Mac
WHILE HILLARY IS IN the bathroom, I figure the smartest move I can make is start some water boiling for her macaroni. I get out a blue box of Kraft and eye it suspiciously. Better make it two. She was pretty intense out in the hall.
I don’t know much about pregnant women, though I did have training for emergency deliveries, but I do understand that you can’t be pregnant and a virgin at the same time. I’m hoping maybe it’s just that her blood sugar dropped too low and she doesn’t really believe she’s like Mary, the mother of God. I made the choice not to question her when she was stuck on the floor, and I think it was the right one, but fuck if I’m not curious. Maybe I heard her wrong. There was a lot of information to parse out of all that rambling.
I think I’ve taken care of the most pressing issues: she’s off the floor, in her apartment, relieving her bladder, and going to eat macaroni soon.
Her apartment is warm and welcoming. Plants hanging from hooks, a patchwork quilt folded over the back of a chair, pillows on the floor and on the couch. My apartment is the mirror image of hers, but a lot less cozy. Though my TV is better. Much better. That and a recliner are all I have in the living room. What else does a single guy need though?
Apparently single women need more seating, more color, more comfort, and less screen size.
She’s a reader. Books are stacked haphazardly on the coffee table and more fill the bookshelves against the wall. It looks like a mix of fiction and art books, but also plenty of books about pregnancy and babies. I scan for photos or evidence of a baby daddy, but the living room area and kitchen don’t offer me any more clues. It’s not my business, but I’m curious.
The water is boiling when I add the pasta and catch sight of movement across the room.
“You’re cooking for me?”
She’s fucking beautiful. She’s changed her clothes; the tight T-shirt stretches over her baby bump and emphasizes her abundant curves. Her pants are just pajama pants with cats on them, but something about her casual attire just slays me. Like I’m in some private inner sanctum where I get to see who she is when she’s not out in the world. Her face is freshly washed of tear tracks and her hair is down and frames her face.
“You feeling better?” I ask dumbly. I don’t know what else to say. The things that are bubbling up in my throat are words that don’t make sense or would be inappropriate to say.
Beautiful.
Goddess.
I want to make you come.
See? Inappropriate.
But there’s more. Things about staying, about commitment, about forever and never feeling like this before.
It’s all too much. My chest tightens, my ribs crushed by a boa constrictor of unrelieved feelings. Feelings I’ve never experienced before and have no right to now.
“Yes, I feel better. Thank you for the rescue.” I shouldn’t be turned on by the tiny waddle as she crosses the room. “You don’t have to cook for me. You’ve already helped me so much today.”
I grunt—a standard reply that I fall back on to keep people from getting too close. Nobody wants to get near a grumpy bastard, after all.
There’s a surprised wistfulness in her eyes, but she blinks it back. “You could be an ax murderer, but I’d let you stay if you made me mac-n-cheese. I probably shouldn’t tell that to a cop, but there you go. I’m not above aiding and abetting for cheap pasta and processed cheese.”
“Then sit.”
She eases onto the bar stool. “Just what kind of cop are you, Stryker?”
“ERU.”
Her mouth falls open. “Really? That’s...wow. That’s kind of crazy. I never knew an ERU officer before.”
“Not everyone knows what the ERU does.”
“Well, I don’t even know what the initials stand for, but I know you guys are the ones they call for the big stuff. At least I only ever hear ERU on the news when the shit hits the fan.”
“Emergency Response Unit. My specialty is...was...bomb tech.”
Her hand flies to her throat. “Oh my God, really? Damn. You must have nerves of steel.”
“Something like that.” Not anymore.
“Wow. All this time, I’ve lived next door to a hero.”
I think of the hard eyes I see in my reflection every morning. “I’m nobody’s hero.”
“Please. You’re making me food. That alone would guarantee you for a cape fitting in my world. But you save the city, too. They don’t call you guys in to direct traffic.”
I finish straining the pasta. “I’ve had to direct traffic before. It’s pretty dangerous, actually. Explosives are more predictable than human drivers.”
“You’ve obviously seen me drive then.”
Dammit, I like this woman. She’s stunningly gorgeous, but it’s hardly the most interesting thing about her. I grunt again. I don’t think she’s impressed by my surliness. It doesn’t seem to put her off. Maybe that’s because I’m cooking for her. I suppose grumpy bastards don’t usually make dinner for their neighbors.
“You said ‘was’ like past tense when you said you were a bomb tech. Does that have something to do with the hand brace you’re wearing?”
I stop stirring the milk into the pot and look at my right hand, my jaw clenching against the memory.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”
Her stricken expression brings me back into the moment and out of the one I was trying not to fall into. “It’s fine. I just don’t like talking about it much.”
She doesn’t push me, and what might have become an uncomfortable silence seems less so now. Though she winces in her seat.
“Hillary, why don’t you sit on the couch? That stool doesn’t look very comfortable.”
“Nothing much is comfortable these days.”
“Don’t be stubborn. Go sit.”
“You’re kind of bossy, Stryker.”
I push back the thought of telling her what I really want her to do. How I really want to boss her around. How I’d like to tell her to take every inch of me in her mouth. I’m torn with dueling desires that seem like they can’t coexist in my head, but they do. I want to pull her hair and fuck her, and I also want to hold her hand and hand-feed her grapes. I want to treat her like a Madonna and also see my come leaking from the corner of her lips.
This woman.
I open a cabinet. Her dishes are every color of the rainbow and thick, sturdy pieces that are heavy and well made. My own plates at home match but are one step up from disposable. I bring her a bowl, a big one, of the orange pasta and before I know what I’m doing, I settle a blanket around her legs.
“Wow, you’re really good at this. Take care of many preggo ladies?”
“You’re my first.”
She takes a spoonful, a big one, and closes her eyes in the kind of ecstasy that I feel deep in my balls. Fuck. Look at her. If she enjoys sex as much as she enjoys her dinner, she’s one responsive woman. Now I’m thinking about how much I’d like to see that look on her face when I’m pumping deep inside her.
Change the subject, man. Fast. This woman is turning you inside out. My pulse is pounding in my dick like a motherfucker. She’s going to be somebody’s mother soon, you perv. Let it go.
You will darken her world when what she and her baby need is the sun.
But I can look out for her. Even grumpy bastards can do that much, right?
“When are you due, Hillary?”
“Seven weeks. Seven very long weeks. But then when I think about having a baby, I realize I’m not quite ready for that and seven weeks might not be long enough.”
Right. Seven weeks to prepare for a virgin birth.