White Lilies (A Mitchell Sisters Novel)

by Christy, Samantha

  I reach over to catch one of her tears with my thumb. I wipe it away and lean over to kiss her. As I draw her face closer to mine, I realize this will be the first real kiss we share as a couple. I stop short of her lips. “Is it okay if I kiss my girlfriend?”

  She smiles. Then she seductively bites her lip before saying, “Your girlfriend would like that very much.”

  I brush her hair back, holding it up with both my hands on either side of her head. We stare into each other’s eyes for five seconds. Ten. There’s no awkwardness. Just feeling. Emotion. Passion. Her eyes darken and become lidded right before our mouths touch.

  When my lips reach hers, an electrified pulse courses through my entire body. My breath catches. My heart skips a thousand beats. My hands tremble. And I would bet my life the same exact things are happening to her.

  She weaves her hands through my hair, deepening the kiss. We devour each other’s tongues and lips until they’re numb and we gasp for air. She climbs on top of my lap, straddling me, leaning her head into me, pressing the baby hard between us as she finds a spot on my neck to suck on.

  I grow harder beneath her as she grinds down onto me. I reach out to touch her breasts, unable to contain my groan when I feel how full and supple they are through her thin shirt. I run my thumbs over her erect nipples, drawing sexy as hell noises from deep within her.

  Her lips find mine again. Her tongue forcefully enters my mouth, taking control of our demanding kisses. She captures my tongue with her lips, sucking on it erotically. I pull the V of her shirt aside and push her bra down to give me better access to one of her breasts. She squirms hard on my lap when I pinch her nipple between my fingers.

  “Oh, God . . . Griffin.” Her words are laced with carnal need, driving my want for her even higher.

  She throws her head back, moaning. I take the opportunity to pull her bare breast into my mouth. I support its weight with one hand while I lave her nipple with my tongue. Licking, sucking, nipping at it as she rides my crotch until she thrashes around, gyrating on my lap, shouting my name through her prolonged orgasm. I watch every twitch of her body. Every emotion that crosses her beautiful face as she rides wave after wave before finally settling down, her head falling to my shoulder.

  She takes a sharp breath, pressing her hands on her belly.

  I look up at her, concerned. “Are you okay?”

  She smiles. “Pregnancy orgasms are the best. But they wake up the bean.”

  I put my hands on her stomach, mesmerized by how he’s moving around inside her until I absorb the full weight of her words. I eye her skeptically, not entirely sure I want to know the answer to my question. “Just how many orgasms have you had while being pregnant, Skylar?”

  “I don’t know . . . hundreds?”

  My jaw drops and my entire body stiffens.

  She laughs at my shocked expression. “It’s not what you think.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “Exactly what am I thinking?”

  “That I was sleeping with John.”

  “You weren’t?” The corners of my mouth curl upwards in anticipation of her answer. Relief rockets through every blood vessel in my body as I realize what she’s saying. My imagination goes wild. My smile gets huge.

  She shakes her head. “No. You’re the only man that’s invaded this body in a long, long time.”

  I look at her in disbelief. “Hundreds . . . really?”

  “What do you think I was doing down on that couch with your pictures?” Embarrassed by her words, she buries her head into my shoulder.

  I try to wrap my head around her admission. Hundreds. On the couch in my studio. Looking at pictures of me. I’m tempted to throw her off my lap and beat my hands on my chest. I’m goddamn Tarzan.

  I pull her away from my shoulder and force her to look at me. “We are never getting rid of that fucking couch.”

  She giggles. “Don’t say fuck.”

  I belt out a laugh. “That’s my line.” I bring her mouth closer to mine, breathing my words into her. “Does it make you horny, too, Sky?”

  She climbs off my lap and starts to unbutton my pants. “What about you? How many orgasms have you had since that night?”

  She takes my dick into her hands and I have to try really hard to remember the question because when her small hands encompass me, it feels like pure heaven. “About as many as you,” I say. “And for the very same reason.”

  She smiles so big I can see tiny creases beside her beautiful eyes. “Do you want to have sex with me, Griffin?”

