Chapter 16
Carla woke up with her face in Jonah’s armpit. Instead of moving, she burrowed in deeper. Maybe her pregnancy hormones were making her crazy, or maybe they’d altered her sense of smell so that the faint hint of her partner’s body odor didn’t turn her stomach.
Or maybe,= he’d just been so fucking perfect comforting her that she didn’t want to puke from his smell. Whatever it was, she was there for it.
The steady breaths he took that moved her whole body told her that he was still asleep. He’d taken a quick trip to China before coming here, and he had to be exhausted from flying halfway across the globe to be with her at her sister’s wedding.
She didn’t regret inviting him, though. If he was there, then her family would at least know and have one good memory of her baby’s father before she made up a breakup story that put him in the best light possible. This was her mistake; she was the family screw-up. So, she would have to deal with the consequences. She didn’t want him to have any blowback.
She was not sure what story she could tell that would keep her father and brother from hunting Jonah down with a shotgun, but she would come up with something.
He stirred, and so did everything in her body. Even though they were in one of the most awkward situations ever, it didn’t turn off how much she wanted him, how desperate for hot, sweaty fucking he made her.
She turned her head into his chest and pressed her lips to where his heart beat below her. He grumbled, and all of the sudden he was awake. His hardening cock pressed against her ribcage.
“How long did we sleep?” She loved the sound of his voice when he’d just woken up. He sounded like a cranky, old man, and it delighted her. It reminded her of the first day they’d met.
When their kid asked about her dad, she would tell her that he always sounded cranky but never in a bad way.
He shifted underneath her, but she wasn’t ready to move yet. She propped her chin on her hands and examined his face. His lips curled into a come-fuck-me smile, and she wanted that. They could talk about what would happen after he left—after she had his baby—later. Right now, she needed to feel their connection. She needed his body to tell her that things were going to be okay—even if they weren’t.
“Are you okay?” Although his erection poking into her was telling her that he was on the same page, the concern in his voice said differently. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me.”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you contact me? I mean, before you knew about—”
“I didn’t want to bother you. I was here, thinking about you nonstop.” She rubbed a tiny tear in his T-shirt, right at his collarbone. The cotton was so soft that it was like part of his body. The way this man wore a T-shirt should be outlawed. “I know you have work that’s important.”
“That’s all different now.” He scooted her up his body until they were face-to-face. He rucked up his shirt in the process, and his skin felt so amazingly warm that she wanted to burrow in again. She couldn’t resist dropping a kiss to his neck. “Don’t try to distract me, princess. We have to talk about what we’re going to do.”
We’re. The word was so heavy that it coated her skin with hope. It gave her ideas of having him in her life permanently, of waking up to his cranky voice all of the time. It wasn’t fair that she wanted to take him away from the job that he loved, but she couldn’t help what she wanted from him. Still, she tried to ignore it, and focus on distracting him from the big talk he wanted to have.
“I don’t want to talk.” She bit into the skin where his neck and shoulder met, licking him there when his hands tightened on her hips. “And I don’t think you do either.”
“This is how we got into this.” He didn’t try to move her, though. Not even when she rolled her hips against him to get some friction.
“I think we’re both stressed out by the news, and I think this will help.”
He sat up and pulled her legs around him so they sat on the floor entwined together.
“You want this now, even after I got you pregnant?” She didn’t miss the hint of something—something that didn’t sound totally freaked out—in his voice. It sounded like pride. She recognized it as the same thing that hit her brother’s voice when he talked about starting a family with Maya, the same glimmer that Cole had when he walked into a room and saw Alana.
She was probably imagining things, but she wasn’t inventing the way Jonah was holding her now. “Please.” She didn’t want to sound like she was begging, she really didn’t, but she would set aside her pride for him. She had none when it came to him. That’s why she could cry in front of him, fall apart, and act like a mess. She could sob all over him, and he’d still want her—he’d still want to take care of her. “I want you right now.”
