Beautiful Beloved

by Christina Lauren

  “We’ll finish this later?”

  “Sure,” I murmured, kissing her forehead.

  Her ass, when she turned and stepped into the nursery, was sublime. And then she bent, picked up our baby, and walked to the rocking chair.

  Instead of sitting at her feet like usual, I went down the hall into the bedroom to let my body come down.

  Twenty minutes later I felt Sara crawl into bed behind me. Her hand was warm when it slid around my chest. Her mouth was soft and wet on the bare skin of my shoulder.

  “You awake?” she whispered, letting her hand run down my stomach to where I was naked under the covers. My body began to respond when she gripped me, but I was so fucking close to sleep, so exhausted. I took her hand in mine and pulled it up to my chest, wordlessly telling her we’d find another time.

  * * *

  “Good morning, sunshine.” Will was sitting in my chair, his feet perched on my desk.

  I glanced at him and then shut my office door behind me. “Comfortable?”

  “My office is better,” he said in response. “How was the epic shagfest?”

  “Mildly disappointing.”

  His playful expression dimmed at my probably-too-honest answer and he sat up, planting his elbows on his knees. “What happened?”

  I dropped my laptop bag near my office closet and sat across from him. “George was good, it was just a lot of updates, a lot of mishaps at the restaurant, and then the sex that never quite happened after.”

  “What kind of mishaps?”

  “Alfredo on the trousers, water dumped on the mix, Sara’s breasts leaking through her dress, the valet scraped my car. You know, the usual date night.”

  Will held up a hand. “Her breasts and the dress and the what now?”

  I sighed. “William. Sometimes you disappoint me with your predictability.”

  But he was already shaking his head. “I’m honestly curious. They . . . leak?”

  I felt my brows pull together. “Well . . . yeah. ’Course they do. You do realize where milk comes from, right? What they’re actually for? That they weren’t created simply for you to enjoy.”

  “Do not blaspheme, Max,” he said, holding out a single finger in warning. He looked a little dazed. “And they leak like, constantly?”

  “Not constantly, you bleeding idiot. Just when she hasn’t fed Anna in a few hours or if she hears her cry . . .” I winced, meeting his eyes. “Or another baby cry, apparently. I didn’t really anticipate that one, to be honest.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t that I felt like I was betraying Sara’s privacy in talking about this; it was more that I felt I had access to a secret room in the man tavern and I really shouldn’t hand over the password to Will until it was his time. Let him suffer a bit.

  I gave him my most condescending smile. “Lots of things happen with the female body that even you haven’t seen.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t patronize me.”

  “Why?” I clucked my tongue sympathetically. “It brings me such joy.”

  Will tilted his head, and seemed to consider whether or not to tell me something. His blue eyes narrowed and a little smile took over one half of his mouth.

  I waited it out until I knew he couldn’t stand it anymore. The staring contest continued for at least ten seconds longer.

  “Fine,” he said on a bursting exhale. “I’ve been with a pregnant woman before.”

  I regarded him with mild disgust. “Okay, given that I know you’ve never impregnated anyone yourself, I’m just going to say it: that’s slightly fucking weird.”

  “Yeah . . . I did a lot of shit then that I wouldn’t do now. But I’ve never been with a woman who . . .” He glanced down to his chest and looked back up at me, brows raised.

  “Right,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. Will was such a notorious breast man, it occurred to me that it was strange that he hadn’t seemed to think about this perk of motherhood before now.

  “What does it taste like?” he said, like a crack in the air.

  I groaned, rubbing my eyes. “William.”

  “Maximillian. Don’t even try to pretend like you haven’t tasted it.”

  I remembered the conversation Sara and I had about it the first week we were home. We were in the newborn haze, with dishes piled in the sink and in the same clothes we’d worn the day before. Sara was in pain, and I did what I could to help relieve it: with my hands, my mouth. She’d watched, eyes wide and grateful, her nails gently scratching my scalp and asked me how it tasted.

  I blinked back over to Will. “It’s . . . sweet,” I admitted.

