by Ana E Ross
Yasmine backed away, her hands raised to ward him off. “Calm down, Erik. There’s no need to resort to violence.” She rattled off Michelle’s address and gave him quick directions.
The minute the door closed, Yasmine jumped on the phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Michelle jumped at the chime of the doorbell. “He’s here,” she said to Yasmine.
“That was fast,” Yasmine said. “You can just ignore him, you know.”
“You don’t know Erik.”
“Michelle, open the door!” Erik’s voice bellowed from outside.
“I heard that,” Yasmine said. “You want me to stay on the line, just in case?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ll call you later. Bye.” Michelle hung up the phone and stared at the door.
“Michelle, I know you’re home.”
Michelle bit into her bottom lip as it throbbed like her pulse. She didn’t know if he’d come for his child or for her. All Yasmine had told her was that he knew she was pregnant, and that he was furious. Ice spread through her belly. “Go away, Erik.”
“Not until we talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“If you don’t open this door, I will break it down. I swear.”
Michelle wobbled across the room and yanked the door open. Her black eyes met his grey, gold-flecked ones with a blaze of fury. “What do you want?”
Erik’s eyes bulged when he saw her big fat stomach. “Oh, my God,” he whispered as he stumbled into the condo and closed the door behind him. “You’re on the brink of giving birth.”
Michelle forced herself to hold his stare. It pained her to look at him, knowing he was now with someone else. He was dressed in a grey linen summer suit, pink shirt and striped pink and grey tie. He stood tall and proud—broad shoulders, straight back, with skin like suede, eyes like a tiger, and soft sexy lips she longed to kiss again.
“I see Dr. Ashley couldn’t keep her big mouth shut,” she said tersely as she watched him take a swift assessing glance around the room. She saw his nostrils flare and his lips tighten when his eyes landed on the photo of her and Ryan on the wall.
“You’re wasting your time, Dr.,” she said. “It’s not yours.”
His jaw muscles flinched and his eyes flashed flames of anger. He took a fuming step toward her. “Then whose is it? Who’s that man with his hand on you stomach? Is that Ryan? I know you were staying with him in South Carolina. Is it his?”
“It’s mine, Erik. Mine.”
He assessed her quietly for a moment, then the muscles in his jaw relaxed. “I know you, and I know you wouldn’t have been with anyone else, especially so soon after us. So it doesn’t really matter who he is. I know he’s not the father of that child you’re carrying.”
“Erik, just say what you came to say, and leave. You’re not welcome here.”
He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, making himself comfortable as if he didn’t hear her. “I hurt you. I hurt you deeply, and I’m sorry.”
Michelle trembled where she stood beside the couch and forced herself into believing that she didn’t care, that nothing he said would change the fact that he’d left her when she needed him most. She fought the need to fall into his arms and tell him how much she still loved him and how empty her life was without him.
“Michelle, when I found out about your father, I needed somebody to blame,” he said in a feeble attempt to apologize. “I needed someone to feel the same agony I was feeling. You were there with your sweet love for me so I lashed out at you. It was a mistake. The biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and I’m sorry, baby.”
Michelle remembered the ease and speed with which he’d ended their marriage, severed their relationship. She remembered how she begged for his forgiveness, his trust, his love. He’d told her to forget him, and what they’d shared, and that’s what she’d tried to do. She was trying to build a life for herself and her child. She never wanted to know hurt like that again, be abandoned again. For all she knew, he could just be here to verify the child was his, then take it away from her so he and Bridget could raise it. His moment of déjà vu wasn’t happening.
“Okay, Erik,” she said on the verge of fatigue. “I accept your apology. Now please go.” She turned her back to him, afraid he’d see the truth in her eyes.
“Is that all you have to say?”
