Thirteen

 

 

Since we’d caught the guy in front of Sabine’s house in Appledore, things had settled down.

 

“I don’t like it,” Coleman muttered during our daily security meeting. “How do you go from sending all of those photos and threats, to just silence?”

 

Pacing back and forth in my home office, I nodded as he voiced the thoughts that had been going through my head every day.

 

“I don’t want to question it, but it just doesn’t make sense!” I started pacing again. “There were multiple threats every day.”

 

Cole and Ren were sitting in the other comfy chairs in my office listening to all of this. That was until Cole, for once in his life, spoke pure wisdom.

 

“Maybe, they’ve decided to let things die down after the botched shooting?” He mused around a mouthful of donut. Where it had come from I didn’t know, but he’d been chewing away on it since he got here. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he had a stash behind him. “Or, maybe the whole point was to make you go after Sabine so that y’all would be back to being in one location?”

 

Coleman straightened so quickly in his chair that we heard it crack. “Say that again,” he ordered Cole who gave him a withering look and went back to eating.

 

“Man, I’m pregnant,” he mumbled, crumbs shooting everywhere as he spoke around the donut in his mouth. “I don’t even remember what underwear I’ve got on.”

 

Glaring at him, I sat down in the chair behind my desk. All of the windows in my home had now been changed to a form of bullet proof glass, which was great security wise, but it also meant that we had to rely on the air conditioning throughout any and all hot weather as it wasn’t safe enough to open the windows. It also meant that the house heated up more than it had before, something to do with more reliable insulation or some shit. All I knew was that I was sweating like a pig in a pen with a guy holding an axe in his hand.

 

“He might have a point,” Coleman begrudgingly admitted after a short while, jerking his thumb in Cole’s direction.

 

“Me?” His eyebrows almost disappeared with the shock. “What did I say?” He stuffed another piece of donut in his mouth.

 

“I think it might be both. Waiting for things to settle after the shooting and getting you both into one place,” Coleman looked past me and out of the window and did a quick scan of the field behind me.

 

“I read this book once,” Ren spoke up. All of our heads turned in his direction as wore obvious expressions of shock. “What? I can read, I just choose not to most of the time.” At Cole’s snort, Ren blushed and then admitted, “Okay, I was told there was some hot as shit sex scenes in it. Anyway, this chick had a shit family and ran away from them. She spent years hiding from them and changing the way she looked and all that. After it, she got in with a bad crowd, or some shit like that. When someone tried to kill her, it turned out that she had to run and try to escape from two enemies that had it in for her - the bad crowd and her family.” He stopped, reached over and pushed Cole forward in his chair, fishing out a box of donuts and taking one out. “Then, I think she got pushed off a bridge or something and they thought that it was the bad crowd that had done it. Turns out, it wasn’t. The family had hired someone to go after her and when the bad crowd failed, he took over.” He shrugged and stopped talking and started eating the donut.

 

“Well,” Cole asked, sitting wide eyed with another donut. “How did it end?”

 

“Eh, she got killed and a detective was piecing it together. Maybe shoulda mentioned that at the beginning,” Ren shrugged and continued eating.

 

“That’s a shitty ass book,” Cole snapped while Coleman and I looked at each other. “Were the sex scenes hot?”

 

Shrugging again, he took the last bite of donut and wiped his fingers on his jeans. “Nah, turns out they got the wrong book name. That one didn’t even have any in it, and the only reason that I ended up reading it to the end was because I was looking for one.”

 

“Her family have had nothing to do with her for years,” I ignored the two fuck heads eating donuts and focused on the unspoken question in Coleman’s eyes. We were both on the same page though. What if?

 

Sabine

 

It had been two weeks since the birthing experience and today was the baby shower for Ebru and Cole. It wasn’t really the sort of thing that our circle of friends in France had done, and my friends in the U.K. had been more focused on gaining their degrees and working than having babies. So, I’d never been to one and had no idea what to expect.

 

We were currently walking behind Cole and Ebru toward their parent’s house and I wasn’t completely oblivious to the fact that Brett kept scanning around us. His movements were small and he tried cover them up by asking innocuous questions like ‘was that a rabbit?’ and pointing in the opposite direction, but I knew what he was doing.

