Dominick
My phone vibrated loudly from within my pocket, and I damned whoever it was that had decided to call at that particular moment. I prayed that the so-called silent buzzing of the phone wouldn't wake Helena, who had been showing signs of exhaustion all day.
No surprise there, it had been an exhausting day.
For both of us. But at least I hadn't been the one getting poked, prodded and scanned in the emergency room all afternoon, nor was my energy being sapped away by the new pregnancy…well, not physically at least.
Emotionally, I was still in a state of shock. The news was happy, confusing, hurtful, and electrifying in equal measure. As hard as it was to look past just how long Helena had been lying to me for, it was equally hard to look past my feelings for her or my excitement for the new baby.
The buzzing faded away and I looked down at Helena, relieved to find that she was, at least for the moment, still sleeping peacefully. Her chestnut hair was framing her face beautifully, flowing down to her shoulders in loose curls. My eyes began to drift down below her neck, but I was able to wrench my attention away from the danger zone before peeking down too far.
I already knew what I would find down there. Soft breasts that had delightful curves that never failed to take my breath away, never failed to make me want to reach out and touch them. I'd been able to do that very recently, but unexpectedly it had only made my desire that much stronger.
Helena was not just another one night stand. The more time I spent around her, the more time I wanted to spend. The more physical contact we shared, the deeper my hunger for her touch grew.
But of course, looking at her like that would've been playing with fire. What if she had woken up? Just allowing myself to think about her body had already gotten me hard, a fact she would be able to see for herself the moment she was awake. It was impossible to hide, after all, thanks to the fact that her feet were still sitting in my lap.
No, sweetie, I don't have a foot fetish, I was just thinking about staring at your body while you were sleeping and it turned me on. But don't worry, I didn't actually look, I was just remembering how it felt to touch you.
Yeah, that would go over real well.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of puppies and sad movies, anything to get the problem under control. After a few minutes of that I felt confident enough to move, and I very carefully extracted myself from under her. Once free, I reached in to check my phone and saw that it was Alton who had called.
Probably wanting a night out.
Somehow, that idea was even less attractive than my fears about Helena waking up and yelling at me. I looked down at her again, the way she was resting so peacefully against the armrest, and shook my head no.
No way I'm going out tonight, I thought, turning my phone the rest of the way off so that there was no risk of even the vibrate setting waking Helena up. I'd call Alton and apologize tomorrow evening, after he'd had enough time to recover from whatever trouble he was about to get himself into tonight.
Making sure I stayed on my best behavior, I sat down across from Helena and smiled. Fetching my laptop from the table, I made sure to let Helena's dad know everything was all right and thanked him again for taking Ali for the night. After that I caught up on old emails and replied to some low-priority queries from my agent, and before I knew it a few hours had passed.
Something about just being having Helena in my apartment, even if she was just sleeping on the couch, had turned the otherwise dull night into a relaxing evening. Outside the window the night deepened further, the moon shining brightly in the sky as the lights on the ground began to wink out.
"Where am I?" Helena asked, her groggy voice breaking me out of my reverie.
"It's okay," I answered. "You're in my apartment."
"Dominick?" Helena said as she sat up, looking around the space with confusion and surprise. "Where's Ali?"
"Still with your dad," I said. "Everything is taken care of for tonight, you can relax."
"What happened?" she asked, her brows furrowing together as she tried to remember a day that was best left forgotten.
"You fell asleep on my couch."
"Yes, but why did—oh god," she said, and the harrowing look of sadness that had haunted her all day immediately returned in force. "I am so sorry, Dominick, I—"
"I know," I said, not quite meaning to interrupt her but also not wanting to watch her beat herself up. "And I'm still trying to absorb everything that's happened, but I do know one thing after tonight. I definitely want to stay in Ali's life…and uh, and yours, I think. If you want the same. I just need a little time to think."
"Why wouldn't I want you in my life?" Helena asked, the sleepiness in her voice burning away in an instant.
"You hid the pregnancy from me for a reason," I said, doing my best to ignore the wince of pain on Helena's face as I spoke. "And you know, maybe you were right to do it. I'm not exactly the perfect guy, you know."
"Dominick, not trusting you was one of the stupidest things I've ever done," Helena said reassuringly. "And you are pretty damn close to the perfect guy, for the record."
"Perfect?" I asked, trying not to laugh. "I don't know what kind of massive jerks you've dated in the past, but the only way I'm perfect is if you set the bar so low that a turtle could jump over it. I'm an irresponsible mess, Helena."
