The Lion's Surprise Baby

by White, Jade

  “Ready when you are,” Melissa said, trying to make amends for being so blunt with him.

  Bruce let out a frustrated breath and punctured her skin, pushing the hormones into her body. As the liquid burned though her veins, Melissa focused on her breathing. Her skin turned clammy as pain assaulted her.

  “Damn it, Melissa,” Bruce hissed through his teeth. “This is ridiculous. Your body is not acclimating at all.”

  “I just finished my first week, Bruce. I need more time. Can you just finish this, please?”

  “Did it hurt you this much the first time?” he asked as he the plunger moved down under his thumb.

  Melissa gritted her teeth. Her body felt as if the blood had been replaced by liquid magma. She was unable to answer Bruce as all her concentration was focused on not screaming. This was worse than the week before, and Melissa was afraid that next week would be worse.

  “Melissa, you need to breathe.” Bruce broke into Melissa’s thoughts. “All right last one,” he said.

  She jumped up as soon as the shot was pushed in and ran to the bathroom, almost not making it in time. She wasn’t sure why sometimes the symptoms were worse than others. Sometimes the throwing up wasn’t as violent. Sometimes she wasn’t tired and then there were times like this. Once she’d gotten rid of everything in her stomach, she got up and slowly walked back into the room with Bruce collapsing on the chair closest to her.

  Melissa wanted to curl into herself as the medicine took its place, but moving was not something she was capable of doing at the moment. Bruce must have recognized her inability to make her muscles cooperate. He lifted her up and carried her into her office and placed her on the couch.

  Melissa vaguely recognized Tilly talking as she tucked a blanket around her.

  “Call me if anything changes,” Bruce said to Tilly before Melissa let the darkness take her away from the pain.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Hon, are you feeling all right?” Tilly’s voice filtered into Melissa’s brain as a warm hand touched her chilled shoulder.

  “What time is it?” Melissa asked trying to sit up. Tilly helped her.

  “It’s after 5:30. You’ve been asleep for six hours. Bruce called to check on you. He told me to wake you up and make you eat.”

  Melissa’s stomach made some very unique noises at the mention of food. As to what those noises meant, she wasn’t sure. The mention of food should have made her feel ravished, but at the same time she remembered the last time she had these injections. Projectile vomiting was not on her list of things to do today. She did a mental check in of her body going through each part. There wasn’t any part of her that wasn’t sore, but that was to be expected with the treatments she was going through. Hopefully, her body would start getting used to it after some time.

  “Bruce told me to start you off easy to see what you can handle. I brought you some broth.” Tilly handed Melissa a Styrofoam cup.

  Melissa tentatively brought it to her lips. The fragrant soup filled her nostrils making her stomach sound off again. Tilly smiled at her as she chomped on her sandwich. When Melissa sat the cup down, Tilly handed her a sandwich as well.

  “You seemed to handle the broth like a champ. Now put some real substance in you.”

  Melissa accepted the sandwich and scarfed it down. Her appetite came back with a vengeance. There was a fear that it would make another appearance but once she’d chewed it up she felt a lot better.

  “That was so good. Thank you so much.” Melissa said guzzling a bottle of water.

  The warm, filling food was making Melissa sleepy again. She wasn’t sure how that was possible since she had slept most of the day, but she recognized her body was adjusting to its new hormone state. If she was going to stay healthy and get through this with as little risk as possible, she needed to listen to her body and give it what it needed.

  Melissa yawned as she snuggled into the blanket wrapped around her.

  “Do you want to come to my house tonight?” Tilly asked her as she cleaned up the dinner trash.

  “No. I'm going to sleep here tonight. I brought extra clothes just in case this happened. I’m so tired, I’m going to go right back to sleep.” Melissa plumped up the pillow and sunk into the couch.

  “I'm worried about you, Melissa. You were as white as a ghost when Bruce brought you in here after the injections."