  He whimpered, closing his eyes. “I feel like I need to meet Hanna at the apartment for a lunchtime—”

  “Christ, you’re pathetic.”

  He opened his eyes and studied me, eyes narrowing. “You dig it.”

  “Her tits are glorious. Of course I dig them.”

  “Not just that. It.” He leaned forward, forcing me to hold his gaze. “You do! Holy shit! You dig that they leak and think it’s weird. Are you feeling shame, Gentle Giant?”

  I pulled back, shaking my head at him. “Absolutely not.”

  “And by ‘absolutely not’ you mean, ‘I am absolutely horrified that I dig the—’ ”

  “I’m close to kicking you out of my office.”

  He laughed, rocking the chair back on two legs. “Which means I’m close to unearthing the truth.”

  “The truth, you sodding wanker, is it’s just a weird balance right now.” I hesitated for a moment, trying to organize my thoughts. “Yes, of course there are things about it that are surprisingly hot. But before, it was just us. Max and Sara, living together, still getting to know each other. It’s like you and Hanna now: you can stay out as late as you want, fuck as loud and often as you want, go on a weekend holiday without notice. We were deep in the throes of that, and now there is a little girl in my life who is more important than anything. And . . .” I pulled at the back of my neck. “I didn’t expect it. I didn’t expect to feel so many things at once. I feel like I’m walking around with my heart outside my body, and I know it’s even more true for Sara. I didn’t know how hard it would be to see her energy split. So yeah, the fact that I basically want to fuck her all the time but worry that I’ll . . .”

  He sat quietly, listening. But when I couldn’t figure how else to explain the strange tension in me, he guessed: “You feel guilty.”

  “A bit.” I slid my palm across my mouth. “I mean, look. There’s only so much I’m needed for right now. Sara feeds her, holds her. Anna wants her mum, you know? I can change her and sing to her and take her running, but she doesn’t need me yet.” I grimaced, hating how it sounded to admit: “But I still need a lot. It feels selfish to want the ‘epic shagfest’—as you so delicately put it—to be just as wild as it ever was. It isn’t just about me anymore.”

  “Funny that you haven’t mentioned what Sara wants it to be like.”

  I groaned. “She wants me to be a bit rougher again, I think.”

  He stilled across the desk. “What the fuck is the problem? You two are on the same page, you asshat.” Will leaned in, expression deliberately neutral. “You still doing . . . the club thing? At Johnny’s?”

  I’d always wondered how much Will really knew. Apparently, he knew quite a lot.

  “We haven’t in a long time,” I admitted quietly, “not since she was pregnant. She wants to go.”

  “But you don’t?” he asked, surprised.

  “You fancy the idea of people watching you with Hanna?”

  He started to nod, and then paused. “Yes, and no. I like the idea of people watching me unravel her, but I don’t really want men fantasizing about her like that.”

  “See, and I don’t mind that aspect. But take your feelings, and now imagine when Hanna’s had your baby,” I said. “When she’s a nursing mum, and tired all the time and tiny the way Sara is. Yes, I fucking love her body right now but it all feels private a
nd like if the world pushed her too hard I would break it in half with my bare hands. That it might break her. It didn’t occur to me to feel like this when she was pregnant because there was nothing vulnerable about her, even when she was ready to pop. She carried herself like she knew she looked amazing. Now, if someone didn’t appreciate how sexy she is, I would put my boot up their arse and kick out their teeth.”

  Will regarded me blandly and pretended to yawn.

  “So you think this is me being over-fucking-protective.”

  “Like a dick,” he said. “Like you said, this is your kink. It may not be mine, but if Sara likes it, why do you think it has to be different just because you have a baby at home?”

  I leaned back in my chair, shook my head at him. “This is a pretty intense heart-to-heart we’re having. Breast milk, kink, marriage, and sex with children in the mix. Can you handle it? When did you become a man, William?”

