Roomies with Benefits: A Brother's Best Friend Baby Romance by Amy Brent (27)

Chapter Four

It was hard to keep my mind on the job, when all I could think about was the woman sleeping just a room away from me.

I mean, what the fuck was I meant to think about? She’d signed the contract, she’d agreed to do this, and now the only thing I wanted was to fuck her senseless. Yeah, sure, I could make like this was all in aid on the baby that we’d agreed to have together, but right now, the only thing I cared about working out my tension on the woman I couldn’t get out of my head.

I had gone about my chores as normal that morning, collecting firewood and stoking a decent fire to make sure the place was warm when she woke up; I hadn’t seen much of her since the day before, as she’d spent most of the evening in her room. I assumed she was just getting used to being here, was maybe even a little nervous knowing what the two of us had agreed to do, but I missed seeing her face. Even now, after knowing her for all but a couple of days, it had emblazoned itself on to my memory.

After she had signed the contracts the day before, I had had had to fight the urge to fuck her right there in the living room. But I wanted this to be on her terms. Knowing that we had signed a contract for this and that there was paperwork filed that regarded what we could and couldn’t do to each other, I wanted to tread carefully. Once the baby was conceived, I knew there would be no real reason for us to keep hooking up, but some twisted little part of me wanted to make sure that she didn’t stop coming back for more.

The chemistry was there, that was for sure. As I stoked the fire and laid a few logs on the smouldering embers, I thought about the day before, when she’d been asking me all those questions about myself. I had to shut her down quickly because I was so worried that I was going to spill all my secrets to her without meaning to, and there was only so much that I wanted her to know about me. But Laurie had this thing about her, something that made her nearly impossible to resist, whether it was in conversation or in completely different ways. The way she looked at me, so direct, as though she had nothing to hide, made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe ever.

And maybe that was because I was hiding some part of myself from her. She didn’t know me, didn’t know where I’d come from, didn’t know what I’d done before this or everything that had happened with-

Nope, I wasn’t going to gum my day up by thinking about the two of them. Not when I had Laurie in the house. Not when I knew that today could be the first day that the two of us had sex. I wondered if I should go wake her and let her know that I was ready to start. I could slide into the sheets beside her, run my hand over her back, wrap my arm around her waist and pull her in tight and close and press a kiss to her neck and watch how she responded to me…

I realized I was staring blankly into the flames, just sitting there, and got to my feet. I couldn’t put my life on hold waiting for her to emerge. I had to make something to eat. I had been out early to collect firewood and I was hungry, needing to refuel.

I headed over to the kitchen and switched on the stove, planning on making myself an omelette with some vegetables. I had taken the time to learn to cook when I’d first moved out here, having been pretty awful at it my entire life up until now. But then, it wasn’t like I could order take-out all the way over to this place. I had to learn to look after myself – that was why I had come here in the first place. To see who I was outside the business, outside Tanya, outside out of it. And the person I was, according to the last day and a half, was someone obsessed with fucking a girl he’d only just met. I was acting like a damn horny teenager. I knew I had more control over myself than this, but there was just something about her – maybe simply the fact that I hadn’t had her yet, or maybe something deeper, more intense. The shape of her, the smell of her, the glint in her eyes when she challenged me. She was the first person to come into my life in a long time who didn’t feel like a leech to it, and I was already stuck on her.

I focused on cooking as best I could, even though the only thing in my head was Laurie. Laurie’s eyes, Laurie’s lips, Laurie’s hair, Laurie’s ass, Laurie’s-

The door to her bedroom opened, and I knew without looking up that my resolve was gone. I had wanted to hold back until that moment, I really had, but as soon as she entered the room I gave up any pretences.

I dropped the cutlery I was working with and strode over to her; she was wearing nothing but an oversized shirt and a pair of panties, looking too sweet for words. Her eyes widened as I got closer to her, but then she moved towards me too, meeting me in the middle, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her small, impossibly tempting body against man. I gripped her face in my hands and paused for a moment to look at her, taking her in, seeing that flicker of desire in her eyes that mirrored the one in mine. And then, at long last, I kissed her.

I backed her against the door at once, knowing that I needed the leverage to touch her the way I wanted. Our tongues met and I slid my hand down, beneath the hem of the shirt and on to her ass, pulling her roughly against me. She let out a small moan against my mouth and I wondered if she had been up all night thinking about this the same way I had. I was already growing hard, my body finding some relief in the way I was touching her but needing more. I ran my hand up her back, gripping her hair, pulling her head back so I could lean down and kiss her neck. The smell of her was intoxicatingly good, and I inhaled it deeply as though I was trying to save some for later.

“Bedroom,” I growled against her ear. “Now.”

I scooped her up in my arms, pulling her against my chest, and she leaned in to brush her lips against my jaw as I made my way to my room. I wanted to take her in my bed – in my space, my house. I wanted to make her mine on my own territory. She was clinging to me like I was the only thing keeping her tethered to the ground, and I knew how she felt. Just that first kiss had been heady enough to make me feel as though I had left the planet.

I laid her down on the bed and ripped the shirt off over her head, leaving her in nothing but a pair of panties. She looked up at me, eyes wide, as I quickly stripped down, pulling off my shirt and my jeans and tossing them aside. I slid down on top of her, pushing her legs apart and running my hands all over her naked body; across her waist, over her breasts, gripping at her thighs and her ass. She felt amazing, soft and pliant and delicate beneath me. Like we were two halves of a whole who had always been meant to fit together like this. I kissed her again, harder this time, and was just about to slide my hand into her panties when she pulled back and looked at me intently.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded, breath coming quickly. She stared at me for another silent moment, and for a horrible second I was sure that she was going to tell me that she’d changed her mind and she didn’t want this. But instead, she said the last thing I’d expected to hear come out of her mouth.

“I’ve never…done this before,” she admitted, sliding her eyes away from mine as though she was embarrassed by what she was saying.

“What do you mean?” I panted, my pulse dropping a little as I tried to figure out what she was telling me.

“I’ve never had sex before,” She repeated herself, clearer this time. I didn’t know what the hell I was meant to say to that.

“Have you ever…?”

“I’ve done other stuff before,” she assured me quickly. “Just not…this.”

“And you want to do it with me?” I asked. She nodded, biting her lip, and it took everything I had not to rip her panties off and just fuck her right there and then; there was something about the way she let her teeth rest nervously on her bottom lip that made me want her even more than I already did.

But instead, I took a deep breath. If she hadn’t done this before, if, for whatever reason, she had decided that I was the one to take her virginity, then I was going to make sure that I did it properly.

“Then we’re doing this right,” I murmured, and leaned in again to kiss her, but this time softer, slower, more tenderly. I knew this was just a contract, that the only reason we were doing this at all was because we had a deal, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make her first time as memorable as I could. She slipped her arms around me and kissed me back, letting her hands rest lightly on my back; her touch was enough to drive me a tiny bit crazy, but I kept myself in check, holding her close.

I moved my hands over her slowly, not as desperate as before, letting her know that I was going to make sure that she was comfortable before we did anything else. I couldn’t believe she had never had sex with anyone before. She just had this seductive, self-confident way about her, as though she knew that she was in control of everything in the room, and I had a hard time understanding that she had never used that for sex. And that she had, for whatever reason, saved that for me.

I could feel goosebumps forming where I touched her, and her breath started to pick up; I moved down, kissing her neck, finding that spot where her throat and her ear connected and letting my mouth linger there for a moment before I kept going. I took each one of her nipples into my mouth at a time, savouring the way they swelled between my lips, teasing them softly with my tongue and listening to her breathing. She ran her fingers through my hair, holding me close, her belly rising and falling quickly as I touched her.

Finally, I let my hand move between her legs; I could feel her warmth even though the thin pair of black panties she was wearing, but I needed to touch her properly. I wanted to make her come before I fucked her. I sat up between her legs, and slowly pulled her panties off, watching as her eyes drifted shut and she let out these agonisingly sexy little moans of pleasure. I let my fingers trail up the inside of her thighs as I pulled her leg up and kissed her, my lips tracing up her calf and over her knee. Every part of her tasted so good, her skin specific against my lips.

I moved back up so I was on top of her once more, and tipped her gently on to her side and pushed her legs apart; she spread them eagerly, as though this was what she’d been waiting for all along. I ran my fingers up the inside of her leg, and then pressed them gently against her clit, letting her set the pace. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth and moved her hips back and forth against me, going slow, getting used to the feel of my hands there. Normally, I liked to be the one in control, but I had never taken someone’s virginity before and I wanted her to be the one to set the pace. There would be plenty of time for me to go as rough as we both wanted when this was done with; for now, knowing that she was giving herself to me in this way was the only thing I needed.

I moved my hand down, dipping my fingers into her pussy, and lifted my fingers to stroke her clit gently. She lifted her head and inhaled sharply and I stilled my hand, wondering if perhaps I had pushed her too far too fast, but then she let herself sink back into the sheets and groaned.

“That feels so good,” she murmured, her voice soft in the early morning air. The light that was pouring through the window above the bed was picking her out perfectly, and the sunshine was making her look as though she didn’t quite belong to this world.

I moved my fingers inside her and matched the pace to that of my thumb, stimulating her internally and externally and watching her face intently to see what worked best for her. She reached out to touch me, letting her hand come to rest on my chest, right over my heart. There was something so intimate about this, despite the fact that we still didn’t know each other that well. We didn’t need to. When the connection ran this deep and this strong, I didn’t need words to know there was something serious here.

I stroked her inside slowly, moving my fingers carefully, letting her get used to the feel of something inside her pussy like this. I could hear her breath getting faster and coming harder with every movement inside of her, and some part of me was urging her to come. I needed to feel her climax, needed to let her know what I was capable of. Needed her to keep coming back for more. I moved my thumb over her clit softly, and then finally, finally, I felt her pussy contract around my fingers and she let out a gasp of pleasure as she came.

I watched her face – that was all I wanted to see, the “o” her mouth formed as she came for the first time with me. I loved watching women come. There was something unbelievably hot about knowing that I had pushed her to the edge and over it, that I had coaxed her there all by myself. She pressed herself into the bed, one hand gripping at my hair and the other pushing hard against my chest, as though she was trying to see if I would pull away. Well, I wasn’t going to. I leaned in and kissed her again, stilling my fingers, letting her body clench and come down again.

Her eyes opened slowly, her lashes fluttering, and she finally met my gaze once more, like she was landing with a thud back in the real world, as I pulled back. She pressed her forehead to mine, as though acknowledging without words what had just happened between us.

“I want to feel you inside me,” she murmured, and those words were the most erotic thing that I’d ever heard in my entire life. She wanted me to fuck her. She wanted me to be her first. Was there anything hotter than that?

I stripped down swiftly and slid between her legs, down on top of her, and she drew her body up to meet me; she was trembling slightly, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the orgasm she’d just had or the nerves pulsing through her body at what we were about to do. She tilted her head and kissed me again, slipping her arms around me, holding me as tight and close as she could. It was hard for me to hold myself back, my cock aching with desperation to be deep inside her already.

“You ready?” I asked, and she nodded.

“Yes,” she breathed, and I didn’t need telling again. I took my cock into my hand, and pressed it against the entrance to her slit.

She was so tight, so tight that it took me a moment to manoeuvre myself inside of her. She gasped as I pushed in the first few inches, and I stopped at once, but then she shifted her hips as though to guide me in deeper. She reached down, her hands coming to rest on my ass, and she took me in, inch by inch, until I was all the way inside of her.

I held myself still once I was in her; I wanted to remember how this felt, wanted to commit all of this to memory so that I never forgot how it felt the very first time I fucked her. I knew the chances of her getting pregnant the first time around was slim, so I knew this wouldn’t be the last time I took her, but there was something profound about knowing that I was the first person she’d ever let do this. I watched her face, as I had done all the way through, watched the furrows that appeared between her brows and then slowly smoothed out again as she got used to the feel of me inside her.

“How does it feel?” I asked softly, stroking down over her body, trying to soothe and soften her.

“It feels…” She groped around for the words to describe it, her mouth opening and closing a couple of times. And then, she landed on it.

“It feels good.”

I took that as my cue to begin to move inside of her – I went super-slow at first, partly because I was so fucking turned on by her that I was worried I might blow my load quickly if I went too fast. How long had it been since I had fucked without a condom? I couldn’t remember, but the combination of the skin on skin and her gorgeously tight, slick pussy was almost enough to push me over the edge then and there. Made harder still by the fact that she quickly seemed to get used to me, hooking her ankles behind my back and pulling me in deeper, like she already couldn’t get enough of me. I knew how she felt.

I wasn’t sure how long I was fucking her like that; time seemed to stretch and distort around us. Days could have passed and I wouldn’t have noticed. All that mattered was the feel of her small, sweet body beneath me, of her hands travelling hungrily over my body as I moved inside her. Her head tipped back into the pillow once more and her jaw clenched again, and I knew from the last time that she was getting close; I brushed my hand up her throat and she flicked her tongue out to taste the tips of my fingers, as though she was determined to get to know every part of me that she could. And that was when I knew I couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Ah…” She groaned, grinding back against me desperately, and I could tell that she was almost there. So was I; my cock was tingling as I thrust faster inside of her, and finally I felt her pussy tighten around my cock as she let out another sudden, sharp breath and leaned up to press her head into my shoulder as she came once more. Seeing her come, feeling her body practically vibrate beneath me as my cock made her climax, was all I needed to get me there and moments after she came I pushed myself up to the hilt inside of her and finished.

