by Falon Gold
“Was it that bad working in your hometown?” I know the answer, but I continue with the idle chitchat, or I’m going to fuck her and me both senseless. How she feels about her history with her job in her hometown is floating in her face, and she isn’t fond of reminiscing about it, but dropping the lines of communication could be disastrous for me who’s barely in control of my libido.
“That station is a breeding ground for little bigots in training, with no room for moving up for me and one other Caucasian female deputy, so I started searching for other jobs on the internet. Took me five years to find Arrow on a website for officers seeking employment outside of… my state with equal pay. Councilman Alder contacted me personally soon afterwards, asked me why I wanted to leave my job and where did I see myself in five years. Thankfully, my truth was what he was looking for out of thousands of applicants; experienced, clean, not looking for any handouts or hands up, and willing to start at the bottom of the pecking order again. He asked if I could transfer immediately, I screamed ‘hell yeah, I could be in Arrow that night’ in his ear. He laughed his ass off while telling me that I should take time to settle my affairs and be in Arrow in two weeks. It was too damn long for me. I despised my superiors and most of my co-workers, all diehard chauvinist pigs of course.”
She tips her head back, and smiles. “And then, I was standing in your Sheriff’s Department. I thought you were going to be the same as my friend’s father at first, after the way you reacted to my showing up for work, but you turned out to be so much more than I expected. I was in love with you by the end of my first month here.”
A mental picture pops up of me slamming an office door then snatching up a desk phone with several little plastic slots marked with names beginning with Council Member written before each one. Alder is probably the first one I called.
Apparently, I didn’t want Astrid working for me either, and no one has to insinuate or hope I recall the reason why—I knew my heart was in trouble the minute I laid eyes on her, and it happened all over again when she walked into my room.
“Do you know I’ve fallen for you twice, Astrid?”
Her chin wobbles. A glistening develops around her pupils.
“Alright, guys,” Sasha says before entering. “Only one patient is getting to ride this bed while I’m driving. Little lady, you’ll be walking for insurance reasons. You’re not covered by it.”
Sasha arrives too soon, but having a door with a lock and four walls are worth her invasion.
Chapter Twelve
Blake
“Sweetheart, let me help you down.”
Sasha waits stoically for Astrid and me to work together, getting her feet on the floor. When it’s just my fingers intertwined with Astrid’s, Sasha disappears behind my head and maneuvers the bed toward the hallway. Astrid keeps up with Sasha’s ridiculous pace with no problem. I’d ask Astrid to finish her story, but I’m sure it gets X-rated from her stopping point, and may be too much for Sasha’s ears.
We turn a corner, my eyes never leaving Astrid’s. Sasha stops and sidesteps to open a door. Astrid’s fingers unlace with mine so Sasha can control the direction of the bed until it’s in its last resting place in a room much like the makeshift one I just left; simple with an armchair, a muted television mounted high on the opposite wall, rolling table, and a partially cracked door to the bathroom.
“Sheriff Powers, a nurse will be back in a couple hours to check your vitals. The bathroom is connected to another patient’s room. Lock both doors before you use it. I’m sure you’d prefer a suite, but they’re all booked up and no one requested that we switch you out with another patient, so you’re stuck in this one.”
“That’s fine,” I comment blandly, not looking for special treatment, just more privacy than what I had.
She smirks. “Please be fully dressed when the nurse makes her rounds at ten, and that goes for the both of you. Get some rest, Mr. Powers. Those pain meds are going to wear off soon and you don’t want it to be in the middle of… us changing shifts when they do.” Sasha walks out without a backwards glance, closing the door softly behind her after turning the sconces on the wall off. Tendrils of light slink around the bottom of the bathroom’s door.
Astrid and I look at each other. “She is no fool,” she says dryly, her humor evident in her eyes, along with the glare from the television.
“Right, now come lay beside me again before she comes back.” I pat the empty side of the bed.
