by Riley, Alexa
“Phillip,” he says, dragging his lips across the back of my hand. I think I feel his tongue come out for a second, like he’s tasting me, but it’s gone before I even realize it’s there.
“Phillip.” I say his name, leaning back in the bed, my eyes starting to close. “Please don’t leave me. It’s lonely without you,” I mumble as I drift off to sleep, feeling his other hand come to my tummy.
“We’ll never be apart again,” he responds in a dark tone as I slip under.
Chapter Seven
Phillip
I slide my hand under the blanket and then under her hospital gown, placing my palm on her stomach over the small bump. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to reassure myself that everything is okay.
When I was thirty minutes away from where Molly placed the call to Cindy, I got a call telling me she was in the hospital. From what I’d heard on the phone before the line went dead, something big had happened, but I pushed the thought away, refused to believe that something had happened to her when I’d just finally found her after all these months.
Just when she was about to head back to the city. Maybe not home, but to Cindy, and she had to know she wouldn’t have made it one foot into New York without my knowing she was there. I would have been on her instantly.
Everything else happened in a blur. When I came flying into the hospital making my demands, they’d tried to keep her from me. They were lucky she was in the hospital or I would have burned the motherfucker to the ground just to prove how serious I was about getting to her.
It didn’t take long before they got the point and attitudes started to change. I don’t like to push power and money around on people, but in this case I just couldn’t bring myself to care. There wasn’t a goddamn thing I wouldn’t have done in that moment to get to her.
Then when they’d told me she’d be okay, I felt like something was finally working for me. That I’d gone through enough and the powers that be were finally cutting me a break. Then they dropped the bomb. “And the baby,” the doctor had said. The roar in my ears was so loud I didn’t even hear what she said after that. I’d had to ask him to repeat himself.
If I hadn’t been sitting down, I’m sure I would have hit the floor. And the baby. The words keep circling through my mind. If something happened to our baby, it would destroy Molly. That’s something I could be certain of.
I rub my hand along the bump, feeling her breathe in and out.
I still remember when Molly told me that she wanted a family. At first, I’d just wanted her. The thought of filling her with a baby made the words tumble out of my mouth. I said I wanted one, too. At first, my desire was to tie her to me on every level I could. If we had a baby, I would always be in her life. I would be tied to her forever. The more she talked about it, the way she pictured and dreamed of it, made me want it, too. More than anything. Just another way she’d woken me up to life.
I should have been with her. Laid in bed every night cupping her little round belly and feeling it grow each day. It was what we both wanted and why none of this makes any sense. I can’t understand why she ran, and now I can’t even ask her. She doesn’t remember.
It’s a bittersweet thing. She’d been looking at me with so much love when she woke up. Like I was her world again. The trust was clear in her gaze, waiting for me to answer any questions. I didn’t have the answers for her. I didn’t know where she’d been living, with whom, or even how she’d been getting by.
Rising from my chair, I pull my hand out from under the blanket, then lean over and kiss her belly. “Don’t worry, son. I’m not letting your mommy go anywhere,” I whisper to him. I don’t know if that’s a promise or a warning for Molly.
I wouldn’t let her go. She’ll be back under my roof and in my bed one way or another. She’ll be lucky if I don’t chain her to me. I should feel shame at the thought, but I don’t. Not even a little. She broke me, and all that control, the effort it took not to smother her, is gone. Shattered into a thousand pieces, and there’s no way it could ever be put back together again.
Next I take her chin in my hand, tilting her head towards me. She doesn’t even stir. Her full lips part a little, and I can’t stop myself from putting my lips to them just for a small taste. Her mouth parts fractionally, and I slip my tongue in, cooling some of the tension in my body.
When I pull back, I hear her mumble, “Love you,” in that same voice she’d use after I’d come home from a long day of work and make love to her until she passed out. It makes my heart ache with need. I want to make her say it again. Over and over again for all the days I’d missed it.
I reluctantly pull myself away from her bed, stepping out of the room to make a call I’d been dreading. It’s a reality I’m going to have to face, even more so with Molly not being able to remember anything.
I clear the thirty missed calls on my screen and go straight for the investigator, Carl, but stop when I hear someone clear their throat. I look up to see him leaning against hallway wall. He straightens, but I put my hand up and walk towards him. I want to be a few more feet from Molly’s room. I don’t want her hearing this.
“What’ve you got?”
“What I got was fucking lucky. Your wife had nothing in her purse that showed where she was staying. Just a set of keys to who knows where.”
I just stare at him, waiting to get to the lucky part.
“When I got to the scene, there was some man freaking out about her.”
A growl leaves my chest, and I feel myself take a step towards Carl as if he’s the man in question. He holds his hand up like he’s trying to calm me. Carl’s a big man himself, a former Marine, but I’m just as big. It isn’t often that men match my size.
“He was an old man,” he says. Like I give a fuck how old he is. “An old, married man. Calm down. It wasn’t like that.”