He grunted and kissed her again. His mouth was salty, and she didn’t know if it was her tears or the sweat on his skin. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him so close he couldn’t escape her. She should care about whether he wanted to get away, but she didn’t.
He rubbed one hand up her bare back and the other down the back of her skirt. She yelped when he clasped one cheek in his hand and squeezed. When he pulled back for just a second, he muttered something like, “Fuck, you’re so beautiful, princess.”
She smiled against his mouth. “What are you going to do about it?”
He put her away from him then, which made her think that teasing him right now was wrong. She shouldn’t be doing that when they were dealing with something so serious. But the look on his face was the opposite of grave; it was get-your-pants-off-right-now sexy. “Bedroom.”
They both stood up, and Carla led him to her room. His hand went to her lower back as soon as she was upright. She paused at the threshold, wondering what he thought of where she lived. Where she was going to take care of their infant. She wondered if he was noticing that nothing was baby-proofed.
She wondered all that until he kissed the back of her neck. “What are you going to do now that you’ve got me here?”
She turned and kissed him on the mouth before he straightened up. She tugged on the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled until it was over his head and she finally got her hands on his bare skin again. He was a wall of man in front of her, so she took a long turn over his body with her eyes.
For his part, he waited, hands clenched at his sides. “Seen enough?”
She smiled up at him. “Never.” She thought it was probably too much to say that. He wasn’t thinking about forever, certainly not with her. She would just be a footnote in his big, bold life. But, she would never tire of looking at him. She saw something different every time she was with him. He was being careful with her now. Like she was fragile. As breakable as she felt, she wanted to rip away his careful façade and make him give her the hungry lover, the one who had admired her cool head in getting ready for the storm.
She wanted to give him permission to dive in and take her. The need to be claimed pulsed at her core. She needed to let him know. So, she raised her hands overhead. “You haven’t seen enough, though, have you?”
He gulped when he must have realized that she wanted him to take off her clothes. “Never.”
“What are you waiting for?”
He didn’t speak, just pulled off her shirt, and threw it to the side. He ran one finger around one of her nipples, gentle this time. Her whole body shuddered with pleasure. He kept his touch soft as he trailed the same finger down her torso, rubbing the skin right above her pants.
She reached down to undo the button, uncertain whether he could manage to get it through the hole with his thick fingers. And not wanting him to stop touching her that way.
He backed her up to the end of her bed. She pulled down her skirt and underwear, and he dropped to his knees. He kissed each hipbone, and she threw her head back at the feel of his beard and lips against her skin. Her body remembered how much it liked his face buried at the center of her.
“Need you.”
He sat her down on the end of the bed and trailed a hand up her body. She felt like he could cup her whole abdomen if he wanted to. Then she realized that he was touching her baby. His face was focused on where his hand lay.
If he didn’t want to fuck her because he thought he would hurt the baby—that his size would hurt them—she was going to kill him. “It’s fine for the baby.”
He barked out a laugh. “I know.” He rubbed his thumb against her hipbone. “I just need a minute.” He looked up at her face. “Can you give me a minute?”
Why couldn’t he have had his minute before they were naked? She’d give him plenty of minutes after he gave her an orgasm. A sound that was a mixture of annoyed and aroused escaped her lips. She flopped back on the bed, intended to give him his fucking minute.
She opened her legs so that he could get to the orgasm giving as soon as the minute was up. He surprised her by laying a kiss on her inner thigh. “You in need, princess?”
Her “yes” came out as a hiss when he ran his tongue up and down the soft skin at her center. She was so sensitive and ready for him that she was ready to come when his tongue brushed her clit.
“You’re more sensitive.” He did it again, and her back arched off the bed. “Because you’re carrying my baby.”
“Yes.” She heard the same thing in his voice—something like awe and pride—but she couldn’t examine it now that he really went to work. He’d been righteously good at eating pussy in Cuba, but this was something else—something that walked the line between filth and reverence.
