Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16)

by Julia Kent

  Hope holds up her replica and uses two fingers to press and slide along the lower rim of the vulva.

  “Gina,” Andrew whispers. I hand her the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “Take notes.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Take notes for me. Add them to my daily audio summary.”

  “You expect me to take notes while standing in for you at your wife's childbirth class, and make sure they're put into your audio software so you can listen to this tomorrow on your morning commute?”

  “Of course.”

  “THE TAINT?” she says loudly, making Andrew go back to Mr. Cool Face.

  “Just do it.”

  “You need a reminder about THE TAINT? Shall I write up an executive one-pager for you?”

  He smiles, as if now she understands. “Exactly.”

  “Up here, on the table, we have a bowl of olive oil. Partners, dip your index and middle fingers–”

  “Andrew?” Gina asks sweetly.

  “Yes?”

  “Does she mean this finger?” She flips him the bird.

  Mr. Cool Face becomes Mr. Sour Puss.

  “Fine. Platinum plan, no deductibles, better parking spot, and no audio summary.”

  I turn to her. “You can go home.”

  “I can? I–I didn’t mean to be unsupportive to you, Amanda?”

  “Oh, pffft. I know that. It's just–you negotiated well. Got what you wanted. Now let's watch Andrew stew as he doesn't win. Letting you go home means he doesn't win.”

  “HEY!” he bellows from the phone.

  “If I don't learn how to do perineal massage, how will Andrew learn?”

  I arch one eyebrow at her.

  She reddens.

  “Gotcha? Okay? Bye?” I've never seen someone back out of a room like that. How does she know where the open door frame is? Somehow, her body manages it, and soon I'm alone.

  Alone with my Facetime husband.

  “You do understand there is no Facetime at the birth. You'd better be there in full.”

  “In the flesh,” he says–and he's right.

  Because his voice gives me shivers as he says those words directly behind me.

  “Andrew!” My in-person words are echoed on the screen, as he pulls me in for a hug, careful around my belly. All my irritation fades as the familiar scent of him makes me grin. “I thought you were in New York?”

  “I realized I could get back faster by helicopter. Wasn't fully certain I'd be there in time, so I hedged my bets.”

  “I'm so glad you're here.”

  “I wouldn't miss touching your perineum for anything.”

  “I think that's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me, Andrew.”

  Hope gives us a look that says, Are you done now? I have a curriculum to get through. Andrew sits behind me and I lean back, hips aching but happy, his arms around me the best cocoon I could possibly have. As Hope picks up where we left off, I look at the silicone model, imagine my own tissues, and see Andrew doing the same.

  We're learning.

  Learning how to help my body experience even the tiniest bit less pain, given what it's about to go through.

  That's what childbirth class boils down to, isn’t it? We're not here to master a process. Optimizing it isn't quite right, because the optimal outcome is a live, healthy baby–or two, in my case.

  But there's definitely a way to mitigate the negatives and accentuate the positives, and that's what we're doing, as Andrew takes two fingers, oils them up, and begins stroking the fake perineum like he's applying lip gloss.

  “We're not painting the flesh, Andrew. We're massaging it. Dig in. You want to help direct blood to the area,” Hope explains.

  “Blood?”

  “Inside the muscle. That'll help it stretch.”

  His hand halts. “Hope?”

  “Yes?”

  “Statistically speaking, what are the odds of a primiparous twin birth being vaginal?”

  “I–I don't know.” She gives him a flirtatious look that makes me want to rip her hair out. “But I'm very impressed that you know how to use 'primiparous twin birth' correctly in a sentence.”

  I snort.

  “Amanda.”

  “Yes?”

  “Text Gina that question.”

  “What?”

  “Text her. She'll know.”

  “Why would Gina know that?”

  “She doesn't know it, but she knows how to get me the answer.”

  “You realize you can just Google it.”

  “Why? It's easier to ask Gina.”

