Noah

“We're supposed to be changing clothes and coming out for a swim at some point.” My recording engineer would love to capture that thick, throaty catch in my voice. And it's all inspired by the way Maddy slides down the wall in sexy slow motion...

I can't swallow. My Adam's apple feels like a tangerine trapped in my throat.

Her wide eyes, so young and innocent, flutter up at me. “Sure. But those guys out there, they know the score. They have to, working for Lane and Brecka. You ever see two people who can't keep their hands off each other like that?”

Yeah, I've seen two people exactly like that.

My cock is going to bust my jeans wide open. I shift my weight from foot to foot, which unavoidably draws attention to the struggling mass of need in my pants. Her bodice and bra are still flopped loose, exposing beautiful boobs splotchy with the post-climax flush. I'm a man. There's blood in my veins. I can't help but be affected. Need her so bad, and yet...

“I can't hurry this, Noah.” Her voice is more musical than mine. Sweet harmony. “I need to make it as good for you as it was for me. I need that, Noah. I need that. It can't be all about me.”

That's where she's wrong. Much as I'm squirming in my pants, I'm the least important person in this room. Rock star or no rock star. Who I am on stage is nothing here.

“Yes, it can be all about you. Hell, it has to be, after I left you alone all this time, all these weeks when I should have been there... I don't deserve anything. I'm the worst person in the world. I should be on my knees for you, not the other way round.”

“You didn't know.” She leans into my bulge. At least there's a soft towel under her shapely knees. I have only a vague memory of yanking it down from some shelf at some point, a blurred thought in my head that I wanted her to be comfortable.

Her comfort is everything. My comfort is nothing. If she decides to stop right now and leave me here aching, it's no more than what I deserve.

“I just want... oh fuck. If you only knew what you do to me...” My breath catches deep in my lungs, a painful sensation. Because she's unzipping my trousers using just my lips, a technique I've never suspected she's capable of performing. All the better to surprise and delight me.

“I have a pretty good idea.” With a jerk, she gets my pants down to mid-thigh. My boxer briefs come down with them, allowing the swollen prong to thrust free and forward. Her hands go around back to squeeze the muscular cheeks of my ass, the better to pull that stiffness into her hungry mouth.

My little virgin. How can she be so good at this? There must be some instinct. Her long throat knows exactly how to deep-swallow me. Her stretchable lips know how to suck and gobble. How to play me like a fucking clarinet complete with all the finger and tongue.

After all these weeks apart, I don't want to rush this. I want to linger on the edge of desire. I want to feel the intensity build higher and higher.

It's a long time before I allow myself to lose control. Finally, though— sweet finally—  I do.

Lose it so hard there's wetness coming from my eyes, not just my fucking cock. I'm coming so hard I feel the contractions in every fucking muscle in my body. Not just my shaft, not just in the hidden coils of my balls, but down deep in the soles of my feet.

Up high in the scalp at the top of my head.

I tense so hard and then explode so hard.

Too soon, too fast. I must say so, must gasp out those words, because now her beautiful lips are speaking hot and breathily against my sticky belly.

“I wanted you fast. So you'll last longer when...” She doesn't finish the sentence. Doesn't need to. The bridesmaid dress is mostly a tangle around her waist but suddenly it must feel much too hot, because she pushes herself off the floor to yank it off over her head. The bra comes off with it.

And there she is. Standing there pink and damp in front of me in wearing nothing except a see-through pair of pink panties.

My knees wobble. My eyes drop to her belly and then back up to her eyes.

The hell.

My right hand comes forward of its own volition. Not to tear off those panties, that last little scrip-scrap of flimsy fabric, but to press my entire palm into her belly. My fingers spread wide. There's a very slight curve there. Only the slightest. But somehow, seeing her like that, with her fuller boobs and that tiny pooch to her tummy...

“When were you going to tell me?” That croak too is something my recording engineer would love to capture. “When?”

She meets my gaze. Unafraid. Unashamed. No excuses. “After. Maybe it was wrong of me, but... after. I wanted one more time.”

Is that what she thinks of me? That?

And yet what else can she think of me? I'm the man who let my people hustle her out after a one night stand. The man who didn't call. The man who flew away to South America without a single glance backward.

Fucking hell. I really am the worst person in the world.

Now I'm the one on my knees again. Now my lips are puckering up. How the hell can I ever make this right?

I can't change the past, but I can change the future. From here on out, there are going to be some fucking changes.

I touch her belly with both hands, spreading my fingers wide, and my hands still look huge by comparison. She hasn't really started to swell. Maybe if I squint, maybe if I flutter my tongue into her belly button... Can I taste the way it's starting to pop inside-out in sweet, slow motion? Can I feel a rate of growth too slow to see?

“Are you sure?” I ask. “How can you be sure?” My tongue spins, curious. Is the taste of her juices different? A little sweeter? A little more salt?

She clamps her thighs on my head to hold me still. “I'm sure. I did the test myself, and then the doctor's office did another test. This is my life, Noah. I wouldn't fuck around making a claim like that.”

