by Simply BWWM
As Elizabeth headed towards the train stop, she shook off her feelings of apprehension. She would have a few days in a row of great sex, and then she and Luke would both wait about a week or two to see if she’d gotten pregnant. If not, then they would try again, having sex a little more often. Elizabeth felt a little wriggle of warmth flowing towards her hips at the thought.
It had been a while since she’d had sex--or at least, it had been a while until she and Luke had hooked up the night of their meeting--and she was eager for more, especially since Luke seemed to be so good at it. Someone had clearly told him that orgasms increased chances of conception.
Or maybe he’s just really into getting a girl off, she thought idly, shivering a bit in memory. It was kind of a shame, really, that she’d found someone who was--by all indications--incredibly good in bed, and she would only be having sex with him for the sake of getting pregnant.
Elizabeth managed to get onto the right train, headed towards the Loop, to get to Giordano’s, looking around her at the other commuters. That time of day--a little before the lunch hour--there weren’t as many people on the train, and the ones that were seemed mostly to be tourists, taking in the sights. What they were doing so far out of the Loop, Elizabeth couldn’t say, but she pulled her sweater a little tighter around herself and hoped that she didn’t “read” to the few natives on the train as a tourist too.
Of course, she thought, she was in a very different position than the people who would only be in the city for a few days or a week on the outside; she was living there. It didn’t matter that it still didn’t seem to be quite real, even with her things arriving at the apartment Luke had gotten her the day before, even with them all unpacked. She would go to a furniture store the next day--it would be the weekend--and she’d make some purchases there, have them delivered and hopefully then it would be a little more real.
Her kitchen, she had to admit, was nicer than the one in Portland. It had been updated; the gas range was practically brand new, and the fridge was definitely brand new. Her older pots and pans and dishes almost hadn’t seemed right in that space, but Elizabeth knew they would eventually.
She had gone grocery shopping, a real grocery trip, after going to the doctor’s before; the food in her fridge marked with the familiar labels helped interrupt the sense that she was somewhere foreign. Elizabeth thought that once she was able to reliably sit in her living room and drink a cup of coffee while watching a late-night show from the night before, she would feel more at home. It would come to her quickly. And then in a year or a little more than that, she would be moving back to Portland, over a hundred thousand dollars richer.
Elizabeth heard the call for her stop and hurried to get off. She checked the map application again and saw that she should only have to walk a bit around the block to get to Giordano’s. She shoved the folder with her doctor’s notes and records in it into her purse and started away from the stop, checking a few times on her app to make sure she was headed in the right direction.
She spotted Luke standing out in front of the restaurant, waiting for her; he didn’t have a folder in his hands, but Elizabeth was sure he’d committed as much of her medical reports as possible to memory. “So, good news all around, it sounds like,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. Elizabeth allowed it, trying to ignore the little tingle that went through her.
“Yeah. Dr. Marchman told me that if you try to talk me into any kind of treatment outside of three months of trying, I should beat you over the head,” Elizabeth told him with tart playfulness. Luke laughed.
“I want to do this as naturally as possible,” he said. “Now to celebrate, I think a nice, big pizza is in order.” He guided her into the casual restaurant, and Elizabeth actually felt relieved that they weren’t going to be eating at a place that was as high-end as their previous meals together had been.
It wasn’t quite busy yet, with only a few people seated at tables. They got their seats, and Elizabeth breathed in the smells of sauce and dough, meats, and veggies cooking as it wafted through the dining room, along with the smaller odors of frying things. It was a place that she could see herself in probably once a week for the kind of treat that wasn’t exactly great for you, but which was delicious and indulgent and fun.
“This is one of the big Chicago restaurants for pizza,” Luke explained. “It’s not the only place to get a deep dish, but it’s one of the better ones in my opinion.”
“I will let you do the ordering, since I assume you know what’s good,” Elizabeth suggested.
“How do you feel about peppers?”
Elizabeth shrugged.
“Not so great about them raw, but cooked they’re okay,” she said. The waitress came to their table, and Luke set aside the menu they’d been handed.
“We’ll get the garlic-parm fries to start, and the special deep dish,” he told the woman. “What do you feel like having to drink?” Luke turned to Elizabeth, and she glanced at that part of the menu for a moment before deciding.
“Root beer,” she said. Luke nodded.
“I’ll have Pepsi,” he told the woman, and they both handed back their menus. When they were alone again, Elizabeth wondered how to get on the topic of what they needed to discuss.
“So, everything’s a clear go-ahead, it looks like,” she said, trying to keep her tone as light as possible.
“Yeah, all our results are back, and you should be ovulating within a few days, right?” Elizabeth nodded.
“Since you’d said that you planned on basically having a sex-marathon with me for that time, I’ll probably try and finish up my projects in queue before then,” she said. Why did it feel so awkward--so stilted--to talk about having sex like that?
“I mean, we can try to have fun with it,” Luke said with a slight smile. “It doesn’t have to be like training for a triathlon.” Elizabeth snorted.