  “You're adding a step, Andrew. Pull up the browser on your phone, type the question, and–”

  “That's an added step.”

  “Gina is the added step!”

  One of the fathers across the room holds up his phone. “While you two were arguing, I looked it up. About twenty-five percent of twins are delivered vaginally. And then there's the dreaded vaginal c-section.”

  Hope clears her throat. “Please don't use negative words.”

  A sheepish look covers his face. “Sorry.”

  “Twenty-five percent?” Andrew looks like he's weighing his options, fingers now deep in the muscle. “And vaginal c-section is when one twin is delivered vaginally, but the other gets stuck and needs a surgical birth?”

  Hope nods. “It's rare, but it happens.”

  I shudder.

  “Are you calculating the value of your time spent learning this by weighing the statistical likelihood that I'll need perineal massage at some point?” I accuse him.

  “Yes,” he confesses. Except it doesn't sound like he has any guilt whatsoever about being so cold and calculating.

  “You should do it because you love and support me!”

  “Of course I will. Just being pragmatic.”

  “Pragmatic!”

  “Your mother is an actuary. She does this for a living.”

  “My mother is not supporting her partner in giving birth to twins. But at the rate you're going, she might replace you.”

  “Hey!” He holds up his hands, one covered in oil. “I'm doing my best here.”

  “I'm your wife, Andrew. I know what you look like when you're doing your best, and this isn't it.”

  He leans in and whispers, “Normally when I do this, the only lube is from my mouth and I’m using my tongue, not my fingers.”

  I freeze him out and watch one of the other fathers use a technique that makes me think he's a middle school band director, using his fingers like a conductor's wand. I get seasick within seconds.

  “Okay, then, everyone!” Hope announces. “I know this puts us well into the discomfort zone, but it's so important to make sure blood goes to the right places.”

  “It's definitely doing that right now on me,” Andrew mutters as he wipes his fingers on a paper towel.

  “Seriously? You're getting aroused by this?”

  “It's a pretend vagina and vulva, Amanda. I'm biologically primed to be aroused by it.”

  “Are you going to sport an erection when you're watching my vagina during the birth?”

  “You're probably going to be strangling me, so I assume the blood won’t be able to travel south.”

  I smirk in spite of myself.

  He waits.

  I say nothing more.

  His eyes cut over to me, face slack, but I can read him as his eyes drift to my belly. Andrew is a tough, direct, self-contained CEO who schmoozes everyone but is close to few. I'm in his inner circle, at the core, and I know he'll do literally anything to make life better for me.

  Including feeling up a plastic pus–

  “EEEEEEEeeeee!” Hope squeals, staring at her smartphone screen, the sound one of joy rather than fear.

  “Hope?” I ask. She’s standing just a few feet away. When she looks at me, her eyes glisten, mouth broad and grinning.

  “One of my students just texted me.” She turns the phone so I can see it.

 
It's a picture of three little burrito babies, all in the row, wrapped in the classic hospital receiving blankets with pink and blue stripes.

  “Triplets?” Andrew gasps, mouth setting in a piqued line.

  Yeah, yeah, someone outdid him.

  “Vaginal triplets,” Hope says, triumphant. She looks at me–the only person in class not having a singleton–then she looks at Andrew's hand. “See? You never know when you’ll need to feel your way around a vulva.”

  Andrew's nose twitches, but he looks at me to avoid making an obvious joke.

  “Right, Hope. You never know.”

  His hand slides between my thighs as I drift off to sleep.

  My eyes fly open.

  A kiss on my bare shoulder, then the long, hot, hard length of him up against my back makes me take a deep breath. I don't mean to, but I hold it.

  “Amanda?” he murmurs, that hand between my thighs intent on doing more than finding a resting place.

  “Mmmm?”

  “Are you...?”

  Am I what?

  Interested?

  Willing?

  Horny?

  Scared?

  Turned on?

  Desperate?

  Aroused?

  How about all of those?

  “I'm... I don't know.”

  His hand stops moving.

