Heartless Few Box Set

by MV Ellis

  “Yeah,” I say noncommittally, fixating on my shoes.

  “What?” Her and her fucking Spidey senses. If photography wasn’t an option when her dance career ended, she could just have easily become a detective. Nothing gets past her. I know she’ll inevitably drag the truth out of me, sooner or later. Might as well go the easy way.

  “Nothing. I got a new bed.” There were too many negative memories associated with the other one, but I don’t mention that to her and risk completely killing the vibe. “And I moved things around a little. I just thought I should free up some space for… cribs….” I look everywhere but at her, but I sense realization dawning on her.

  “Oh.” She enunciates very slowly, prolonging the agony. I pull her into the room, keen to move the conversation on and to put my dick out of its misery. I lead her over to the bed and sit her on the end of it. I sit too, turning toward her.

  “You’re sure?” She nods, suddenly launching herself at me, straddling my lap, and pushing me backward on the bed.

  “Arlo, I’ll be honest: this pregnancy is making me horny as fuck. Since the sickness passed, I’ve been obsessed with thinking about what you feel like inside me. I’ve gone through so many batteries for BOB, I should consider taking out shares in a battery company. I also think I might have given myself RSI.”

  Oh. She’s full of surprises, my little minx, but at least I now know that BOB is her battery-operated boyfriend, aka vibrator, not some dude she’s been fucking on the side. Besides which, a horny pregnant woman is certainly something to thank the fertility gods for. I can already smell her arousal. Holy shit.

  “I want to drive.” She’s on top of me, pulling off her sexily snug white tee. I love the way it hugs her in all the right places. Her boobs look fucking fantastic in it. Well, they did. It has now been discarded on the floor while London frantically fiddles with the front fastener of her bra. She wasn’t lying when she said she was horny; baby’s in a hurry. I like it. No, I love it. As she releases her delectably full tits, I reach up to grab a handful, but she swats me away.

  “Didn’t I say I’m driving?” She did. “So keep your hands to yourself unless told otherwise, buddy.”

  I nod, in shock. Fuck, I love this woman.

  “Help me.” She motions to her super-stretchy maternity skirt. With the bump, the easiest way to help is to pull the tube of jersey fabric up over her head, which I do at breakneck speed. I’m delighted to see that even in her pregnancy, she’s still wearing beautifully dainty panties. Jake had mentioned something about his wife Kris wearing utility underwear during her pregnancies, some kind of granny panties made out of trampoline elastic or some shit.

  Luckily that’s clearly not London’s thing. They really are nothing much more than two tiny and delicate scraps of lace held together with hair-thin elastic. I look at them, then at her. We have the same dilemma we did with the skirt, except there’s no way of getting panties off over her head. She looks at me and nods. Not needing to be told twice, I grab a handful of the whisper-thin material—how can such a minuscule sliver of fabric hold so much promise?—and yank with all my might. Seconds later, I’m holding my prize.

  London grins and mouths her thanks while I bring the mess of lace and elastic to my face, close my eyes, and inhale deeply. Heaven.

  “Arlo!”

  “What? They smell of your pussy, and wanting, and promise, and delayed gratification. I want to bottle this smell and take it with me everywhere I go.”

  She snorts out a short bark of laughter.

  “You don’t need to bottle it. You have the real thing right here, primed and ready to roll.” She swirls her hips and grinds herself against my dick, which is still awkwardly entombed in my pants.

  “Baby, I gotta get rid of these pants right now. I’m gonna need you to lift up a little.”

  She does as I ask, and in turn, I lift my hips from the bed and push the pants downward toward my upper thighs, bending one knee at a time to pull them off.

  “I so badly want to sit on your dick, but before that, I want you to suck on my boobs as though they’re the ripest peaches you ever ate.”

  She doesn’t need to tell me twice. As she leans over me, pressing my hands down into the mattress with hers and availing me of the tits in question, I open my mouth, sucking on first one and then the other. If London’s moans are anything to go by, I’m hitting the spot.