Her hands bunched up on the duvet, and her feet flexed along his back. He put his whole body into giving her pleasure. His back was sweating, and his muscles flexed. When she felt the tip of his finger at her entrance, she bucked up into it. “I need it now, Jonah. Please, please, please, please.”
She felt his groan all over her body as he sank a finger deep inside her. She grabbed his hair and fucked his face and his hand, totally shameless in the face of the mounting release gathered inside her and about to spring out.
“Right there. Yes, please.” He got more into it the more she talked, so she kept going. “You’re so good. Jonah. So good. I love it when you—”
Her words cut off when her orgasm hit her, as though her brain froze like an old computer. Or like he’d hit the restart button on her insides.
When she finally sagged against the bed and let go of his hair, he knelt back on his calves, pulling all his body heat away from her. She sat up, craving more of him.
The look on his face told her she wasn’t going to get any more though. His cock was still making a tent in his jeans, but the serious face was back.
“Jonah, you’re not going to hurt me.” She gestured at his lap. “It’s big, but it’s not that big.”
He hung his head, shaking it so hard it looked like he was trying to dislodge something troubling from his brain. “It’s not that, Carla.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, as if he’d just done something tawdry.
Warmth for him wound its way through her chest and pricked the back of her eyes. She’d thought she was all cried out, but what if he felt bad about what had just happened? What if he had been planning to walk out the door when she told him, and instead she’d practically forced him to go down on her? Maybe it really was a pity orgasm this time?
“What is it? We don’t have to do that again. We don’t have to do anything. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
He met her eyes then. His face was hard, jaw clenched. But his eyes—they were soft. “This is not the first time I’ve been in this situation.”
* * * *
Carla’s mouth gaped open. Jonah sat there and watched while she started several sentences. He didn’t know how to tell her the truth in a way that wouldn’t make her recoil from him. She’d either feel sorry for him or she would think he was the one at fault, and he really couldn’t take that.
“You have a child?”
“No.”
“Then one of your exes had a miscarriage.”
“Not exactly.”
She scooted to the end to of the bed, and curled up in a ball, staring him down. He recognized that look. It reminded him of Lola when she got her mind on something.
Jonah stood up and grabbed a blanket off a plush, grey chair in the corner of the room. Carla’s space was classy and neutral. It didn’t really fit her. Seemed like an empty-headed debutante lived there. Now that he knew her better, that wasn’t who she was at all.
“You didn’t know?” He was shocked she hadn’t looked him up the second she’d gotten back. Maybe their time together hadn’t impacted her as much after all.
“I didn’t want to be that obsessive girl. I didn’t allow myself to look you up.”
He smiled at her then, flattered. “You were obsessed?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you’re a very satisfying lover.” After he wrapped her in a blanket and sat next to her, she said, “You’re freaking me out. Just tell me.”
“I played football in college.” It seemed best to start at the beginning.
“And?” She motioned for him to proceed. She was probably right. He should just say everything in one go. A rush of relief flowed through his chest.
“I’ve been this big since I was a sophomore in high school. Well, this tall. So, my mom wanted me to play football. We didn’t have a lot of money, and she thought it could help me get a college education.” He remembered how proud his mother had been when recruiters started showing up at his games.
“So you were good?” A faint smile touched her lips, and he wanted to grab the hand she had perched on the bed right next to his.
“Yeah, I was good. I was an inside linebacker, and there were talks of me winning the Heisman my junior year. That doesn’t happen. Usually, it’s a quarterback.” She looked impressed by that, and it only made shame spread through his body. “My best friend on the team was a quarterback, and he was on the short list, too.”
“Did it ruin your friendship?” Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t see what this has to do with getting someone pregnant.”
“Our school was Catholic—super conservative—and they had rules. You’re not supposed to have premarital sex.”
Carla guffawed, same as most people did when they heard about a college trying to stop nineteen-year-olds from boning. “That’s actually ridiculous.”
“Yeah, but my mom was religious—I was religious—back then.”