I held myself there for a moment, not ready for this to end, but then reluctantly pulled myself out of her and rolled next to her, on to the bed. I closed my eyes for a moment, savouring this, and then turned to look at her. Her eyes were wide open and she was staring up at the ceiling, in something that looked a little like shock and a little like delight.

“Are you okay?” I asked gently, reaching out to touch her stomach; it was odd to think that soon enough my baby would be in there. She turned to me, eventually, and a smile passed over her face.

“More than alright,” she replied, and closed her eyes, stretching herself all the way out on the bed as though she was trying to embrace the entire world at once. And I knew, there and then, that this was just the start of whatever had begun between us.

Chapter Five

I couldn’t believe what had just happened. It had been the last thing I’d expected. I lay there in his bed, surrounded by the smell of him, feeling his eyes on me and not quite sure how to react to what had just gone down.

“That was amazing,” I sighed, and turned to face him finally. I had never really wanted to hang out naked after I was done with the sexy stuff, but I knew that if I dressed then he would and I wasn’t ready for him to put away that gorgeous body yet.

“Yeah, it was,” he agreed, cocking an eyebrow. “This conception thing’s going to be easier than I thought, huh?”

He rolled out of bed and I watched him with a smile on my face as he pulled on some of his clothes once more. I couldn’t believe that that had actually happened. After so long building it up in my head, we had had sex for the first time. I had had sex for the first time. And it was everything that I’d hoped for, and way more. I couldn’t believe I’d come, twice – I had never gotten off on just fingering before, but his touch was so soft and gentle and tempting and impossible to resist that I just couldn’t resist.

I could have lain there all day, but I felt my stomach rumble and knew that I would need to get something to eat eventually.

“You want me to make you some breakfast?” He asked, glancing over at me, and I placed my hands on my tummy, embarrassed that he had heard it.

“Yeah, actually,” I nodded, propping myself up. The light was streaming in and picking out his features perfectly, and some bold part of me wanted to guide him back into bed so we could get back to that conceiving thing.

“You stay here,” he suggested. “I think you’re meant to…uh, wait around for a while, after we fuck. To try and make sure that it takes.”

“Right,” I agreed, remembering all at once why we had just done what we’d done. I flushed slightly, at allowing my brain to run away with me. We had a contract. Yes, he had been gentle – romantic, even, in the way he touched me, as soon as he’d found out that I was a virgin. But we wouldn’t have been doing this if it wasn’t for the agreement we had between us, and I needed to keep that in mind.

I lay there for a moment after he left, staring up at the high ceiling as the sunlight slowly flooded the room and lit it from the inside out. And then I got out of bed and pulled on some clothes; I knew he wanted me to stay in bed to increase our chances of getting pregnant, but I was feeling restless, my skin prickling and tingling where he had touched me. I already wanted to feel him again.

Once I was dressed, I wandered out of the bedroom. It felt wrong to be in his room without him, even though I knew he expected me to stay there. As soon as I opened the door, I was met by the sound of something frying, and followed my nose into the kitchen.

“I thought I told you to stay in bed,” he scolded me playfully, and I rolled my eyes and stretched; I spotted his eyes tracing down my body, and enjoyed the effect I had on him. He was shirtless, casual, relaxed, and it was hard to keep my eyes off his chest and his abs. He was so cut – I had never seen a guy who looked like him in real life.

“Yeah, well I got bored,” I shrugged, daring him to challenge me. He turned back to the stove, pushing some eggs around the pan.

“What are you making?” I asked, pointing my chin towards the stove.

“Just some eggs and bacon,” He shrugged, and I raised my eyebrows.

“Don’t think I’ve ever met a man who knew how to cook,” I remarked, and he glanced over at me, an incredulous expression on his face.

“Not even breakfast?”

“Not even breakfast,” I repeated and hopped up on the counter, kicking my legs back and forth. How was it possible to feel this good this early in the morning? Being away from the city, away from the sound of the cars and the stress of that life, was already doing me good. Or maybe it was just getting fucked well and good that was doing it for me.

“Well, guess you’re going to have to get used to my cooking,” he remarked, glancing over at me again. I felt as though he couldn’t keep his eyes off me, as though he was trying to restrain himself from getting his hands all over my body, and I enjoyed the attention.

“I think I’ll manage it,” I eyed the food in the pan, my mouth watering. My appetite was finally back after it had dropped off the fact of the Earth the last few days.

“I only learned to cook since I came up here,” he remarked, and I raised my eyebrows.

“Why? Did you have a cook or something back where you lived before?” I teased, and, to my shock, he nodded.

“Yeah, I had a few staff around the townhouse,” he agreed, and then he turned to see the surprise written all over my face.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who had staff before,” I replied, and then I realized what a dumb comment that was – he had hired me, after all, to carry his baby. Why wouldn’t he have had other people to cook and clean too over the years?

“I don’t miss it,” he shrugged as he continued to cook. “I got too used to having other people looking after me. I like being self-sufficient.”

“Let me guess, if you could have had this baby all by yourself, you would have?” I teased, and he grinned at me.

“Yeah, but I guess I can live with the company,” he remarked teasingly, letting his gaze linger on me for a moment longer. “So, what about you? Where were you before this?”

“Oh, just back in the city,” I replied vaguely. I saw the flash of a furrow of his brow appear, just for a moment, as though he was on the brink of challenging me about what I’d just said, but then he seemed to write it off as not worth it and shrugged.

“Did you have a job?”

“I was a waitress,” I replied truthfully. Well, that had been my last job, even if I hadn’t worked it in a month or so before I left the city.

“You go to college?”

“Nope,” I replied, looking down at my feet. I felt a little less than him – I wondered what he’d been through to get here, how hard he’d worked and how much he’d given up. And here I was, never having had a job that required me to do much more than keep a smile on my face and make sure that I got enough in tips to pay my bills.

“You ever want to?” He pressed. I wondered why he was suddenly acting so interested in who I was, in what I’d done. It was a little late to start backing down on this now, after the contracts were signed. Maybe he just wanted to know what kind of woman he had asked to mother his child. Or maybe he felt a little looser and keener on me now that we had shared that amazing hook-up.

“Uh, not that I can think of,” I shrugged. I hadn’t been much in school, getting through just well enough to make sure that I could go to college if I ever got the motivation or cash together to do so. Everyone else seemed to have parents pushing them to go and pursue all the stuff they wanted to do, but mine were long gone by the time I finished high school. So I watched everyone else head off to college while I stayed behind, wondering what kind of life I was going to lead in the absence of everyone else that I’d grown up with. Turned out, like it or not, Richie had been the answer to that question. I just hadn’t wanted to hear it.

“What about you?” I asked, turning the conversation back on him. I had kept the kind of person I was locked up tight for such a long time now that it didn’t feel right to be open about it now and besides, I wasn’t sure if it only the fantasy of the person that I was that was keeping a roof over my head.

“Uh, I studied business after high school,” He shrugged. “I was pretty boring, to be honest. Nothing much to report.”

“Any interesting stories from your love life?” I cocked my head at him, a little jealous at the thought of someone else with him. “Any crazy exes I should know about?”

“Breakfast is ready,” He replied, ignoring my question. That piqued my interest at once – how could it not? – but I figured that there was plenty of time for me to delve into that in the future. He carefully laid out the eggs and bacon on to the plate and then handed it over to me, and I took it for him. He wasn’t meeting my gaze. He was hiding something from me, I could tell that. So how would I get it out of him?

Maybe I wouldn’t. After all, I was keeping something from him too. Maybe he would want an eye for an eye, my truth for his. And maybe it was better than he didn’t know the honest story of who I was or what I’d been through. I inhaled the scent of my breakfast, and let it block out the bad thoughts in my head. This had been a perfect morning, and I was going to let anything get in the way of that.

Chapter Six

As I marched through the forest, I did my best to keep my mind off the woman waiting back at the house for me. I wasn’t doing a very good job.

I couldn’t believe how quickly I had given in. I had taken one look at her and let myself get overtaken by my desires in an instant. In some ways, I couldn’t exactly blame myself. She was fucking gorgeous, an even better lay than I had imagined, and I hadn’t wanted to really take control of someone the way I did with her but hadn’t had a chance to yet. We had hooked up at the start of the week, when I had taken her virginity and then made her breakfast, and since then I had been avoiding it. It had been too intense, too full-on, too much, too soon. When you hadn’t had sex for a while and then had sex that good, it was all too easy to pretend that it meant more than it did.

I realized I was panting slightly, and came to a halt, placing my hand the thick of the tree next to me. I was next to the river, the small, thin one that wound it’s way all the way down from the top of the mountain and down next to my house. I knew that as long as I stuck close to the river, I would be fine, able to follow it all the way home. And yet, here I was, trying to put off getting back to the cabin because I knew that she would be there waiting for me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her. No, quite the contrary – I wanted to go back there and just spend time with her. The morning after I’d taken her virginity and made her breakfast, the two of us had chatted and it had felt easy. Maybe because we’d already gotten sex out of the way and that tension didn’t remain any more, or maybe because I liked the light way she teased me, the way she delved into my past. The fact that she actually seemed to give a shit about the kind of person I was. That was new. Back in the city, after I had made all the money, pretty much everyone who came across me seemed to have some ulterior motive, even if it was just being seen with someone with my kind of status. Out here in the middle of nowhere, that status didn’t matter, and I had a feeling that she didn’t much care about it anyway. There was something straight about her, something pleasingly blunt. Although I was sure she had been keeping something from me in that first conversation, when I had been trying to find out about her life before me, but then I was keeping my mouth shut on a few things that she wanted to know so I wasn’t going to push.

And since then, we’d just existed around each other; eating together, talking together, forming these silly little in-jokes wherever we could. She had a great laugh, and I loved to hear it. Sometimes, I would grin a little breathlessly when I made a joke that seemed to land with her, and I knew in my heart that was an indicator that there was something deeper going on inside me.

So I had come out to get firewood that cool evening to give myself some time to think. The air bit at my skin and helped bright me back down to Earth once more. I needed a reminder as to what this was all in aid of. The two of us had a deal, and when it was done, she would be out of here. One year. One year was going to go so quickly, and then she would never have to see me again, and the thought of her leaving at the end of it all…

No. I gathered the branches that I had found fallen from the threes in the forest, just enough to keep us warm for the next few hours. I liked to come out here and collect whenever I got the chance, so I never got too much at a time, but more and more I was finding myself getting enough that meant I never had to leave her alone in that house without me. I started to follow the river back to the cabin. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been walking for – long enough that the sun had started to set in the sky above me, but not so long that darkness had seeped over the ground quite yet.

As I got closer to the house, a smell filled the air – something heavy and savoury and enough to make my mouth water after all this time walking through the forest. The fresh, clean air always seemed to pique my appetite. But I hadn’t left anything on before I’d gone out, so what was going on in there?

I opened the door and dusted off my shoes, dumping the firewood down by the fire and glancing around to see where Laurie had gotten to.

“Laurie?” I called into the house, glancing over to the kitchen – there were a couple of pots on the stove, that she must have put there. I smiled. Oh, so she was cooking something for us?

“Hey,” She emerged from the bedroom, and I raised my eyebrows as soon as I laid eyes on her. She was wearing a dress, something I hadn’t seen her in since she’d arrived, but she looked pretty damn good – it wasn’t anything slinky and sexy, but a floaty number that landed just above her knees. Somehow, the delicateness of it on her, knowing what we had done only a few days before, as hot as hell to me.

“You making dinner for us?” I asked, and she grinned, heading to the kitchen and tasting a spoonful of something from one of the pots.

“Trying to,” she pulled a face. “Probably not up to the standards of your chefs, but…”

“It smells good,” I made my way through the kitchen and looked over her shoulder, checking out what she was making. I looked down at her as she continued to cook, stirring a pot of creamy sauce to keep it from sticking. I wanted to lean down and wrap my arms around her, bury my face in her neck, let the smell of her brush away the scent of the world outside.

“Yeah, it does,” she grinned cockily. “I don’t do much, but I do a mean Alfredo. You want to get the table set?”

“Sure,” I agreed, pulling some plates out of the cupboards and going to lay up the dining table. I didn’t have much time to use this thing, as enormous as it was, and usually just ate on my couch in front of the fire. Why would I need to use something like that? It was just too enormous, all mighty knotted wood hewn into a giant table. But now that I had company, it seemed the perfect setting for a romantic dinner.

She served up a few minutes later, and even poured a bottle of wine. I cocked an eyebrow as I saw her pouring the glass.

“And where did you find that?” I asked, and she bit her lip and looked up at me, playing the innocent, but eventually the play stopped.

