by Ella Brooke
“She seemed like the kind to be savvy about these things.” Sugar, for once, smiled. “I’ll text you the details for the party. Dress your girl up to the nines, and I’ll set it up so we all go together.”
Louis sat for a moment, stunned at how quickly Sugar had come up with a plan to checkmate these basic news grubbers. She wouldn’t have been a bad partner in politics . . . if Louis had any interest in helping facilitate the Critonian tapestry market, which he did not.
“I have to thank you for this. I know our relationship has been . . . fraught, to say the least.”
“I get it. You’re just trying to protect her.” Sugar shook her head. “I guess you found a reason really quick not to marry me. You must care a lot about her. All I ever heard about you was what an accomplished musician you were, and how many women you’d screwed across God’s green Earth.”
“She’s special.” Louis shrugged. “I suppose most women are special to someone, but she’s special to me, and moreover, I’m worth more to her than a good night or a land deal. I mean, I believe I am.”
“Aw! I’m sure you are!” Karre looked to Sugar and took her hand. Clearly, the woman was finding his feelings about May adorable. And it was kind, if a bit patronizing.
“Have some tea,” Sugar said in a flat voice. “I’m told it calms your nerves. Which you may need before you explain all of this to her.”
Louis wished he could say that May’s expression when she entered the suite that morning after getting off a long shift at Astra’s was full of glowing wonderment and happiness. She looked, however, in order: exhausted, annoyed, and confused.
The stores that Louis had contacted had several selections sent up in her size so she could find something for the party without the unnecessary back and forth about his paying. She’d fought him a bit on the last one, and he couldn’t understand that point of pride. If Louis was going to take her to an event like this, it only made sense that he should facilitate their going. He came up to her, where she was standing with her arms crossed and shifting a little as though her feet were hurting her. He would have pressed the issue of her working so much when he could take over her rent for the apartment where she was very much not sleeping, if he weren’t sure she were too stubborn to quit.
“Just try on a few. I have some, er, things to share with you,” he said.
May narrowed her eyes and shifted her bag on her shoulder. “Okay. But give me a few minutes first.”
Louis lingered by the dresses while he waited. When she didn’t return immediately, he went into the kitchen to set out some food for her that he had ordered and kept covered for her. The wine he selected carefully, and he opened it up to let it breathe before they drank it.
He was thinking of going in to check on May when she returned, her hair loose and her eyes a little red. Had she been crying? Louis crossed the room quickly and took her hand.
“What is it, darling? Are you upset about the dresses? Did you— I only found out a few hours ago myself, but we do have a plan, if you’ll let me explain.”
“You have a plan?” May sniffled and rested a hand over her stomach. “How did you find out a few hours ago? I found out just now.”
“I didn’t intend for this to happen. You have to believe me on that.”
“I don’t know why you would. It’s probably the last thing you want.” May sighed and pulled away from him. She sank into a nearby chair and twisted her fingers. “I don’t know. I just . . . I swear, I was wearing my patch the whole time. I need to talk to my doctor about what happened. Maybe it slipped? Or I got a bad batch? I’m not some crazy gold-digger, I swear.”
Louis hesitated. He tilted his head to the side, trying to parse her words.
“I don’t understand the dresses. Are we going somewhere?” May asked.
“I admit, I’m a bit confused.” Louis came over and sat in a chair near to her. “These are for a party Sugar DeLaude has been invited to, and she wanted you and me to come with her. We plan to cut off all that bad press.”
“Press? About . . . her? Or . . .” May’s face froze. “Me? What does it say about me?”
“Not much, yet.” Louis reached over and touched her knee. “We’re talking past each other here. What are you talking about, love? I’m dealing with a tabloid problem. What’s got you so upset?”
May’s eyes widened, then she looked away and covered her mouth. Louis waited for her answer patiently as she swallowed and breathed deeply, trying to find the words. He couldn’t imagine what could be so horrible, but then she finally lifted her head, lower lip trembling slightly, and managed:
“I’m pregnant.”
Louis could have sworn that he temporarily went blind and deaf. May said absolutely nothing for a moment, but then started speaking again, shaking her head, with tears starting to come down. And he heard not a word of it. His brain didn’t register a sight or sound. His delightful, practical, generous little May . . . pregnant.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice hollow and completely without strength behind it.
“I think so. I need to go to the doctor to get it confirmed.” May shrugged. “I just took a test in there. It’s supposed to be accurate.”
“Ah.” Louis nodded a few times.
“Again, I’m willing to listen to what you want to do, but if you don’t want to be—”
Without thinking, he was on his feet, sweeping her into his arms, and holding her as tightly as he dared. She chuckled softly and hugged him back, hard. A soft sob escaped from her, and he kissed her cheek. Then, he pulled back a little and kissed her lips, and then her forehead.
So many emotions warred throughout him. Louis couldn’t say which would win.
Chapter Ten
May
“You’re pregnant.”
“Yeah,” May breathed.