  For a moment, I almost forget that her hand is stroking me. My jaw goes slack as I replay her words in my head. I’m tempted to scream out ‘hell, yes,’ but instead I joke, “Is this us taking it slowly?”

  She removes her hand from me and self-consciously looks down at her belly. “It’s okay if you want to wait until I get my body back. I would totally understand.”

  I grab her hand and place it around my throbbing shaft. “Does it feel like I want to wait, Skylar?” I take her head into my hands and lock eyes with her. “I want to make love with you right now more than I ever want to hold another camera in my hands again.”

  Her yearning eyes tell me everything I need to know. I find the hem of her shirt and pull it up and over her head. Her wavy locks catch in her shirt and then fall back down around her breasts, one of which is still spilling out from the cup of her bra. I pull down the other cup, leaving her trussed up as I reach out to fondle her bare flesh, extracting throaty moans from somewhere deep inside her.

  She tugs at my shirt and I quickly reach behind me and pull it off. Every inch of my chest is devoured; first by her eyes and then by her wandering hands.

  I slip off the edge of the couch and position myself between her legs, leaning over her protruding belly to place kisses along the sides of her lips, down her neck, and all around her breasts. I slide off her skirt and panties, getting my first view of her very pregnant body.

  In a thousand years, I never thought I’d be turned on by such a sight. She carries the baby so well you wouldn’t even notice she’s pregnant if you didn’t actually see her stomach. Her thighs and calves are perfectly toned. Her arms are firm and strong. Her heart-shaped face doesn’t hold even an ounce of extra weight. But, then again, I’m so blinded by my love and want for her, I’m positive she would look incredible to me no matter what her appearance.

  I grab her hips and pull her to the edge of the couch. I lower my head, getting ready to place my tongue against her center and make her come even longer and harder than before.

  She grabs my shoulders and I snap my eyes to hers to see that her heated eyes have been replaced with trepidatious ones. “No way, Griffin.” She shakes her head vehemently. “I haven’t been able to see my crotch for over a month now. I have no idea what’s going on down there.”

  I glance down, barely able to see even a hint of soft curls peeking out from under her belly. I could care less if she’s waxed or plucked or shaved—or whatever the hell girls do down there. For months, I’ve dreamed about tasting her again. About feeling her fall apart under my tongue. I run my finger up her leg, right up to the apex of her thighs. I feel how wet she is. Drenched with desire. I easily slip a finger inside her as my erection presses against her leg that is braced on the table behind me. “Skylar, you’re beautiful. Every inch of you.”

  She pushes into my fingers, driving them deeper into her. “Please, Griffin. I want to feel you inside me. I need to feel you inside me.”

  I quickly push my jeans the rest of the way down and kick them off my body. I hold myself at her entrance, silently asking for permission before I push into her.

  “Yes,” she reaches down between us, guiding me inside her.

  She’s so tight. Tighter than I remember. Her walls grip me and it’s everything I can do not to let myself go right now. “Sky,” I breathe out, stilling within her; taking a second to calm myself.

  When I start to move, I join her hands with mine, lacing our fin
gers together. In this position, with her reclining back against the couch, I can’t get past her stomach to kiss her. But it only makes what we’re doing more intimate as we stare at each other through every thrust.

  She pushes against my hands, giving herself leverage to take me deeper. She gasps when I hit the end of her. “Oh, God,” she moans. Her eyes darken and our gazes become intoxicating. Our eyes speak the words that our mouths are incapable of producing. The world falls away and nothing exists but us.

  This woman has become my reason for living. My light in the darkness. In an unprecedented move on my part, I softly sing a few lines of the song from the party. Lines about this being our fate. Words that tell her once again that I’m hers.

  Her eyes glaze over. She’s close. I’m close. I extract one of my hands from hers and find her swollen clit. I rub tiny circles on it, watching her mouth open and her head fall back, thrashing around on the cushion behind her.

  “Griffin!” she screams. “Oh, God, yes!”

  Watching her fall apart, feeling her walls tightly squeeze me as she does, sends me over the edge right along with her. I still, emptying myself completely within her, my garbled words of ecstasy mixing with hers.