I hear the salt in her voice, and I realize I've fucked it up yet again. “Sorry, I didn't mean it that way.”

“How exactly did you mean it then?”

I plant kisses all over her belly. “I just... I don't want to get my hopes up.”

“Your... hopes?”

“For us. For our baby. She's meant to bring us together. I can just feel it. Nobody can keep us apart if we're having a baby. Our baby.”

I'm babbling.

She relaxes her thighs a little, and I put my tongue back to work.

“How do you know it's a she? I don't even know that.”

“I don't know. It's just a feeling I get.”

Not knowing how to put what I'm feeling into words, I begin to suck thoughtfully at her belly button which, maybe, if you use your imagination, is already starting to poke out a little more than it used to. “Is that really what you thought of me? That I wouldn't want you again if I knew?” I'm too ashamed to meet her eyes, so I'm saying it into her belly.

Saying it to our baby.

She moans but voices no intelligible words. Her belly shifts against my face.

“That's my baby in there,” I say. “Don't even bother to deny it.”

Even her little gasp is sexy. “I don't know what I was thinking. I doubted you. When you went away right after... I thought...”

“My baby. My girl. Mine.” I growl the words into her belly one by one, each growl followed by a kiss. More kisses, and then the kisses slipslide lower so I can use my lips to unpeel the pink panties. How can I prove to her that it's only about her? Everything in my life is only about her.

I was so fucking stupid.

My tongue laps and teases, and then I hesitate. Hell, I'm still fucking stupid. “Is it safe though?”

She laughs. Young as she is, there are things she knows as a woman that I don't know as a man. Her laugh tells me just how aware she is of that fact. “Yes, Noah, sugar bear, of course it's safe. This is very early. It's even good for the baby at this point. Something about the bonding hormones... I don't know the science, but it's a good thing. You can love me. If you want to. I've talked to the doctor. Just in case...”

In case I came back. In case I came back. The fuck!

As if there was any doubt about it.

“If. If I want to.” I growl again, not meaning to sound like an angry bear, but unable to stop myself. “No more fucking ‘ifs’ when it comes to my baby. Don't you ever, ever, ever fucking dare to doubt me again. Don't you fucking dare.”

And then I'm on my back, determined to serve as her mattress, and she's on top, and I don't even know where the panties went and neither of us gives a flying fuck. Her inner thighs clasp my outer thighs, and my ceiling-pointing cock thrusts up and in.

I'm claiming her with this fuck.

She's claiming me.

We're claiming each other.

Every musician believes in destiny. Fate is bigger than we are, and that's why we sing. Still, for a moment, I'm rocked back on my ass by the sheer size of the forces working through us.

This is why I couldn't stop looking at her, even when she was just a girl standing in a line having some guy bring her pizza.

This is why everything. My baby. Our baby. We made this.

♫♫♫

Barbie's not the problem. She's got Lukas on the downlow, and now I've got Madison and the baby.

“You're having a baby?” She spits out the word like I've just announced I'm having kittens.

“Well, yeah.”

“So what's your deal, dude? It's 2017, a dude needs to rubber up.”

“I only need to rubber up in situations where I'm trying to avoid complications. Madison and my baby aren't the kind of complication I want to avoid.”

She stares at my lips like I'm speaking a foreign language. Maybe, to her, I am.

“This isn't weird, Barbie. Trust me. It's the way of nature. Most men do want to become fathers once they find the right person.”

“But you're only twenty-five. And we're making a movie.”

“A person can work in the movies and be a parent. This baby isn't going to fuck up the movie.”

She shakes her head, but she's smiling. Starting to understand this is welcome news for me. “OK, well, congratulations, Daddy. I can work with you on this, but the problem's our management. Once the first movie's out and we've got a proven hit on our hands, we can have litters of cubs in the middle of the street, but right now...”

“Yeah. I know.” Agents and publicists persist in believing that fans can't fantasize about singers unless they're available, which is silly, considering all the evidence that fans can fantasize anything about anybody. Still, while I'm not yet established as a leading actor, I'm supposed to play this part in my so-called private life, not just on screen.

All that bullshit in the tabloids and on Twitter... that's part of the job. I used to know that.

“We need to keep this on the downlow. It's bad enough sneaking around with Lukas, but at least Lukas isn't going to pop up with a big belly.”

“I can keep Madison under wraps until the right time, as long as you go along with it.”

“You know how we can stop people from asking too many questions?”

“Yeah, I know.” I hate the idea. I don't even want to give voice to the idea. But I've already been seeding the idea into the minds of my staff, and I'm pretty sure Barbie has been doing the same.

“If everybody believes we've got a real relationship, they might stop poking around so much into our business. That's good for me and Lukas, and I think it's probably going to be good for you.”

I hate hiding Madison and my baby like they're a dirty secret, but what choice do I have? I already signed the contract, and I already agreed to portray a relationship with Barbie Strange in public through the second week of the movie's US release date.

It's a lot of money. Millions of dollars. And not just money for me.

Money for my people. Money for Barbie and her people.

Money for Madison and my baby.