  “Christ, this feels better than I fantasized.” With those words, she rears backward, withdrawing her breast from my mouth with a noisy but satisfying pop, and reaches down to grab my cock. I live for this feeling. My rock-hard dick in her hand, or better still, inside her, is everything. She squeezes gently before moving the beaded tip to her entrance. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  She lowers herself onto me excruciatingly slowly. I love having her in the driver seat, but sweet Jesus, I’m going out of my fucking mind. It’s no secret that I’ve been around the block sexually, and then some. I’ve done things that would make most people’s toes curl, but it has to be said that before London, hot pregnant-lady sex wasn’t one of them. Not knowingly anyway. I guess pregnancy sex isn’t a thing in your life until it’s a thing. Right now, it’s 100 percent a thing, and I can’t think of anything I want more than this. I raise my hips slightly, experimentally. Bad move. She pulls upward and stills.

  “Uh-uh, Mr. Jones, I’m in charge for once, remember?” For once. Ha! London is in total control of this roller coaster of a relationship we’re riding. All day. Every day.

  I lower my hips and she continues her painfully slow descent down my shaft. When she reaches the hilt, I’m almost cross-eyed with the pleasure and pain of it, and London cries out in agony.

  “What? Tog? Did I hurt you or the babies?” I bring my hands to her hips urgently and begin lifting her off me, but she swats me away again, lowering herself slowly back down and clamping her eyes shut. She stays like that for a few long moments, while I look on in concern, before she speaks.

  “No, no. Everything’s fine. Better than fine, actually. It’s just that with all the hormones, and the way everything has shifted inside, you hitting me there once is enough to make me come. I just needed a moment to pull myself back.”

  Thank fuck everything’s okay.

  She starts moving in earnest then, and even without the hormones and stuff she’s dealing with, I’m dangerously close to coming in seconds also. As London rides me, setting the pace and depth of each stroke, I feel myself edging closer toward the blackness that signifies the start of an orgasm. I hope London is there with me, because right now my climax is a runaway train over which I have zero control. As my balls tighten, I yell out, “I’m coming, baby,” at the same time as London lets out a piercing, guttural cry of agony and ecstasy.

  When we’re done, we collapse in a tangled heap of sweaty limbs and baby bump. I curl around her. Spooning has never been my thing, but with her, I want everything I’ve never wanted and more. Her warmth against my chest and my hands against her stomach feel like coming home. Not for the first time tonight, my mind fades to black.

  Twenty-Eight

  The next few weeks pass like the calm in the eye of a tornado. We circle each other, separate but together, edging closer with every revolution. It kind of reminds me of the early days, before we were “we,” when we were two people doing the “will they, won’t they?” tango. The one we both knew would eventually reach its inevitable conclusion. It was always a case of when, not if. The only thing undetermined was the where and how. I look back at that time wistfully. A time when I knew for sure that London would be mine. That she was mine already. It was just about finding the right way to stake my claim.

  These days, nothing is certain. Not even half certain. I know what I can see in front of me, not beyond. I can see London, and the babies she’s carrying. Our babies. Her bump, which now seems to grow hourly, is testament to their presence. We fall into a daily routine, like roommates but more. So much more. She and those babies are everything to me, s
o whatever the deal, however she wants it, that’s how I’ll take it. Right now that means orbiting the eye of the storm, hoping it doesn’t all come crashing down to earth around us in a broken heap.

  I wake up every day and head straight to the kitchen, where inevitably I find London sitting at the table, maybe typing away on her iPad or flicking through her phone, maybe reading a book or magazine, sometimes just staring into space. This reverie, what she calls “baby brain,” is increasingly becoming the norm as her pregnancy progresses. The more the babies grow, the more it seems they bleed their mother’s resources, physically and mentally. She never admits to waiting for me, just like I never admit that I’ve rearranged my morning routine, pushing my workout to later in the day, because I don’t want to miss a minute with her. But she does, and I have.