  “I don't know is a no.” He snuggles in. “Affection's fine.”

  The baseball bat between his legs, poking my tailbone, tells me it's not fine.

  “In this case, I don't know is... too many feelings to just say yes.”

  “Which is a no.”

  “It's not a no. It's a...”

  “A what, sweetie?” He strokes my hair.

  The “sweetie” makes me burst into tears.

  “Oh, Amanda,” he whispers, holding me in his arms, palm running from my shoulder to my wrist, a soothing gesture that shows how much he cares. “What's wrong? Did I do something to upset you?”

  “No. It's not you. It's me.”

  “You were fine until I reached for you, so it's me.”

  “It's not. It's... it's a little bit of everything. I'm so big, we can't do my favorite position. I'm so swollen that one touch between my legs and I come–and no, that's not some superpower, because it doesn't feel as good as it did before the pregnancy. Then I worry that I'll never orgasm like I did before the pregnancy, and that I should have appreciated it more when I could come like that. Plus, I'm a house. Literally a house. I'm housing two womb mates. And I know you find me attractive and sexy, and I feel attractive and sexy, but I'm pretty close to either having my vagina split open or my abs cut by a scalpel, so sex is complicated and tough and, Andrew,” I sob, the hitched breaths feeling completely untethered. “I don't know. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I want. I don't know what this body is. So... I don't know.”

  “There's a lot of emotion behind those three words.”

  “It's not the only three-word sentence packed with emotion,” I reply. “There’s I love you.”

  “And Yes, I swallow.”

  Through tears, I hit him in jest, but his comment does what it needs to do. The melancholy that swept over me earlier breaks free, as if I've been bound by tiny ropes of despair that are frayed by his abiding attention and diligent presence. Rolling over is hard now, but I manage, then kiss him, my tongue moving fast to find his, to connect and savor, to thank and rejoice.

  Being understood is a luxury.

  Being seen is a holy act.

  When every part of your body expands to accommodate new life, being touched by the outside world takes on a new feel. Andrew's familiar touch reconfigures to elicit different reactions from me, his hand cupping my full breast something old and new at the same time.

  When I move to be closer to him, his hand on my hip and the glide of my calf between his feels heated and arousing, lust rising with fervent emotion. Intimacy is hard. We have to work constantly to keep the threads of connection woven tightly.

  My naked skin craves his touch.

  “I love this. I love you,” he murmurs, hand going to my belly, then traveling lower. I'm wet and eager, ready for his mouth, his fingers, his thickness in me, but wanting to draw this out, too.

  “I love that you love this. Mmmmm,” I murmur, his touch making warmth and energy spread through my ever-expanding body. The aches and tensions of pregnancy fade when I'm under his spell, the constant connection of bare skin sending messages to receptors that say stand down. Relax. Rest.

  Release.

  His body is never the same twice as I touch him, eyes closing to accept his offer of pleasure, my own senses heightened as I find the smooth curl of muscle in his shoulders, the fine layering of hair along his chest, the deep grooves of ribs and strong abs when my hands take their normal journey into Andrewland.

  Every day that I get to touch him like this is another day of joy, and the combination of his touch, his deep stare, and our wild kisses makes me love the world we create in bed.

  Lefty kicks me and Andrew moves back, looking down between us with wonder.

  “Does that mean I should stop?”

  “No! No,” I whisper, moving my hips against his hand, needing to finish what he's started. “You know you can't hurt them.”

  Amusement and lust make his eyes dance. “I know. It's still a little strange.”

  “Let's stop thinking, then.” I reach down and stroke up once. His eyes close, mouth dropping open, the tip of his tongue emerging.

  I want that tongue elsewhere.

  “I stopped thinking a long time ago, Amanda. When we're like this, all I do is feel. And there's no one else in the world who can make me just feel. Only you. Only us.”

  His hands slide under my nightgown and I reach down, his movement halting.