“I have this nose for good wine,” she shrugged. “I can sniff it out from miles around. And this is some really good wine…”

“Yeah, it is,” I clinked myself glass against hers and took a sip. I didn’t drink a lot, but the low light thrown by the fire, the food, the fact that she was wearing that beautiful dress…it would have been rude not to.

“So, what’s all this in aid of?” I asked as I sat down and reached for my cutlery.

“Does it have to be in aid of anything?” She replied, tucking in to her food. “You’ve been looking after me this whole time, I just want to do the same to you.”

“Huh,” I grinned, and then took my first bite. She cocked her head at me; the quiet and stillness of the room, lit lightly by the dark gold of the fireplace, her eyes seemed to be shining.

“What?”

“I just haven’t had anyone take care of me in a long time,” I admitted. “It’s a novelty.”

“A good one?”

“Well, let’s wait till I see what I think of the dinner,” I teased, and she watched me intently as I ate.

“It’s really good,” I confirmed to her, and I was telling the truth; the sauce was creamy and decadent and the pasta had just the right amount of bite to it. The wine, by chance, fit well with the flavour profile, tart and sour where the pasta was soothing and almost sweet.

“Really?” She beamed across the table at me. “I just saw that kitchen of yours and I knew I had to make something…”

“You like to cook?” I asked, and she shrugged.

“Yeah, but I’m not very good at it,” She admitted. “I only have a few things that I can make with any kind of skill.”

“I’ll show you, if you like,” I suggested. The two of us, in the kitchen – on the kitchen countertop, maybe…

“I would like that,” she replied, and I was sure I could see her flushing slightly as she eyed me across the table. There was a heat rising between us, and I knew at that moment where this evening was going. Was this what she had set out to do? Her lips parted slightly and she glanced in the direction of the bedroom, as though she wanted to forget all of this and just go back to bed. But then she turned back to her meal and began to eat once more.

“So, when do I get to come and collect firewood with you?” She asked, nodding out beyond the window. “I want to see what it looks like out there. Feel like I’ve got everything down in here.”

And with that, we spent the rest of the meal just talking. Not about anything deep or serious, but the kind of conversation that was regularly punctuated with gales of laughter. I finished a glass, and then another, and she did the same thing, her eyes growing a little heavy as she watched me from where she sat.

We dumped the plates in the sink and then took a seat in front of the fire; I was aware of how close our bodies were, that I could so easily have just reached out and skimmed my fingers over her face, but something in me was holding back. Maybe it was because I was enjoying her company so much, and knew that I had the whole rest of the night to fuck her senseless.

“Cormac,” she turned to me, and the change in her tone of voice told me that this was serious.

“Yeah?” I turned to her. I was feeling a little less hard around the edges towards her now, like I didn’t need to defend myself against her questions. She had gotten me just how she wanted me, and it turned out that I wasn’t too averse to it either.

“How did you get all this?” She gestured around, taking a sip of the wine; her lips were slightly coloured by the wine, and their deeper stain suited her.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, where did you get your money from?” She asked again. “I know I’m not meant to ask that, but…is it legal? I just need to know I’m not getting pulled into another-”

“Another?” I caught and hung on to the word. It was the closest thing she had give me to the truth about what had happened in her past, but she immediately shook her head and held up the wine glass.

“Just drank a little too much, my words slipped,” she smiled at me, and that smile made me forget everything that I had been so intent on pursuing. She nodded at me again. “So?”

“I…” I stared into the fire, which was burning brighter again since I had stoked it after dinner. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her about this. I was sure that somehow, knowing the truth about me, any truth about me, would be enough to drive her away from me. We had both lived in this house for a few days now, getting to know each other on a superficial level, and I wasn’t sure what knowing something deeper about me might make her think.

But the way she was looking at me, expectant and curious, I knew I couldn’t turn her down. I wanted something deeper with her. I wanted everything I could get with her.

“I came from this really high-achieving family, you have to know that,” I began, speaking slowly. “Everything I did, they were pushing me from the very start. If I’d had the choice and the cash I’d have come out to this place as soon as I’d left home.”

“What did you do before this, then?” She demanded, and I could hear an undertone of worry in her voice. Guess she wanted to check that my money was actually good.

“I ran a publishing company,” I explained. “I pretty much started working in my twenties and then didn’t stop all the way through till a couple of years ago.”

“And you made good money doing that?” She pressed.

“Yeah, a lot of money,” I shook my head, remembering the cash that I had pulled in doing that job. Even to me, at the time, it had seemed like so much; I had supposed that towards the end I had started taking it for granted, and that was when that I knew that I had been in this business for way to long. When I took billions as run-of-the-mill, then I was making too much money for my own good.

“Enough to retire out here for the rest of my life, if I wanted to,” I gestured around this place. Me and my partner, we got the whole thing rolling near the end. It’s still going on now, I’m still making a little money from it, but I just couldn’t face that kind of life anymore.”

“Your partner?” Her ears pricked up. “Like, romantic, or business?”

“Business,” I replied, and winced slightly as I thought about what had happened between Jeb and I. “I haven’t thought about him in a long time.”

“Sore spot?” She wondered aloud, and I realized this was my way straight out of having to continue this conversation and spill anything more about what had gone down in the city to drive me out here for good.

“Sore spot,” I nodded, and she leaned back into the couch and turned her gaze back to the fire.

“Publishing, huh?” She looked over at me. “You must love books.”

“Oh, hell, yes,” I agreed. “I was going to have a library wing built on to this place, but I decided to keep it to e-books instead. Makes more sense.”

“Right,” she cocked her head at me, a smiling blooming over her face. “You’ll have to introduce me to your collection.

“I’d love to,” I replied, and she put her wine glass down. It seemed like the two of us had broken through a wall, the first time that either of us had shared anything serious about ourselves. It felt strange now, knowing that she understood about that part of my life. Not the details, just the sketched-in outline, but still – it was something. Her eyes were soft in the low light, the light fading away to nothing outside the windows. We were the only two people in the entire world at that moment, the alcohol making everything feel that much more intense.

“I’ve been thinking about what we did,” Laurie finally broke the silence, her voice low, and I felt my desire for her crest and burst all at once. I couldn’t resist her. The way she was looking at me, the fact that we were a mere few inches away from each other on the couch, the fact that it felt as though we were the only two people left in the world right now…

She slid towards me, and my arms reached out for her as though on instinct. Climbing on top of me, her eyes seemed to shine with something darker than before, as she leaned down to press her mouth against mine.

Chapter Seven

My heart was racing as I put the moves on him, not that I thought he was going to turn me down, but because I had never done anything like this before and had no idea how I was meant to seduce someone like him.

His hands sank into my hips as our lips met again, and he let out a soft moan against my mouth – it sounded almost like relief, like he was glad he didn’t have to make the pretence of not wanting me any longer. He pushed his tongue roughly into my mouth, catching me off-guard, and then flipped me around so I was underneath him on the couch. I let out a little squeal of excitement and wrapped my arms around him, tasting the expensive wine on his lips and his tongue and wondering how he was going to use them today.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” he breathed into my ear, and it was the sexiest thing he could have said to me; he had been all up in my head these last few days, as I wondered what it would take to get him to make me come the way he had the first time we’d made love. I had lain in bed, basically on fire for him, some part of me wanting to get to my feet and march into his room and remind him that we had a baby to conceive and that we needed to get on that.

“Me neither,” I replied, and he kissed me again, his hands tracing up my waist and pushing my hands above my head; he pinned them there easily, one strong hand pinning both my wrists to the couch, and he let his other one roam all over my body. He had been so soft and sweet that first time, but I knew that this was going to be different. He had been gentle with me, and now that I was broken in, I was pretty sure that both of us were ready for more.

He pushed up my skirt and slipped his hand up my thigh, his fingers pinching at my flesh as though he was reminding himself of what it had been like the first time for us. And then, all at once, he was sliding down my body.

“What are you doing?” I panted as he pulled me around, letting my legs hang off the side of the couch.

“Spread your legs,” He ordered, and I did as I was told as soon as the words came out of his mouth. He was on his knees in front of me, the fire crackling behind him, picking his outline from behind so that all I could really see was the shape of him. My skirt was flipped up over my hips and I was exposed from the waist down, my belly rising and falling rapidly. He leaned forward, pushing my thighs as far apart as they would go, and planted a soft kiss on my pussy through my panties. I groaned and tipped my head back – I couldn’t take this. There was something inimitably hot about this man, this man who I had never met a sexier version of, wanting me above anyone else.

“You smell so good,” he murmured, brushing his nose across my inner thigh, and I could only pant with pleasure as I waited for him to go further. I needed more, right now. And finally, finally, he gave it to me.

He hooked his fingers around my panties and slowly inched them down my legs, looking up at me – I couldn’t much make out the expression on his face in the darkness, the fire still the only thing lighting us, but I could imagine it from the first time we had been together. The way the lust furrowed his brow, tightened his jaw, like he was holding himself down from pushing me down and fucking me hard. I would have to let him know, one of these days, that I wouldn’t mind that at all.

But for now, all I could focus on were the sensations – the heat of the fire on my bare skin, the warmth of his breath on the inside of my thigh as he kissed his way up my leg, going slow, letting his soft, sweet mouth linger on those sensitive spots that even I hadn’t known had existed before now. He let out a soft moan, as though he was as turned-on by what was about to come as I was.

Suddenly, he slid his hands beneath my butt and pulled me forward a few inches, and his mouth was all at once so close to my pussy that I could practically feel it. My toes curled against the lush carpet and my teeth clenched as I waited for him to give me what I wanted so badly; he raised his gaze, eyes shining in the dark, and a smile passed over his lips and I knew that he was seeing how long he could make me wait before I gave up and begged him. I pressed my lips together, not giving him the satisfaction, a small part of me wanting to win this twisted little game that he seemed to have going on.

And then he gave in, pressing his mouth to my pussy and drawing a cry of pleasure from between my lips. His tongue found my clit at once, working in long, slow strokes from my slit all the way up and then down again. He flattened his tongue against me as though determined to taste as much of me as he could all at once, and he let out a sharp breath as he did so. I reached down and nervously raked my nails through his hair, letting him know that this was working for me – I had never been with a guy who seemed to actually enjoy going down on me before, but the way he seemed to let out these soft little moans and groans with every movement told me that this was getting him off as much as it was me.

He focused his attentions in on my clit, drawing it out and between his lips and sucking lightly as he flicked his tongue against it. His fingers sank into my ass as he drew me on to him, and my breath started coming faster as the pleasure coursed out all over my body. I tipped my head back, letting it rest against the luxurious comfort of the pillows behind me, and closed my eyes, focusing on the way his mouth felt against my pussy. I was already getting wet, and some part of me wanted to pull him away from me and ask him to fuck me again. But for now, I knew that this was too addictive to put a stop to.

I wasn’t sure how long he was there, between my legs, but he seemed keen to make it clear that he would have spent the rest of the evening there if he could have; he took his time, in rush to make me come, and knowing that he wasn’t pushing me to get somewhere was all I needed to find my way there. I was usually self-conscious about the way my body looked when I was with someone, about how they read my reactions and about how I sounded, but with him all of that seemed to drop away and then only thing that mattered was the feel of his tongue, soft and insistent, against my clit, the knowledge that soon he would be inside of me once more…

“Oh,” I gasped as the feeling hit me. It took me off-guard, the pleasure suddenly swelling and arcing inside me in a way that made my body crumple with the intensity of it. The feeling seemed to wipr my mind clear, the only thing in the world how good it felt, and how I never wanted this to end. I gripped his hair, hard, holding him in place, as my clit pulsed beneath his deft tongue. He slowly pulled back once I had unclamped my thighs from either side of his face, and he leaned up to kiss me at once, his tongue snaking into my mouth so that I could taste myself on his lips. That reminder, of where he had just been, spiked the pleasure in me once more.

“Fuck me,” I gasped, pressing my head against his. “Please, Cormac.”

“Ask me again,” he murmured, grinning, and he kissed my neck softly, sending another jolt of desire through me. Any pride I had taken in holding back and not letting him get the better of me vanished in that instance, and I knew I would have done anything to get him to give me what I wanted so badly in that moment.

“Please, Cormac, please,” I breathed, the words pouring out of me like they had been bottled up since the moment I laid eyes on him. “I want to feel you inside me, I need to…”

“That’s more like it,” He bit my earlobe softly between his teeth and finally seemed satisfied by my desperation, thank goodness. He clambered back up on top of me, quickly unbuckling his pants as he pushed me down into the couch. I could already feel how hard he was, pressing up against me like that, and it sent this jolt of excitement through my entire body knowing how much just eating me out had turned him on. He took his cock in his hand and pressed it against my slit, sliding his other hand up my body and catching my own wrists in his fingers. He held me there, poised beneath him, helpless in the best way possible, and then finally he pushed himself inside of me.

“Ah!” I cried out. It hurt a tiny bit, just like the first time, but within a moment it mellowed into something sweet and hot and oh, so, good.