Louis was looking into her wide, wet eyes like she was some kind of miracle, rather than being his soggy maid whose eyes and nose were red from crying. She didn’t know why she had cried so hard when she’d seen that silly pink plus sign. Maybe because she’d been a tightly wound thread all day, thinking about what would happen if she was, and how Louis would react. Anger, maybe. Shock. As it was, it seemed he was stuck between budding happiness and complete bafflement.
May let him slowly move his hand down her abdomen, although there was nothing to feel yet. She could only be eight or nine weeks, including the “dead air” of the pregnancy timeline that occurred before actual conception. She’d been Googling on her break to refresh her memory on that point.
“So, I can probably still fit some pretty dresses, but depending on when this thing is, um, I don’t know how snug I’d be interested in going?” She watched him and the reverent expression on his face. She’d broken a prince. “I was just wondering, how long are you planning on staying in L.A.? I know you have your family to think about—”
Louis rose and kissed her lips again. Cupping her face with both hands, he pressed her forehead to hers. “You’re keeping it?”
“I’m not as conservative as my family, but I really wouldn’t want to get rid of it unless I were dying or something.”
“Then, I’m just going to have to stay where you two are.”
“I didn’t think you even liked kids.”
“I’m not against their existence. I might not spend much time with my nephews, but I also haven’t spent a much time at home in years.”
“And this doesn’t throw a wrench in what your family expects of you?”
He put his arms around her again and breathed into her neck. She stroked the back of his neck, and the tight string that had been her nerves all day loosened.
“I can’t please everyone.”
May couldn’t help but smile. She was smiling so hard her cheeks began to smart. “Okay. Then, you’ve decided you’ll please me, instead of them?”
“If they want me to marry some woman who is clearly a lesbian instead of being with the woman I love and our child, my family is misguid
ed and needs a considerable amount of correction.” Louis began unbuttoning her blouse. “But, as you say, I suppose I have decided that I’m going to please you.”
May licked her lips as he pushed her blouse back over her shoulders. His eyes took her in hungrily, watching her breasts rise and fall in her push-up bra that was getting a bit too tight. She reached behind her and unfastened the clasp, letting out a sigh of relief as her breasts hung free. Louis cupped her right breast and placed a gentle kiss above her nipple and looked up at her to see her reaction. She could only imagine what things would be like in the months to come, but he was already the most attentive lover she’d ever had. If he was okay with this, then surely, they had a shot to make this last.
“Let me know if anything hurts,” Louis urged before he continued touching her breasts. He was a worshiper of the female form, for certain. His hands moved over her sides and rested on the small of her back.
As she unbuttoned the front of her shorts, she could already feel a throbbing between her legs. She pressed her body flush against his as they kissed. Louis’s hand moved up and down her back while their lips met again and again. The heat rose between them, and May shuddered from his touch. He shucked off his jacket, and she unbuttoned his shirt as they made their way to the bedroom. Once there, he grabbed her ass and lifted her up onto the bed. Louis dragged her shorts off, and she trailed a hand over her abdomen, looking up at him with her cheeks burning and her body practically aching for more touch.
“Please,” she muttered, reaching for him with her other hand.
Louis shed the rest of his clothes and came up to her on the bed, looking down on her fondly. He rested his hand with hers on her stomach as he kissed her. His hands slipped between her legs to the tender flesh there, and almost before he’d begun rubbing there, May could feel herself growing slicker and more ready. Her body was craving him, like it might chocolate-cherry ice cream or French fries in ranch sauce. He stroked the sides of her mound, and she reached forward to return the favor. He was half-erect already, but her fingertips moving up and down his shaft brought him fully to life, and she cupped the side of his face as she guided his length inside of her.
With a groan as his girth spread her swollen opening wider, her fingers curled around the back of his dark hair, and their eyes met again. He stroked her cheek with his thumb as he slowly, slowly pushed inside her. May lifted one leg and curled it around his, holding on tightly and angling her hips upward to receive him in full. A frown wrinkled Louis’s forehead as he rolled his hips in deliberate thrusts, teasing her sensitive tissues that began to twitch as they yearned for more, harder, and faster.
May held out as long as she could. He was whipping her up to a prime froth, and by the time he began to move faster, she was writing and moaning beneath him. Her body surged up toward him, their hips meeting as they moved together again and again. She could feel her orgasm building inside of her, but stubbornly refusing to crest into a full wave of pleasure rushing over her.
“Look at that little frown,” Louis teased.
“Don’t stop!”
“Tell me what you need, love.”
“I, uh, har-harder. And to the right a little?”
Louis complied and reached between them to apply his crafty hands to her intractable problem down there. May heard herself gasping, a little too loudly, with each breath, and clutched his left ass cheek hard as the little shocks of pleasure began to rise, rise, rise . . .
“Ahhh!” May screamed out, feeling the release washing over very part of her. White hot ecstasy between her legs and a flood of hormones filled her other extremities, leaving her both sated and limp.
Louis continued to grunt for several moments, closing his eyes as he focused. She idly massaged his muscular ass, until he came, jerking his hips forward and bowing his head as though he were about to pray. May kissed his head and petted the back of his hair and neck as he did so. Finally, he lay spent beside her, and the two of them stared into one another’s eyes.