  After we catch our breath, Skylar giggles, bringing her hands up to her stomach. “Every time,” she says. She grabs my hand and puts it underneath hers. We lock eyes as our son somersaults beneath our hands even as I’m still inside her.

  It’s a moment I’ll remember as long as I live.

  I shake my head in wonderment. How could I have fallen in love with two such incredible women in one lifetime? How could I ever see myself living without this beautiful creature beneath me? Both of them. With a hand still on her belly, my other one cups her face. “I love you, Sky.”

  Her hand comes up to touch my jaw. Her thumb brushes across my lips. Her eyes soften and sparkle at the same time. “I love you, too.”

  I close my eyes and let her words sink in.

  They fly open again when she declares, “I lied, you know.”

  “Lied?” My heart lodges in my throat for half-a-second before she explains.

  “When I told you what I said to John,” she clarifies. “I lied.”

  My eyebrows shoot up in question as I finally pull out of her and take a spot on the couch. “You didn’t tell him you owe it to the baby to give us a chance?” I grab some tissues from the coffee table and gently clean her up while I await her answer.

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I told him I was in love with you.”

  A smile overtakes my face. I want to do a fist pump and high-five someone.

  “I’ve loved you for a while, you know,” she says. “Even before Erin died I was in love with you.” She sits herself up, pulling the throw blanket over her middle in an attempt to hide her nakedness. “I’m sorry I made this so hard on you, Griffin. I think I just felt guilty falling in love with my best friend’s husband. I was scared. Scared that we were betraying her. Scared that I would screw this up.”

  I touch her locket, working it between my fingers. “I was scared, too.” I spring the locket open and unfold the small slip of paper, letting our eyes trace the words. “I’m not anymore.”

  “Me neither,” she says, folding it up carefully and placing it back inside the locket.

  I retrieve her clothes from the floor and help her dress before taking her hand and leading her upstairs. “Do you think it’s too soon to ask you to move in with me?”

  She giggles, pulling me towards the master bedroom where I fall asleep with her in my arms, spooning her from behind with my hand lying across her flawless belly.

  chapter thirty-two

  It’s still pitch black when an elbow pokes into my ribs. I rub my eyes, trying to wake up when I hear Skylar say, “I need you.”

  Instantly I spring to life. I wrap my arms around her and chuckle into her hair. “Woman, you’re insatiable.”

  Seconds later, a pillow lands on my face. Hard. “Not that, you animal.” The light turns on and I shield my eyes while they get used to it. “I thought I was having false labor, but now . . . well, either I wet the bed or my water just broke.”

  The oxygen is sucked out of my lungs as anxiety overtakes my entire being. A million things run through my head. We aren’t ready yet. It’s not time. We haven’t packed a bag for the hospital.

  I’m gonna be a fucking dad.

  “I’m scared, Griffin.” Her hands tremble as she reaches for her cell phone on the nightstand.

  Before she can make the call, I grab her hands. I try to put up a calm exterior even though I’m freaking out on the inside. “It’s okay, Sky. We can do this. You can do this.”

  “But it’s too soon,” she cries.

  I shake my head. “It’s not. You’re almost thirty-six weeks. Millions of babies are born healthy at this point.” I rub her belly. “Aaron is going to be perfect, you’ll see.”

  She tries to smile and then she makes the call to her doctor.

  They exchange a few words about how long she’s been in labor. Then Sky turns to me. “Look at the bed. Is there any blood on the sheets?”

  I pull down the top sheet and hold my breath while I search her side of the bed. No blood. Relief rushes through me like a fucking tsunami. “Looks clear.”

  She relays that to the doctor and then, from what I gather, we’re told to meet her obstetrician at the hospital. When Skylar hangs up, she doesn’t look quite so pale. “She said what you did. He’ll probably be perfectly fine.”

  I jump out of bed and pull on last night’s jeans and shirt that lay in a pile by the bed. Skylar tells me to fetch a bag in her closet. I frown when I realize she was prepared all along, but that I wasn’t a part of it. I vow not to miss another thing. Ever.

