I grip onto her body tightly. Afraid to ask what is wrong. Her sobs won’t stop, and I’m actually terrified that I’ve hurt her or that maybe she regrets this. I always knew if I somehow got lucky enough to have her that it wouldn’t last, and that fear is what kept me quiet for so many years. When you love someone the way I love Fallon, you put them first, knowing your own feelings don’t matter as long as they are happy. So right now, I take a deep breath and ask, “What’s wrong?”

She tries to talk to me through a sob, but I can’t clearly make out her words.

“Baby . . .” I cup her cheek, but her crying gets worse.

Her green eyes are glazed over and red as she confesses, “I wish the baby was yours.”

“The baby is mine. I told you that doesn’t matter to me.” Placing my hand over her stomach, I try to will her to really understand what I’m about to say. “I’m gonna raise this child as my own . . . end of story.” And I mean every word I say.

“Thank you for everything,” she tells me clutching her hand over top of mine. Her words settle my stomach. Thank God she is not having regrets.

“We are going to give the baby so much love it’ll probably hate us. And then you add our parents, and we’ll have the luckiest kid in the world.”

“You promise it doesn’t bother you at all?” Another tear drops from her eyelashes, and I use my thumb to wipe it away.

“Fallon, as long as I have you, everything else is a bonus. I don’t think you know what it was like to be in love with you for as long as I have been and not be able to tell you.”

I move my cock, which is still hard inside her, a little, and she smiles.

“I love you, Fallon.”

“I love you and your cock,” she tells me with a grin and slips her fingers into the back of my hair. I kiss her with so much damn love my heart hurts and start to rock my hips. I don’t think I could ask for anything more. Even with the baby being Leo’s, hearing that she wishes it were mine feels really good. And from this moment forward, I am going to live as though that child is mine. After all, it’s what we both want.

* * *

“So you do this with a lot of other girls?” We are both naked in my dark room, developing our pictures I took earlier.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“What? It’s a valid question.”

“I’ve never taken pictures with anyone else before.”

“No?”

“Nope.” I honestly answer, and she smirks, standing across from me with a satisfied expression across her face. She has no clue what life was like before us. I could barely come when I was with other girls and honestly . . . I wasn’t even really into it.

“Have you ever had a client ask you to take pictures of them in lingerie or anything?”

“I had a woman once ask me to do it for her husband’s birthday.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, I was just starting out and needed the money.”

“Did it turn you on?”

“Far from it. She was no Fallon Wrenshaw if you know what I mean.” Even with the light in here being so dim, I can see the pleased smirk that comes across her face. “Okay, now we’ll move them to this tray,” and we both grab our tongs to lift the pictures by the corners and slide them over.

“Why do you still develop pictures like this?” she asks as she watches the white sheets of paper bring a vision of what was captured to life.

“I don’t know. There’s something satisfying about developing my own pictures. The clarity you get with this type of development is unreal.”

“But you don’t do this with all of them, do you?”

“No, just my favorites,” I smirk, and she cutely pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s why I bought her two cameras so she could experience it, too. “Now, hang them here,” I tell her, and we both attach our pictures to the drying rack. Then I stalk toward her, needing to fulfill another one of my fantasies.

Her eyes scan my body before focusing on my hard cock bobbing with every step. Then in one swift swoop, I lift her off the floor and bury myself deep inside her.

“Jesus, you’re always wet,” I tell her and walk us to one of the bare walls so I can pin her against something.

“I’m wet for you.”

Damn right she is. I grip on to both of her ass cheeks and smash into her tight pussy. She is wrapped around me like a goddamn vice, and my balls are tight, already wanting to blow.

She moans with each thrust, and I love her noises. “Yes, let me hear you,” I say, urging her louder.

My movements are swift and long, pulling my cock almost all the way out of her before slamming back in. Each time she gasps, resting so sexily on the wall. And as we fuck, good and hard, the doorbell chimes.

“Who the fuck is that?”

