The Lawyer's Secret Baby

by Polly Carter

  “Arian,” she murmured helplessly.

  Without speaking, Arian got out of the car, marched around to her side, opened the door and taking hold of her hand pulled her out. She didn’t resist as he leant against the car and cradled his arms around her waist.

  “I want to kiss you, Hal. I want to do more than kiss you, but not now. Right now, all I want to do is kiss you. I’m not going to force myself on you. Tell me you don’t want to kiss me, and I’ll take you home. If you do want to kiss me, stop saying ‘No’, eh?” He grinned and her heart melted. She swayed forward, and he drew her in tight against him as his lips sought hers in a long soft sweet kiss that held all the memories of their past love, the pain of separation, the joy of finding each other again, and the fear and sorrow of facing another cruel separation.

  “Oh, my beautiful girl,” Arian murmured against her neck as they stopped for breath. “Why did you leave me? Do you know how I suffered?”

  The effect was instantaneous. Harley wriggled free, the evening’s tension, the wine and her now heightened emotions, erupting in fury.

  “How I left you?” she barked shrilly, lashing out at him. “How you suffered? My God, you’re the same self-obsessed prick you always were. I can’t believe I’d started blaming myself. Well, at least I’ve grown up enough to take some of the responsibility. Not you, apparently. That’s what they say about boys, eh? They never grow up, their toys just get more expensive.” And she savagely kicked his car.

  “Whoa. Hey! What are you talking about?” Arian tried to grab hold of her, but she lashed out at him too, punching him in the chest.

  “Ow! You little hellion. You’ve been asking for this.” Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her to the car and pushed her over the side of the bonnet, pinning her firmly down. “I’ve been warning you that your behaviour was going to get you a spanking, and now it has.”

  “Let me up, you big lug,” Harley squealed, wriggling and squirming trying to get away from his grasp, but he was bigger and stronger than when they’d last wrestled and she was lighter and weaker. He had no trouble holding her in place as his big hand rose and fell. It quickly became obvious that her dress and bulky over-blouse were affording enough protection to make his punishment more show than anything else. He scrunched them both up to her waist, holding them in place with the arm that was pinning her down leaving her bottom protected by nothing but tiny lace knickers less than adequately covering her cheeks.

  Now as he spanked her, she could feel the sting. He had spanked her harder, much harder in the past, but this was almost like a first time again. He was holding back, she knew, and she was too, but she could feel herself gradually letting go. He paused to see her reaction. She didn’t struggle. He spanked her again, twice on each cheek, and paused. Still she didn’t move, just buried her face into her hands. He spanked her again, twice on each cheek and paused. This time she moved, arching her back and raising her bottom. She needed this as much as he did.

  With a grunt of desire, he pulled her knickers down and stood back a little. She’d told him through her actions that she would keep still while he punished her, and she desperately craved the cathartic release. Putting his hand on her back, he started spanking her properly, not fast but rhythmically, each smack increasing the sting and requiring more effort from Harley to hold her place. Her breath was coming in gasps and moans as she allowed him to replace some of her emotional pain with physical pain.

  “You should never have left me, Hal,” he growled as his hand turned her skin a deeper shade of pink. “I would have taken care of you. You wouldn’t have been in the mess you are now if you’d let me look after you.”

  And the pain of his loss caused his hand to fall harder and faster until Harley was sobbing with her own physical and emotional pain, but she managed to cry out through her tears.

  “You left me, Arian! You abandoned me. I trusted you. I needed you, but you abandoned me just like my prick of a father!”

  At her words, the spanking stopped. Arian pulled her up and turned her to face him.

  “What are you talking about? How? How did I abandon you?”

  But Harley couldn’t speak, and Arian just held her against him until her sobbing subsided. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped her face and kissed her eyes, and fixed her clothing.

  “Tell me, baby,” he said softly. “Tell me everything.”