  “Ha. This is nothing compared to some of the shit Hanna wants to talk about,” he said and then laughed. “I mean, look. Anna is four months old. You know when you go to a matinee and come out and it’s still light out and you’re blinded and disoriented for about five seconds until your photoreceptors—”

  “Will. Fucking focus.”

  “What I’m saying is, you’re still stuck in those first five seconds. You’ve walked out of the building and have no idea what it looks like outside yet.”

  “Right. Good metaphor.”

  “You want to see some of your life you recognize. You want barely-inside-the-door sex. You want breaking-furniture sex. You want club sex. And you want to do it with those amazing tits.”

  I gnawed my lip and then admitted, “Right.”

  “Let us watch the kiddo. We’re her godparents, right?” He held up a hand, keeping me from answering. “I mean, I know you haven’t decided yet, but we’d be way better than Chloe and Bennett because let’s be real: they’re assholes.”

  I burst out laughing. “Bennett knows kids, though. He has a niece.”

  “He’s terrified of newborns. Henry says he held Sophia at arm’s length until she could walk and then he never let her out of his sight. He’s sure he’ll break Anna with a stern glance. Which I don’t doubt, if I’m being honest. He is scary as hell sometimes. Hanna and I . . . we’ll figure it out.” Leaning forward, he winked. “We’re scientists.”

  Chapter Four

  Sara

  For all the ways that Max, Bennett, and Will were alike, there were even more ways they were different. Bennett’s first instinct was always to take charge, to work out the quickest way to get the upper hand and never let go. Max was the charmer—still one hell of a businessman, but a bowl of sugar—the guy who knew you caught more flies with honey than vinegar. But Will was the thinker, the one who would puzzle out a situation and figure out exactly what the problem was so he could fix it. Which was why when Max suggested that Will and Hanna watch Anna while we attempted Dinner Disaster number two, I agreed. Will and Hanna were two of the smartest people I knew; if anyone could figure out how to crack the baby code, it was them.

  We were both ready to go when they showed up at the apartment the next Friday night.

  Will was wearing a T-shirt from some show I’d never heard of, and a wary expression on his face. Hanna—as usual—seemed to be getting a kick out of his nerves.

  “You’re not scared of a tiny little baby now, are you?” she asked as they stepped inside.

  “Of course I’m not,” Will said, unwrapping a blue scarf from around his neck. “But between eight and forty percent of babies get colic, Hanna. Eight and forty percent. That’s almost half on the high end, and if you factor that into the number of babies born every year, then the chances that Annabel has—”

  “She isn’t colicky, you twat,” Max said, pulling him in far enough that he could close the door. “Hanna, I hope he’s at least brilliant with your taxes or at the very least one hell of a shag.”

  “Both, actually,” she said, and handed Max her jacket. “And don’t worry, I babysat a ton growing up. Probably watched every kid in the neighborhood at some point. I’m really great with babies.”

  Will stepped up to her side, leaned in to wrap his arms around her and press a small kiss to her nose. “How is that even possible when you were so busy pining for me?” he asked, grinning.

  Hanna shook her head and patted Will’s face gently. “It’s so cute how you think everything’s about you,” she said, and Max barked out a laugh. Will was our notorious womanizer, and to see that he had finally met the woman who knocked him on his ass was amazing.

  “Thank you, again, you guys,” I said, pushing Will away so I could hug Hanna. “I’m not even sure optimism is the way to go, so I guess I’ll just wish you luck.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Will said. “We—and by ‘we’ of course I mean Hanna—will take care of everything. I’m just here to open jars, kill spiders, and change lightbulbs if needed.”

  Hanna nodded.

  Still, I made sure they knew where everything was, went over a list of emergency numbers, and then thanked them for what had to be the tenth time. “She’s just eaten and been changed. I’m sure she’ll be good for . . . in fact, this is about the time she’d go down for the night, so she shouldn’t wake up to feed until long after we’re home. But just in case, we’ll be around the corner.”

  Hanna nodded, and picked up one of Anna’s little onesies from a stack on the couch. “Don’t worry,” she said, straightening the pile again. “Even if she does wake up, I’m sure the biggest problem will be getting this one”—she pointed to Will—“to stop making googly faces at her.”