I shake my head, not having a clue. My body is buzzing, so close to letting go that I start to move again. “Aren’t you gonna answer is?” she whispers, and I shake my head. My orgasm is at my fingertips, fuck whoever is there. I drop my head to her shoulder and push deep, exploding right as the doorbell rings again.

“Fuck!” I gripe, milking myself into her. I’m more pissed than satisfied as I slide from her and gently place her feet back on the floor.

“Parks, you need to answer it, I’m a mess.” She’s already moving to the door of the room, so I follow her to pull on a pair of sweats.

“Coming?” I call out when the doorbell chimes again. I swear to God, if it’s a sales person, I’ll smack them around. I yank open the door, angrily and am startled when I see both Fallon’s mom and my mother standing there. “Hey, what are you guys doing here?”

I have no shirt on, and they look confused. As I let them in, I curse to myself for our clothes that are lying all over the living room.

“We came to talk to you about the party for your father and Roger’s birthdays,” my mom tells me.

I pick up the clothes as our mothers take a seat and I move to my bedroom to put a shirt on.

“Is Fallon here?” her mom, Claire, asks as I re-enter the room.

“Yeah, she’ll be right out.”

“Is she okay?”

“Of course.” I laugh awkwardly, never having my mom walk in on me mid-fucking. Then realize she’s referring to the whole Leo thing. “Can I get either of you something to drink?” They both decline just as Fallon thankfully enters the living room, all dressed and gives me a what-the-fuck look when she sees our moms here. “What are you guys doing here?” she asks and hugs them before she and I squeeze onto the love seat together.

“We came to talk about your dads’ birthday.”

Our fathers’ birthdays are on the same day, so every year we usually do a barbecue at one of the houses, but seeing as this is their sixtieth, I know our moms want to do something special. Naturally, I wrap my hand around Fallon’s and sense their eyes draw to it, as they aren’t used to seeing us together, and I get that. But, this it just something they’ll have to get used to.

* * *

“They seemed happy.”

“After they got past the pile of clothes in the living room and me half naked, they were good.”

She laughs, watching me dry myself off from a shower. I still can’t believe that she is in my bed . . . and all mine.

“I feel bad for lying to them,” she tells me.

“About what?” I question her.

“The baby. They should know.”

“You didn’t really lie; you just haven’t told them, yet. Plus, didn’t the doctor say that a lot of people wait until after the first trimester to tell people?”

“She did.” Fallon bites her thumbnail, giving away her indecision. “They are so happy for us, though. When they find out the baby is Leo’s—”

“They’ll understand,” I tell her.

“What if I don’t ever want anyone to know the truth?”

Softly, I set my towel on the counter and search for the right response before I slip beneath the covers with her, cupping her cheek in my right hand. “You need to really think about what you’re saying.”

“I have been . . . a lot and Leo doesn’t deserve to know. I mean look what he did to that other girl. It could’ve been me.”

“Babe, I hate Leo. He’s an egotistical piece of shit that didn’t deserve you, but I worry that if you don’t ever tell him, you’ll have regrets later on in life. Plus, don’t you think this baby deserves to know his real father?”

“A father isn’t in the DNA,” she scoffs at me a little pissed off. “Being a father is in the love and support a man shows the baby, and that’ll come from you.”

“I told you that I’ll always treat this child as if it were my own. But part of that comes with us making the right decisions. I’m not saying that you should tell him. What I’m saying is that you should really think about it. If I were him, I would want to know that I was a father, even if I didn’t deserve to know. Does that make sense?”

“But that’s you, Parks. Not Leo, I know how he is.” It makes me sick to think of what would happen if Leo actually wanted to be part of the baby’s life.

I rest my hand over top of her lower tummy, and she turns her body so I am spooning her. As I hold her tightly, I close my eyes and wish the child were mine, so we didn’t even have to entertain having Leo in the picture. Unfortunately, that is not our reality, so we have to make the right choices for everyone. But sometimes the right choice and the easy choice are hard to pick between.