“Fuck,” he growled in my ear, and for a moment it was as though he had lost control, and I felt this desire sweep over me as I thought about how much he wanted me. Enough that his voice seemed ragged around the edges, enough that his breath came fast and that he moved into me hard as soon as he got the chance, as though every second he was around me he was barely holding himself back from this. I wrapped my legs around him, just like I had done last time, and pushed up playfully against the hand that was holding me down. I had imagined it like this – well, maybe not on the couch, but the intensity of it, how much he seemed to need me.

He fucked me hard, one hand on my hip holding me steady, and I leaned up to kiss him; he pulled back an inch, looking deep into my eyes, before he kissed me properly, pushing his tongue into my mouth and sharing that mingled taste of the two of us once again. I wanted to touch his face, to run my hands over his body, and something about not being able to have that made me pulse with a desire I had never felt before. He was giving me so much but holding back on what I wanted the most, and somehow that was the hottest thing in the world.

“Come for me, Laurie,” he murmured in my ear, softly, the words catching me off-guard. I closed my eyes. When he spoke to me like that, it felt as though my body was going to give in there and then.

“Ah…” I lifted my hips, trying to push back against him, this craving to feel him deep inside of me suddenly taking me over. He thrust at a steady pace, leaning back to watch my face tense with desire, and then, and then, once more, I found myself helplessly coming, my pussy clenching hard around his cock as the sensation pulsed out over my entire body. I gasped for breath and he let go off my hand, and I touched every part of him that I could, as though this was the last chance I’d ever get to lay hands on him and I wanted to make the most of it.

He held himself inside of me as my pussy milked his cock, and then moments later I felt him come to – it was an odd feeling, one that I was still taking time to get used to, but there was something supremely satisfying about the way that it felt, knowing that I’d pushed him over the edge the same way he had with me. He slowly slid out of me and I lay there on the couch as he sat back up, staring into the fire with his lips slightly parted as though he was trying to give shape to words he couldn’t find right now. He pulled my feet on to his lap and ran his hands over them gently, sending sweet shivers up my spine. I stared at him, a smile on my face, as the flames danced over his body. I couldn’t believe how good it was already.

“You should get to bed,” he remarked after a while, and I let my head fall back against the couch. I wasn’t ready to go to my own bed yet – I was enjoying hanging out in the afterglow of this way too much, and I didn’t want to have to leave him.

“I don’t want to,” I murmured, reaching out to touch his face. He was still holding my feet, protective.

“Come on,” He got to his feet, offering me a hand. “Let’s get you some sleep. I need you well-rested.”

I took his hand, and he pulled me upright; I felt a little headrush but I wasn’t sure if it was from getting up or from being so close to him once more.

“Well-rested?” I asked, and he grinned at me.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he replied, and led me out of the living room. It took me a moment to realize that we weren’t headed to my bedroom.

“You want me to sleep…?” I began, and quickly closed my mouth. I didn’t want him to notice that he was taking me to his bed instead of mine, just in case he was doing this on instinct.

“What?” He asked, as he opened the door and I followed him inside.

“Nothing,” I shook my head, and he headed over to the bathroom as I took a seat on the edge of the bed. I grinned, widely, feeling like I was getting away with something. He wanted me to sleep with him tonight. Sharing his bed after we’d had sex that hot? That was more than just the contract, I was sure of it.

By the time he came back from the bathroom, I had stripped down and curled up beneath the covers; I listened as he slipped into bed next to me, and I could feel the warmth of his naked flesh so close to me that I wanted to reach out and touch it. But I was sure that if I let myself come into contact with him, he might realize that this was too far. I didn’t want to break the spell, didn’t want to do anything that would unsettle this moment.

But then, to my surprise, I felt his hands on my back as he pulled me towards him, pressing me tight against his chest. I closed my eyes and smiled, not saying a word, not needing to – everything that I wanted to convey was in the way he was touching me right now, was in the feel of his heartbeat against my back. He let out a long breath and it tickled my neck, and I squirmed against him, loving the feeling of his strong body against mine.

“Stop that,” he murmured softly. “Or I might need to tire you out some more.”

I stilled myself, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to continue and tempt him into doing more. But I was so tired, and the only thing I needed was the sensation of him so close to me, his body solid and comforting against me. It had been a long time since I’d felt as safe as I did at that moment – maybe it was just the knowledge that what we had just shared hadn’t ended when he had pulled out of me. Like me, he seemed to understand that there was more to this than those contracts might indicate. I snuggled into the pillow, and he let out a little snuffle behind me as he got comfortable. I grinned as I felt the tiredness wash over me, and tried to remember a time when I’d last felt as purely happy as this. And I couldn’t think of one time in my life when things had been this damn good.

Chapter Eight

Three weeks with her in this place, and I already felt as though I was starting to fall for her.

I had promised myself that it wouldn’t go like this. I had promised myself, even as we started sleeping together and having the hottest damn sex I’d ever had in my life, that it wouldn’t be that way, that I would be able to keep her at arm’s length and somehow mix the physical and the emotional and not let it drive me a little crazy. But here I was, three weeks in, and already finding myself staring at her across the room when I knew she wasn’t looking like I was some kind of lovestruck teenager.

In my defence, everything that we shared together was a lot to handle without falling head-over-heels for her. The sex was something else – yeah, I knew I hadn’t had it in a long time, but there was still something about being with her that seemed to overtake everything that I’d experienced before. Her innocence and inexperience mixed with her enthusiasm and rampant and naked desire for me were a mix I’d never known before now that I’d needed, but every time we got into bed (or on the kitchen counter, or on the couch, or in the shower) I found myself falling a little bit harder for her. Sex was a heady thing, I was remembering, and it was hard to have a lot of it with someone and do it well and keep an emotional distance.

But it was more than that, too. If it was just sex I could have told myself that and committed to the hard task of extracting myself from that once we had conceived successfully. It was the way that she looked at me sometimes, like she couldn’t believe we were together. It was the way she murmured slightly in her sleep, stuff that I could never make out. It was the way she would curl her feet up under herself and just stare off into the fire, that small smile on her face, as though she was thinking about something she couldn’t quite put into words. She was smart, she made me laugh, and the chemistry we shared together was something I never thought I would find with any one person. It was a lethal combination, and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen it coming. Even back at that diner, the first place I’d met her, I could trace it back to the moment that our hands had met and it felt as though my entire world had shifted out of joint a few inches. I thought that was just because I was nervous, but now I could see that it was some part of me desperately attempting to warn me that I was on the brink of giving in and letting my feelings for her get in the way of what I was trying to do here.

I was chopping up wood for the fire when it happened. I hadn’t expected it; I mean, I knew what we’d been trying to do all this time, but I guess it didn’t really click until she walked out of the cabin, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to keep something in.

“Hey,” she called out to me, pulling me out of my head for a moment. I looked up, leaning on my axe, and smiling at her.

“Hey,” I called back, as she picked her way across the cold earth towards me. She was biting her lip, and I was curious to see what she was doing out here. She didn’t normally venture out of the cabin unless she had to, preferring to hide out inside and read whenever she got the chance.

“So,” She began, unable to keep the smile off her face. “I was…I realized that my period was late, a couple days ago. And you’d left those pregnancy tests in my bathroom…”

My heart stopped as I realized what she was saying. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening.

“Are you…?” I waved my hand at her stomach, and she took a deep breath and nodded.

“I’m pregnant,” she replied, her voice cracking slightly as though she couldn’t believe it herself. The words seemed to hang in the air between us, the whole world holding it’s breath to see how I would react to this. My jaw dropped.

“Already?” I put the axe down and stepped towards her, and in that moment I felt this swell of connection to her that I had never felt the likes of before in my life. Nothing even came close to this. I wanted to pull her into my arms, to kiss her and tell that I-

“I checked twice,” She shook her head, disbelief still laced through every word. “And yeah, there’s no doubt. I mean, it’s early days yet, I don’t want to get too invested, but….yeah. I’m pregnant. We’re pregnant.”

“Holy shit,” I raked a hand through my hair, and looked down at her; she looked so small and dainty standing there in front of me, and it was hard to believe that a tiny little creature like her could carry my child for me. But it was the truth; here she was, telling me that she was pregnant.

“I can’t believe it,” I moved towards her, pulling her into my arms and burying my face in her hair. She had such a comforting smell to her, like fresh-baked pastries, and I was already finding myself craving it when I woke up in the morning.

“Well, it is what you hired me for,” she reminded me, voice slightly muffled as I held her close – and that reminder of the truth, the reminder of what had happened to bring us together, was like a bucket of cold water over my head. She wrapped her arms around me but I pulled away slightly, reluctantly.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, frowning, as she read the discomfort on my voice. “You aren’t happy about this? Have you changed you mind?”

“No, no,” I assured her quickly. “This is perfect. It’s exactly what I wanted.”

I looked down at her and felt myself soften once more. I couldn’t say no to that face, to those lips, to the eyes that seemed to call to something deep and elemental inside of me. I leaned down and kissed her, and then scooped her up into my arms, forgetting everything I’d just been thinking about how I should know to hold back and stop now that I had what I wanted.

She laid her hand on my chest again, as she often had before, as though she was getting used to the feel of my heartbeat, noting the way it raced as she planted a row of soft kisses up my neck. I was already growing hard, my pulse racing as I kicked the front door open and planted her on the kitchen table. She pulled me close to her at once, and I instantly felt this craving kick into action, rushing through me like I might die if I didn’t fulfil it at once. I ran my hands all over her but I wanted more – I wanted to taste her, to cover her in kisses, to enjoy every part of her. I felt so close to her in that moment, my body and my mind reacting to what she had just told me. It was impossible to deny the connection now, the intimacy that seemed to pulse in the air right now. She was pregnant. My child. My baby. It was finally happening, and it was happening with the only person in the world I wanted it to happen with.

“Oh my God, Cormac,” She gasped as I kissed down her chin and over her neck, pushing down the straps of the top she had on. I wasn’t sure whether she was reacting to my touch or if the enormity of everything that was happening was just hitting her, but either way, I knew how she was feeling. She pushed her hand up and under my shirt, running her hand across my stomach, the skin on skin almost more than I could handle.

I kissed over her shoulder, pulling her arm out straight, moving my mouth hungrily across her skin. I came to her hand, coaxing her thumb into my mouth and letting my teeth drag across the pad to make her squirm in front of me. I planted a kiss right on that sensitive spot on the middle of her palm, and then moved back up, doing the same on the other side. Every kiss got her breath coming harder, and I ran my hand over her stomach, struggling to believe that she was really carrying my baby. I could hardly believe it. It was somehow sexy to me, knowing that I’m impregnated her, knowing that she still wanted me even after we’d conceived. And I wanted her. I kissed down her chest, pulling her shirt down, as she wrapped her legs around me and began to grind mercilessly against my already-hard cock. I could taste her, the sweetness of her skin filling my mouth and spreading over my tongue. I wanted her, all of her, didn’t care what the contract said, didn’t care what I’d told myself – this woman was the one that I wanted, more than I could ever put into words, more than I could control…

I lifted my head and looked into her eyes, and she leaned forward to kiss me again. And suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I needed to stop. This was too far. This was going further than I had ever agreed. I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to fall for her, that I wasn’t going to let myself get hurt again. But here I was, fooling around with her after the contract had declared it pointless.

She leaned forward, grinning, like she thought this was just another one of my little games, but I moved out of the way again. The smile slowly began to fade as I took my hands off of her, reluctantly. Every part of my physical body was yelling at me to keep going, demanding that I fuck her on this table and release the tension and desire and desperation that seemed to be taking control, but I took a long, deep breath and forced myself to calm down. I had been indulging myself with her, telling myself that it was in aid of having the baby I wanted so much, but if I kept going after this then I would be lying. I would have broken the one rule I had set for myself when I had brought her up here. Looking down at her, I knew it was going to be hellish having her around and knowing that I couldn’t just give in to my desire for her, but I didn’t want to push my luck any more than I already had.

“What’s wrong?” She asked as I moved away from her. I shook my head, searching for the words to tell her everything that was going through my head, and coming up with nothing.

“We shouldn’t,” I looked away from her, knowing that if those pleading eyes were looking into mine then I wouldn’t be able to stick this out. “I’m sorry. I got caught up. Bad habit, I guess.”

“Bad habit?” She repeated, her mouth turning down into an almost comical frown. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, we shouldn’t do this now that you’re pregnant,” I replied, forcing myself to keep speaking, knowing that I could keep my hands off her if I could keep reminding myself why I was doing this.

“What?” She looked hurt, and I wanted to tell her that this wasn’t about her, that I really did want her and to keep this going, but that I knew we just couldn’t if I didn’t want to fall for her, harder than I had ever intended to.

“I should go finish what I was doing,” I turned to head out the door, leaving her there, still planted on the table, her strap still pushed down her shoulder in this tempting way that made it so fucking hard to leave. I could see the reflection of her in the glass of the door as I made my way back outside to chop wood, and the shock and hurt in her face was hard to bear. I paused for a moment at the door, and seriously thought about turning back and going to her. I wished I had the words to tell her how I felt, how badly I still wanted to be with her in every way possible, but that would involve telling her everything that had happened with Jeb and Julia and the business and I wasn’t sure I could even go over that all again in my own head, let alone letting someone else in on that fucking mess.