“Yeah, I guess we might as well enjoy it while we can,” she said. “Especially if we don’t take this month, and we have to keep going at it on a schedule next month.”
“Oh, that would be such a shame,” Luke said playfully. “I’m sure neither of us would enjoy meeting up a few times a week to have sex.”
“As long as you’re willing to take me out to dinner first, I am game,” Elizabeth countered, raising an eyebrow.
“I would never think of denying you the fringe benefits,” Luke said, inclining his head towards her.
They lapsed into more general talk then, waiting for their food to arrive, and Elizabeth wondered again how to talk about things without feeling like she was trying to talk about medical treatment for her feet.
“I was thinking,” Luke said. “Maybe we could make it a bit special, that marathon of sex.” They dug into the fries with the house-made ranch sauce, and Elizabeth took her first bites of a slice of pizza--stuffed with sausage, peppers, onions, and mushrooms, it was indulgently delicious in the way she liked: unpretentious, stick-to-the-ribs food.
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, I was thinking I could take you out for a nice meal, and we could maybe go to a movie or something, and then back to my place--or yours, if you prefer--and stay in the rest of the three days, order in food whenever we get hungry, all that,” Luke suggested.
“Or maybe we could cook a meal together,” Elizabeth countered. “I assume you have at least some basic cooking skills.” Luke snorted.
“Very basic ones,” he said.
“Well then, we’ll make a very basic meal together,” Elizabeth concluded. “I think that would be nice. Besides, it would probably be healthier than eating a ton of takeout food--and now that we’re good to go on trying to make a baby, I should at least pretend to care about what I’m putting into my body.”
They went over the details until they came to an agreement, and Liz felt--for the first time--actually comfortable with what their “long weekend” was going to look like: they’d go to dinner, get a slightly romantic ambience going, and then go back to Luke
’s place, where they would spend the next two and a half days. She agreed to keep checking her temperature to make sure she knew when it was getting close to time, and then they both focused entirely on the food, leaving the details of their plans to conceive a child together to worry about later.
By the time she left the restaurant, giving Luke a quick kiss on the cheek with her goodbye, Elizabeth wondered if things would become easier or harder between them once they’d conceived. She wasn’t sure if she hoped that it happened in a matter of a few weeks or if she hoped that it would at least take a couple of cycles for her to conceive, but she knew that whatever the case was, she was committed to the outcome.
In a year or maybe a little more, she would be leaving Chicago and leaving Luke to raise the child she’d borne for him. And then, her normal life could recommence. She tried to feel as optimistic about that as possible, but somehow, in spite of how strange Chicago still was to her, Elizabeth couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she was going to be sad to leave it.
Chapter10
Luke let Elizabeth into the house, feeling the pins-and-needles tingling through his body as they both entered. They’d gone to dinner, they’d seen a movie at the AMC just outside the Loop, and now they would spend as much of the next forty-eight hours as possible having sex, in the hopes of getting Elizabeth pregnant. He had been waiting for the night to come for days, and he had--in the interests of doing his very best--not even indulged in any “stress relief” in the meantime or at all since the last time they’d had sex, when she’d met up with him the first time.
But Luke was nervous just as much as he was interested and on the edge of arousal at the thought of being with Elizabeth again. The more time they spent together, the more he found himself feeling old stirrings of what had been between them. That was dangerous, and Luke knew it. You can cross that bridge when you come to it; right now, just think about how good it will be.
“Why don’t we focus on getting comfortable first?” Luke leaned in and pressed his lips lightly to Elizabeth’s forehead, reaching out to find her hand and giving it a quick squeeze.
“That might help with the awkwardness,” Elizabeth agreed.
“And this will technically be the last time you can drink, won’t it?” They’d both discussed the issue and decided that Elizabeth wouldn’t consume alcohol anymore once they were actively trying and once there was a chance that she could be pregnant. Since she was ovulating, she could become pregnant within the next several days. While all the books and doctors said that so early on in the pregnancy, it wasn’t likely to make much difference, especially since it wasn’t as though Elizabeth drank every day, but neither of them wanted to take any chances.
“That’s true! I should enjoy it,” Elizabeth agreed. Luke went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of prosecco--one he’d bought to replace the one they’d consumed before--and a few glasses, and they went into the living room together.
“Why don’t we open this bottle up, and you can enjoy a glass of it while I give you another foot rub?” Luke grinned at Elizabeth as they moved towards the couch.
“Okay, that definitely sounds good,” Elizabeth told him. Luke waited for her to get comfortable on his couch, and then he sat down, pulling her feet into his lap before tackling the important task of opening the bottle of prosecco. He got the bottle open and poured two glasses, handing one off to Elizabeth and clinking the other one against it. He sipped and then set his glass and the bottle aside on the coffee table, turning on the TV and pulling up Spotify to start some music to set the mood.
He had a special mix, and it started with Daniel Johns’ “Aerial Love,” which began to fill the room, vibrating around them with the bass tones before the crooning voice of the singer and the synthesizers and other instruments came up around it. Luke went to work, carefully peeling off Elizabeth’s socks and setting them aside.