  But I pull my nightgown up over my belly, breasts pendulous and full, the cool chill of the air hitting my nude, ripe body making me shiver until Andrew cocoons me in the covers.

  And warms me up.

  “I won't last long,” I whisper before he kisses me, a long, lush kiss full of tongue and smiles and heat.

  “That's my line,” he says as his knee shifts, thigh mingling with mine, and I feel what he means. “What do you want?” he asks.

  “You.”

  “Always here.”

  My hand strokes him. “I hope I can say the same.”

  A sound from the back of his throat makes my heart squeeze. “What does that mean?”

  When you're with someone long enough, and love intensely enough, a near-psychic connection makes you damn close to being a mind reader. Or maybe a heart reader? I instantly regret my words.

  “Oh, no! I don't mean that. I just mean I'll change. After the babies. Shannon said it took a while for her sex drive to come back.”

  He pauses.

  “This is my version of dirty talk, Pregnancy Edition,” I joke as his palm broadens, moving up my body, curling over my navel. He smiles.

  “Every word out of your mouth is a joy.”

  “Even when I call you a jerk?”

  “Especially when you call me a jerk.”

  “Why especially?”

  “Because it means I'm right.”

  Before I can answer, he shuts me up with a kiss, the kind that sets nerves running off to hide and blood racing through me, chasing my worries away, bringing in the love and lust that connects me to my husband in ways profound and profane.

  Suddenly, every anxious thought is gone, and all I am is this lush body, biologically primed to be no more, no less than what I am in this moment. The taste of Andrew lingers on my lips as he leaves a trail of kisses down my swollen breasts, tongue going to an exquisite spot between my legs for the flitter of a moment, just long enough to make me keenly need him.

  I roll to my side and we spoon, his hard, muscled body behind me, my hand between my legs, guiding him in.

  His groan of pleasure makes me nearly come, but as my lower belly tightens to hard mus
cle like his torso and pecs, I find the orgasm holding itself patiently at bay, wanting more.

  In the wonderland of our marital bed, I can be the new version of myself that came into being when we found each other, releasing all of the frayed pieces of the old me that don't hold together well. I'm real without him, but every stroke of my back makes me find that part of who I am. Each thrust into me makes the whole of our time together, shared breaths and memories, more complete.

  For now, I am my body only, his hands and mouth on me, his breath on my neck, his power giving me pleasure as our pace quickens. My pleasure expands as his does, and soon I'm moving against him, needing him deeper, drawing him in. Who we are when he kisses my neck, biting my earlobe as I climax, is nothing but instinct.

  The space between us is gone, our joining complete.

  His hand moves between my legs and a few simple strokes make me gasp, unable to speak, the orgasm a wave I ride and ride and ride as he quickens, finally coming hard against me, his hand on my hip, fingers digging into me with possession and fierceness.

  Intense vulnerability is one of the greatest forms of love.

  So is wild abandon.

  We drift off wordlessly, my body loose and loved. I turn to spoon Andrew and Lefty follows his father's heat, the partial flip making me swallow hard.

  “I love you,” Andrew whispers into the cool air, the words unnecessary.

  So unnecessary, I just hug him harder.

  And fall asleep.

  15

  Amanda

  “Right there,” I tell him, on my side, one leg propped up on his shoulder, the scruff of a day's unshaven growth tickling my inner thigh. He's doing something that makes my belly tighten, the waves taking my breath away. It feels good, hands crawling up my body, but the band around my hips and back is piercing the pleasure.

  “More,” I whisper, urging him on, but his tongue isn’t there. All I feel is the press of that band, tight like a belt, then loosening, over and over, until the next time, it hurts.

  Hurts.

  “Andrew, stop,” I murmur, but he’s gone, a cold wave of ache replacing the loving touch.

  And then it hurts more.

  And more.

  “Andrew!” I gasp, sitting up, saying the words in the dream and in reality. My mind straddles the two, body firmly in this realm as I place my palm on the space above my hip and feel it grow taut.