I stepped out the door and closed it tight behind me, and it felt symbolic, like I was shutting the door on what could have been between us. And, as much as I knew that pushing things any further as long as she was still pregnant would be dangerous, I couldn’t fight the fact that my feelings for her were already turning into something deeper. And now that she was pregnant? I wasn’t sure how I was meant to keep them in check.

Chapter Nine

I lay there on the couch, running my hands over my stomach over and over again. There was no bump yet – no, it was way too early for that yet – but I was sure I could feel something. But maybe that was just the confusion over what had happened between Cormac and I the day that I had told him about the baby.

He had rejected me, but he had been the one to come on to me in the first place. When I had come out there, to tell him what I had just found out, I had convinced myself that this would be the end of our physical relationship. Not that I wanted it to be, just that I figured I would have to accept that a guy who liked to stay in control as much as him would want to abide by the rules of the contract we’d agreed upon what felt like ages ago.

But he had been the one to put the moves on me, and there was no way that I was going to turn him down. Finding out that I was pregnant with his baby had been one of the most profound experiences I’d ever had in my life; in fact, I hadn’t told him as soon as I’d found out, waiting until the next morning to let the news somewhat sink into my head. I remembered vividly sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at the test, wondering what in the hell was going on inside my body. It had happened so soon, so much faster than I’d expected. But I had known, almost before I’d ever taken the test, what those strange feelings churning in my gut meant. When my period was late, I could hardly believe it; I had barely been here a month. The two of us were barely getting started with actually, truly knowing each other, and here we were on the brink of starting a family together.

I knew that the rules of the contract meant that I handed this baby over to him as soon as it was born, that I wasn’t technically owed any contact with the child once it was out of my body, but for the next nine months at least, I had this connection with him that ran deeper than my connection with anyone else. And I knew from the way that he looked at me that he felt the same way. It was impossible to express, the profundity of knowing what we shared. The pregnancy was hard to get my head around, but I knew that I was glad I was doing it with him. He made me feel so safe, so cared-for, in a way that I had never truly experience in my life.

But he had rejected me. The sexual element of our relationship, the one that had gotten me so hooked on him in the first place. I knew that I was a little intoxicated on our physical connection, but I also knew for damn sure that there was something else there too; it wasn’t as simple as just good sex, though that was a part of it. No, being here with him was the easiest thing I’d ever done in my life, despite how weird the situation was and how anyone else might have run away screaming by now. But even with the reality of what I was here for unavoidable, even with a baby growing inside of me, I knew that this was where I belonged. At his side. Far from the rest of the world. What else would I need, as long as he was here alongside me?

He had been out most of the day, completing chores and driving to the nearby village to pick up some food. He insisted that I stay behind to get some rest, and I couldn’t much argue with him given that I was already feeling exhausted and a little sick from the baby. I had laid on the couch most of the day, watching him, urging him silently to give in to the feelings I knew were there inside of him. I could still feel the way his mouth had moved all over me, as though it was the only way he knew to seal the connection between us, to confirm it. The way he had lightly bitten on my thumb, the shock of pain contrasting with the pleasure in a way that made my head spin.

I could see it in his eyes, when he’d walked away from me, that he didn’t want to. He had even paused for a moment before he left the cabin again, like he was having to muster up every inch of self-control within him not to turn back and fuck me on that table like he owned me. Like he knew he did.

But instead, he had pulled back and left me wanting for him in a way that I had never felt before. I had desired him before the first time that we’d hooked up, of course, but that was different. Now I knew what I was missing out on, and the next eight months were stretching out in front of me endlessly, no promise of his touch or his strength wrapped around me any longer. I could still remember the first night he let me sleep in his bed, as he had done every night since, the feel of his strong arms holding me close and the way his breath felt on the back of my neck, and felt a pang knowing that that was gone, at least for now. Until he changed his mind.

Or until I changed it for him. Maybe he didn’t want to overstep the bounds of the contract for my sake, worried that I might think he was pushing things too far. Well, I wanted to be pushed, as far as I could. It had been a full month of hook-ups and I still felt as though I had so much to learn about how deep our connection ran. The thought stuck in my head as I had some toast for dinner and then slipped off to my room, taking a long shower and scrubbing the day off of me. I felt antsy, like I had been locked up in a cage and spent the afternoon pacing back and forth waiting for my keeper to come let me out. Well, now I was going to take matters into my own hands.

I waited for him to go to bed before I made my move. I felt a little twinge when I realized that he hadn’t even bothered to invite me to sleep with him – I had gotten so used to waking up in that luxurious double bed with him beside me, the one that I had to myself felt cramped by comparison, and yet sprawlingly empty at the same time. I wanted to be near him. This entire day had felt wrong, not bantering with him over breakfast or helping him wash the dishes after dinner. That little romance that had been brewing between us, slow but sure and steady, couldn’t be snuffed out just like that. I was going to make sure of it.

I pulled off the shirt that I had been lazing around in all day, leaving myself in nothing but a pair of panties, and let my hair down over my shoulders. I knew he liked it when I had my hair down; he would wrap it around his hand, tug my head back a little, when he got the chance. I remembered the first time together, when he had been nothing but tender and soft with me, and smiled and shook my head when I thought about how far we’d come from that night. Now, there was never any holding back, nothing that stopped him going as far as he wanted with me. And it was the best thing I could image.

I opened the door as quietly as I could, and listened for him moving around in the bedroom and waited for him to come to a stop; as soon as he did, I made my way over to his door, took a deep breath, and pushed it open.

“Laurie?” He murmured into the darkness, sitting up where he had been laying down in bed. I could just make out the shape of him, shirtless, in the dark, and I bit my lip as I took him in. Could I just go over there and kiss him?

“Cormac,” I made my way towards him, not sure how I was meant to put into words what I wanted us to do right now but knowing I needed to find some way to do so. He didn’t move, not reaching for me, but not dismissing me, either.

I slipped under the covers on the opposite side of the bed from him, and he inhaled sharply as I drew close to him. I reached out and laid my hand on his stomach, feeling the swift rise and fall of his belly as his breathing quickened. I knew he wanted this. He turned to me, half-facing me, and I could see the conflict in his face. He reached over, tentatively, and laid a hand on my side. His fingers felt so good against my bare skin, I had to swallow and slow down before I pounced on him there and then.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I promised him, my voice soft, and that was when he leaned forward and kissed me.

It was the kind of kiss that told me this was all he had been thinking about since the last time we were together. I knew it wouldn’t be like it was before, when he stopped and pulled back; I knew he couldn’t resist this any more than I could. He pulled me on top of him, hands digging into my thighs, and I could already feel him growing hard. He was naked, his body softened by the darkness as he leaned up to grab my head and pull my face down towards him.

“We need to get these off,” he growled in my ear, hooking his fingers around the hips of my panties and tugging at them. I shifted and kicked them away, so that both of us were completely bare, and then snuggled back on top of him, feeling the nudge of his cock against my pussy. I could have just shifted a little, moved my hips, and taken him inside me right there, but I didn’t want that yet. I wanted to remind him just how good the two of us were together. I kissed down his throat, letting my mouth brush over those sensitive spots that I knew drove him crazy, and then further down across his chest. I could feel his heartbeat, fast and hard, and I knew that he needed this as badly as I did.

I continued down until I was between his legs, sliding easily down until I could look up at him from there; I planted a kiss on the inside of his thighs, softly, smiling as I did so to let him know exactly what I had in mind. He groaned and tipped his head back, and I reached up and wrapped my fingers around his cock.

He wasn’t the first guy I’d ever gone down on, but he was the first one that I felt like really wanted me to go down on him. Richie, he had always seemed elsewhere, like he was too busy thinking about other women to really focus on what I was doing to him. But Cormac watched me, like he still couldn’t quite believe that he had me all to himself, as I hovered my mouth over his head and let my breath warm his skin. I stroked him a couple of times, tentatively, and his cock stiffened even more in my grasp. And then, at last, I took him into my mouth, and closed my eyes as the taste of him filled my senses.

I flickered my tongue over his head a couple of times before moving my mouth down, sealing my lips around him and guiding him as deep as I could in one motion; he gasped, sharply, and reached forward to brush a strand of hair back from my face; I looked up at him to find his eyes burning into mine in the darkness. God, he looked hot like that. I stroked my hand up to meet my lips and began to work him up and down, and he began to thrust back into my mouth, the two of us silently communicating until we had built up a pace that worked. I lost myself to the task, loving every moment of it, feeling at once powerful and powerless as he pushed his cock into my mouth. He balled his hand in my hair and guided my head back and forth, and I let him, finding that I could take more of him at once than I had thought I would be able to.

“You feel so fucking good like that,” he groaned, and I slowed my pace, teasing him, reminding him of how he had left me hanging the last time the two of us had done something like this. That he had pulled back and left me frustrated. But he wasn’t going to take that – oh, no, he wanted me, and he wasn’t going to let me get away with that.

He suddenly tucked his hands beneath my arms and pulled me on top of him again, gripping his cock and pushing my legs apart.

“Lower yourself down on me,” he ordered, and I pressed my hands to his chest and did as I was told. I let my head fall back as he entered me, my pussy already soaked, as though I had been holding back on how badly I had wanted this long enough that it all came flooding out when it was given the chance. His fingers were on my hips once more, digging in so hard I was sure they would leave marks, but I didn’t care. I wanted to feel every part of him that he would let me, and those fingerprints on my body would only serve as a reminder that I was his.

He let me lower down all the way first, and then held me there, his cock buried deep inside me, for a long moment before he moved again. And then he began to thrust up into me.

The last thing I could remember thinking before the pleasure seemed to wipe my memory clear was wondering if it would always feel this good with him, if he would always be this addictive and feel this perfect inside of me, if it would always be as though we were two halves of a whole coming together in this way. And then, everything seemed to drop away – the intensity of the last few days mixed with the feeling of him inside of me was more than I could process all at once, and I simply gripped hold of his arms and let him have me.

He had taken me in this position before, but it had never felt as intense as this. His hands were moving all over my body like he was reminding himself of it, scolding himself for holding back the day before. He pinched my nipples, drew them into his mouth, slowed and went deep for a moment before he took back up with quick, shallow thrusts. He grabbed my hand and pulled it to my clit, and propped himself up so he could kiss me as I played with myself. The sensations were overloading me, the feelings I had for him threatening to take control for good. He wrapped his arms around me and buried his face into my neck and pushed himself hard into my pussy, again and again, our bodies and limbs and minds entangled in ways I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to undo. I could feel the pleasure building in me, cresting, threatening to burst – I was teetering on the edge, my body ready to find the release that I had been denied.

And then he came – his cock twitched inside of me and he came to stillness as he finished, his body slumping against mine and a deep, guttural growl escaping his lips as he did so. And knowing that I was enough to do this to him was all I needed to find my own climax. My pussy clenched and I tipped my head back and let out a long cry of pleasure, shuddering against him, my breath coming in short gasps as though I was drowning in him.

Once it had passed for both of us, we slowly unwound, unwrapping our bodies from one another slowly and carefully. He looked up at me and kissed me one more time, a hard kiss, as though he was reluctant to let me go at all. He pushed the hair back from my face as he had done before, but this time it was with more tenderness. I closed my eyes for a moment, then lifted myself off him and slid down next to him on the bed. He lay beside me, and lifted his arm so I could lie down on his chest. I tucked myself into him, staring at the pool of moonlight that had formed on the opposite wall as we had been in action. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I should say anything at all.

He held me close that night, and I knew what he was trying to tell me without words. That he had been thinking everything that I had since I had told him about the pregnancy. If this wasn’t a confirmation of the feelings he had for me then I had no idea what was; I was as sure as I could be, as I lay there in his arms in the dark of that cold night, that Cormac was falling for me the way I was falling for him. It was a dizzying feeling, as though someone had whipped the ground out from beneath me and left me spinning and grasping for something familiar and safe, but it was a good one. Sometimes, it felt good to have things go out on control. I closed my eyes and nuzzled into his chest, inhaling his scent. The father of my child. The only man I needed right now, maybe the only man I would ever need. And I knew there was nothing that I could say that could sum up how I felt for him, or how excited I was for what the future held for us.

Chapter Ten

I woke early the morning after. It took me a moment to remember what had happened the night before; all I could really recall was a blur of limbs and her body in the darkness, moving on top of me and riding me and coming with me inside of her. I thought it might have been a dream, but then I turned and saw her sleeping soundly in the bed next to me and I knew that it had been real.

I reached out to touch her, skimming my hands over her head and her neck. Her skin was so soft that it almost didn’t feel real, and I nearly pinched myself to see if I was actually dreaming. But she squirmed slightly against the sheets, let out a small moan, and I knew that she was there beside me. I lay back down and wrapped myself around her, letting my hand come to rest on her stomach once more. It was still hard for me to get my head around the fact that this woman was carrying my baby, but she was, and it seemed as though we were finally actually accepting the fact that there was something more than that between us as well. As though that wasn’t enough all by itself.

