TWENTY
Donovan
Donovan spent New Year’s painting Vaughn and Mollie’s new living room. Their new place was older, a small Victorian about sixty years old that would be nice once they tackled the damage. He was there because of Layla. She had told him she would be spending New Year’s with her friends, at a paint party instead of a bar. Work that would distract her instead of fun that put off the reality she was facing. He knew he’d go wherever she was and so he’d tagged along, ignoring how cool her friends were to him, hoping that one day they’d stop treating him like he was a disgusting asshole for getting Layla pregnant.
“Want another beer, Donley?” Autumn had asked, but just after he nodded his thanks, the redhead took the cold bottle away. “You know what? You don’t need one. If Layla can’t drink then neither can you.”
“McShane…” But the snap of Autumn’s sneer flashed toward Declan had the Irishman retreating, pretending to be focused on the bare trim he’d been painting. Later, when Autumn had left the living room and Donovan and Declan were alone, his best friend shrugged, told him, “Give them time, mate. They’ll come ‘round.”
Donovan didn’t care if they did. He was the asshole who’d knocked up Layla. He’d take their snippy comments and glares just to be around Layla. Just to make sure she was safe.
She was carrying his baby. The baby, he corrected himself. Sometimes she called it a baby. Most of the time, she called it… just that, ‘it.’ She wasn’t being hateful. She just didn’t want to get attached and he followed her lead. The pregnancy was confirmed a few days into the new year and it was three more weeks after that before Layla would allow her mother to visit her.
“My poor baby,” Dr. Mullens had said the second she entered Donovan’s living room and spotted Layla on the sofa bundled up under a thick throw. The morning sickness had been God awful with far too many moans of “Donovan, for the love of all that is holy… call a priest. I need an exorcism” from Layla. The afternoon her mother arrived, three weeks after she’d first come to live with him, had been the first time Layla was able to move from the bedroom without wanting to vomit.
Dr. Mullens had been apologetic, pleading with Layla, saying things like “I was just shocked” and “Oh, sweetie, I’m such an emotional idiot,” and when both women starting crying about the situation, about Cavanagh’s loss to Milford United, hell even about the damn death of the oldest lion living at the Knoxville Zoo, Donovan left them alone, only catching hushed words of apology and the sounds of Layla and her mother sniffling together on his sofa. Meara Mullins had been cautious with Layla, but still very sweet, and blessedly understanding when Layla told her that they’d planned to give the baby away. Little Rhea’s worsening health and her parents’ devastation had made Layla determined to heal another broken family. She wanted someone else to lavish their baby with the love she and Donovan didn’t seem ready to give.
“Whatever you want, honey,” Dr. Mullens had told Layla, and Donovan took the words as he heard them, sitting on his bed, staring down at hands, wondering why he couldn’t keep them still. “I’ll support you in whatever you decide.”
Donovan wished the same words could come so easily for him. But so far he hadn’t agreed to anything. He’d let Layla take the lead, make the decisions for them because he didn’t have the nerve to ask more from her. He’d already done so many pathetic things to her. He’d caused so much pain.
So he’d listen to Layla talk about interviewing adoptive parents. He listened to her talk about the plans she made for after the birth, when their lives were their own again, and still Donovan remained silent.
He remained alone.
The only time Donovan spoke up, at least initially, is when the mood swings became a threat. Well, a threat to his sanity anyway. He was simple. Donovan knew Layla’s hormones were taking her emotions and her logic for a long, dipping twirl around a roller coaster of crazy, then straight up to normal-for-Layla.
“You did it again. A-freakin-gain, Donley!”
That loud screech had come from Layla at two a.m. as she stood over the couch that now doubled as his bed waving an empty toilet paper roll in his face.
“Layla, what the hell?” Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say, because the insane woman grunted, then proceeded to thump Donovan on his head with the cardboard roll over and over again, screeching out “It takes two seconds!” and “Laziest fucker ever!” before he was able to escape her wraith by darting from the sofa.
“Here! See? I did it. Please calm down!” he’d said, pulling her into the bathroom to see he’d replace the paper. “I’m sorry! Wait…” the instant well of irritation he’d felt at being abruptly awakened deflated when Layla slumped to the floor and started crying. “Hey, no, please don’t cry.”
“I… I woke you up for this?” The empty roll landed in the shower when she flung it across the bathroom. “I am losing my fucking mind!”
“Nah, brat,” he told her, sliding next to her against the cabinet, “you never had it, remember?” Donovan only relaxed when his stupid joke made her smile and then she let him bring her back to bed, tuck her in and they spent the next half hour discussing the finer points of biscuit making—of which he had zero clue and she, so she swore, was an expert.