“If it’s any consolation,” May murmured, “I am one very pleased woman.”
“It is. I have to say, most of my youth was spent with little pride other than how often I could make a woman cum.”
May laughed. “Dude, gross. Plus, you have lots of other qualities. You’re sweet. And you can cook better than I can. And you’re so good at music. Give yourself some credit.”
“Perhaps.” Louis rested his head on her shoulder, and she continued to pet him adoringly. “I know we haven’t been together long, but . . . I’ve never felt this way about a woman. I’ve never been quite so captivated by anyone. Maybe this was an accident, but . . .” Louis rubbed his thumb over the area just below her navel. “It wasn’t a mistake, by any means, don’t you think? In my whole life, I’ve only once fought for what I wanted. Now, I have a real reason. A most spectacular one.”
“Do you really mean that? We’ve only had a month together.” May didn’t want to be so clingy, but suddenly, the future had become something threatening. Losing him would be more than losing some flaky young man who had given her a night of empty pleasure. It would be losing the father of her child. I would be losing the man she . . .“I think I love you, too.”
“Then, we have, what? Eight months for you to be sure?”
May rolled on her side and curled into him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No, you have every reason to want to hold back. And to be fair, I’ve been in love with you for some time now.” Louis trailed the back of his fingers against the back of her cheek. “Some of us simply fall faster.”
“What do we do now?” May asked.
“Well. I’m going to get a cloth so we can clean up. Also, I have dinner which must be cooling by now, and I’m going to bring it in here, and we can talk about what you want the next eight months to look like.” Louis kissed her nose and got up. “If you have the energy later, we can have you try on some dresses and pick a few you might be interested in wearing to a party where you get to meet everyone in the business that Sugar knows.”
May’s brows shot up. She’d been so worried about this earlier that what he’d been suggesting hadn’t truly sunk in. “Why would she do that for me?”
“I imagine because we’re trying to slip ahead of a brewing scandal that I’m cheating on her with you. She’s quite clever.” Louis looked up pensively. “Now that I think of it, she was a handful in school. For the teachers, anyway. Always ahead of the lesson, correcting the book, tricking the staff.”
“I did enjoy talking to her. She’s not at all what I expected of a burgeoning superstar.” May rested her head on her arm. “You really would never be interested in her? She has legs up to her neck and hair of spun gold.”
“Ignoring that bizarre image for a moment, I greatly prefer adorable women like you who actually like me.”
“So basically, you like me better because I was a ho up in the lounge,” May joked.
“If your birth control patches are faulty, you shouldn’t knock the lounge. It’s possibly where we created our tenacious little critter.”
“Critter. Oh, god, please don’t start calling them that.”
Louis winked and headed out of the room.
May looked down at herself, trying to imagine what the next few months would be like. She’d never thought too much about being pregnant, although children as an abstract concept had been something she’d hoped would be in her future. The thought made her nervous, but there was nothing to be done now. When Louis returned with a wet-wipe, the two of them cleaned up and she slipped into a big T-shirt and fresh panties. Then, together, they went out to have the diner he’d set out.
“I’m in for a trying few months,” May mused to herself. “My mom is as petite as I am, and in the pictures we have of her from before, she kind of looks like she swallowed a beach ball.”
Louis nearly choked on his water laughing.
“You laugh now, but wait until you’re carrying me around this penthouse suite,�
�� May joked. “Considering how stupidly tall you are? I’m going to suffer, Mr. six-three.
“Lucky for you, I’m quite strong. I can carry you, if I must.” Louis took her hand and smiled almost dizzily. “I’ll give you everything if you let me.”
May blushed. “Now you’re giving me a toothache.”
Louis waggled his brows.
“You just want to spend the next few months making fun of me,” May accused jokingly.
“It’s probably the only time I’m going to be able to give as good as I get on that account. You make fun of me all the time!”
“Someone has to keep your feet on the ground.”
“True enough.” Louis took a long sip of his wine and sighed.
May took the water that Louis had set out for her and did the same. He looked so happy. Of all the responses he could have had to this, I-love-yous and declaring he’d stay with her, and all that—it seemed almost too good to be true.
Chapter Eleven
Louis
During his late teens and early twenties, Louis had been to dozens of galas with dozens of different women on his arm. None had excited him as much as going out with May. Watching her face as she spotted people in the industry, hearing her running commentary . . . really, there was nothing he liked better in life than just listening to her talk about things. It didn’t matter whether she was making trenchant commentary of the movie industry or talking smack about people or giving him what he was rapidly beginning to think of as “Prince Pep Talks.”
He was interested.
Now, of course, those talks were now starting to be interwoven with talk about her nerves about the baby. It was so early, but this had caught May so off-guard. It had caught Louis off-guard as well, but he had the benefit of not having the child inside him, for which he was increasingly grateful. As it turned out, once she went to her gynecologist, she was told her migraine medication was known to interfere with birth control, and her primary doctor who had prescribed the medication hadn’t thought to mention that particular problem. The doctor had prescribed her a safer medication to take during her pregnancy and, to Louis’s smug approval, encouraged May to drop one of her jobs pretty soon.
