Chapter 23
If you stroke my beard, I cannot be held responsible for the pregnancy that will follow.
-E-card
Mia
Two months later
No.
No. No. No. No. No.
Please God, no.
I threw the white stick across the room like it was a poisonous snake attempting to bite me.
“Baby,” Tai said.
I turned to look at him through my tear-filled eyes. Tears that flooded my eyes the moment they saw those two pink lines.
I just couldn’t do it.
Not again.
“It’s positive,” he said.
He knew it.
Hell, I’d known it…although I’d been trying to deny it.
I didn’t want to know the truth, because the truth meant opening myself up to the possibility of experiencing loss again. I didn’t ever want to go through that kind of pain again.
But that’s not really accurate. I should say more.
This was the kind of pain that never went away, never dulled.
The kind of pain that was so debilitating, that even now, more than six months later, there were days that I didn’t want to get out of bed.
I felt this pain every day when my thoughts inevitably and often went to Colt.
Tai’s hands took hold of mine as he roughly yanked me to him.
We sank together to Tai’s bathroom floor.
My bathroom floor now, too.
I’d moved in with him after he’d proposed, and now, technically, I guess it was our bathroom.
Tai’s hands slid into the hair on either side of my face, and his eyes flared as they took in my devastation.
“You’ll love this baby,” he ordered.
I sniffled as my breathing hitched.
“Yeah,” I cried.
“You’ll give me a baby,” he ordered again.
I nodded.
I would.
“I love you.”
I nodded. “I do, too.”
The now familiar shrill tones of Tai’s SWAT beeper went off, and my heart started to pound.
He got up and carried me to the bedroom, placing me carefully on the bed.
I watched him as he walked to the closet where he kept all of his stuff.
This last couple of months he’d been busy.
PD, Bowe, Drew and Tai all finished their online police academy program, passing with flying colors, and completed their hands-on training hours not long ago. Luke didn’t waste any time getting them on the rotation.
He’d gone on four SWAT calls in the last month as part of his training, but none of them had caused me to feel the terror I was currently feeling.
He came back out of his closet a few minutes later as I tried my hardest not to hyperventilate. He was dressed in his black tactical pants, black SWAT shirt, and his gun belt was slung over one shoulder.
“I gotta go, I love…”
“No!” I cried, grabbing onto his hand before he could go. “You can’t leave me. If you die while I’m pregnant, I won’t be able to do it! You can’t leave!”
Tai’s arms went around my back and he pulled me into his chest.
I felt the reassuring pound of his heart. The heat of his body surrounding me in comfort.
And I tried to calm my erratic breathing.
“I can’t promise you that I won’t die. Just like I can’t promise you that I won’t, one day, get in my truck to go to the grocery store or my brother’s and get into an accident. This is life, baby, anything can happen at any time. When it’s my time, it’s my time. But I promise you,” he said fiercely, “I know what I would be missing without you. I’ll do everything in my power to always come back to you. I’ll never carelessly put myself in harm’s way. I love you so much, and I know you love me just as much. There is no way I would walk away from you, from us, without one hell of a fight, baby. I swear it.”
I started to cry harder.
“I’ve gotta go, baby. I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “You’ll be okay.”
He let me go, and I watched as he left me.
My hands went to my belly…to the unborn life that could also be taken away from me at any moment, just like Colt was, and I fell to my knees and sobbed.
“I swear to God,” I said to the door long minutes later. “If you don’t come back through that door tonight, I’ll never forgive you.”
I stood up and walked back into our bedroom, flopping face first on the bed and burying my head in the covers.
I was alone, so there was no reply to my threat. The silence had me thinking about the worst things that could happen, and I knew in that moment that I needed to have someone there with me.
I knew exactly who I needed right then. I needed the comfort and reassurance that only this person could give me. I needed her wisdom, I needed her experience, and I needed her strength
And so I called my mom. And in the way that only she could, she gently but forcefully pulled me back from the cliff I’d been on.
Her unwavering faith renewed mine, and I knew I could, I would, do this.
After I got my pep talk, I let the phone fall to the bed beside my face, and I slept.
I woke a few hours later to Tai slipping into bed behind me, pulling me up against his chest.