  “I never wanted you to go to America, did I? You knew that but you went anyway.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “That’s true, but you could have come. I wanted you to come but you chose not to.”

  “Well, you told me it was for six months and I would have had to give up my studies, wouldn’t I? It made more sense for me to stay here.”

  Arian’s brow furrowed. “Yes, I know. But we talked about all this and you said you were okay with it.”

  “Yeah, for six months, but you didn’t come back after six months, did you?”

  “No,” Arian replied ruefully. “But we talked about me extending for another six months. I wanted you to come and live with me in the States. It was you who refused.”

  “Same thing, though, wasn’t it? I wanted to finish uni. I couldn’t do that there. I had to be here. And it was only for another six months. But then you extended again.”

  “Yeah, okay. That’s true, but we talked about how good the experience I was getting was for my career. And you agreed it made sense for me to take advantage of it.”

  “Did I, though? The last time I visited, didn’t I beg you to come back?”

  Harley saw the bolt of realisation cross Arian’s face and the look of consternation.

  “Is that why? I mean, I knew you wanted me to come home, but I’d told you I was going to. I just had–wanted to stay a little longer.”

  “You told me you were going for six months, but that six months turned into a year and then another six months. The last time I was there I begged you to come back with me but you refused, so when I got back I decided that if I was going to be on my own anyway, then I would be properly on my own and not pretending I had some phantom boyfriend on the other side of the world.”

  “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry,” Arian said. “Oh my God, what a fool I was, as you said, a self-obsessed fool. I had no idea why you suddenly wouldn’t talk to me. And when I came rushing back to try and find you, you were gone. Just gone. Not even your mother knew where you were, or if she did, she wasn’t telling me. I didn’t know what to do. I did try and find you, Hal. I really did. I was absolutely gutted. But I couldn’t find you, so there didn’t seem any point in staying, so I went back. This is all my fault then.”

  And he looked so contrite, so heart-broken, that Harley slipped her arms around his neck.

  “Not all your fault, Arian.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked bewildered by her apparent sudden change.

  “One thing becoming a… being on my own did for me…” she corrected herself quickly. Lyddia was still something she wasn’t prepared to talk to Arian about. “Was allow me to see things differently. I realised how much my dad deserting Mum and me had affected me, and how dependent on you it made me. And when you left, it was like the two men I loved most in the world had both just moved overseas leaving me behind. At first, when you left it was okay. I still hated it but it was only for a little while, but then when you kept extending, it started to feel like you were just pretending you were going to come back and that really you had no intention of ever coming back, just like Dad. Until I finally couldn’t do it anymore.”

  “Oh, God. I’m so sorry,” Arian cried again.

  “It’s okay, now,” Harley assured him. “I realise now that you weren’t really abandoning me at all. It was the right thing for you to do for your career, and I had the choice to stay or go with you. I chose to stay, but I was angry because I couldn’t make you stay too, even though it wasn’t altogether fair of me to ask.”

  “But you were still just a hurt little girl, weren’t you?” Arian sai
d tenderly, holding her close and stroking her hair. “Hurt by the loss of your father.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, her bottom lip trembling. “But I’ve grown up since then and I know you’re not him. We both made mistakes, but I know you didn’t intentionally hurt me; you just didn’t realise how I really felt.”

  “Didn’t listen,” Arian said remorsefully. “You tried to tell me, but I just couldn’t see why it was such a huge problem. I wanted you to come with me, but knew finishing uni was important to you, so I didn’t try and force you to come. I thought we were both just doing what we needed to do for our careers and I fully intended to come back and marry you. I missed you terribly, Hal, but I thought it was just temporary. I was gutted when you got back to Australia the last time and disappeared. It was awful. Your phone didn’t work. You wouldn’t answer emails. You weren’t here when I came to try and find you. I thought maybe you’d found someone else or something. And it never went away. I just missed you more as time went by. In the end, I had to come back and have another go at finding you. I couldn’t believe my luck when I bumped into you in town and found you were still single.”