"A turtle?" Helena said, crossing her arms and staring at me. "I'm serious, Dom."
"So am I," I said with a frown. "I'm an irresponsible jackass. I've never even held a real job, and after what happened earlier I'm starting to worry that the media will start circling you like hungry jackals. Not to mention that I drink like a fish, and party like—"
"Dominick!" Helena said sharply, actually sounding annoyed now. "I don't need to hear a bunch of animal analogies about how you're a bad guy. I already know you're not."
"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think."
Helena shot me an icy glare, but then her face softened and she shook her head sadly. My heart throbbed painfully, but I knew that it was for the best that Helena learn the truth now. Her instincts had told her to hide the truth from me, and those instincts were probably right.
When she took a deep breath, I braced myself for what had to come next—for her to agree with me and for us to stop this entire insane charade before I got someone hurt.
But the words I expected—you're right, this isn't working, it's over—didn't come.
"Where's Ali?" Helena asked instead.
"With your dad," I answered, confused. I'd already told her that earlier, and it wasn't like Helena to forget something so important.
"Right, with my dad. But how did that happen exactly? See, I was unconscious at the time, I'm pretty sure that I wasn't the one who arranged that. Someone did that for me."
"I see what you're trying to do," I said softly. "But that's different. It was an easy solution."
"Easy or not, you still recognized that it was a problem. The fact you thought about it at all is what makes you responsible, Dom," Helena answered. "And what's this about not having a job? Your apartment is a freaking penthouse, and everything you own is top of the line. I'm pretty sure that if I played a nature documentary on that TV of yours, a lion would jump out of the screen and eat us both."
"I make okay money," I conceded. "But come on. I hit a little disk of rubber with a stick. It's not really a job-job."
"They pay you to show up and work hard, and you've been showing up for years, not to mention working hard. It's a job, Dom, even if you don't have to worry about someone taking your favorite stapler. And as for partying too much, I don't know what you're talking about. You've been with me practically every night since we met, and we haven't been out drinking."
"Well, I used to."
"Used to. Do you miss it? Feel like hitting up a bar right now?"
"God, no."
"Then I don't see the problem," Helena said triumphantly. "You are a great guy. Which means that I was seriously wrong for baselessly lying to you, and you should be mad at me. Not at yourself."
Maybe it was just my lack of experience with serious, non-fling relationships, but I had no idea how to respond to that. It seemed so much easier to forgive Helena if I blamed myself for what had happened, but it seemed like she wasn't willing to let me do that.
"You were trying to protect your family."
Helena nodded half-heartedly, her head downcast. When she looked up at me, she looked as clueless as I felt, and she let out a small shrug that eventually turned into a yawn. As she stretched her arms out, her already-tight clothing constricted further around her, and for a moment I thought that her breasts were going to pop straight out of her top.
In spite of the emotional whirlwind all around us, my basest instincts kicked in, and I was incredibly disappointed when they didn't.
"Jesus," I whispered under my own breath.
Judging by the look on her face, Helena heard me anyway. A small smile graced her lips as the same awareness seemed to dawn on her. My skin electrified just looking into her eyes.
"If we keep talking, are we just going to go around in circles where see who can blame themselves more for what happened?"
"Probably," Helena said. "At least, we will if you try to blame yourself again. Because it is clearly my fault."
"I have a better idea, then."
"What is it?"
"Stop talking," I said.
Helena laughed nervously. "You mean I should stop talking? Or we should stop talking about this? Or we should cut off contact with—"
"What I mean is," I said, staring at Helena's beautiful face as I leaned forward and cupped her chin in my. I ran my thumb along the bottom of her luscious lips, my earlier hardness returning in full force as I caressed her. "Stop. Talking," I breathed, staring straight into her eyes as I spoke. "We have better things to do."
"We do?" Helena asked, my thumb accidentally pressing past her lips as she opened her mouth.
Or maybe it wasn't an accident.
Maybe she'd drawn it in intentionally.
In either case, her tongue pushed past her teeth and licked at my skin, sending shivers down my entire body. My cock was already hard, past hard, the swelling intense enough that my underwear felt impossibly tight and uncomfortable.
And then Helena started to gently suck, and I knew then that there was no turning back. Disappointment flashed in her eyes as I withdrew my hand, followed by a small cry of surprise and relief when my mouth crashed into hers. I kissed her hungrily, and she returned it with so much passion and intensity that it was like the past twenty-four hours had never happened.
But they had happened.
Helena was pregnant, and it was mine.
And she was mine.