Astrid reaches for my hand then climbs up beside me, lying on her back. Instantly, my hand nests on her stomach that seems to be roiling towards me, while I post up on my forearm. Astrid isn’t taking up even half of the mattress, but I still scoot over.
“And you wonder why we’re always in making love in semi-public places, Blake. Your hands are always on me. Yeah, no, I shouldn’t have told you that either.”
“Yeah, no you shouldn’t have,” I mimic. “Now, I know it’s okay to touch you when I want to, and there’s a good chance you won’t mind.”
“I never mind, Blake.” Then her waist swells out between us from an overly active baby.
“What the hell is he doing?” I ask, amazed by the rippling movements under her flesh that cements the baby’s presence, even when he’s not quite in this world yet.
Astrid’s chin drops. “Getting close to his father. He’s been doing it since we met up today. Keeping track of you, I would say.”
In awe of my son’s intelligence even in the womb, it’s impossible not to tip over and kiss Astrid softly, thanking her for her part in his growth and keeping him protected, literally, with her body. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable that gets at time.
“Thank you,” I say against her lips.
Phantom fingers skim my nape, walking through my hair, making me shiver.
“No, thank you, Blake. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have him.”
“If it wasn’t for us, Astrid. We couldn’t have done this by ourselves, but he won’t make it to air without you. I don’t need my memories to know who does the most sacrificing to give a child life. And I don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that we split at some point, but you had to be willing to see me again for this family to be together right now. I’m sorry for whatever it is that I did to—”
One finger lays across my lips, silencing me, then falls away. “Who said you get all the blame, Blake?”
“I had to have done something to make you leave me.”
“It’s not what you did, and technically, I didn’t leave you. We weren’t together in the boyfriend girlfriend sense when I went home. I just moved away. Whatever we had back then, and I still don’t have a name for it, didn’t work out because of what we didn’t do. I didn’t ask for more from you like I should’ve, and you didn’t tell me things about you that I should’ve known. It doesn’t have anything to do with me and everything to do with… Shit! That’s too much info, I think. I don’t know. I just want you to know that I hold no grudges about our time before. We didn’t start out like we should’ve, so we couldn’t go on like most couples would’ve after making a baby together. I admit that there were some issues between us. However, I got a feeling that you’re about to fix what’s broken on your end permanently, Blake. I just don’t like how you’re going to do it. It’s not about me trusting you but the people who created you. You promised to do something about them before your accident. That was good enough for me. I couldn’t ask for more after I didn’t push for you to open up to me before I left, without leaving you at least a Dear John letter. I take the blame for how we ended up after I found out I was pregnant. Even with your injury, you’re still trying to fix what was wrong between us. No, you fixed us. You’re trying to fix what’s wrong with your… Dammit, this is so hard. I just…” She looks away.
Distance and sadness bogarts their way between us. I can’t stomach it, so I alternate her chin back to where it was.
“You just what, love?” I ask, when she’s looking at me again
.
“You can’t trust your parents,” her voice lowers several octaves as if we’re plotting a crime. “Nothing they say will be the truth. Well, probably ninety-nine percent of it won’t be, and I should admit that I don’t know them from a hill of beans—”
“Neither do I,” I quip then chuckle.
She slaps me across the chest gently and represses another smile. “Dammit, Blake! I’m serious. I know I’m not supposed to even give you hints about your former—”
“But you’ve been doing it the whole while, so I can guess that you’re more afraid than you’re letting show, and you shouldn’t be.”
“Maybe not but I am anyway. You’re everything to me and baby Blake as you can see, and we don’t want to lose you. I can share you with your parents, but they’re not going to play fair.”
“Thank you for telling me that, but I need you to let me cut the poison out of our lives, and…” I vacillate, bobbing my head from side to side. “I really want to know what are they’re up to and why I think Dr. Owens and Lydia are better suited as parents to me, and why my mother reminds me of a reptile. I’ve been thinking of her as Dragon lady.”