  “I’m fine, Tilly. I know you love me and you’re worried, but really, it’s okay. Now get out of here so I can get some sleep.”

  Tilly leaned over and pulled the blanket further up Melissa’s body. “Your cell is on the table. I charged it for you. By the way, you and I are going to have a serious talk tomorrow. When I turned on your phone, there were twenty-seven missed calls from Nathaniel. Melissa, this is getting out of hand.”

  “Can we talk about it later?” Melissa whined.

  She left her cell off for that exact reason. She was surprised Nathaniel hadn’t shown up already. She had been avoiding her phone for days since Bruce and Tilly kicked him out of her office. Tilly was right, she needed to do something with Nathaniel, but it was useless to think about it tonight with her head in sleepy land.

  “Yes, we can talk later. And don’t think you are going to get away with it. I’ll let you sleep. Call me if you need anything.”

  “Will do.”

  Tilly flipped the light switch, bathing Melissa’s office in darkness. The full moon shone through the window giving Melissa some light. She listened as she heard Tilly leave the office and lock it behind her.

  As tired as Melissa’s body was, she couldn’t drift off to sleep. She grabbed her phone and dialed Thomas. She promised him she would call him about a time they could meet up and discuss the schedule. Her stomach flipped around at the thought of having sex with Thomas to create a baby. Their baby.

  If someone would have told her months ago that she would finally get the nerve to leave Nathaniel and agree to become impregnated by a were-bear for $50,000, she would have thought they needed to be institutionalized. Now here she was with the means to pay off her mother’s medical bills, and finalize her divorce. The weight Thomas had lifted from her shoulders by helping her financially was something she would be forever grateful for. The fact that he was also giving her a baby made him one of the greatest men she had ever known.

  Her body felt warm and fuzzy as she dialed her bear savior wanting to talk to him just to see how he was doing. Normally, they talked every day. He would call and ask about the injections and she would give him the watered-down version. Their conversations didn't last more than a couple of minutes and were very clinical, but for some strange reason, Melissa looked forward to them.

  She felt bad that she had to let him go so quickly today. He seemed lighter and he sounded like he wanted to tell her something. In fact, Melissa tried to remember the whole conversation, but she was pretty sure he told her that he had some good news. Maybe he told his parents about the arrangement and they took it better than he expected.

  Melissa pressed the speed-dial to Thomas' cell and laid back down on the couch.

  “Hello,” Thomas answered, but Melissa could barely hear him over the noise in the background.

  “Thomas, can you hear me?”

  “Hold on,” he yelled over the noise. The loud clatter of people grew softer and almost completely muffled. “Sorry about that. What do you need? Is everything okay?”

  His voice was slightly slurred and Melissa wondered how much he had been drinking. Being a shifter, Thomas’ body processed alcohol faster than humans. For him to be slurring his words he must have been doing some impressive drinking.

  “Everything’s fine. I told you I would call you later to set up a time we could meet and talk about.”

  “C-day.”

  Melissa smiled. The way he said c-day, she was certain he was grinning.

  “Yes, c-day. If you’re busy, I’ll let you go.”

  “I’m just out with some of the people from the office. We are
celebrating.”

  “What are you celebrating? You told me earlier you had some good news.”

  “I landed the Hilary Dalton account. McMillian and Company will be throwing the biggest product launch party ever for her new scent she created.”

  Even though Melissa didn’t have much time to watch TV or read magazines that weren’t medical-related, she knew who Hilary Dalton was. Everyone knew Hilary Dalton. She was, at the moment, the biggest name out there. She had her hands in everything from hotels, TV, make-up, clothing, and from what Thomas just said, perfume, as well. She understood why landing the account would be such a huge accomplishment.

  “Congratulations. That’s amazing,” Melissa said, feeling some weird form of pride.

  She quickly justified it by the fact that he was going to be the father of her child. Of course she would want success for the man they looked up to. Melissa wondered if Thomas would be working closely with Hilary. She was on everything, so Melissa knew how extremely gorgeous she was. Melissa looked down at her blanket covered body and realized there was no comparison.