“You’re not now, right?” She ran one finger across his palm, and he finally gave himself permission to grab her hand. “I didn’t force you into compromising on your beliefs or anything?”
“No, but, back then, I would do anything but intercourse. A loophole if you will.”
“No wonder you’re so good at eating pussy.” She gave him a teasing half-smile.
He felt his skin heat. Maybe she was right. Or maybe it was just her that made him want to make everything good for her.
“My best friend, he was a golden boy, and my girlfriend—”
“Your girlfriend cheated on you with your best friend?” The fury in Carla’s words was somehow calming to him.
“Not exactly. We, um, we had a threesome. And he had sex with her. I was fine with it.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “Or, at least, I thought I was.”
“Did you want him to touch you in your no-no place? Did he?” Her sarcasm wasn’t helping. He supposed, outside of that environment, where he and his teammates were under a microscope from the university, from reporters, it wouldn’t be such a big deal. He also came from a small town; his mother’s hopes were so pinned on him.
“I felt angry about it afterward. I felt guilty, and I pushed Katie away.”
“I still don’t see what it has to do with you and me.” She wrapped the blanket around her like a sarong and stood up. The fact that he was talking about the period in his life that he wanted most to forget wasn’t stopping him from admiring the way the blanket rested between her breasts. He wanted to rip it off and forget all about this, but he needed to be completely honest with her.
“Katie got pregnant. And, because I was her boyfriend, everyone assumed the baby was mine.”
“Did you get kicked out of school?”
He shook his head. He’d almost wished he had been kicked out quietly. Then, his family name wouldn’t have been dragged through the mud. His mother wouldn’t have gotten so stressed out. She wouldn’t have had a stroke and died.
“No, we had to go to religious counseling.”
“Why did you lie for her?”
Katie had begged him not to tell the dean that the baby wasn’t his. She had wanted to get an abortion, but he’d called her names and told her she was ruining his life. Thought he was a hero for facing the consequences of his actions. After all, he’d let it happen. The threesome had been hot, which added a whole different dimension of shame in his mind.
“I cared about her, and her dad was an important donor.” Carla was pacing now. “I bought a ring and asked her to marry me.”
“You didn’t want to marry her.” Carla knew what he was trying to say without him having to say it.
“No, and my best friend didn’t want anything to do with the baby—or me—after he found out.” Tim had actually laughed at him when he’d told him about the pregnancy. He’d called Katie a stupid slut and told Jonah to dump her ass. “Tim and Katie both came from money. Their parents could bail them out of problems with the university. And Tim—he was going to get a fat NFL contract either way.”
“That would have helped your mom.” Carla’s tone was soft, understanding. He wanted to curl his body around hers and never leave this room.
“And then Katie—” Carla was so understanding that he wanted to tell her the worst part—the part that made leaving school without a degree, losing out on the NFL, the humiliation pale in comparison. “She killed herself...because of what Tim said...and what I said.” The thought of it—all these years later—made him nauseous.
“After that, I quit the team. Quit school. I couldn’t face any more of the interviews or the articles about how I was brave for carrying on in the face of Katie’s death. And then my mom—”
Carla stayed silent, and he couldn’t look at her. He knew she was probably processing everything, thinking of a way to ask him to leave. He’d done this whole accidental pregnancy thing before, and he’d fucked it up. He couldn’t do this.
The only person who knew the whole story was a therapist he saw last year when he’d returned from Aleppo. All the things he’d seen had messed up his head so severely that he knew he needed to talk to someone before he broke down. He hadn’t wanted to get out of bed, but he couldn’t sleep because of the gruesome images that attacked him every time he slept. The shrink had tried to convince him that Katie killing herself wasn’t his fault. She obviously had been dealing with depression before she got pregnant. Jonah regretted that he hadn’t supported her in getting help—he regretted the things he’d said to her when they found out about the pregnancy. Nothing would take that away, and nothing could make him forgive himself for that.