 

He’d also been asking me a lot of questions about my family recently. Perhaps he thought that they were responsible for the threats, but he couldn’t be further from the truth. The second I rejected the arranged marriage to Henry, they’d cut me out of their lives. As far as they were concerned, the only reason to have children was to further their stance and position in the society that they were part of.

 

My brothers had both married well and held high position jobs, and my sister and I were expected to follow. I hadn’t wanted to marry the slime bag banker that they’d chosen, who was well known to have mistresses all over the country. Seline had been the accidental baby so there had been seven years between us. She didn’t have the power and support of my grandmother to get her out of whatever arrangement my parents chose like I’d had though. This concern I’d discussed with Brett and he’d reassured me that whatever happened, he’d help me save her.

 

My husband squeezing my hand brought me out of my thoughts and I realized that we’d reached Colette and Jack’s house. Following them inside, I stopped and took in the decorations and the amount of food on the table.

 

“How many people are coming?” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth to Brett, tightening my grip on his hand. There was enough food to feed the entire town.

 

“Who knows,” he mumbled as he headed toward where it all was. “There’s cake!” His entire family was obsessed with the stuff. The whole walk over here Cole had talked about the cake, and now Brett was headed straight for it.

 

“I don’t think you’re meant to cut into it now…” I broke off as I saw the finger sweeps through the icing on it. Looking around the room, I saw the kids curled up asleep behind the baby gate, or cage as Brett called it, and Hurst and Linda asleep in their recliners. There was also a very visible blue finger poking out from where Hurst had his arms crossed.

 

Dragging Brett away from the food and towards where Ebru and Cole were, we stopped when the sound of a loud fart filled the room.

 

Looking back toward Brett questioningly, he caught my look and glared back. “It wasn’t me.”

 

In France, we didn’t discuss bodily functions. In fact, they were rude and considered uncivil. This family had blown that out of the water entirely though. Instead of discretion, there were things like - baby monitors in toilets, accidental farts, food poisoning, who could burp the national anthem the best and now this. Growing up, I might have been appalled by it, but now it actually endeared the family to me even more. They just did what they did and let the pieces fall where they may.

 

At least, that’s what I thought until the smell hit.

 

The fart had woken Hurst up who looked around the room before waving his hand back and forth in front of his face in disgust.

 

“Jesus, your Gram stinks,” he wheezed out, just as Linda sat up in her chair and started gagging.

 

“The hell that’s my ass, you stinky old bastard,” she got out through her coughing. “That one smelled of five-year-old blue cheese…” Looking at Brett I prayed that we never had the type of relationship where we could tell whose fart belonged to whom based on the smell that accompanied it.

 

I heard Ebru echo that sentiment. “Please tell me that we aren’t going to end up like this,” she whispered to Cole. Meeting Brett’s eye above the sweater that he’d pulled up over his nose, he winked and shook his head.

 

Quietly, he moved us all away from them, leaving us with our backs to the wall next to the front door, and he, Cole and a newly arrived Ren, opened the doors and windows bringing in beautiful, warm fresh air.

 

Soon enough, people started to turn up and it was great to meet so many people who obviously loved the Townsend family. It was a bit overwhelming being introduced to so many of them, but this was a far cry to the parties that my parents had held as I was growing up. I’d been paraded around those like I was a prize, and really, I had been as they’d been looking for potential suitors. Here though, I could relax and enjoy meeting people, and it helped that Brett never left my side.

 

The love of cake finally got the better of Cole. Unfortunately, he took too long deciding where and how to cut into the big blue bear as his grandmother marched into the room holding a huge meat cleaver. Not wasting a second, she brought it down with a thud right between the bears legs.

 

“Holy shit,” Brett gasped beside me in horror.

 

“Fuck me, she gave it a vagina,” Gramps said at the same time, as we all stood around staring at the area where the cleaver was now imbedded in the wooden stand that the bear had been placed on.

 

Colette came running over and tried to take the cleaver from her at the same time Linda was trying to get it back out of the wood to swing again.

 

“No! I want some damn cake!” She snapped, trying to get away and back to the table.

 

Hurst quickly picked up a knife, cut one of the feet off the bear, then put it on a plate and waved it under her nose. Linda followed where he led her, pausing periodically to look back at where the rest of the bear cake was. Each time, he would wave it in front of her again and she’d continue following him.

 

Once the cake was safe again, and the cleaver had been removed and hopefully hidden in case Linda got the urge for more cake, Brett tugged me up to the table and cut a chunk for me and a bigger chunk for himself.