  Max put on his coat and helped me with mine. “No boys in the house, kids,” he said. “No rated-R movies and we’ve left pizza money on the counter.”

  Will rolled his eyes and pushed us out the door. “I told you, it’ll be fine,” he said, waving to us from the doorway. “I outweigh her thirteen-to-one. Thirteen-to-one! What could possibly go wrong?”

  There would be no fancy restaurant or sentimental bottles of wine. Instead, we stopped at a little diner a few doors down and sat at the first open table we found.

  There was a sense of urgency in the air, a sense that a clock was ticking somewhere and there was zero way we’d make it through this night, maybe not even this dinner, without Will or Hanna calling with some sort of real or imagined emergency.

  “You think they’re going to be okay?” I asked Max, folding and refolding the paper napkin in front of me.

  His eyes met mine from behind a laminated menu and he shrugged. “Of course they will. Annabel’s disposition is matched only by her mother’s. I can’t imagine her giving anyone a problem.”

  I laughed. “It’s possible you might be wrong on both counts, Mr. Stella.”

  The waiter stopped at our table and we each ordered, although I wasn’t really sure why. We were at a restaurant as a formality, as a normal date-type thing before I ripped off his pants.

  Which I wanted to do right now.

  Our food arrived, and it took only fifteen minutes more before Max’s phone buzzed on the table and he picked it up, smiling before turning the screen toward me.

  “Look at him,” he said. It was a photo of Will holding Anna, his expression so proud you’d think he’d just split the atom, not changed a diaper. He was giving the camera a thumbs-up.

  A very white thumbs-up, to be more accurate.

  He did it! Hanna had typed.

  “Is that . . .” I started to ask, squinting as I leaned in, trying to get a better look. “Is that baby powder?”

  “I believe it is,” Max said, looking for himself. Will looked like a powdered donut had exploded all over him. It was in his hair and eyebrows, smeared across his cheeks and covering both hands, the one supporting the baby and the one he held in front of the camera.

  “He’s going to have a good time cleaning that up,” I said, shaking my head before finishing off my burger.

  “It�
��s good for him,” Max said, replying to Hanna before setting his phone down.

  “You think Will and Hanna are ready for babies?”

  “I think Will would be ready for just about anything Hanna wanted. Christ, she could suggest he join a knitting group and he’d ask her what color yarn was best suited for his skin tone. Bloody brilliant watching that one so whipped. Something tells me tonight is just what they needed.”

  “So it’s possible we might actually get a few more hours?”

  Max wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin to his plate. “Don’t want to jinx us, but yeah.”

  It had been ten minutes since Will’s last text—far longer than with George—and I got an idea. Everything was fine at home and I was not about to waste a golden opportunity like this one.

  “What exactly is it you’re doing over there, Petal?” Max said, motioning to my phone.

  “Oh, just looking for something.”

  “Something?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Instead I flipped my phone so he could see the screen, and knew the exact moment he understood. “Things are going so well at home, and we’d be idiots to waste it so . . . I’m booking us a room where you can be as loud as you want and not have to keep one ear focused on a baby monitor. If you’re interested, that is,” I added, giving him a cheeky grin.

  “Interested? I will pay everyone’s bill in this bloody diner if it gets us out of here more quickly,” he said, and made a hand signal at the waiter for our check. “Have I mentioned that I love you?”

  “Once or twice,” I said, smiling widely as the waiter set the bill on our table. I continued scrolling through the listings, and stopped when I found what I was looking for.

  “So we’re people who check in to hotels by the hour now?” Max joked, standing to take our bill to the register. He scratched his jaw. “I am surprisingly comfortable with this.”

  It was impossible not to feel like we were up to something as we checked in to a swank little hotel down the block. We had no luggage, had made the reservation less than fifteen minutes ago, and I’m sure the way I kept looking at Max—like I might throw him down on the counter at any minute—might have suggested we were up to something a bit less wholesome than a nap.