Astrid barks with laughter. “Your instincts are sharp even if your memory is spotty.”
The full wattage of her mirth is brighter than any sun. Her happiness and baby Blake’s are my sole reasons for living, and I’ll knock down any obstacles that stand in the way of it. Talking about my parents isn’t going to distract Astrid from her worries though. Focusing on what I’m doing to her body is what I want from her until tomorrow evening.
“I promise you, Astrid, that I’ll come back to you as soon as my parents show their hands tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe they’ll have a change of heart and decide that they want their grandson in their lives. Maybe they won’t. We’ll be fine either way.”
“You already made me that promise today.” Her eyes swoop down to my mouth. “You don’t remember that though, do you?” The air gets dense and hard to inhale, and I’m walking the lip of a chasm. The lost parts of my mind have put me there.
Dammit, why am I only getting bits and pieces?
Hopefully, in time, I’ll have them all and put together properly. Not being able to now is the equivalent of failing Astrid, and I’ve already made that mistake.
I shake my head, responding to her and clearing it of thoughts that won’t benefit me. “But I know I meant it both times.”
“I know,” she says before her thumbs contort my chin downward.
********
Astrid
Blake has been giving me mild, infuriating kisses since the day he informed me that my uniform and perfume have been turning him inside out for months. That’s also the day I made my first mistake with him; I took his body instead of asking where would our relationship go from there. Ending up in a rip tide of what I thought would be just a casual fling for him, impossible to escape unless I swam with the current in a diagonal direction, methodically working my way back to the safety of land. I had a pretty damn good excuse why swept his desk clear with one hand first, then plant my bare ass in the middle of it after he came clean with me about his feelings. I slowly lose my mind anytime I’m in his company. That’s why I jumped headfirst into his ocean without checking the depths.
He’s been afraid I’ll shatter when making love ever since, no matter how many times I tell him that I’m not fragile. Rough is good for the greedy woman he turns me into whenever he makes me wait to have him, and yes, I’ve tried to devour him a time or two... hundred. Tonight will be no different, and I always start with his mouth, after rolling him onto his back. Engaging in warfare with his tongue satisfies some of the yearning for him that builds until it sits like boulders on my nerve-endings.
He groans, as usual when I give him hostile kisses. Tenderly nipping at his lips. Sipping from the tip of his tongue and drawing circles around it with mine, completing the first step into coercing him into using his body to fuck me mindless. There is nothing soft about him. Constantly flexing muscles mold his physique like expertly laid bricks, but he’s steadfast about being gentle with me. As much as I love his protective nature, it only makes me half savage. I want him out of control, holding tightly onto me as his anchor.
I halt the kissing to crawl down the outside of his body, and drive his blood to the surface of his neck with the suction from my mouth. Tickling his ear with my shallow exhales. Drawing lazy figure eights around his nipples until his hands are fisting my hair and cursing low in his throat. I move south, with the bed creaking under my movements, and smile against the indentations and valleys of his torso. Nowhere near the beast mode I’m trying to coax out of him, Blake relaxes, with his bent elbow cuddling his head. Stubborn man. Every one of them has a breaking point. It’s a little further down, lounging on the fifth and sixth stump of his eight-pack.
I tug his gown out of the way to get to his manhood. Angry veins pucker beneath the surface. Angling my head and relocating my knees between his legs, I slurp at the head of his shaft, ingesting a tiny bead of his salty pleasure. Blake’s hips jet upwards, feeding me more of his length, belting the back of my throat, his nails suddenly scratching at my scalp. It’s a pity he’ll let me savor him a minute or two longer before he reminds himself that I haven’t cum first. A gentleman in just about everything he does.
“Shit, Astrid, up and off.” And there it is. “Bend over the chair against the wall.”