  Hilary was a busy woman. She secretly hoped that Thomas would be working with her personal assistants and never really have any contact with the beautiful Ms. Dalton. She couldn’t understand where the jealousy was coming from. Maybe the injections were not only messing with her libido but also doing a number on her other emotions. If she was this bad now, how bad would she be when she was actually pregnant?

  “Thank you. I’ve been working hard to get this account.”

  “Hey, Thomas, come on man. We’re doing shots.” Melissa figured it was someone from his work, and she didn’t want to keep him from his party.

  “Go on, I’ll talk to you later. Go celebrate.”

  “Why don’t we go out to dinner tomorrow? I’ll pick you up at seven thirty,” Thomas said before yelling that he would be right there, and not to take the shots until he got there.

  “See you at seven thirty,” Melissa said, hanging up the phone.

  She tossed and turned on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position. Melissa would choose the couch over her bed any day of the week. When she first sat on it in the furniture store, she knew she had to get it. For some reason tonight, she just wasn’t singing its praises. The whole Hilary Dalton thing threw her off. What if Thomas decided he wanted someone like her to be the mother of his child?

  Melissa rubbed her hand over her not-so-flat stomach, which was a little smaller than normal. The injections suppressed her appetite and the constant nausea was turning out to be an amazing diet. Melissa pictured a baby growing inside of her. She was already altering her future planning to include the child she hadn’t even conceived yet. The thought of losing those plans made her eyes well up. After hours of tossing and turning, sleep took mercy on her and she drifted off.

  ***

  Melissa’s day was chaotic. Because she had to reschedule all her appointments, her normal patient flow had increased. The sleep she got the day before renewed her, and she felt better than she had in the past week. Maybe her body was finally adjusting to the treatments. A girl could dream.

  Tilly threw her another sandwich in between patients. Melissa was fairly certain she hadn’t sat down once today, and she could barely remember if she'd stopped to pee. Swallowing the last of her sandwich, she knocked on the door and entered her patient’s room. A newly-married were-giraffe couple.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Sampson. Are you ready to find out what you’re having?"

  The couple nodded their heads vigorously. The Sampsons were pregnant with their first baby. Today they were going to find out the gender. In any other situation, an ultra-sound tech would perform the procedure, but being this was a paranormal office, Melissa had the pleasure of doing it, and she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  “Butch thinks it’s going to be a girl. My mom and I are betting on a boy,” Mrs. Sampson said as she shifted on the bed to get a better look at Melissa.

  “Well let’s find out.” Melissa squirted the jelly on her Mrs. Sampson’s belly and swirled it around. The baby was a mover, turning this way and that. It took a while for her to get the money shot she needed. “It looks like we have a winner. Butch, congratulations. You’re going to be the daddy of a precious little girl.”

  The couple squealed happily and hugged each other. Butch swung Melissa around the room after she cleaned up his wife. She exited the room, giving the couple privacy. Melissa thought about her soon-to-be baby. Seeing the Sampsons’ reaction made her even more ready to get started.

  Melissa pried off her shoes when she entered her apartment, and headed straight toward her shower, shedding her clothes as she went. Thomas texted her the restaurant they were going to and told her he’d pick her up. She had an hour to get ready. A thrill went through her body as she washed up. She’d been looking forward to tonight. Throughout the day, Melissa had assured herself she had nothing to worry about with Hilary. It wasn’t like the two of them saw each other regularly. Besides, she was his client. Thomas was too smart to get involved with someone he worked with.

  She also decided she would tell Thomas about how her ex had been behaving. For some reason she trusted him, which was a good thing, being that he was going to be in her life if the pregnancy resulted in a baby. It was only fair that Thomas knew about Nathaniel’s temper and who he’d been involved with.