“Good to know you don’t have stinky feet,” he told her with a grin, and Elizabeth rolled her eyes, aiming a playful pretend-punch at his shoulder.
“Less talking, more rubbing,” she said with false severity, wriggling into the right position on the couch next to him. Luke snickered and began to rub her left foot first, working the arch and up to the toes, down to her heels slowly. Just like before, it worked like a charm.
Between the sparkling wine and the massage, Luke knew that Elizabeth was relaxing. Luke worked on first one foot and then the other, until he felt Elizabeth’s whole body start to relax. He watched her carefully, working up to her ankles and then her calves as the music played on, swirling around them.
Instead of going in for the kiss, though, Luke let the massage end just under her knees and sat back; just being close to Elizabeth was enough to make him start to feel the heat rising in his body, enough to make him want more. It was too easy for him to remember just how delicious she had looked naked that first time, too easy to recall how good she had felt, the sounds of her moans filling his ears.
And after not getting himself off for a week, he knew that the first time they had sex again, he wouldn’t be able to last long; he had to savor it, even if they had the next forty-eight hours to get as much pleasure as they could out of each other’s bodies.
So, instead of moving to sex right away, he sipped some of the prosecco he’d poured, and they talked about anything but sex or the chances of conception; there was a little less than ten years of living to catch up on between them, after all. Luke knew it was dangerous to go that route; he could already feel himself starting to get attached to Elizabeth. He also knew that the best way to get a woman fully and completely in the mood was to build up to sex as gradually as possible.
“I have a question for you,” Elizabeth said when they’d consumed about half the bottle between them.
“What’s that?” Luke felt the effects of the alcohol a little bit, but he knew that he would definitely still be able to perform. Just having her legs in his lap, knowing that the rest of her was so close at hand, was enough to give him the start of an erection.
“When was the last time you slow-danced with someone?” Luke raised an eyebrow.
“Slow-dancing? Really, Lizzie?” He’d fallen back on the nickname he’d used for her in high school without completely realizing it, but it felt good; it felt right.
“Really, Luke. When was the last time?”
Luke shrugged. “It’s probably been a year or more,” he admitted. “Why?”
“Put on a slow song. I want to slow-dance with you like we did at Homecoming,” Elizabeth said.
“Oh, come on,” Luke said, shaking his head even as he reached for the controller. He scrolled through his mix and found a song that he thought might suit. “Just for that, we’re going to slow-dance to Hanson,” he added. Elizabeth let out a delighted laugh.
“I didn’t even know you had any Hanson on your playlist,” she said, giggling again.
“I put it on here for you, since I know you wish I was Taylor Hanson,” Luke told her. Elizabeth snickered and shook her head even as Luke changed the song to one of the band’s later tracks. He rose from the couch, reluctantly letting Elizabeth’s legs fall from his lap, and she got up as well--if a little unsteadily.
As the song came up, Luke reached for Elizabeth’s waist and rested his hands just above her hips. She draped her arms around his shoulders, and they fell into the beat. At first, it was a great deal like high school: both of them almost at arm’s length from each other. But as they moved together, their bodies shifted closer, as if drawn magnetically.
Luke gently pulled Elizabeth against him, letting his hands move to the small of her back to hold her there, and Elizabeth’s arms tightened slightly around his shoulders as they swayed together. She rested her cheek against his chest, and Luke closed his eyes, letting his chin rest on the top of her head, and that was exactly like high school too, when things had been so much less complicated.
The song moved into another one--Silverchair’s “Miss You Love”--which wasn’
t exactly romantic but was still in the same kind of beat, and Luke and Elizabeth continued dancing, picking up the pace of their steps as the melody moved into the slightly more up-tempo chorus. Luke breathed in the scent of Elizabeth’s hair, reveling in it as they moved together.
He shut out the warning voice in his mind that this was exactly the kind of thing he should avoid if he wanted to keep from becoming too attached--and keep Elizabeth, in turn, from becoming too attached to him. It felt good just to dance with her, just to hold her in his arms and feel her body against his.
As the song finished, Luke couldn’t help himself anymore; he reached up with one hand and tilted her face up, away from his chest, and kissed her lightly on the lips. He held back for a moment, giving Elizabeth ample opportunity to pull back if she didn’t want it, but after she began to respond to him, he deepened the kiss, pressing her body tightly against his. They slowed down and then stopped dancing altogether, standing in the middle of Luke’s living room and kissing more and more passionately.
Luke let his hands wander over Elizabeth’s curves, moving up to cup her breasts and then down to her hips, reminding himself of everything he had enjoyed about her the first time they’d had sex. Luke ducked down to Elizabeth’s neck and began to nibble along the column of her throat, working down from the spot underneath her earlobe, down to nearly her collarbones, and then back up along the other side, until he came to her ear. “This is getting pretty hot,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re ready for this, right?”
“If I wasn’t ready for this, I definitely wouldn’t be here right now,” Elizabeth replied. “And I did sign a contract.” Luke pulled back slightly, looking into Elizabeth’s eyes.