Michelle whipped around, months of suppressed hurt rushing to the surface of her soul. “What do you want me to say, Erik? You expect me to fall into your arms just because you said you’re sorry? I told you I was sorry, and you still tossed me aside. I gave my heart to you, and you crushed it in your mighty strong hands. I needed you, Erik, but you abandoned me, just like my…”
The truth about Timmy Gleason was still not public knowledge. Knowing it would send the media into another frenzy over Cassie LaCrosse’s death, she and Robert had opted to keep the news to themselves, at least for now.
People were already forgetting that she was tied to that case. She didn’t want Erik and Precious to live through the horror of Cassie’s death again. She just wanted to be left alone to live her life in peace. “I have just been through the loneliest, most difficult eight months of my life, and I’m really tired, okay? So, just go, Erik. Go, and leave me alone.” She pointed toward the door.
Erik’s eyes drank up Michelle’s loveliness as she stood before him in a flowery cotton maternity shift. Barefoot and pregnant. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. She sparkled with an inner radiance, a soft glow of warmth and tenderness. She was so sweet and gentle, like the most precious rose, subtle and fragile in the wind. How could he have hurt her so? How could he have turned his back on this delicate creature? He had hurt her more than anyone else on this planet ever could—simply because she loved him. His shame choked him into silence.
“I lay in bed, night after night,” Michelle said. “Needing you, crying myself to sleep while you were romancing Bridget Ashley, living your life as though I never existed.” Scalding tears steamed down Michelle’s face and she made no effort to stop them.
“That’s not true, Michelle. I wrote—”
“You took Precious from me although you knew how much I love her. That hurt more than everything else you did to me. I thought you would have at least left me that relationship.”
She was suddenly besieged with the memory of the night when she called Erik and Bridget answered the phone. He was sleeping with her, having sex with her in Cassie’s bed, the bed he couldn’t share with Michelle.
Michelle shuddered and ran her fingers through her hair. “Go home, Erik. I’m sure Bridget is waiting for you.” She was so tired that her nerves throbbed. Her muscles screamed from the weight of the child in her womb and from arguing with its father. She just wanted to be left alone. She fell weakly to the couch and covered her face with her hands.
Erik fell on his knees in front of her. He pulled her hands from her face. His heart ripped at the raw hurt glittering in her dark eyes. “Okay, Michelle. I’ll go home, but not before I tell you why I came here tonight. I listened to you, so now you will listen to me.”
She stiffened and pulled her hands from his grasp. Her arms went around her stomach in a protective maternal gesture.
The bewildered look in her eyes sent a chill sweeping through Erik’s bones. Dear God, she thought he was here to take her baby away from her as Bridget had threatened to do. Had her opinion of him changed so much that she’d think he could be so cruel? Think that he would take a child from its mother? She knew how he felt about his own mother not being able to raise him.
“Michelle,” he said softly, “I came here to tell you what a stupid fool, an absolute jackass, a class-A idiot, dull dimwit I am.”
She put a hand to her mouth and started giggling.
Now, that was his Michelle.
“Yes, Baby. You can laugh at me. Just hear me out,” he said when her giggles finally faded and she stared at him with mist
y wistful eyes. “When Cassie lay dying in my arms, I swore I would find the bastard and make him pay. When I found out it was your father, I felt guilty. I had to punish myself, and in doing so, I punished you.”
“Why did you need to be punished? What did you do?”
Erik cupped her face in his hands. His voice was rough and thick. “Don’t you get it, Angel? I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you walking up my driveway hauling that suitcase behind you. I’ve loved you from the moment you made Precious laugh. You were a breath of fresh air, sunshine on a cloudy day. You were a better lover than Cassie. You awakened desires in me I never knew I had. You were awesome with Precious from the very first day. As I grew to know you, I realized how incompatible Cassie and I were. You are the one true love of my life. Then when the truth came out, I felt like a traitor for loving you more than I loved her.”
“Oh, Erik, I knew you loved me, but I didn’t know it was like that. I thought you came here to take my baby away from me.”
Erik placed his hands over hers that were resting on her stomach. “Michelle, I would never do that to you.”