I wasn’t sure how long I was laying there, all wrapped around her and holding her close like I was worried she might somehow run away from me, but the sun had fully risen by the time that she lifted her head blearily and turned to face me.

“Morning,” she greeted me shyly as she flipped over in bed, running her hand up my side; it was hard for me not to just roll on top of her right then and there and go for it all over again, but I knew I had to wait and tell her what I’d been holding back on all this time.

“Morning,” I replied, tucking a strand of her long hair behind her ear and smiling back at her. She was so beautiful, even just woken up, and I knew from the swell of my heart when I looked at her that this was something bigger than I’d ever anticipated.

She was still looking at me, a slightly nervous expression on her face, as though she wasn’t quite sure what to expect from us now that last night had gone down. My gaze trailed down to her lips and I remembered vividly how it had felt the night before when they had been wrapped around my cock, and I could see from the look in her eyes that that was exactly what she was thinking about too.

“So,” she began, biting her lip and examining my face for any hint of what I was thinking. I could have happily stayed in bed with her the rest of the day, but my stomach was growling and I knew I needed to get something nutritious into her – she would need lots of looking after these next few months, that was for sure, and I figured I should get on that now.

“So, I think we should have some breakfast,” I suggested, and she smiled at me again. Her smile made me so happy that sometimes it felt as though it was filling me from the bottom of my toes upward with joy. I couldn’t think of much that I wouldn’t do to put that smile on her face, which was dangerous and exciting all in the same breath.

“Yeah, me too,” she yawned, stretching and sitting up. “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, you were pretty active,” I teased her, and she slapped my arm lightly.

“That’s enough out of you,” she shot back, and she giggled. “I’m going to go for a shower, okay?”

“Use my bathroom,” I nodded to the door that led off the bedroom. “I’ll make us something to eat while you’re in there.”

“You don’t want a hand?” She suggested, but I shook my head.

“No, I want you well-rested,” I replied. “You’re pregnant, remember?”

“Shit,” she shook her head and ran her hands over her face, as though trying to keep all her thoughts in. “It’s just…fuck, that’s so much, you know?”

“Yeah, it is,” I replied, and leaned forward to plant a kiss on her cheek; she leaned against me and I nuzzled into her neck again, the sunlight picking her out in the most perfect way. I wrapped my arms around her and just revelled in that moment, in how good it felt to be near her like this. I had never felt this kind of connection to someone before; sure, I had been attracted to people plenty before I had come across Laurie, but rarely did that physical link seem to last much beyond the first time we had sex. With her, it felt like it was never going to end. There was a power she had over me that I wasn’t sure she fully understood, and it was terrifying to hand that kind of control to someone again after what had happened last time.

“Okay, shower,” she lightly tapped on my hands with a sigh, as though she didn’t want to pull away from me, and reluctantly unpeeled herself from my body. “I’ll be done in ten minutes, okay?”

“Take your time,” I waved her off, and watched the sway of her ass and her hips as she made her way out of the room once more. Damn, but if she didn’t look hot as hell when she was just hanging around. She seemed to be comfortable with her naked body in a way that really got me hard, even when I knew I should be thinking about something less carnal.

I rolled out of bed and pulled on some clothes, and headed through to the kitchen to make something – nothing fancy, just some fruit and bruschetta, something that would fill me up but not leave me feeling too heavy. I had a feeling we would be active again pretty soon and I didn’t want to feel weighed down by what I had eaten.

As I laid out something for us to eat, my mind was lingering on what I had been doing my best to avoid all this time. What had happened between my ex and me, between Julia and Jeb and I. I had thought it just wasn’t relevant till now, but if we were actually going to do this, then she deserved to know. I knew I would want to know if there was something big in her past that she was keeping from me. In fact, I wasn’t sure I could stay with her if that was the case; I needed honesty after what had happened to me, and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less. And that meant that I owed the same thing to her.

She emerged from the shower, and took her seat at the table behind me, the same one that I had lifted her on to when I’d first found out about the pregnancy; I could remember it now, the conflict so present and pressing in my head.

“Hey,” I greeted her. “Nice shower?”

“Amazing,” she sighed. “I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere with such good water pressure before.”

“Good,” I grinned, and then sat down opposite her as she went to help herself to the food.

“This looks excellent,” She sighed, and then took a big bite of some of the bread and closed her eyes as though to savour it. “Mmm. That’s so good.”

“Good,” I watched her for a moment, reaching for the coffee pot that I had put out and pouring myself a generous dose. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell her this, but I knew I needed to get it out if we were going to be together properly.

“So,” I began, and she raised her gaze to mine, eyes wide, as though she was nervous about whatever it was I was about to say. I knew how she felt. Sometimes, when I was around her, I felt as though my head was spinning out of control, like my entire life was twisting and turning to find some way to fit her into it.

“What’s up?” She prompted me. I looked down at my hands and then back up at her. I had done such an exceptionally good job of pretending than none of this had ever happened, these last few months, but now that she was here in front of me and I was going to have to face up to it, I felt uneasy.

“Laurie, I really like you,” I blurted out all at once. She smiled and took my hand.

“I really like you too,” she admitted, and I felt my stomach clench at her words. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d needed to hear them before now.

“But there’s something I need to tell you,” I bowed my hand, looking at our linked fingers on the table in front of me; what they represented gave me the strength to go on, even though I didn’t want to.

“A while ago,” I began, speaking hesitantly. I had never had to speak this story out loud and in some ways it felt as though I was speaking it into existence. But I pushed on, knowing that I had to do this.

“When I was back in the city, I was dating this woman, Julia,” I explained, disconnecting from the words that were coming out of my mouth as best I could so I could just get the story out. “And I was working with this guy, Jeb – we’d known each other since college and we started the business together, this catering business, and it had just started to really take off. We were doing really well and I was with her and I worked with him and it was all…yeah, it was all pretty good.”

“Right,” she nodded, looking slightly confused, as though she couldn’t figure out why I’d be telling her this story.

“Julia and I ended up engaged,” I went on, and the rest of the story came pouring out of my mouth as though it had been barely stored up inside me all this time.

I remembered it vividly, even now – the two of us at that restaurant, having just made the first million, feeling like nothing in the world could take me down or stop me. That, right there, was a feeling I wasn’t sure I would ever truly get over. It wasn’t her, and it wasn’t the business, but it was the feeling that all of this was just going right somehow, like I had earned all of this after pouring so much time and effort and energy into my life. I had worked my butt off for years, and now it was finally coming back around to pay off.

I had been with Julia was three years at that point, and I was so sure she was the woman I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. Why wouldn’t I? She was smart, charming, clever – sure, she had always had that slightly callous side that I had never liked, but that was just who she was, part of her upbringing as part of a family who had worked in business their entire lives and needed to be a little hard around the edges. It wasn’t some terrible reflection on her, I had always promised myself, even when she would sneer at a waitress or snap at a delivery guy or look blankly down at the gifts I’d given her as though they were the last things in the world she’d wanted. She was just a product of how she’d been brought up and I wasn’t allowed to hold that against her.

But there I was, sure that this woman was the one for me, and when she accepted my proposal it just sealed the deal. Now there would be no arguing with it. Now we would be together forever, and I would just ignore the little pit of doubt in my stomach that told me she wasn’t as good a person as she liked to make herself out to be. It had nothing to do with her, I assured myself – just some leftover insecurity from being the lonely kid at high school.

Jeb had slapped me on the shoulder and congratulated me straight to my face when he had found out, an act which looking back I found galling. But it had been different with him. I really thought he was a good person, that he would always have my back when I needed him to, and finding out that wasn’t the case…well, it damn near ripped me in half. But Jeb, back then, had been my man, my intellectual other half, the guy who ran my business with me, the guy I trusted more than anyone in the world. He was a hard worker, like me, and the two of us shared the same values; honesty, integrity, decency.

And the business was thriving so much that I didn’t really mind when Jeb stepped in on occasion to take Julia out to dinner, to cover my dates when I would be out doing something else more important. He was my best friend, after all, and I was lucky that him and Julia got on so well; I had heard so many stories of people who had to choose between their partners and their friends, and it was such a relief that neither of them put me in that situation. So I ignored that nagging little something at the back of my mind, that something that told me there was something fishy going on, and went about my life. The business exploded, and before I knew it we were talking in millions, billions, more. I was rich beyond my wildest dreams, and maybe part of that was because I knew there was something wrong at home and wanted to avoid going back to the apartment as much as I could. Sometimes, the thought of being in that cold, huge place, with just Julia for company, was practically impossible to stomach. But at least I knew Jeb would step in where I needed him, so she wouldn’t notice the difference. Would she?

One of those nights I did come back to the apartment, after I’d told her I was staying late. It was on a whim, when I realized that it had been weeks since I had come back when I said I would, and I felt guilty for neglecting her; she’d started to feel distant and I knew that it had to be down to the fact that I was at the office all the time, instead of helping her with the wedding planning.

And when I opened the door back to my place, I knew my entire life as I knew it was over.

The two of them were there, on the couch, unarguably together. They were both naked, he was on top, and the both of them looked up at the same moment with the precise same look of nearly comical horror in their eyes. I would have laughed, had it not been for the fact that my best friend was fucking the person I was meant to marry.

What happened after all of that was still something of a blur, even a year later. I knew that there was a whole lot of yelling, accusation, recriminations, that she blamed me for it even though she was the one fucking him. He tried to make excuses and apologise, but I wouldn’t hear it. How could I? I thought he was like me, I thought he was good and decent, and now here he was sleeping with the one woman who was off-limits to him. He had always been a thrillseeker, but this too much. It had been going on since before we got engaged, I found out, so when he’d looked me in the eye and told me that he was happy for me, he was probably thinking about the exact position he was going to fuck her in as soon as he got the chance.

And that’s when I’d moved out of the city. How could I stay there, knowing what the two of them had done to me? Everywhere I went I was reminded of the betrayal that they’d meted out on me, and I found myself going over and over in my mind what I could have done differently to keep it from happening. Even though I knew there was nothing. They had made the decision to destroy my life between them, and it had nothing and everything to do with me.

So I handed over control of the company to a man I trusted to run it in my absence, and I’d come all the way out here to live by myself. I was sure that I would grow tired of it eventually, that I would want to go back and be near my friends and family again, but I didn’t. I kept in touch with them online where I could, but I found that my life was richer for just living it for myself.

I finished up what I was saying, and felt as though I had run a marathon. I was actually out of breath. I looked down at her hand on mine, and wondered how in the world I’d kept it in for so long; it was like I’d been saving it for her all this time, without knowing it.

“Holy shit,” she breathed as soon as I was done. She was staring at me, jaw hanging open, like I had just told her the most insane story she’d ever heard in her life.

“And I’m telling you all of this,” I finished up, remembering that there had been a reason for this painful rehashing of the past. “Because I need you…I need you to know that I’m going to be honest with you. If we’re going to be together properly, and I want to be with you every way I can, then I need you to know what I’ve been through.”

“Right,” she nodded, eyes still wide, as the words sunk in.

“I need you to be honest with me,” I met her gaze steadily. “I can’t deal with people who lie to me or hide things from me, you understand?”

“I understand,” she replied, but she paused for just a moment before the words to come out of her mouth. I hooked on to that silence, my brain running away with it before she could speak again. Was she keeping something from me? She hadn’t told me why she had been so keen to get away from her life back in the city, and I knew there had to be something back there if she had been so keen to get out of there.

“After what happened with my ex, you know that I’m not going to be able to handle it if someone new starts lying to me,” I stared at her intently. I wanted to give her to chance to come out and tell me the truth, but she seemed determined to keep her mouth shut.

“I get it,” She squeezed my hand, furrowing her brow. “I can’t believe that they would do that to you.”

“Me neither,” I chuckled mirthlessly, and took a sip of my coffee. I felt a little better now, lighter, like I didn’t have all that weighing me down any longer.

“So, what about you?” I asked, looking up at her as she bit into a strawberry. I was momentarily distracted by the way that her lips looked against the soft red of the fruit, but then I focused back on the task at hand. She chewed and swallowed slowly, her eyes sliding away from mine.

“What about me?”

“I mean, what about your exes?” I asked. “You said you hadn’t been with anyone before me-”

“I was telling the truth,” she replied, a little too quickly. “I mean, I dated a few people before you but…but nothing serious. And I never slept with any of them.”

“You know I wouldn’t mind if you had, right?” I cocked an eyebrow, and she looked down at the fruit on the plate in front of her.

“I know,” she replied softly. “I just wanted you to know that you’re my first.”

She bit her lip and looked up at me, and as soon as she did that I knew I was done for. I knew I should have pressed the topic further, maybe tried to get the truth out of her, but I also knew that I wanted nothing more than to take her right there over the breakfast table.

“Come here,” I murmured, and I leaned forward and kissed her hard on the mouth. She tasted sweet, lightly of strawberries, and I forgot about everything that I’d been meaning to get out of her as I moved around the table and pulled her upright. I wanted to be gentle with her, wanted to be careful with this woman who was carrying my baby, but I was also so desperate for her that it was hard to keep it in my pants.