With his wrists grazing the outside of my breasts, I back off the bed. Barefoot, I pad to the oversized wingback with scroll arms. He stalks to the door, activating the lock, while I assume the position. The second I shut my eyes, he’s frisking the backs of my thighs, squatting naked behind me. Although startling the hell out of me, my core knows it’s him, grinding on itself, more than ready for what comes next.
“God, Blake! You’re too damn stealthy!”
He laughs low, arrogantly. “And you’re going to have to be quieter like a cat too, love.”
“Not possible with you.”
Fingertips slip under the thin strings of my nude-colored panties then pause. “Why do I keep recalling a janitor’s closet, Astrid?” Another flashback. Good. He’ll be back to his old self in no time at this rate.
“There’s one at the Sheriff’s department, next to your office.”
“Did we sleep together there?” Many, many times.
I peek over my shoulder. “You tell me, big boy.” I’ll sabotage the Powers all day long to prevent their puppeteering of their son, but I want him to recount our history on his own, or being with him will seem counterfeit to me. That’ll break my heart.
He raises an eyebrow, purses his lips, and stands up, already aware of when I’m taunting him. Detests things being withheld from him. I do it often, just so he’ll exact a cost that I’m only willing to pay my way.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
I face the wall. “Nope. What we have will be real to you, even if I have to torture you with evading your questions the whole time we’re together, Blake.”
“Suit yourself,” he says too damn nonchalantly.
Oh shit!
The tearing of my panties assaults the quiet, the twenty-third pair he’s destroyed. A moan rents the air for space. Yep, that would be me, and I’ll only get louder.
Blake fondles the entrance to my body with his tip. “So fucking wet.” Then he plows into me, up to the hilt, and stalls out, needing more space than my body has.
“Oh shit!” My locked knees wobble, stomach curdles, and lungs contract under his carnal attack, contradicting my love for the barbaric manner he’s quite capable of when I can strip him of his gentleness. I never said I could handle him when he’s like this though, just enslaved to the extreme satisfaction his undisciplined behavior dishes out.
“Astrid, you’ve got to be quiet, baby.”
“Blake,” I pant, “you’re impaling my ribcage, asking for the impossible, and don’t you dare stop again.”
“What about the baby? I don’t want to hurt him.”
Lord have mercy.
“He’s fine, sweetheart. That’s what my womb is for. I may even need you to kick off my labor if I go past my due date on the 30th of next month, so don’t chicken out on me. I promise having sex is more than okay while I’m pregnant. Consult my doctor if you don’t believe me, but do it tomorrow. Right now, I need you. I’ll even be quiet.” Not. But what’s a little white lie going to hurt? He’ll check any fuss I make himself anyway.
When he doesn’t continue making love to me, I glimpse at him who’s imitating a Greek statue behind me, beautifully sculptured and immovable.
Alright then, I’ll take matters into my own hips.
After closing my legs, forcing him to widen his, I reverse bounce off his washboard abs. Euphoric sensations begin to bombard me and apply pressure to the most sensitive areas, uncaring that I’m currently filled with lust. Too much stimulation and I’ll climax. Not yet. He’s still in control somehow.
My walls clamp down on his shaft like vice grips and drag along the base of it. He clutches at my expanded waist and slings his head back. His jaw develops a tick, muscles strain, color of his skin changing to the rosy hue that betrays his mindset; he’s already in paradise. No beaches, waterfalls, horizons, or sea waves roiling on and off the sand are needed for us. It’s almost perverted how much enjoyment I’m getting out of watching the crumbling of his bullheadness.
Doesn’t matter where I’m at with him, Heaven tracks me down. I always forget to account for the boomerang effects of my own bedroom tricks. On the verge of succumbing to them before him, I have to gnaw on the inside of my cheek to hush myself. The lace of pain from my teeth only provokes the pent-up orgasm. It goes berserk, pummeling my soft tissue crammed with Blake, adamant about being unleashed. I clench every muscle I have and the frame of the chair, determined to outlast Blake.