“We haven’t even eaten the sandwiches and things yet,” I pointed at the plates of food that were, for the most part, still untouched.

 

Shaking his head, he picked up a fork and started digging into the sponge. “One thing you’ll learn in my family,” he mumbled around a mouthful, before groaning. “Shit that’s good.” He chewed and swallowed it before finishing what he was saying. “When there’s cake and my family are near, you just go for it. You also take no prisoners, it’s every man for himself,” he took another forkful. “Those bastards will let you starve before they give you any cake, so jump, cut and eat.”

 

“So, so moist,” Hurst groaned loudly behind us, getting a matching groan from Linda. I’d just taken my first mouthful and had to agree, it was delicious.

 

“It melts in the mouth,” Linda groaned. The second forkful that I was about to eat paused halfway to my mouth as my eyes snapped up to meet Brett’s. Slowly, we both took our next mouthful’s, praying that the grandparents stopped talking and making noises.

 

“Who baked the cake? I’ve never had such a moist one before,” Hurst moaned loudly again. I looked around the room, seeing varying looks of disgust and nausea on people’s faces at the clearly orgasmic noises filling the room. “I need to buy one every week. Look, it’s practically glistening it’s that moist…”

 

Opening my mouth, I spat the cake back out onto the plate and put it back on the table at the same time as everyone else. The two old people continued eating and groaning, completely oblivious to the effect that they’d had on the rest of us.

 

At least, that’s what I thought, until I saw Hurst get up and pick the wooden stand holding what was left of the blue cake bear up and walk out with it. Looking over at Cole, I saw him watching them with narrowed eyes.

 

Smart move!

 

Later that night…

 

I’d just gotten out of a warm bath and was walking through to the bedroom when I saw Brett sitting with his back against the headrest frowning at the television. Looking over at it, I saw the news playing a story about a suspected drugs trafficker whose house had been burned down.

 

Sighing, he rubbed his eyes and then looked over at me. Almost instantly, the look of exhaustion left his face and was replaced with a heated one as he took in the fact that I was wearing one of his t-shirts.

 

Climbing up beside him, I went and straddled his waist, well as much as I could with my bump. I now seven months pregnant, so it took up a lot of space. His hands came up and cupped both of the cheeks of my bum as he held me in place.

 

He was only wearing his jockey shorts, so I got the opportunity that I looked forward to each time that we were like this – to rub his tummy bumps. Seriously, it should be criminal how well formed his stomach muscles were and it wasn’t like he worked out constantly to get them like that.

 

Sighing, I rubbed my hands back and forth, feeling him harden underneath me.

 

“What’s that for?” He asked, meaning the sigh.

 

“It’s just not fair,” my French accent came through a bit stronger when I wasn’t concentrating, and at that moment it was definitely more noticeable because I was so focused on the bounty in front of me. “I have this,” I nodded my head down to my bump, “And you look like this,” I nodded again down at the muscle bumps.

 

Grinning, he moved his hands slowly up my waist, taking the t-shirt with them, and around to my bump. Our son kicked at his hand as he came to rest with one hand on top of the bump, and one hand on the side of it.

 

“This bump is a turn on,” he murmured as he started to move his hands again over it. I felt the proof of that underneath me, but come on!

 

“You’re not one of those, are you?”

 

“One of what?” He looked truly confused.

 

“You know,” I shifted, subtly rubbing over him. “One of those guys that has a fetish for pregnant women.”

 

My eyes almost crossed when he burst out laughing and his pelvis jumped up, rubbing harder against my core with each laugh.

 

“No,” he chuckled, and I groaned with the movement. “Just you!”

 

Aw, well, merde. That was beautiful. Grinning, I leaned down to kiss him. “Thank you!”

 

“Do you want to hear something funny?” He whispered against my lips. Leaning back, I looked down at him and waited for him to tell me. “Tom said today that he really liked you even if you spoke all formal-like. That resulted in a discussion of things that you say that are different to the rest of us.”

 

Angling my head, I asked, “Like what?” I was sure that I spoke just like any other normal person, didn’t I?

 

“You say backside and bum, instead of ass,” he rasped as he swept his hands across my backside. “You also say ‘arse’. There are many things that you say differently,” he growled. “But they are all perfectly you.”