  “And I thought you were married,” Harley said.

  Arian chuckled. “Yeah, that silly article. Look, Hal, I haven’t exactly been a monk since we split, but honestly there’s never been anyone I was serious about. Every other woman had a fatal flaw–she wasn’t my Hal. What about you? I don’t expect you to have been a nun, but has there been anyone serious, anyone you loved?”

  Harley’s heart ached at the tension on his face. She smiled and shook her head. “I’ve been rather busy for serious relationships, or relationships of any sort really. I’d just started to think it might be time to start looking again when… well, when everything turned to shit.”

  Arian relaxed, pulled her closer and growled sternly, “I forbid you to look anywhere else but right here at me, do you hear?”

  Harley managed a small shuddery giggle. “Aye, aye, Cap’n,” she said.

  And then he was kissing her again, and again, and again, until she was breathless and moaning against him with a desperate longing, and his hands were all over her, squeezing her breasts and rubbing between her thighs as she moaned deep in her throat with desire. And then he was picking her up and laying her on the bonnet of the car, pushing her dress up and pulling her knickers down and over one boot so he could spread her legs and bury his face in the sweetness where they joined.

  It might have been four years since Arian had last taken Harley in the dance from passion to pleasure but he had forgotten nothing about just how she liked it. As his lips and tongue worked their magic, Harley allowed herself to surrender completely to the mysterious journey, staring sightlessly up at the Milky Way as she arched her back for him again. And when she felt herself being lifted up, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to succumb to the warmth and tingling that washed over her more and more intensely until it peaked and was carried away on a wave of slowly decreasing contractions. As soon as Arian felt the wave break, he moved his mouth from her pleasure button, knowing how sensitive it became at this moment. He placed his hands on her lower belly and pressed gently, feeling the waves of pleasure pulsing through her. As they slowly subsided, he stroked her face as she gradually awakened and came back to him.

  Then kissing her inner thigh, he slipped her knickers back over her foot and up her legs before helping her down off the car. She adjusted her underwear and dress as he used his handkerchief to wipe his face.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, putting her arms around his neck and kissing him.

  “It was very definitely a great pleasure for me,” he said with a grin when he could talk again.

  “Your turn now?” Harley suggested, gently squeezing the hard bulge in his jeans, but he took her hand in his, raised it to his mouth and kissed her fingers.

  “I would love that, obviously,” he groaned, “but we have more pressing issues. Jump in the car before you get cold. We have to talk.”

  Ensconced in the warmth and comfort of the car, Arian faced her and took hold of her hands.

  “Now, don’t be cross with your mum,” he said gently. “I rang her before I rang you. I felt like I haven’t been able to get you to talk to me, and I needed to hear what she had to say. She told me you were adamant she not talk to me about your situation, but she is desperately worried about what’s going to happen and desperate for help. She asked me if I thought I could. Help, I mean.”

  “And can you?” Harley asked through tight lips, turning away from him and staring straight ahead. “I thought you didn’t represent drug dealers.”

  “I don’t as a rule,” he agreed. “But I have and do represent people who are wrongly charged with being drug dealers.”

  Harley spun around. “Do you think I was wrongly charged? Cos it sure didn’t look that way when you took off. Looked like you couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

  “I’m sorry, Hal. I really am.” He spoke earnestly, gripping her hands and looking searchingly into her face as though her believing him was the most important thing in the world. “I was shocked, it’s true. It was the last thing I was expecting, and to be fair you didn’t say you were innocent—you made it sound like you had done it. And it’s been a while; how could I be sure of what you’d been up to since I last saw you. You knew some pretty unsavoury characters when we first met.”

  Harley flinched. “But…?” she whispered, scarcely breathing, and then looked away before he could answer.

  “But then when I calmed down, I realised that no matter how much time had passed, people don’t change that much and there was no way the Harley I knew could be a drug pedlar, no matter how damning the evidence.” He paused and waited until she looked back at him. “Unless,” he added “there’s something else I need to know. Is there, Hal?”