“Fuck that!” Her exclamation snapped him out of his self-pitying talk. “You are not responsible for what she did. You’re not responsible for your shitty ex-best friend. You were responsible for you, and you made some mistakes. But, it was a weird, fucked-up situation. And you did your best to make it better. You were going to marry her, even though you weren’t sure you wanted to end up with her, just to make sure she didn’t get kicked out of school.”
“But the news stories were awful. When they found the note saying it was actually Tim’s baby, the reporters said that Katie had only ever been my beard, and that Tim and I were lovers.”
“Jesus. Who are these people?”
“The football team at my school is like a religion for people. And there are always people wanting to take it down.”
“But you were kids. Barely adults. And who cares if you guys were gay?”
“The school. They cared about image.” As soon as the first stories broke, Jonah had fallen off the Heisman short list. Coach hadn’t reduced his playing time, but his performance had suffered. Eventually, he’d been benched. “And my mom, she was devastated. She had a stroke when she found out I quit school.”
“You didn’t kill your mother. She wanted the best for you, and the school screwed you over.”
“Yeah?”
“Another thing that’s not your fault.” She caressed his face, and looked like an avenging angel with her sex hair and swollen lips. “Did you ever talk to anyone about this?”
“Not for a long time. No one knew.”
“Not even Charlie? You two seem close.”
“He doesn’t know the whole story. Not what I did.”
“I think you have this all twisted up in your head, and you’ve made everything your fault when it isn’t. What did you do that was so bad, really? You experimented sexually, making sure your girlfriend got the kind of sex she wanted with someone you both trusted.” She pointed at her own abdomen. “And broken condoms happen.”
“Yeah, but Katie died. My mom died.”
“You’re still here, Jonah. And I’m here. And our baby is going to be here.”
Carla’s belief in him gave him hope, made his heart beat faster, but he couldn’t let himself forget that she didn’t want him around either. She just wanted him to come to the wedding with her so she wouldn’t have to face her ex alone. He was just a sperm donor in this situation. She might like to fuck him, but he was not going to be around to father their baby.
Still, he didn’t stop Carla when she cupped his face and kissed him on the mouth. He didn’t stop her when she dropped the blanket and went to her knees between his legs. He didn’t bother to correct her when she kissed his stomach after saying he was a good man, making every ounce of blood in is body drain into his cock.
He only stopped her when she put her hand over his cock and squeezed. “What are you doing?”
She looked at him, a determined set to her jaw. “I understand that this is a big deal in your life. It’s embarrassing, and you think it makes you damaged goods.” She grabbed the hand he had clenched on his knee, and he let her. “But you were a kid from a small town. You got in over your head with a girl and with a friend you couldn’t trust. You tried to take responsibility, and things didn’t work out.” Then she kissed his palm. Her acceptance of him made him so uncomfortable that he wanted to pull away. He tried, but she held tightly onto him. “We’re adults now, and we have choices. I’m stronger than her. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere, either.” He’d been thinking that she was going to send him on his way as soon as he told her the truth. Hearing her defending him—way too late to change anything, of course—straightened out something in his brain. Maybe this was his chance to correct his mistakes and move on.
“You don’t have to go anywhere. I want you here.” He pulled her up to kiss her then, dragging her with him as he lay down on the bed. She gave him reassurance with her kiss that he could never have gotten from words. She felt so good to him, like a dream with all her creamy skin lined up against his body. She rolled and pressed against him, mimicking fucking.
When she sat up, straddling his belly, he felt her wet and ready against him. Her eyes still held fire, but with lust this time. “You didn’t just say all that so you could get back in my pants, did you?”
He shouldn’t have said that because the expression on her face darkened, and she leaned over until her face was kissing distance from his. She held him down, though, so he couldn’t get at her mouth and soothe his words away with actions.
“This is a weird situation, and now that I know all this, a weird situation is the last thing either of us need.” She dropped a kiss on his cheek that felt almost playful. “But our weird situation isn’t going anywhere.” She grabbed his cock through his jeans, and he bucked up into her hand. “So, we might as well give into it.”