“But you did. You knew I loved Precious like my own child, yet it didn’t matter. You hurt her, just as much as you hurt me.”
Tears stung Erik’s eyes. “I know, and I’m sorry, sweetheart. I promise that if you give me another chance, I will make it up to both of you. Just tell me that you still love me, Michelle. Please.” Erik dropped his head onto her stomach and gave in to the turbulent storm that had been brewing inside him for eight long torturous months. He’d missed her so much. He’d missed her touch, her voice, her laugh, her smell. Her love.
Her fingers gently stroked his hair as her hot tears fell against his cheek. “I do love you, Erik,” she said in a choked voice. “I never stopped. I can never stop.”
Just then the baby in her womb kicked. Once. Twice. Three times.
Erik slowly raised his head and gazed deeply into the turbulent depth of Michelle’s eyes. He held her hands in his. “That’s my baby in there. Tell me it’s my baby, Michelle. I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes, Erik. It’s your baby.” Her eyes were dark and stormy, sparkling in the light from the lamp. All the love and hunger she had suppressed for months spilled from their warm depths.
“Our son seems happy that his parents are back together,” he said with a wide grin.
She gave him a relaxed, happy smile. “You’re so sure it’s a boy.”
“Of course. We already have a daughter.”
The gentle motion of the pads of his thumbs stroking the insides of her wrists caused Michelle to catch her breath. We. He’d said we. She put her hands around his neck and drew him close to her. “How’s Precious?”
“Missing you, dreadfully. I have to apologize to her for keeping you apart.”
“Yes, you do.”
“How are you, Michelle?” he asked, filial concern hanging on the edge of his husky voice. “Have you been eating right, taking care of yourself?”
“From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I’ve been doing all the right things to make sure I deliver a strong and healthy baby.”
Erik smiled and stretched his arms around her as far as it would go. He caressed the curve of her back. He pressed his head into her chest, between her swollen breasts from which their child would be suckling soon. He inhaled deeply, drinking up her sweetness. “I almost forgot how good you smell,” he whispered, raising his head. “I used to go into your bedroom and close my eyes, and let your Moonlight creep through my skin. I missed you so much. I need you. I want our son to feel me loving his mother. I want to show you how much I love you.”
“What’s stopping you?” she whispered, bending her head.
Their lips locked in a kiss that was as slow, drugging, and sedate as it was exciting. The strong smoothness of Erik’s tongue flickered lightly, tantalizingly, across the softness of Michelle’s lips. He teased the curved corners of her mouth, exploring the fleshy, velvety inside as if it were a luscious ripe fruit, bursting with warm honey and sweet nectar. He wanted to savor her, love her, cherish her, forever. Finally, his tongue slid into the warm, dark recesses of her mouth and he swirled it around, stroking the sensitive ceiling and inner cheeks of her sweet cavern, slowly, seductively.
Michelle moaned deeply and gave him full license to her sweetness. She tangled her tongue with his, twirling it around in a primitive, provocative dance before drawing back from him. Her eyes were laced with passion as they blazed into the murky depth of his. “Stand up,” she commanded softly, pushing on his arms.
He pushed to his feet, frowning in confusion.
Slowly, Michelle’s hands reached for his belt and unbuckled it. She unbuttoned his trousers then unzipped them carefully. As she pushed them off his hips, her lips came eagerly toward his groin. She kissed the rigid outline of his manhood through his black silk briefs.
Erik’s breath caught in his throat at the intimate contact. He cupped her face in his hands. “Michelle, you don’t have to do this.”
Her smile was the epitome of eroticism. “I want to.”
Michelle struggled off the couch and knelt on the floor in front of him. She drew his trousers very slowly down his thighs and legs, her lips pressing hot kisses against his hairy limbs as they became visible. She went as low as her fat stomach would allow her. She would have sucked each of his toes if she could. She unlaced his shoes and patiently held his legs, one at a time, as he stepped out of his shoes and trousers. She remembered the day in his bedroom in Granite Falls when he’d paid her the same service before lying down with her. She would lay down with him later. Right now, she wanted to give him something special. Something she knew Cassie had never given him.