  “Like what?” Harley asked, her hands turning up to mirror the corner of her mouth, her eyes opening wide.

  “I don’t know,” Arian said, scratching his eyebrow and wrinkling his forehead. “Like, maybe, you’ve developed a habit, or you were desperate for money for something–a gambling addiction or for your mum or something. Anything that would explain you doing something so loathsome and so out of character. And, before you answer, I want to be clear that I am going to stand by you no matter what. I’m not going to turn my back on you no matter what your answer is.”

  Harley shook her head. “No! Nothing like that. Thank goodness. I have enough troubles.”

  Arian pulled her against him and held her firmly. “Okay then. I love you, Hal. I hope I’ve made that clear. I still want to marry you. I had to ask, though. I have to know everything.”

  Mutely, Harley raised her face to his, her eyes filling with tears. Lowering his lips to hers, he kissed her softly and sweetly until she was melting.

  “Now, then,” he said with a tender smile when the kiss had ended. “We have to get serious. Firstly, we need to plan your defence, and if I’m going to do that, I need to know everything in as much detail as you can remember. I’ve read your statement, as I said, but I want to hear it all from you. Zain, the D I was telling you about earlier, says he’ll help if he can too, so I thought we should all meet and go through everything. I suggested next Saturday afternoon. That okay?”

  “But will you be able to do anything my lawyer hasn’t already done?”

  Arian shrugged. “Honestly? I have no idea yet. I have to go through everything with a fine-tooth comb. You’ve got some stuff in your favour: no previous convictions, no evidence you’re a user, no evidence of any other way you could have come by the drugs, your story is plausible if uncorroborated… what?” Arian flinched as Harley slapped him in the chest.

  “Story! Plausible! It’s not a ‘story’; it’s the truth. And, of course, it’s plausible. It’s fact!”

  Chuckling, Arian took hold of her arms and pinned her to her seat. “You looking to get bent over the bonnet of the car again, Missy?”

  Har
ley made a harrumph noise and glared at him. “Well, it is.”

  “I wasn’t saying I didn’t believe you, Hal. I was just looking at it from the court’s point of view. But, while it’s plausible, we still need some evidence to corroborate your account.” He took Harley’s shoulders in his hands and squeezed gently. “But I promise you, Hal.” His voice was low and slow, his eyes fixed on hers. “I’ll do everything I can to find a way to get you out of this. I promise.”

  A shivery spasm shook Harley. “But will you? Can you? Get me out of it?” she whispered through chattery teeth.

  He shook his head and squeezed her hand. Her heart sank. Her shivering became more violent as she tried to pull away.

  “No,” he whispered urgently, grabbing her hands and squeezing them. “Don’t give up. I’m not saying it’s hopeless. Not for a minute. I just don’t want to make a promise I can’t be one hundred percent sure I can keep. What I can promise, unequivocally, though, is that I will be with you every step of the way and stand by you no matter what happens. I will never stop fighting for you, Hal. That I promise on my life.”

  “Thank you, Arian,” Harley whispered quietly looking down at her lap. She raised her eyes to his. “I don’t know how I can repay you.”

  “I do, Hal. You can marry me. I want you to be my wife.”

  “Are you serious?” Harley asked, scrunching her eyes and pulling one hand free so she could rub her forehead as though she had a sudden migraine. “No, Arian. I mean, it’s been so long and…”

  “Too long,” Arian interrupted. “I should have married you ages ago and then maybe you wouldn’t have run away from me. But I am going to marry you now. Come on, Hal. We’d planned to marry before. I didn’t change my mind. Did you? Really? I don’t believe you did. I still believe we belong together. Tell me you don’t still love me, Hal. Can you?”

  Harley opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She reached up to touch his face. Ran her finger down his cheek. Reached up again to touch that funny wiry hair. Outlined the curve of his ear. He trembled under her touch.