  With the Hilary account on her mind, Melissa took extra time getting ready. She tamed her red hair in big fiery ringlets, letting it fall down her back. She took her time getting her eyes to do the perfect smoky effect, and then ran to the back of her closet. Because of the extra weight she had lost, she had the nerve to slip into a tight-fitting, black dress that she was normally too self-conscious to wear.

  She pulled on a pair of short black pumps and went to double-check herself in the mirror. Pulling out the only lipstick she owned, Melissa swiped it across her lips and went downstairs. She was excited to see Thomas. With their busy work schedules, they hadn’t seen each other since their dinner. Tonight was going to be interesting, since the subject was going to be scheduling the time they would make their baby.

  Melissa spotted Thomas as soon as she made it downstairs. He was leaning against the wall of her building, his hands in his pockets. Melissa’s mouth went dry at the sight of him. His tall frame demanded attention, and his rugged face required it.

  He shrugged off the wall when he saw her come out of the building. Melissa waved shyly at him. It was dark, but she was certain his eyes widened when he saw her. She did a tiny happy dance in her head. She made the right choice by dressing up tonight.

  “Melissa, you look amazing,” he said. His voice deeper than it was on the phone.

  For a moment, Melissa was positive he was going to kiss her. When he held out the crook of his arm for her to take, she felt a sliver of disappointment race down her spine. She took his proffered arm and walked with him to his car. They made small talk on the way over, and he held all the doors for her as they made their way into the restaurant.

  Neither of them said another word until they sat down at the table and ordered their drinks. Why was she fantasizing over something they’d said wasn’t ever going to happen?

  Melissa watched him over her menu as he conversed with the waiter, and was shocked when she realized she liked him. She wasn’t sure when it happened. It had only been a week and a few short phone calls, but that didn’t seem to matter. Her body and mind were accepting him as the man that not only was going to be the father of her child, but the man she wanted to have a life with. It made no sense to her at all, and until she was off the hormones, she couldn’t trust her body and the emotions it thrust on her. Yet there was something there.

  She hid behind the menu as she tried to process what she had concluded.

  “So what did you decide?” Thomas asked, making Melissa almost drop her menu.

  Was he a mind reader?

  “Excuse me?”

  “For dinner. Their c
hicken is really good here.”

  Melissa’s heart slowed down when she realized he wasn’t a mind reader. Thank goodness for that. She also made a mental note to study if there were paranormals out there that could step into another’s thoughts.

  Thomas was right: the chicken was incredible. Throughout the meal, he had Melissa laughing so hard people around them were giving her dirty looks. Thomas gave them back, raising one perfectly-shaped eyebrow at them as if daring them to say something.

  When he mentioned one of his co-workers getting so drunk the night before, he hit his head on a bar stool and then got right back up to dance, Melissa snorted, causing him to throw back his head and release a belly laugh.

  “That is so exciting about the Hilary Dalton account! Do you think you’ll get to meet her?” Melissa asked without thinking.

  Why would she bring up a young beautiful woman she couldn’t compete with when was having a great time with a sexy man who wanted to have a baby with her?

  “Actually, I have a date with her this Saturday. Do you want me to get you an autograph?”

  Damn that man. In one statement, he ruined a perfectly good meal. The chicken she just finished now sat in her stomach weighing more than it did when it was on her plate. Thomas took a drink as Melissa tried to school her features and not show the hurt his words caused her.

  “I don't really know who she is, but I bet Tilly would love an autograph,” Melissa forced herself to laugh as she willed the tears burning the back of her throat to stay where they were.

  ***

  Thomas was having a great time with Melissa. When she stepped out of her building wearing that little black dress, he had to discreetly adjust himself before walking over to her. The little nerdy doctor had legs for days, and curves he could sink his teeth into.

  During dinner, he kept reminding himself about how bad it would be to get involved with Melissa. He didn’t want any drama involved with his child. Even though his dick was more than happy to dismiss his desire for a conflict-free life. He had to stop himself on several occasions from asking about Bruce and what he was to her.