“I’m home. Safe and sound,” he said teasingly.
Turning my face, I pressed my lips onto his arm that was now pillowing my head.
“You and me against the world,” I said. “Although we’ll be adding a third to our team soon. Are you ready?”
He chuckled softly and I felt the first ripples of awareness at the sound of his voice.
“You know how hot it makes me knowing that you’re carrying my baby?” He asked.
I rolled over so I could see his face.
“No, how hot?” I questioned.
He grinned.
“Let me show you.”
And show me he did.
His hands felt like they were everywhere as he woke my body up, one slow, wet kiss at a time.
My body felt like it was on fire as his hands drifted over it, paying special attention to my belly where the new life he’d put there was safe in my womb.
“You’re going to be amazing,” he promised.
I gasped as his mouth moved down my body to the top of my slit. “At what? Laying here while you take me?” I asked teasingly…breathlessly.
He blew gently on my clit, and I lost all thoughts as my pussy throbbed from the sensation.
“Oh, fuck me,” I cried, reaching down to grab onto the first thing I could find, which happened to be Tai’s hair.
He chuckled darkly against my slit, sucking my clit into his wet mouth and running his tongue along it lightly.
I bit my lip to keep from screaming, but that proved futile when he thrust his fingers into my pussy and I came.
When I came, I tended to lose control of my mouth.
And Tai took great pride in this.
He curled his finger in a ‘come here’ motion, rubbing that spot that made me soar while my orgasm went on and on.
He stopped a few moments later as my spent body sank into the bed. He crawled up my body, like a hunter about to strike its prey.
I shivered in anticipation.
Tai was like a ninja with his ability to remove my panties without waking me. Which explained why I hadn’t realized that they were down around my ankles until that moment.
With a swiftness that only an aroused Tai could manage, he pulled my legs up and pushed them to rest on my chest using the panties around my ankles as a hand hold.
I gasped as he slid easily, in one smooth movement into my liquid heat not even using his hand to guide himself in.
No, he just slid right in, and the angle that he was holding my legs in caused him to go deeper than ever before, thrusting until he bottomed out inside of me. I groaned as I watched him slowly, languidly stroking into me.
I moaned loudly, looking down to watch as he moved in and out of my pussy with slow, languid strokes.
His cock was huge and hard, filling me so completely that I had to squeeze my eyes shut tightly to try to make myself last longer.
Tai was having none of me holding back, though, and he instead pushed me harder and faster, making sure I could feel him everywhere.
My boobs bounced, rasping lightly against the inside of my t-shirt, the turgid tips rubbing deliciously against the fabric.
He moved one hand up to cup my breast as his other hand held me in place using his makeshift handle he’d made out of my panties.
The soft slap-slap-slap of our skin, as well as my moans and his grunts, echoed in the room.
Higher and higher I climbed until I was dangling on the side of the cliff, seconds away from soaring again.
Never missing anything, Tai must have sensed this and he picked up the pace, dropping his hips slightly so the head of his cock rubbed against my G-spot with expert marksmanship.
He let go of my breast as his face tightened in concentration.
Sweat gathered on his brow, and my breathing was huffing out in soft pants.
“Tai, now,” I told him.
His eyes connected with mine, and we watched each other as I shattered in a million tiny pieces.
“Fuck!” He hissed as he felt my pussy clamp down on his cock.
He spread his lips, baring his teeth, as he came, too.
“Oh, fuck yeah,” he groaned, pouring himself into me in long, hot spurts.
After long moments, he pulled my panties from around my ankles and brought them up to wipe his release from between my legs.
I half walked, half crawled, to the side of the bed and hurried to the bathroom to clean myself up. When I got back, Tai was sound asleep on my side of the bed.
I couldn’t help staring at him, watching as he breathed evenly in and out.
He deserved everything he could ever wish for, and if he wanted a baby, who was I to deny him the chance to be the wonderful father that I knew he would be. If he wanted a baby, I’d be crazy to not want that experience with him?
He was right, anything could happen – to any of us – at any time. I was risking my heart and more pain, but I was also taking a chance on more happiness than I’d ever felt before
And, I knew it would all be worth it, and I’d just have to pray that nothing bad ever happened.