That night, they’d stayed up until four, covered in flour with Donovan trying his best not to nod off as she taught him to cook biscuits. She’d bump against him, her nipples hard, brushing his bare arms, as she stretched for a bowl or a bag of flour and it had left Donovan more frustrated, more exhausted than he’d been in weeks.
They weren’t sleeping together. The pregnancy, the awkwardness, it was too much and they moved around that apartment, interacted with each other as roommates—two scared kids that had no clue what they wanted. Layla moved into Donovan’s room and Donovan tried to manage in the room Jeff finally abandoned. But no matter how much he cleaned or had professionals clean, he couldn’t get the Jeff stench out of the walls. That dude had been disgusting.
So most nights Donovan slept on the sofa, wanting to give Layla her space, trying to make her comfortable. But many nights after she went to sleep, Donovan snuck into his old bedroom. He’d grab a shirt from his dresser, hold it in his hands in case she woke, in case she wanted to know why he sat next to her, watching her sleep.
Often, she cried herself to sleep. She was still scared, still worried that her life would never be the same. That her father would never speak to her again. Her mother assured her that he would get over his anger, that he couldn’t stay angry with her or Donovan forever and even though he’d allowed Donovan to stay on the squad, he’d made his life a living hell.
“Donley!” Coach would scream and Donovan would wait for whatever menial thing Mullens had for him. “Sweep the pitch.” And he did, tidying and sweeping and clearing over 120 meters of the pitch as Coach Mullens watched him, silently snarling or glaring at Donovan as he moved up and down the field. Every single night. Declan had tried helping him for a little while, but then the coach caught him, threatened to strip him of his captain position, and Donovan had told his best friend he could manage on his own. Mullens only spoke to Donovan when he needed to bark orders at him or wanted to tell him why he sucked as a player. Other than that, their practices were strained, the matches ridiculously awkward. They’d managed to win their conference despite one late match loss, but even Layla being there, her skin bright and glowing, hadn’t dimmed Mullens’ anger.
Tonight’s practice had been the worst, though and Donovan entered his apartment feeling disgusting, likely reeking of funk as he dropped his bag and shoes on the floor next to the door.
One look at him and the smile of greeting on Layla’s face vanished. “What’s wrong?” She rushed from the sofa and met him in the middle of the living room. “Did you get hurt?”
“Just my pride.”
Layla frowned, though Donovan thought that after almost a month of her father’s torture she should have expected him to be exhausted and an utter mess after practice. “What did he make you do?”
He landed on the sofa in a flop, sliding against the leather so that his head rested against the back cushion. “Scrub the toilets in the locker rooms…”
“Well that’s not so bad.”
“And the rest of the stadium.”
“Shit.” She sat on arm of the couch, rested her hand on his bare arm and Donovan closed his eyes, forgetting for a second that he was dog tired, that her father was punishing him for destroying his daughter’s life. For almost a month he’d forced himself to ignore her touch, the small grazes of her fingers on his shoulder, across his back when she passed him or reached for something in the cabinets as they cooked together in the kitchen.
The vibe, that energy between them had not died, but Donovan didn’t know how to act around her. He didn’t know if he deserved to touch her after ruining her life. He wanted her so much. He wanted her to let him touch her. He wanted to kiss her and hold her or do something that would relieve at least a little of the suffocating tension between them.
It didn’t help that Layla, already flawlessly gorgeous to him, was becoming even more tempting as the pregnancy progressed. Donovan had never been around a pregnant woman before. He’d heard horror stories his mother and her friends shared about their deliveries when he was a kid and always thought pregnant women were never to be looked at, much less touched. But three months in and Layla’s pregnancy had made her breasts fuller. It had rounded her hips, made her already plump ass even curvier.
Her sitting next to him, wearing her tight yoga pants and a snug t-shirt that just weeks before had fit across her tits loosely, had him grabbing a pillow to hold it over his lap. He already stunk. He didn’t want her remembering what a pervert he was too.
“I’ll survive,” he told her, trying not to focus on the squeeze of her fingers against his arm and when he looked up at her, catching the sight of her breasts, lowering his gaze at her stomach, Donovan couldn’t keep himself from reaching for her, resting his hand on her thigh as he looked at her hips.
“What?” she said when he shifted his eyes from her stomach, to her face and back down again.
Donovan kept his gaze on her face wondering if it was okay to touch her, thinking that maybe he didn’t have the right, but then Layla smiled, curious and he laid his palm just below her navel. “You’re getting a pooch.”
The second she slapped his hand away, he knew he’d fucked up. “It happens, Donley. I’m pregnant. I’m not going to stay a size four.”
“Layla…” but she slammed into the bedroom cutting him off before he could explain himself. I suck at words. All of them, he thought, resting his arm over his face. The mood swings. Jesus that was something else no one ever told Donovan about. Being around Layla was as close as Donovan would ever come to being in the thick of a mine field. Sensitive, dangerous and ready to explode at any moment.