I feel a little tension leave my body and I take a deep breath, dropping my head to look at the ground, trying to calm myself. It isn’t working.
“There isn’t another man. In fact, there was only you.” That has me snapping my head back up.
“The old man got to talking. Seemed to know who you were and who she was. Said he was wondering when you’d be coming to get her.”
Fuck. None of this makes any sense.
“Anyway, he showed me her place. Some little studio above a print shop. Place was tiny. Couldn’t imagine the rent being high. Probably how she’d gotten by on just the money she’d taken. Unless she was selling her artwork or something, but I’m guessing not. The place was filled with paintings. Only other things were some clothes, a couple of baby books, and a bed. Even the fridge was pretty bare.”
His words don’t help with any of the confusion, nor supply me with any answers.
“Why do you say I was there?” I find myself asking. It gives me a spark of hope that maybe it won’t be as hard as I think to win my wife back. To piece together what happened all those months ago.
“It was you in all of the paintings. It was like she painted you over and over again.”
I place my hand on the wall to help support myself. She was painting me? Molly hadn’t painted since she’d moved into the condo after we were married. It was something I’d missed.
I remember picking her up to take her out and we’d end up in a make-out session in the car like high school kids. I’d find little smudges of paint in random places on her body. I don’t know why but it turned me on every time I found one. I’d started to look for them.
Then she quit. Said she’d wait until we got the new place and set up a dream studio. That never happened. Shit.
“Clear it out and take it back to New York. I want you to put it in the condo like it’s always been there. Everything. All of it.”
He just studies me for a second.
“She doesn’t remember anything. All she knows is that we made a little trip down here for a few days. She fell and hit her head. Now we’re going home, where she’s fucking been for
the last four months.” I yell the last part. It’s like if I say it hard enough, loud enough, it will be true. She never left.
“Of course, sir.”
“Wrap up any loose ends. Do what you have to do. Pay what you have to pay. I don’t care.”
He gives me a tight nod. “It will all be taken care of.”
“Did you see anything about a doctor she might have been seeing?”
Carl reaches into his front suit pocket and pulls out some folded papers. I take them from him and slip them into my back pocket. I’ll have to find a doctor in the city first thing. Have her stuff transferred over. Pull some strings to make it seem like it’s the doctor she’s been seeing the whole time. It’s sneaky and underhanded, but once again I just can’t seem to care. I’d held back too long and that didn’t work. Now I’m just going to take what’s mine.
“Anything else, sir?” he asks.
I don’t need to defend myself, but I still do it. “If your wife tried to leave, what would you do to keep her?”
A half smile hits his mouth like he understands. “It’d be real fucking cute if she thought she could leave.”
“Exactly. I’ll see you back in the city.”
Carl turns and leaves, and I know everything will be handled. The hardest part of all of this is going to be Cindy, but I’ll make her see reason.
I have to make Molly fall back in love with me so that when she finally remembers why she left to begin with, she’ll be in too deep to go. I have to fight back the bit of anger I’m still feeling that she would ever think to leave me.
I make my way back to the room and sit in my chair to watch her. I put my hand back under the blanket and her gown and place it on her stomach, wanting to feel the baby again.
We’d been trying from the beginning to conceive. I’d more than tried. Every time I’d empty myself inside, possessive thoughts filled my mind. Every night I’d crawl into our bed with that looming in my mind. I knew I had her. Well, I thought I did. From the very first moment I’d seen her, my goal had been to make her mine, and I would stop at nothing to make that happen. I was swaying on the edge of the deal with her father and she pushed me right over. Gave me a reason to be around a lot. Work my way as much as I could into her life. And I did.
Marriage didn’t cool that need. A baby would bind us together forever, and I wanted that. She’s this perfect, sweet angel that lights up my life. A life that I hadn’t even realized was dark, and I feared someone would take her from me. Try to lure her away from me.
Did she know when she ran that she was pregnant? Was it part of the reason? Would she have hidden this from me? I discount that thought. No, she was heading back when she’d called Cindy. There would have been no way for me not to have found out when she’d come back.
I also know she wouldn’t do that. Not my Molly. She wanted a family so bad. Hers had been lacking and she desired more, and I’d planned to fulfill that for her. I wanted that, too, once she gave me a taste of what it would be like. I wanted it with her and no one else.
This plan had to work. There would be no other way.
Chapter Eight
Molly
Phillip lifts me from the car, easily cradling me into his chest.
“I think I can walk. I was doing it a little at the hospital,” I tease him. He hasn’t been more than a reach away from me since I woke up in the hospital three days ago. Almost like, if he takes his eyes off me, I might up and disappear.
But I can only imagine how scared he must have been thinking he lost me and our little peanut. He said I stepped out of a shop we were checking out on our little getaway and I was almost hit by a truck. A man pushed me out of the way in the nick of time and I’d hit my head pretty hard on the concrete curb.