Michelle’s eyes scanned down his body, clad in nothing but a pink shirt, striped tie, black briefs, and brown knee-high socks. He looked beautiful, virile, and very masculine. She trailed her finger along the outline of his erection, starting from the solid base all the way to the throbbing head.
Erik quivered and closed his eyes.
Bringing her face close, Michelle placed her mouth to the throbbing head and gently and slowly nipped and licked her way down the outline of his brief-sheathed shaft, then back up again. She repeated the tantalizing acts of love until he groaned and shivered above her.
Erik opened his eyes and gazed down at a very pregnant Michelle on her knees in front of him, her face bathed in rapture. The sight of her beautiful lips moving back and forth over his shaft was so erotic it sent bolts of fire surging from his toes to his fingertips. He should stop her. He didn’t want an embarrassing repeat of his honeymoon with Cassie. But Michelle had other ideas, he realized when she hooked her fingers in the waist of his briefs and pulled them down to his knees.
“Oh, Goodness. I don’t believe this is happening,” he exclaimed in a ragged voice as his erection jumped out and smacked her in the face.
Michelle gazed up at him, not believing it either. “You’ve never been loved this way?”
An embarrassed light flickered in his eyes. “Just once, on my honeymoon with Cassie. She gagged, bit me a couple times then threw up all over me. Doubtless to say, it’s been a turn-off since then.”
“Oh, baby.” Michelle pouted. “No wonder you stopped me every time I tried to pleasure you this way. I’ve never done this before, either. But I promise not to bite you or throw up on you.”
He gasped in pleasure as her fingers, warm and slender, closed around his flesh, pumping it lightly. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her closer. Michelle pushed the foreskin back and touched her tongue to the broad head. A drop of moisture, tangy and musky, washed over her tongue. She licked at it, enjoying the arousing masculine odor rising from his body.
How could Cassie, any woman not enjoy pleasuring the man she loved in such an intimate way? She’d never done it with Ryan because she was not in love with him. But Erik, she would pleasure him this way, any way, any time he wanted.
Erik bi
t into his lips and closed his eyes. “Michelle.” He moved his hips suggestively as her tongue flicked sensually over him. A long moan erupted from his throat when her hot wet mouth closed completely around the head of his shaft, and she began sucking him with a delicious sensuous rhythm that erased all purpose, but the one of completeness.
She worked her mouth over him, trying to take as much of him as she possibly could. It was pure rapture to watch her. He held her head steady and thrust into her hot mouth as she worshiped and loved him like no other woman had ever done, or ever would. Back and forth, up and down, she teased and caressed and tortured with her mouth and hands.
Erik felt his lungs constrict, cutting off vital air to his brain. His body tensed as divine pleasure exploded through him. “Michelle... I’m com...ing...”
His breath came in hard cutting gasps. He tried to push her head away and disengage from her mouth, but Michelle held him by his tight buns and locked her jaws around him. She sucked him urgently and vigorously until the volcano inside him erupted in a violent explosion.
Erik expelled a long, rumbling, animal sound that started way down in his belly then he emptied himself into her mouth. She glued her lips to him, milking him for all he was worth.
Some moments later, when all was quiet again, Michelle looked up at him and licked her lips with the satisfaction of a cat that had just eaten the unsuspecting canary.
Erik pulled her to her feet. “You greedy little minx. If I’d known you were so good, I would have let you go down on me a long time ago.”
Michelle smiled, kissed his lips, then her eyes opened in surprise when she felt him, still hard, pressing against her fat stomach. She had almost forgotten about his insatiable appetite. He was a multiple orgasmic man. One in a million. And he was all hers. She was the luckiest girl to ever walk the face of the earth. And to think she had almost lost him.