Last week, Dr. Mullens had told him to be wary. She just didn’t tell him that caution was a necessity every damn minute of every damned day.
“Are all pregnant women a little…”
“Insane?” Dr. Mullens had asked and Donovan had found the humor lighting her eyes to be downright rude.
Donovan had shrugged, relieved when the doctor smiled.
“Hormones, honey. Her body is doing weird, weird things and the hormones rage like an inferno. If Layla’s anything like I was when I was pregnant, well…”
“What?”
“Oh, sugar,” she’d said, patting his arm, “get a better couch, make sure it’s comfortable. A pull out would be better, pillow top. You’re a man. It’s processed into your genetic makeup to say stupid shit and always at the wrong possible moment.”
Donovan had rolled his eyes, shoulders lowering when the woman laughed at him. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I sleep here anyway.”
“Why?”
He hadn’t known how exactly he’d ended up in that conversation, discussing their non-relationship with Layla’s mother, but he had no one else to talk to about it. Declan was still a little irked at him for knocking Layla up and her friends had no experience being pregnant. Donovan’s own mother was, well, if the conversation wasn’t about her, she wasn’t generally interested. So he confided in Dr. Mullens because she was nice, because she was smart and because she loved Layla. “We’re not… you know.”
The doctor had kissed his cheek. “Fire and passion, Donovan. It’s a Mullens trait. She’s so much like her father it’s scary. You have my sympathy.”
So much for helpful.
He waited on that couch thinking about Layla’s attitude, how quickly she jumped to insult lately, how beautiful she looked when she was angry and Donovan decided to see just how fiery that Mullens passion got. He was likely pushing the limits of her patience, if that mythical thing existed, and left the living room to seek her out.
But the bedroom was empty and the adjoining bathroom door was closed. He heard the shower running and figured that would leave her scant room to run if he wanted to pick a fight with her.
Besides, it wasn’t like Donovan was the only frustrated person stomping around the apartment. Something else her mother warned him about had left Donovan smiling for hours after the doctor left. “Pregnant women are horny. All the damn time. It’s the inferno, I’m afraid. I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but maybe if you try to… ahem… she won’t be so moody.”
“Are you seriously telling me to ahem your daughter?”
“Yeah. If you want her to be less crazy flakes and trust me, Donovan, you really don’t want crazy flakes Layla.”
Donovan didn’t know how much more crazy flakes Layla he could stand so he slipped into the bathroom, got rid of his clothes and stood there watching her curvy silhouette behind the fogged glass door.
If it hadn’t been for the low sniffles he heard her making, Donovan would have been completely hard just watching her shadow move under that spray.
“Layla?”
She immediately straightened at the sound of his voice. “What.”
“Can I talk to you?”
“I’m naked and wet.”
“Nothing new to me, brat.”
“Oh yeah?” That attitude was sharp, irritated already and Layla flung open the door, tossing water onto the floor but her venom, her scowl, shifted, changed into something Donovan recognized when she moved her eyes down, then back up his body before she locked her gaze right on his dick. Those eyes took away any hesitation that might have kept his dick even remotely soft. Just a few seconds of her hard gaze on his body and he was achingly hard. “What… what are you doing?”
Her seeming inability to keep her eyes off him was something Donovan recognized. He’d seen it from her every time he was stripped naked in front of her. That look told him what she wanted and just then, what she wanted was him.
He was tired of pretending. Tired of being patient and polite so Donovan walked toward her, threw out a brief “Move over” as a warning and he stepped into the shower right with Layla.
She held her arms in front of her, as though he wasn’t intimately familiar with the weight of her breasts, with how perfectly they fit into his hands and the grin on his face only fell when she flinched, moving away from him as he reached over her head to grab the body wash. His arm stretched above her, he stared down, saw how wide her eyes had grown, how stiff she held herself and decided not to ask her why she was shying away from him. He knew. It had been two damn months since he’d touched her. Two very long, very lonely, very frustrating months and Donovan’s teeth ached at just the sight of her now. All wet and gorgeous and full. He wouldn’t do a thing to make her leave that shower. Instead, he lathered his body, sidled next to her under the spray to wash and rinse the day from his body and when he was finally clean, he replaced the loofa to the tiled shelf near the shower head and moved her back under the water.
She didn’t fight him and as the hot water hit her neck, the tension eased in her shoulders, her arms, and she let Donovan tip her head back against the spray to wash her hair. Her eyes closed, Layla moaned, likely from the way his fingers massaged her temples, ran through her thick hair.
Like this, Layla was the most beautiful he’d ever seen her and that was saying something. He’d seen her breathless, he’d seen her spitting mad so that her skin tinged pink and glowed like porcelain. But just then, with the muscles of her neck flexing as he moved her head and those long streaks of water raining over her face, down her body, Donovan thought she’d never been more beautiful.