She wasn’t wearing much, just a shirt and a pair of my boxers, and I was glad for it because I needed her naked, right now. I lifted her up on to the counter and planted her down, and she let out this little squeal of delight as I did so. The plates that I had left out clattered around her and I paid them no attention. As long as I had her, nothing else mattered.

I kneeled down and pulled the boxers off her long legs, tossing them to the side, and then pushed her legs apart and looked as her freshly-washed pussy. The first time I had gone down on her was still one of the most prized memories I had of our time together; the way she rocked against me in front of the fire, the way her body had wriggled and writhed back and forth under my touch. I craved the taste of her, more than I did any of the food on the table behind us.

I kissed quickly up the inside of her thigh, but I had no intention of teasing her this morning. No, I just wanted to make her come, and then fuck her. I wanted this fast and hard and now, just like it had been the night before. Now that the stressful part of this morning was over, now that I had told her the truth, I was ready to reward myself.

I pressed my mouth against her clean, warm pussy, and the noise that she made was a good enough incentive for me to spill my guts to her all over again. I found her clit at once, stroking sideways back and forth over it with my tongue a few times before I drew it into my mouth and sucked softly. She shuddered and I lightened my touch, knowing at once when it was too intense for her. I couldn’t believe that only a day or so before I’d been trying to talk myself out of this. The taste of her, the sounds she made, all of this was worth any amount of my own rules that I had to break. I just wished I could have accepted how much I wanted her from the start, so we could have been doing this from the first moment she was through the door.

I sucked softly on her clit, flicking my tongue against it every now and then, my hands resting on the inside of her thighs as I contentedly lost myself between her legs. Had anyone ever tasted as sweet as her? The strawberries on her lips had nothing on this, on how incredible it felt to feel her scent fill my mouth.

“Mmm,” she sighed from above me, stroking her hands through my hair, letting her nails drag over my scalp lightly as I ate her out mercilessly. Her hands moved down, tracing over my shoulders and my upper back, and I pried her legs open a little further so I could take more of her pussy into my mouth. She was addictive. I wonder if she knew.

I wasn’t sure how long I was down there, between her legs, but I knew that I would have stayed all day long if that was what it had taken to get her there; as it was, it didn’t take long for her legs to begin to tremble and her body to start to shake as she clamped her thighs around my face and rocked her hips back and forth against me and then, all at once…

“Ah, fuck,” She moaned, breathing the words as though she didn’t want me to catch her cursing; she pushed my head away at once, already over sensitized by the feel of my tongue against her. I knew how she felt. Sometimes, when I was around her, it was hard not to feel as though every touch was too much to bear.

I got to my feet, quickly unzipping my pants and pulling out my cock; it was such a relief to be able to go raw into her, not to have to worry about going to grab a condom or fiddling around with contraception. There was something so reckless, so exciting, about just being able to take her however and whenever I wanted. I grabbed her leg as I stood up, and she seemed to have the same idea as me as she lifted it and hooked it over my shoulder. I took hold of her hips and yanked them towards me, and pushed inside her in one hard motion.

She slumped against me on that first thrust, as though she had been craving this all day and was now satisfied, but I was so far from done with her yet – the angle that her leg position was allowing me was utterly crazy, deeper than I’d ever been inside her before, and the way her gorgeously tight cunt seemed to flex and spread to take my dick was one of the most singularly hot things I’d ever felt in my life. I moved fast as she pressed her face to my chest, her breath coming in short, sharp, desperate little bursts.

I grabbed her hair, tugging it back, so she was looking up at me, and kissed her again, my tongue snaking hungrily into her mouth and her breasts pressing up against me even through the shirt she was wearing. She planted her hands against my chest and used that as leverage, grinding back against me as best she could, taking me even deeper, and I groaned into her mouth and bit her bottom lip between my teeth. How could she feel this good? How could it always be this good?

“Are you close?” She breathed in my ear. “I want you to come inside of me…”

“Fuck, Laurie,” I growled, this time biting her earlobe. Those words alone were almost my undoing, knowing that she wanted to feel my seed inside of her, but I held out for a few more moments, slowing down, determined to make her come again before I did. She let out a groan that seemed to come from the back of her throat, and then I felt her pussy contract again, pulling me in, holding me there, milking me. And only then, when I knew that she had climaxed once more, did I allow myself to come as well.

“Fuck!” I cried out, tipping my head back and holding her steady as I came inside of her. The feeling was an intense gut-punch of pleasure – making her come was always what did it for me, and there was something undeniably sexy about knowing she was so eager for this that she would do it on the kitchen counter. I held myself there inside her for a long moment, savouring how good it felt, before I slid my cock out of her and offered her a hand to help her down from the counter. She took it with a giggle, swaying slightly as she landed back on her feet, and she looked up at me with something I had never seen before in her eyes.

She leaned up suddenly and kissed me, and the feel of her mouth on mine – so sweet given what the two of us had just done – was something more intense than I had been prepared for. It was just…how could she do this to me? It was one thing for her to make my heart sing like it never had before, and it was one thing for her to fuck me in ways I’d never thought I would, but for her to do both with such ease so close together…it seemed like she was some kind of impossibility, dropped out of the sky and at my feet, and I was falling for her harder than I should have been.

“Come on,” she grabbed for her panties and pulled them back on primly, as though she hadn’t just let me rail her on the kitchen counter. “Don’t let breakfast go to waste.”

“I’m pretty sure the coffee’s cold,” I pointed out with a smile, and she glanced up at me slyly.

“Well, you’re not,” she remarked, and I groaned at the cheesiness of her comment but couldn’t keep the smile from my face.

“Okay, I’m going to have to punish you for that one,” I warned her playfully, and she cocked an eyebrow, her eyes shining slightly.

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh, yeah,” I shot back, picking up my mug and taking a sip. And, the way she was looking at me across the table, I was pretty sure she was trying to get me to take her up on her challenge. And I would – make no mistake, I would – but for now, I needed to feed her and bathe her and fuck her all over again.

Chapter Eleven

I slipped my hand into his and revelled in the fact that I could actually do that without worrying about what it meant. There was something so natural about touching Cormac, something that matched being out here in the woods. I didn’t even mind the cold so much, if it meant I could spend some time with him outside of the cabin.

“You sure you want to come with me?” Cormac looked over at me, slight incredulity on his face, and I rolled my eyes and nodded.

“For the last time, I want to help out,” I reminded him. “I know you don’t think I can handle any of this mountain man stuff but I can.”

“You’re not going to carry a lot of wood, though,” he warned me, glancing down at my belly. “Not while…”

“Yeah, yeah,” I waved my hand. “Whatever you say. I’m going to need to be a big, brawny mountain lady if I’m going to stick it out out here, aren’t I?”

He grinned.

“I’d like to see that,” he remarked, squeezing my hand as we made our way into the forest to collect wood for the fire.

We had been practically joined at the hip this last month, since I had told him that I was pregnant and we had pretty much confirmed that we were actually going to give this a go with each other. I mean, not that that was hard, given that it was just the two of us out here, but still – I would have happily cut myself off from the rest of the world if I thought that it meant I could fall in love with Cormac in peace.

Because that’s what was happening, even if neither of us had said it yet. We were falling in love. I had only been here a couple of months and I had always had this cynical view on love, that it was something that wasn’t going to happen in less than a year, not properly, but that had been before him, before this, before us. Before all that had happened to change my mind. I glanced over at him and grinned widely, unable to keep the smile off my face; that had been happening a lot recently, making it hard to do normal stuff like eat or drink or make out. Not that I let it stop me.

I had that nagging feeling though, at the back of my mind, that I was keeping something big from him, something that could get in the way of what we had worked so hard to build between us. I had hardly been able to believe it when he had told me what had happened between his best friend and his fiancée; that story had sounded nearly too insane to be true, but I could see from the pain in his eyes that he wasn’t lying to me. Why would he? He was telling me the truth because he wanted us to be able to be honest with each other, and that was his way of making sure we were.

So when it had come time to ask me about my past, I had ducked his questions. I hadn’t lied to him, outright – not really. If he’d asked me outright if I’d dated a small-time drug dealer who had ended up landing me slap-bang in the middle of a dumbass deal gone wrong, I would have told him the truth and said yes. But he hadn’t asked that. He had just asked who I had dated before him, and I had answered him honestly; that I hadn’t really dated anyone before him, not properly, not the way the two of us were currently together. Sure, I’d been with Richie a couple of years, but what I’d shared with him wasn’t even in the same ball park as everything I shared with Cormac.

Still, I felt guilty. I knew I was keeping something from him, after he’d been so upfront with me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was setting myself up for unneeded drama down the line by pulling this shit. But I had to dismiss those thoughts, because even if that was true, it was too late to tell him now. I would have had to admit that I’d lied to his face when he’d first asked me, and I couldn’t do that. And besides, enough time had passed now that I was sure Richie had forgotten all about me; he had always had a bunch of girls on the side, and no doubt he just fell into one of their arms as soon as I was gone. Probably glad that he didn’t have to keep up the pretence with me any longer, if I knew him at all.

“What are you thinking about?” Cormac asked, and suddenly I was reminded where I was; far from the city, from Richie, from any of it. I cleared my mind and smiled at Cormac, dismissing the bad thoughts from my head at once.

“Oh, nothing,” I replied, skipping a little ahead of him playfully. “Hey, keep up, you’re falling behind.”

“Slow down,” he scolded me playfully. “You need your rest. I shouldn’t have even of brought you here in the first place.”

“You really going to keep me locked away in that cabin of yours for the rest of the pregnancy?” I cocked my eyebrow at him. “You know we’re going to need to go to a doctor at some point, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved his hand. “I just like having you all to myself for now.”

He finally caught up with me, and slid his arms around me and pulled me into a soft kiss, the kind that made the soles of my feet tingle with the thrill of having him close. I let my hands rest on his chest for a moment, feeling his heartbeat, and then pulled away from him suddenly.

“Catch me,” I teased him, shooting a look over my shoulder as I darted through the forest away from him. He glanced around and then took up the chase, a smile spreading out over his face, and it was so good to see him give up some of the control that he often seemed to hang on to with such intensity.

I darted behind a tree, my heart beating quickly. I could hear his footsteps behind me and I loved the fact that he was actually coming after me; Richie would have just stood there and waited for me to give up on my game, but Cormac actually let me indulge the goofy, weird side of me that sometimes needed to come out to play. Not that I was thinking about Richie. Nope. Not one bit, not at all. I wasn’t thinking about him or what I’d kept from Cormac, not any of it, because that would have spoiled our day and-

Suddenly, he emerged around the side of the tree, and I let out a squeal and darted away again; I knew he was stronger and faster than me, but I had the benefit of the trees being closely packed so that I could dart easily in and out of them, where he had to take his time and move a little slower.

I could hear his footsteps as I made my way further into the woods, the sun darkening above the thicket of leaves that seemed to cut me off from the rest of the world. When it was just the two of us out in this place, it was easy to forget that there was anyone else out there in the world at all; I felt as though as we were the first or last people on Earth, outliving everyone until it was just the two of us making our way through these quiet, still woods all by ourselves. It was a thrilling thought, even though the high-tech cabin was just a few minutes’ walk away.

I found myself behind the trunk of a thick oak and pressed my back up against it, feeling the bark and the way it dug into my back and appreciating just how real everything felt right now. Back in the city, I had spent so much of my time drifting through my own life, disconnected from what was going on. But I felt alive, buzzing with energy and electricity, the cold air fresh in my lungs, the sound of the leaves organic above me. My breath was making little puffs in the air in front of me, and my hands were already getting cold, but I didn’t care. I could have stayed out here all day if he’d let me, if he’d been willing to indulge me.

Suddenly, I heard his footsteps crunching on the fall leaves below me, and he emerged out of nowhere from around the back of the tree. Catching my hands, he pushed them above my head and held me in place as he leaned down to kiss me once more. I felt something kindle to life in my stomach as our lips met, and when he pulled back I could see that he was feeling the exact same thing.

“Caught you,” he murmured, and I smiled shyly back.

“What are you going to do with me now?” I asked, my heart beating quickly in my chest.

“Hmmm,” he trailed a finger down the side of my neck, my hands still pinned above my head; I was surprised at how much it turned me on, to have him taking control of me like that. I bit my lip and eyed him, a hunger pulsing in my veins, as I waited for him to respond. He knew that I was desperate to hear what he had to say next, and he loved making me wait.

“Turn around,” he ordered, and I did as I was told; he let go of my hands and I placed them on the scratchy bark for balance, my knees threatening to tremble out from underneath me if I didn’t.

I heard him taking his belt off, and my heart leapt up in my chest; I knew I could trust him, that he wasn’t going to push me any further than I wanted, but still – was he going to hit me with that thing? Before my mind could linger any further on that discomforting though, he grabbed my hands and wrapped the belt around them, drawing them up above my head and looping the belt around a thick branch protruding from the tree. My toes curled in my shoes. We had never done it like this before, with me all tied up, and I had no idea how to feel about it – I couldn’t get through the blur of arousal at his touch, but I guessed that was a good sign.