I still couldn’t remember it or anything else. Like there was just this hole in my memory. But after the tests the doctors did came back normal, they have faith it will come back to me. I was a little worried, but Phillip makes me feel like everything will be okay. I should be scared or even freaking out, but all I feel is happy.
Happy to be here with this man who seems to think I’ve hung the moon, and our precious baby who he talks to just as much as he talks to me. I almost melt into a pile of goo every time he leans down to talk right to the baby.
“Rather not take my chances. Besides, I like carrying you.” I wrap my arms around his neck, laying my head against him as he walks through the underground parking garage straight to an elevator.
“Back pocket,” he tells me. I release one of my hands, reaching into his jeans and pulling out his wallet. “The silver card.”
I flip it open and the first thing I see is a picture of me in a wedding dress surrounded by peach trees.
“And where were you in this picture?” I ask, pulling out the silver card and sliding it into the elevator slot. The door immediately opens.
“Again.” He nods to another key slot. I slide it in again.
“I don’t know.’” I look up at him, not knowing which floor to hit.
“Top.”
“Oh.”
“Between having the penthouse and that fancy car—oh and let’s not forget this.” I wiggle the giant ring on my finger. The second time I’d woken up, I’d noticed it. It was hard not to. “I’m starting to think you’re really rich,” I tease.
“We’re really rich,” he corrects, making me smile. Everything is always we. He corrects me every time. Maybe the lack of my memory is starting to wear on him.
“They were holding me back.”
“Hmm?” I say, looking up at him, and he nods to the wallet still in my hand. I slide the card back inside and flip back to the picture. In the picture, my blonde hair glints in the sunlight, strands of honey and caramel softly ruffled by the breeze. I look nice there, but right now I look like a freaking mess. My husband, however, always seems to look like perfection, except for when I see the worry flash across his face.
“You went down to take pictures in your dress in the peach grove before the ceremony. I tried to go down and make you come back up.”
I laugh. “Why?” I look up at him, puzzled.
“It was taking too long, and I wanted to get married,” he grumbles, like he’s still annoyed at the idea. It makes me smile.
“How long were we together before we got married?”
“Three months.”
Now I really laugh. “You make it sound like it was forever.” My whole body shakes, and the scowl he had on his face moments ago fades into a smile, a dimple on his cheek coming out. I lean up and kiss it, and I feel his whole body still.
“It’s your dimple, you always say. Only you can make it come out.”
“Maybe I’m remembering. I saw it and I just had to kiss it.”
“You always did.” The smile is gone, and a look I can’t read crosses his face. I’ve caught it a few times now. In that moment I really hate that I can’t remember. Would I know that look?
“Do,” I correct. “I always do kiss it.” Because I will. I want to make it come back now so I can do it again.
“It was forever. Waiting those three months.”
The elevator finally dings and Phillip exits, still keeping me in his arms. He heads right down a long hallway and walks through a set of open double doors. There is a giant bed in the center of the room and Phillip deposits me on it. He starts stripping me of my clothes.
“I didn’t even want to wait a second after the first time I saw you. So three months felt like an eternity,” he says, pulling my sandals off, then going for the loose-fitting pajamas pants I have on. My shirt comes up a little, and he freezes, his eyes going to the little baby bump. I can’t stop myself from touching it.
He leans in, kissing it, then his kisses start to travel lower.
“Phillip.” The word comes out breathy as I feel his mouth over my mound through the thin fabric of my simple white panties. I let my legs drop open more. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to make room for my giant
of a husband. His hand comes up, pushing the fabric out of the way, exposing me to him.
“I should let you rest, make you something to eat, but I—”
“Yes.” The word comes out as a moan. The need in his voice makes him sound like he can’t go another minute without tasting me or he might die.
His mouth descends on me, hungry and fierce. There’s no softness or build-up. He goes straight for my clit, sucking it into his mouth. I instantly cum like my body has been sitting on edge for months, and it only makes Phillip wilder, eating at me faster.
“I need another. Give it to me. It’s mine,” he growls, before going back to my clit, consuming every drop of my first orgasm, consuming me. I give him what he demands, coming so hard I have to close my eyes as I jerk against his face.
When I finally open my eyes, I see I’ve been moved to the center of the bed.
“Sleep. I’ll make you something to eat.” He kisses me, and I taste myself on him, but he pulls away far too quickly. I want more. I want the weight of his body on top of mine, but he’s already walking out the bedroom doors, and I’m alone in bed. The sight gives me a stir of something familiar.
Chapter Nine
Molly
I let out a squeal as I’m grabbed, turned, and pushed softly up against the wall outside our bathroom. Phillip’s big body cages me. The morning light floods the bare white walls of the bedroom and my husband’s face is illuminated by the golden glow. He looks almost savage, his hair wild. I probably had a hand in that as I’d twisted my fingers in his hair not so long ago. I’d woken with him fully wrapped around me like a second skin, one hand protectively on my belly, the other cupping my sex, his face buried in my neck.