  The coffee machine is always on and waiting for me to “drive” it. I produce two coffees, hers—decaf—first, and sit with her to drink mine. Every day I try to tempt her with a dazzling array of breakfast options, poised to create or order in whatever suits her whims. I’m worried about her eating enough. She’s a tiny person at the best of times, but now with two other people to feed, she seems even tinier.

  She complains of not being able to accommodate much food with two small humans crowding her stomach, so I find myself trying to coax her to eat something every few minutes. She tries, and mostly fails, not to lose her shit at me, I suspect because she knows I have her best interest at heart. On our frequent doctor visits, London’s OB assures me that no matter what happens, the babies will always get the nutrients they need, though the same can’t be said for their mother. This is slim consolation—I’m just as worried about my hummingbird as I am the squirts.

  After breakfast, we retreat to our separate days, separate floors of the house, separate lives like true roommates, coming and going as our individual schedules dictate. In all truth, my day is anything but separate from London’s, but the last person I want knowing that is her. As much as I try to give her space, out of sight is nowhere near out of mind. Though out of sight isn’t really out of sight either, if I’m honest. I find numerous spurious reasons a day to return home and engineer chance meeting after chance meeting, hopefully without seeming like I’m keeping tabs on her.

  Most days I’m home for our dinner—a chef-prepared meal delivered to the door at eight o’clock sharp—which I’m sure London knows full well is nothing to do with my usual habit and everything to do with wanting to hang out with her—but if she’s aware, she has the good grace not to mention it.

  Every evening inevitably ends with sex. Scorching-hot, raw, pregnancy sex. Like animals in heat, our unions are rough and ready and all-consuming, leaving us satiated but spent. Despite all of my depraved antics over the years, this is the hottest sex I’ve ever had—even with London—by a long shot. Wild doesn’t even begin to cover it, and I don’t know how we both live to tell the tale. Between sessions, I can scarcely think of anything else, and I’m constantly titanium-hard, and my balls are so blue they glow in the fucking dark.

  I can’t get my head around the reasons why, but every night without fail, no matter how hard we’ve ridden each other or how exhausted we are when we come down from our postcoital high, London collects her clothes from the various points around the room where they’ve landed and goes back to her bed to sleep. Every night without fail, I hope it will be the night that she feels comfortable enough to stay, but it never is. After all these years of pretty much kicking women out of my bed with their panties around their ankles, the one woman I want to spend all night with can’t get away from me fast enough. What is that? Irony? Karma? Retribution? I don’t know; I just know it kills me every time.

  Even if she loses the battle to stay awake once she’s come once, twice, three times, when I wake in the morning, it’s to cold sheets on her side of the bed. It’s not a normal situation, by most people’s standards, but it’s our normal, and I’m happy enough with the direction things are moving, blue balls and cold sheets aside. I hope her acceptance of the physical side of our relationship will also soon lead her to let me in emotionally as well, so that when our babies are born, we can be a real family. I’ve learned that where the two of us are concerned, no situation is permanent, so right now I’m just biding my time, riding out the calm before the storm.

  “Tog, I need to talk to you.”

  She looks up from her spaghetti, eying me suspiciously, wiping her sauce-stained lips on her napkin. Even this most mundane and unsexy of actions makes me want to throw her down on the table and fuck her until she begs me to stop. I swear she gets sexier with every passing minute.

  “Uh-oh, that sounds like trouble. The only time you ask permission before you say something is when you know I’m not going to take it well.” She still has a tiny smidgen of sauce left at the corner of her mouth, and it takes all my willpower not to lean in and lick it away. Knock it off. “So just rip the Band-Aid off already and spit it out. What is it?”

  “I’m dropping the lawsuit against Marnie for the video. Dropped, actually.” I spoke to my lawyers this morning to withdraw it. They’ve already called off the dogs.

  London drops the forkful of spaghetti she was lifting to her lips.

  “What the fuck, Arlo. Why?” The disappointment in her tone and eyes is as clear as the sky on a summer’s evening.