  She tries to get dressed when a contraction hits her. She reaches for her phone and shoves it at me. “Time it!” she shouts. By the time I figure out where her stopwatch app is, the contraction is over and she’s glaring at me.

  I shrug. “I’d say it lasted about a minute or so.”

  “Maybe you should get your phone,” she says, dryly, through clenched teeth. “At least write down the time so we know how far apart they are. Do you think you can handle that?”

  I try not to laugh. I’ve heard about this. Women getting bitchy when they go into labor. I say in my nicest voice, “Sure, Sky. I’ll write it down and then I’ll go call a cab.”

  “Do not tell them I’m in labor. I’ve heard they won’t come!” she yells from the bedroom.

  I quickly throw some stuff in my own duffle, not knowing how long it will be before I can get back here. In record time, I race to the basement to get a camera. No way in hell am I missing out capturing this on film. When I go back up to get her, she’s already coming down the stairs with her bags in hand. I run up, two at a time. “Are you crazy, Sky? What the hell are you doing trying to do this yourself?”

  In hindsight, I realize calling a woman in labor crazy is not the appropriate thing to do.

  “Well, if you weren’t taking so goddamn long, you could have helped. What were you doing down there anyway? Eating breakfast? Folding laundry?”

  I take her bags and walk her to the front door, not bothering to answer her stupid questions. “Who should I call? Baylor? Your mom?”

  “No,” she says.

  She stops in her tracks and grabs my arm. Hard. I pull out my phone and check the time. I start my stopwatch.

  A minute later, when she can talk again, she says, “I don’t think I want a bunch of people coming in and out of the room like when Baylor was in labor. Plus, this could take a while. Why don’t you wait and call them when it’s almost time.”

  I nod. “Sounds like a plan.” I see the cab rounding the corner and tell her to stay put while I take the bags down. The cabbie gets out, putting them in the trunk while I go help Skylar down the steps and into the back. “Mount Sinai Hospital.”

  He looks at Skylar, his eyes trained on her belly. “Oh, shit, really?
” He shakes his head mumbling something about always getting the pregnant ones and how he’s going to kill someone named ‘Bubba’ back at dispatch.

  Despite Skylar’s assurances to the cabbie that we have plenty of time, he makes it to the hospital in ten minutes flat. I guess it helps that it’s the middle of the night. The bars have all closed and the only thing illuminating the streets of Midtown are the ‘Open’ signs in the all-night diners.

  I swipe my debit card, leaving the poor guy an insanely huge tip before we head into the maternity ward.

  Four hours later, Skylar’s contractions are getting harder. We’re waiting on an epidural and she’s told by one of the nurses to use her Lamaze breathing. Skylar nods her head and points to her overnight bag. I put it on the bed next to her and when she’s able, she pulls out a framed picture of her and Erin. The one from her nightstand. “My focus point,” she says. “Can you put it over there on the table?”

  Focus point? Lamaze breathing? “How do you know all this stuff?” I say, placing the picture where she directed.

  “From Lamaze class.”

  “You went to Lamaze class? When?”

  “Back in December. Baylor went with me.”

  I sigh, berating myself for missing yet another part of this monumental thing.

  Thirty minutes later, I’m trying to find something on the television to take her mind off things while the epidural kicks in. However, the only programs on are the morning news shows and they’re downright depressing.

  “Turn it off,” she requests. “Tell me a story.” She shifts around to try and get comfortable. “Tell me about the first time you met Erin.”

  I sit beside her bed, letting her squeeze my hand through every contraction as I tell her about my first love. I tell her about how we ran in different circles. I was more of a loner, having lost my mom. I didn’t belong to any group. Erin was a popular cheerleader who I’d had a crush on for years, but never had the courage to approach. Then one day I saw her pulled over on the side of the road, in our little rural town in Ohio, flagging me down for help. She’d gotten a flat tire and didn’t have a spare. I offered her a ride home. Then as luck would have it, or as I now know . . . fate, my own car failed to start and we sat there on that dirt road for hours, talking, waiting for another car to pass.