He leaned forward, groaning when she let him lick the water from her neck. “I wasn’t calling you fat.”
“You said I had a pooch.”
He leaned back, shaking his head when she frowned. “I said you’re getting a pooch. I’m not an idiot. I know what happens to a woman’s body when she gets pregnant.”
“Yeah, we get fat.”
“No,” he said, taking his hands from her hair so he could pull her close. “You get better.” Donovan loved how smooth her skin felt as he ran his fingers up her back. He loved even more how easily she leaned against him, how just one kiss along her neck chased the frown from her face. “Your skin fucking glows. Like… ha,” he smiled, looking down at her with a wink, “like glitter.” Her laugh was easy, pleased and the sound only made him want her more. “And your breasts…” Donovan knew they were sore and so he was gentle, cautious as he held their weight in his hands.
“Careful…”
“They’re fuller, heavier.” He leaned down, eyes on her face in case his tongue or mouth against her nipple made her cringe. But she only moaned, set her nails into the back of his neck when he rolled his tongue over that darkening pink skin. “Your body was perfect before, baby, now you’re fucking luminous. I don’t think I’ve ever see anything so beautiful.”
Layla stopped Donovan before he could lick against her breast again, pulling his face up. “What did you call me?”
He stepped back, still held her, but twisted his head to the side, confused by the surprise that dropped her mouth open. “Beautiful.”
“You’ve… you’ve never called me that before.”
That couldn’t be right. Could it? How often had Donovan thought Layla was beautiful? Flawless? Only every time he saw her, even when she raged at him, even when she got so far under his skin he thought he could feel her clawing against it, he still thought she was beautiful. But had he really never said it to her? How as that even possible? And then he realized, by the open, exposed shock on her face that Layla needed to hear that from him. Damn, but he was an asshole sometimes.
He took her face, stepping closer, his mouth just inches from hers and his thumbs moving against her cheekbones. “Well, I’m sorry then. Because I thought it every damn day.”
Layla’s smile came easy and her breath hitched when he kissed her forehead. Donovan realized he’d never seen her like this—vulnerable, exposed and he decided right then that he’d do anything to keep her this open to him, to have her this beautiful, this honest. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Ruining your life.” He kept his hands firmly on her face, hoping his expression was just as open, just as raw as her own. God knows he meant everything he said. He just prayed she believed him.
“I’m sorry for ruining yours.”
“Shit, baby, you didn’t. You make it so much fucking better.”
“Donovan…”
He stopped her with his thumb covering her lips. “Shut up, brat and let me kiss you.”
And Layla did, right then, she stopped fighting him. She stopped acting as though Donovan had hurt her beyond forgiveness and she let him kiss her. They both moaned, filled up that steamy bathroom room with their eager, desperate groans as their naked bodies slicked against each other.
“It’s been so long, Layla and you taste so good. I want to taste you everywhere.” She didn’t complain, didn’t hesitate or stop him when Donovan dropped to his knees, the water running over his back as he moved her to the back of the shower to sit against the small shelf. Layla didn’t say another word as Donovan pulled her leg over his shoulder and covered her sweet, swollen pussy with his mouth.
“Oh God… oh, shit! Shit!”
“You’re so full,” he said, feeling how hot her lips were, how her clit practically pulsed against his finger when he touched it.
“Sensitive… so sensitive.”
And Donovan took advantage of how the pregnancy had changed her body, how the curves, the weight of those changes made every touch against her center jar her, had her responding to him so intensely, her fingers in his hair, tugging, pulling, making his dick throb and ache so bad that he had to hold himself at the base, pinching off the orgasm that threatened just from tasting her.
It was barely a minute before his mouth and fingers on her, inside her, had Layla screaming, had her coming so hard that she flooded Donovan’s mouth and he couldn’t wait, didn’t let her come down from the sensation of that hard orgasm before he got to his feet and slipped right inside of her, holding her off the floor.
“Fuck,” he groaned when she pulsed around him, when the sensation of her tight, searing pussy around him had him stilling his movements. He wanted it to last. He didn’t know if it would or if she’d ever give herself to him again and he wanted to stay buried inside her as long as he could stand it.
Breath heavy, Layla kissed his neck, tugged on his earlobe and squeezed him again. “Please, please move, Donovan. Please.”
“If I move, it’ll be over too soon.”
And then Layla laughed, making him take his face away from the curve of her neck. “What?”
“If you move now, right now, I’ll ride you hard the second we get dried off and get into bed.”
And that was all it took., His hips moved, working fast, pumping into her faster and harder until she crashed again and Donovan chased after his own orgasm, desperate for the release, desperate for the minutes that followed when he’d be right back inside her again.
They did not sleep for a long, long while.