  “Because Luke is in love with her, has been ever since we were in high school.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” London’s jaw hangs slack with surprise. Yeah, I know the feeling.

  “Nope. I wish I was, but it’s true,” I deadpan.

  “But….” There’s an extended silence, and I realize that the end of that sentence isn’t coming anytime soon.

  “Yeah, I know. Trust me, I get it. It’s just about as fucked up as things get. It was a total shock to me too, which sucks, because apparently I failed to see what was going on right under my nose for about a hundred years, and according to the rest of the band, I was the only one who missed it.”

  “Why…?” Her mouth opens and closes, but again, the end of her sentence is not forthcoming.

  “Didn’t he say something?” She nods. “Some crazy altruistic bullshit. Even though he knew our thing wasn’t a thing, he didn’t want to hurt either of us, or some fucked-up logic. I guess it was a decision he made before he really even knew how to use his dick, and being good old Saint Luke, he stuck with it ever since, despite clear evidence that Marnie and I weren’t exactly Romeo and Juliet. I guess he enjoys martyrdom and blue balls.”

  London rolls her eyes.

  “I found out that he’d traced her when all this crap with the video went down, and instead of coming to me, he went to her and was holed up in her grandma’s place on Long Island with her anytime he wasn’t in the studio recording with the rest of us. I went ballistic, and in my rage, I totally refused to see the other side of the story, which is that however stupidly misguided he was, he pushed his feelings aside in favor of both of ours every day for years. I can’t even begin to think how shit he must have felt all that time. Some of the things he’s seen….”

  I realize too late that the end of that sentence is going to piss London off big-time, so I decide to quit while I’m less behind. She can fill in the blanks herself.

  A quick look across at her tells me she’s doing exactly that. She goes from disappointment and confusion to white-hot anger in a nanosecond. Another gift of pregnancy, but one that’s not as much fun as her new cleavage and insatiable sexual appetite. It’s not so much an emotional roller coaster, more like an F1 circuit—each bend holds a new emotional surprise. If looks could kill, I’d be stone-cold dead right now.

  “I totally want to kick his stupid ass for it, but even I can see that whether I agree with his approach or not, he had good intentions. We all know I wouldn’t have done the same thing for him, because I’m a card-carrying asshole. On the other hand, there’s nothing like finding out that you’re going to be a daddy to twins to make
you think again about your own twin relationship. As much as I’ve wanted to kill him more than I’ve ever wanted to hug him in my life, he’s my twin brother, and shit like this shows that when it comes down to it, he’ll always show up for me.

  “Then the lawyers called me and told me that, although it’s almost certain that Marnie took the video, it would also appear that her phone was hacked, and the video was stolen and released without her knowledge. They said I still had grounds to prosecute for taking the video without my consent, which is what caused this whole fiasco in the first fucking place. They’ve been waiting for me to let them know how I want to handle it since then.” I pause, gauging her reaction.

  “When they first told me, I just wanted her to pay for what she’s done. I’m still a long way from forgiving her, but I need to also admit that I played a big part in all this as well. I know she fucked up massively, but there’s no denying I’ve been a shit friend to her for forever, and a shit brother to Luke for even longer. That’s the main thing driving this—I want to be the one to come through for Luke for once.

  “Objectively speaking, I don’t have much to gain from a court case—I don’t need the money, I don’t have the time, and I definitely don’t want to bring more attention to that stupid goddamn video. This way, I get to avoid that whole clusterfuck and do my brother a solid at the same time. Let’s hope the world forgets about it sooner rather than later, and we can all get on with our lives. I figure it’s as close as we’re going to get to a win in this whole mess.”

  London’s lips press into a thin line, and her eyes well with tears. Fuck. She’s crying silently. I hate this, but in my heart of hearts, I know it’s the right thing to do.

  “Don’t be upset, sweets. I’m trying to do the right thing here, but it seems like whichever way I cut it, someone gets screwed, or hurt, or both. Shhh… don’t.” I reach over to hold her face, using my thumbs to swipe away the tears as they brim over and spill from her eyes.