“Is this okay?” He asked, running his hand up my side and leaving a trail of tingles in his wake; I nodded.

“People don’t come through here often, do they?” I asked.

“Maybe they do, maybe they don’t,” He teased, sliding his hand over my neck and making me moan. “What happens if we get caught?”

“You’ll just leave me out here?” I suggested, and he gripped my hips and grinded himself against me lightly; I could feel that he was already getting hard. I had always known he had a penchant for being the one in control when we were fucking, but this was something else entirely and it was seriously doing it for me. My legs were trembling a little, and it had nothing to do with the cold air out here.

“Maybe I will,” he replied playfully. “Maybe I’ll come back and pick you up later. Maybe I’ll strip you down and leave you out here all night…”

The thought of that drew a moan from my lips, taking me by surprise; this was kinkier than I’d ever gotten before, and my body was responding to it in ways it never had before. I felt as though my thinking mind was retreating and pulling back a few notches, letting me give myself over to this moment, to Cormac, to all of it and more. It was a strange feeling, but a good one too – almost like a relief, after all the panic I’d been having about Richie and not telling Cormac about him since I had been given the chance.

He pushed my dress up a few inches, and I felt my skin prickle at his touch as he rolled the hem of it up and over my hips so that I was exposed. I flushed bright red. I had never done anything like this before in my life – sure, I’d wondered what it would be like to be so damn into someone that you couldn’t hold back, not even when it was ridiculously inappropriate to do anything sexual, but I had never had that kind of connection with someone before him. My heart was racing and I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like if we were to get caught right now. A billionaire who’d hidden away in the forest, and then was found like this? I would never hear the end of it. Neither would he.

“Mmm,” he sighed, and slowly walked around me, taking his time, taking me in. I wriggled back and forth a little, testing the bindings that were above me, watching him closely in the hopes that I would figure out what he wanted to do next. Some part of me just wanted to get down to it already, knowing that we were risking a whole lot with every second that passed, but another part was happy to let him tease me. There was something inestimably sexy about the way he looked at me when he had me where he wanted me, like I was some perfect sculpture that he had carved with his own hands, like he was proud of his work.

He finally ended up back behind me once more, and ran his cool hand up the small of my back, making me shiver. I leaned my head up against the tree, the bark scratching against my skin, and tried to ignore the rush of desire that had just overtaken me. I had to keep myself in control, no matter how badly I wanted to just turn and beg him to take me already.

His hand slid down and over my panties, cupping my warmth through the fabric and holding it there; I gasped loudly, any sense of composure that I had been clinging on to dropping away from me just like that. I needed him inside me. There was no time to waste. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones or maybe it was just the circumstances, but I needed to feel his perfect dick inside me in the next ten seconds or I was scared that I might blow a fuse.

“Cormac,” I half-turned as well I could over one shoulder – I couldn’t look him in the eye and somehow that made it even more impossible, my body craving the sight of him as well as the feel. But not being able to have what I wanted so badly just made it all the hotter. He really knew what he was doing. With just a little exchange of power, he had me practically begging for him already. And I had a feeling that he had a lot more up his sleeve once this was over.

“Yes?” He asked, pressing his fingers against me. Even through the fabric, the feeling was intense, more than I was used to. I must have been soaked already.

“Fuck me,” I pleaded, feeling a little silly just coming out with it like that but knowing no better way to describe it. “Please, just fuck me…”

“Ask me again,” he ordered, and my head jolted up. I didn’t know what else I could say to get him to see how badly I needed this, but I would do anything to get him to believe me.

“Please, Cormac, please,” I whined, sounding like a petulant teenager and not caring one bit. “This isn’t fair…”

“Nope,” he agreed, and I shifted my weight from foot to foot, knowing that he was enjoying my torment and wondering how much longer he was going to make me weight for some relief.

“Not fair at all,” he agreed, slowly slipping his fingers into my panties and pulling them down my legs. As soon as the cool air hit my pussy, I let out a gasp – he was going to give me what I wanted. Finally. I felt as though I had been waiting hours for this, even though it had only been a few minutes. With Cormac, I just wasn’t used to not getting what I wanted when I wanted it, but I guessed that this worked for me even better than I known.

I heard him unzip behind me, and then felt his cock nudging up at the entrance of my slit. I tilted my head back and moaned softly, anticipating how good it was going to feel – but he didn’t move. I held myself there, waiting for him to thrust up into me with that familiar growl of pleasure that always escaped him when he entered me for the first time, but he didn’t move a muscle.

“Cormac?” I asked, my voice high and desperate-sounding, even to me.

“Fuck yourself on my dick,” He demanded, his tone low and commanding, sending a sharp shiver through my body. “Do it.”

It took me a moment to understand what he was asking me to do, but as soon as I did, I began to move. I slid myself back, and he took hold of my hips to guide me, and before I knew it I had him buried to the hilt in my pussy. My mouth dropped open and I used the leverage of my bound hands to move back and forth, taking my time, wondering how I had never thought to do this before; he wasn’t moving, but I was rocking myself back and forth on him, pleasuring him, focused on the way his breath seemed to pick up with every motion I made. He had been bound and at his mercy, and yet he was letting me set the pace. An interesting combination, an intoxicating one. I arched my back and went faster, unable to reach those spots that I had been craving since the last time we had been together like this. I needed him to thrust back against me but I knew he wasn’t going to do that yet; I didn’t know how long it was going to be, but he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying making me work for this.

“You look so good like that,” he remarked, letting his hands travel lazily up my sides and beneath me to my breasts; even through the dress, the feel of his hands kneading and gripping me was enough to edge me closer, to inch me further to the place I knew I needed to be. My hands were straining above me, tugging hard against the leather of the belt, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t focus on anything but Cormac and the feel of him inside me, the silent willing that was pulsing through my system to get him to move and thrust back so I could-

It took me by surprise when he actually pushed back against me, thrusting his cock up to meet the way my hips were grinding back against him. I gasped and held still for a moment, so shocked that I had no idea what to do, and then he began to fuck me properly and I was glad that I had the leather belt above me to keep me upright because otherwise I might have keeled over from the almost painful pleasure that washed over me in that moment. He just felt so goddamn good - maybe it was my pregnancy hormones trying to connect me to the man who had knocked me up, but there was something deep and raw and impossibly hot between us every time we did something like this that felt like drawing in to someone I’d needed to know all my life.

The angle made him feel bigger than normal (not that he was lacking in that department in the first place), and the sensation of him filling me up like that was all I needed to get me there. My clit was pulsing, desperate for attention, and where I might have slid my hand down between my legs to push myself over the edge, they were bound above me so I couldn’t do anything to them. I groaned desperately, and he seemed at once to know what it was that I needed. Slipping his hand between my legs, he stroked my clit a few times, in pace with his movement inside of me, and I felt my legs buckle and threaten to give out beneath me as the orgasm finally hit me with the force of an atom bomb.

“Ah!” I cried out, momentarily forgetting that there could be other people in this forest who might think I was being eaten by a bear or something and try to come help. My pussy pulsed hard and he pressed his fingers against my clit, as though absorbing the feeling through me, and moments later I felt him climax inside of me, his cock twitching and filling me before he slowly pulled himself out. I stood there, legs shaking, eyes closed, mouth gasping for air like I was a fish flopped up on land and trying to stay alive. I was distantly aware of him undoing the bindings around my hands and catching me in his arms before I keeled over on the spot, but it took me a moment to think about anything logical like getting dressed again or trying to stand by myself.

“That was…” I struggled to find the words to describe what had just happened, but I knew I didn’t need to with him. I knew he already understood where I was coming from.

“Yep,” he grinned, and planted a quick kiss on the side of my forehead. “Come on, get dressed – I don’t want us caught out after you made all that noise.”

“Sorry,” I apologised as I put myself back together with slightly trembling hands. He shrugged and grinned, obviously pleased with himself.

“Hey, I was the one who made you make those noises,” he pointed out, and I took his arm when I was done and leaned against him for support. He wound an arm around me.

“Yeah, guess so,” I agreed, unable to come with anything more clever given the current state of pleasurable mush that my mind found itself in.

“Hey, your hands are cold,” he remarked. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

“Agreed,” I sighed, and allowed him to lead me out of the woods – and it took me until we were back at the cabin to realize that we hadn’t collected the firewood we’d set out to. And I wondered if this walk had even been about firewood at all.

Chapter Eleven

“Come on, it’s going to be fine,” Laurie assured me, watching me with an amused expression on her face as I paced back and forth through the cabin.

“Yeah, I know it’s going to be fine,” I looked up at her. “I just want to get this over with, that’s all.”

“Well, get in the car and let’s be done with it,” she suggested, yawning and stretching. “You sure I’m not allowed to have a coffee? It’s so early-”

“We’ll talk to the doctor about it,” I replied, and then resignedly went to pick up my car keys and headed for the door. “You ready to go?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she skipped up to join me, and then slowed down, placing her hands over her stomach. “Ooh. I’ll be glad to get to that doctor. Maybe he can tell me while I’m feeling sick all the time.”

“I think they just diagnose that as pregnancy,” I teased lightly, and she slapped my arm playfully.

“Okay, well, maybe he can do something to make it a little easier?” She suggested. “That’s what I meant.”

“I know,” I replied, and held the door open for her to head inside. It was so early that it was still pretty dark out there, but the city was a long drive away and our appointment was pretty early in the day so we had to get out of these at this ungodly hour in the morning.

“I’m so excited to do all the baby-stuff shopping,” she remarked as I helped her into the front seat.

“No expense spared,” I promised her, just like I had the day before when she had convinced me that we needed to come down to the city to do all of this.

I pulled away from the cabin, and within a few minutes she was fast asleep; she had been exhausted these last few days, and I supposed that was the pregnancy taking hold once and for all. I glanced over at her, the sporadic cars swooping by us on the road lighting her sleeping face, and smiled. I couldn’t believe this was really happening.

It had been about six weeks since she had told me about the pregnancy, and she had finally convinced me that we needed to head into the city so we could get a doctor involved and start looking our furniture for the baby. I knew it was early days yet and that there was still plenty of time for things to go wrong with the baby, but the thought of returning to the city had still scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to return there, not after so long away – not after why I’d left in the first place.

But, as I drove, I found myself less unsettled than I was sure I was going to be. Maybe it was just having her by my side that made me feel better, or maybe it was just because I was over all that shit to begin with and hadn’t realized it yet, but as drew closer and closer to the place that not too long ago I had fled from, I found myself calm. Relaxed, even. I was looking forward to seeing how the pregnancy was going and, while I wasn’t exactly personally thrilled for the shopping, I was keen to see Laurie enjoying herself amongst the cribs and mobiles and babyseats.

Not to mention the fact that I had made sure that this would be a special night for us; there had been this restaurant, in the middle of the city, that I had been trying to get seats at for practically the entire time that I’d lived there. Extra, it was called. But I had never managed to land a table there no matter how hard I’d tried or how many arms I’d tried to twist. On the off-chance, I’d called the previous evening after Laurie had gone to bed, to see if they had any spare seats going, and to my surprise, they did. One table, early in the evening, giving us plenty of time to go home and celebrate in our own inimitable way afterwards. She didn’t know yet, but I was looking forward to surprising her with it.

In fact, there was so much I was looking forward to doing with Laurie I could hardly keep it all straight in my head. Since that crazy hook-up in the middle of the forest, I had finally been unleashing my kinkier side on her; it had taken a while for me to accept that the woman who could be mother of my baby could also be this crazy, wanton demon in bed, but now that I was there I couldn’t believe I’d hung about so long in coming to that realization. And I fell asleep next to her every next, and would lay my hand on her stomach and think about everything that was going on in there. I prayed that the baby would be okay, even though I didn’t exactly have any specific god to pray too – and I prayed that whatever was happening between the two of us would survive the pregnancy as well. It felt so delicate, so fragile, so new, and all I wanted to do was make sure our relationship made it out of all of this unscathed. We had only been together a few months at most, and yet I was finding myself developing some serious feelings for her. Maybe that was just the pregnancy, caveman shit kicking in and telling me to stick next to my woman, but I was sure that I would have found myself in the same position had we still been trying.

Maybe that was why I had been reluctant to head down to the city. Even though I knew it was necessary, it felt like involving the outside world in what was going on between us would sully it somehow – I hadn’t even told my family about her, even though the baby would be there in a matter of months. I just wasn’t sure how to explain it to them, my motivations for doing this in the first place or what I now shared with Laurie, and the thought of putting it all into words was exhausting when I compared it to crawling into bed next to the woman I was falling for and forgetting about the rest of the world for good.

I drove through the night and into the morning, watching as the day broke over the mountains that surrounded the cabin and wondering what everyone else was on the road for this early. Maybe a few of them were couples like us – maybe one or two of them were having kids right now, on their way to the hospital first thing to make sure everything went to plan. The thought made me happy, especially when I imagined Laurie and I doing it in a few months time. I would totally have told my family by then. For sure. No doubt. Probably.