fire, and every breath is a ragged, bloody inhalation? my mind asks, annoying me even more.
“Nice work,” Ares mutters, shutting the door and inspecting my artwork.
“I thought so. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking with the yellow. It’s gross,” I mumble, tossing another dart to distract myself from looking at him.
“I thought it was an improvement over the black you had that one time,” he points out, chuckling when I huff.
“I was going through an ‘I hate the world’ phase.”
“Babe, you painted your room black, added ‘blood spatter,’ and then sat in the dark for three hours waiting for Honey to sneak in here. You did it to scare the hell out of her,” he laughs, his amusement making my lips quirk slightly.
“She deserved it. Who sneaks into people’s apartments and stands and stares at them while they sleep?” I huff, a bubble of delight filling me because I do it, too.
I’ll bet that Rosetta would shit seven holy turds if she knew that I’d been in her place more than once, and that her pregnancy acne breakout a few weeks back was all me. I tampered with her makeup, and while I should feel guilty for rubbing poison ivy on her foundation brush, I mostly don’t.
“I plead the fifth on that one, seeing as how I’ve been hanging around with you for months and know the kind of shit you get up to,” he murmurs, ambling over to flop down beside me, his eyes boring into mine. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t want this, dammit. I don’t need sorries or pity or any kind of false sympathy, and I really don’t want it, because…news flash! This is a good thing. It is. Good. Sorta.
“For just dropping in when I expressly forbade you to set foot in my apartment again?” I ask mockingly, slapping at his hand when he slides it over my stomach. “Stop that!”
“Nope. I’m not just going to run and hide because you’re in a bad mood, and news flash—I’m not leaving, so whatever insults you have cooking in that diabolical mind of yours, I should warn you, baby, that I’ve mastered the art of patience.”
“Since freaking when?” I snort.
Ares is the least patient person that I have ever met, although it’s become more than a little clear lately that I’m the only one who pushes his buttons so much that he loses his temper. I don’t know what it says about me that I don’t even have to do anything for it to happen. Hell, I can just be breathing, and he’ll tell me to stop thinking, for goodness’ sake.
“Since I realized that I care about you so much that I walked out on work and a deal that I was working on when you skipped town. Since I found out that you were knocked up, and the first thing that hit me was, it could be my baby, and I couldn’t think of a single woman that I would want to have my babies more than you. Maybe when Heath and Grange ran my ass ragged this morning to distract me from the fact that you had a doctor’s appointment that I couldn’t go to, because I have no right, even though I want it,” he murmurs, his hand slapping mine away when I try to shove it off my belly.
The thing is way too freaking big. I’m sure an alien is growing in there, but since I had a meltdown and practically ran from Doc Payne’s office, I skipped the ultrasound. Great. I’m probably going to be lying on the couch one night, and something’s going to rip through my belly and claw its way out. This is Sin’s DNA that I’m cooking, after all.
“Stop being sweet. It looks like shit on you,” I grumble, moving to get up when I throw the last dart.
Ares doesn’t let me, though, and when I go to cuss him out and punch him, I find myself on my back with his mouth on mine, kissing me so desperately that I go still for a second before I melt completely. See? Hormones rot the brain.
When he pulls back, smiling like the smug asshole he is, I blink and try to remind myself that the pregnancy book is wrong. I don’t feel an overabundance of hormonal lust right now. I refuse. But good God, the man has bulked up lately, and mmm, I moan silently, when he curls an arm beneath me and his bicep flexes, showing off a strength that makes my sex sit up and yell in demand.
“You’re just pissy ’cause you were too knocked up for my yummy sperm to take root.”
“Gross! Jesus, I just puked in my mouth,” I groan, hating that I’m lying through my teeth.
I will not liken his come to anything at all yummy. That’d be weird and disgusting. Even if my brain is screaming that I’
m lying my ass off.
“Did not. You got all hot and bothered, and you licked your lips because you remember what I taste like,” he purrs, his hand slipping lower on my belly so that it rests just above my heating sex.
Will not…give in, I hiss, a throb starting in my nipples when he glances at my chest and licks his lips.
“Shut up.”
“You like my body—admit it. No? Then let me assure you that I like yours. Did you know that your come is tangier now that you’re pregnant?” he rasps, his eyes turning a stormy gray when I groan and tighten my core.
“That’s—”
“Delicious. I’ve spent two nights so hard that I almost rubbed one out last night just thinking about what we did in that laundry room. It took everything in me to stop myself from either jerking off till my balls were empty, or rushing over here to beat your door down. Tell me you missed me, too,” he whispers, grinning when I shake my head and then tense when I feel his finger slip into my panties and come to rest just above my slit.
No fair, I think, my body going hot all over. He knows just how to play with me, and nothing turns me on more than Ares when he’s playful. The man may be an ass, a sulky hippie with control issues, and a dickhole when it comes to my feelings, but he’s also a sex god, and he knows just what to do to make me desperate for him.
I can feel that finger twitching, so close to my clit that one bump of my hips would force him across it. But I don’t move. Mostly because I know that having sex with him isn’t a good idea. I’m raw, emotionally upside down, and too stupid to deal with things in a logical way right now.
“Tee…” he growls, his mouth tipping up into a smirk when he slips his fingertip lower and leaves it resting on my clit, so gently that it’s maddening.
“Arrrrres,” I growl back, my lust tinged with irritation because he always does this.
I used to be in control of my life before this yahoo showed up, and now I’m a ball of feelings all the time. I should kill him and walk away so that I can snap out of it, but as he gazes at me tenderly, as if he really does care, my stupid head refuses to talk any sense into my heart.