 

Thinking about it, I most likely did. My upbringing had been formal and even when I went to university I was surrounded by formal speaking people too, so many things I probably did say differently to what they were used to.

 

“And this is okay?” I asked. Now that he had mentioned it, I was wondering if this was something that was an issue to him.

 

“Absolutely,” he said firmly. “The reason I’m telling you, is because while I’m thinking thoughts like how perfect your ass is and how beautiful your tits are, I know you’d be thinking backside and breasts.” He moved suddenly, ending up with me on my back and him over me. Unfortunately, this position wasn’t conducive with anything sex related as I was too pregnant for that; or so I thought.

 

Grabbing the bottom of his t-shirt, he pulled it off me leaving me wearing only my knickers. They were a pair that I’d gotten as a joke from Ebru which had ‘I’m French, not Brazilian’ on them. She said that they were for just in case I got caught short when I had the baby. Reading the text across my crotch, Brett snorted and slowly pulled them down my legs.

 

“Now, I happen to love the French,” he whispered as he moved his hands up to my core. “In fact, they’re perfection,” he added, as he leaned in and licked my clit making me groan. Reaching up, I grabbed onto the slats of the top of the bed and held on tight. There was no more talking as he sucked and licked his way down to my entrance, and then replaced his tongue with two thick fingers which he gently pushed into me. Moving up so that he was over my breasts, he used the hand that wasn’t moving back and forth inside me to gently pinch my nipple. The feeling was almost electric and I let out a small squeal. Once again, he leaned down, but this time he sucked the nipple that he’d just pinched into his mouth, hard enough to make the cheeks of his face hollow. Then, with an audible pop, he let it go free and blew on it. The cold air following the warmth of his mouth sent a pulse right down to my clit and my hips came up off the mattress. “I love how sensitive you are,” he mumbled as he reached my other nipple and gave it the same treatment as he had the first. Blowing on it almost had me coming on his hand, but he quickly moved back down to my core, sucked my clit into his mouth hard and squeezed my nipple gently again. That, teamed with the wiggling of the three fingers now inside me, sent me over the edge and I came screaming and almost smothering him with my vagina as I raised my pelvis off the bed, pushing it harder into his face.

 

Once I came down from it, and the stars had stopped flashing behind my eyelids, I realized what I was doing and burst out laughing. “I’m so sorry,” I giggled, trying to lower myself back down to the bed, but I couldn’t with his hand still supporting my bum.

 

His mumbled answer from where he was still made me laugh even harder. Finally lifting his head, he looked up and over my bump at me. “Just saying, any time you want to smother me with your pussy, you’re more than welcome to. It would be a champions death.”

 

I didn’t get the chance to laugh for long though, as he gently moved me onto my side and lay down behind me. Moving one arm underneath me and one arm under my leg so that he could lift it, he moved into position and entered me in one long hard thrust. I’d stupidly thought that I was done after that orgasm, but just that one thrust had me clenching down on him again.

 

The arm that was beneath me shifted, and his hand came up and held onto one of my breasts as he started to move slowly in and out of me, the tip of his cock hitting something amazing inside of me each time.

 

Reaching up, I grabbed onto the wrist of the hand at my breast and leaned my head back against him. The hand that was still holding my leg up moved slightly and allowed his thumb to reach my clit as he supported my thigh. With every push in, his thumb would hit against it and then disappear with every retreat he took back out of me. The two sensations together had me climbing to the top of the mountain quickly. Feeling the small spasms inside me, Brett increased the force of his thrusts and moved his hand so that he was cupping me between my legs with his thumb was right over my nub. That was all it took and I burst, screaming again as I came.

 

I barely felt him move me onto my front, holding me up on my hands and knees as I continued to come around him. I only just had the strength to brace my arms and legs as he thrust harder into me, his thighs meeting my backside and making an erotic slapping noise each time. With one final hard thrust, I felt him groan against my spine and the warmth of him pulsing inside me as he rode out his own orgasm with small thrusts.

 

Once our cognitive abilities came back, panting, he took us down to our sides, and then reached down to where we were still connected.

 

“I love you,” he whispered against my shoulder.

 

“Je t’aime,” I mumbled into my pillow, the ability to speak English totally leaving me. Knowing full well what he’d done to me, the bugger chuckled into the back of my neck. With the last bit of my energy, I elbowed him in the side, feeling a bit better when I heard him grunt.