by Tijan
“If I get a brother or a sister, because I want another brother.” Nolan looks between Mia and myself. “I think sisters are cool and everything, but Ryan has two sisters and I want us to match. So, I’m gonna need another brother. If I get a sister, we won’t match.”
“Buddy, we don’t really have control over that,” I tell him.
“Just do what you gotta do, Dad.”
I laugh.
“Baby, whatever is in my belly right now, that’s it,” Mia tries to explain to him. “We can’t change it. I might have your little sister growing in there.”
“She’s growing in there right now?” His eyes light up.
Mia nods. “Yes. He or she. They’re really tiny right now.”
“Can I feel them like I did when Chasey was in there?”
“Not yet. But as soon as you can, I’ll let you know, okay?”
Nolan nods and looks up at me. He smiles. “Cool. This is the best Halloween ever, and I haven’t even gotten any candy yet.”
Smiling, I crouch down beside Mia. I put my hand on her belly, and grin when Nolan puts his hand on top of mine. Chase reaches out too, and Mia takes his hand and rests it next to Nolan’s.
“Chasey, say baby,” Nolan prompts.
“Baby,” Chase repeats, the word getting muffled around the thumb in his mouth.
Mia smiles at me with tears in her eyes again.
“Angel.”
She leans forward, meeting me halfway, and we kiss until Nolan whines and tells us to stop.
“Okay. Now, who wants some special Halloween pancakes?” Mia asks.
“Me!” Nolan yells.
“Me!” Chase echoes. “Pamcakes! Pamcakes!”
REED
Staring up at the ceiling, I toss one end of the rope I’m holding over the exposed beam above me and catch it when it drops through.
The bar is quiet. McGill’s typically doesn’t close on Saturdays, but with Danny and Hattie, Beth’s uncle and aunt, being out of town most of the day, they decided to keep things locked up so Beth wouldn’t be running things alone.
I appreciated that. I didn’t want her stressing out or worrying she wasn’t handling things. And it worked out with the Halloween party tonight. We’ve had time to get everything ready.
“I don’t know about this,” I say, giving the two ends of the rope a tug. “I get making this place look creepy for the party, but what about Nolan and Chase? Isn’t it kind of fucked up having nooses hanging from the ceiling with kids here? It’s morbid, right? What if Nolan is like ‘Uncle Weed, what’s that for?’ What am I supposed to say? No. Yeah, no, we’re not doing this.” I pull the rope off the beam. “The spiderwebs and ghosts we got up are enough. I’m not traumatizing kids and then getting my ass beat when I do traumatize them.”
Ben wouldn’t hesitate. He’d kill me. I know he would. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been friends or how much my death might upset people—mainly the girls in the group.
I can’t imagine Luke shedding a tear over my demise.
Beth doesn’t respond, not even with a reassuring, “You’re being silly. Ben would never kill you,” and when I turn around to look for her, expecting an empty bar behind me to explain her silence, I see her standing in the same spot she was in a minute ago.
Behind the counter, rag in one hand and an apple she’s wiping off in preparation for tonight in the other. Bobbing for apples is one of the games she’s putting together for the kids. I didn’t think it was necessary to clean off the apples since they’re going in a big bucket of water anyway, but Beth thought it was important, and while I’ve been decorating, she’s been wiping pesticides off fruit.
Up until this point, she’s moved through the process rather quickly. Now, though, with her eyes fixated on the rope in my hand, she seems to be slowing down. Or maybe she just found the world’s dirtiest apple. I don’t know, but if she doesn’t move on soon, she’s going to take the skin right off that thing.
“Sweetheart.”
Beth’s eyes snap up, and her hand holding the rag stills. “Mm?”
She’s fresh-faced, no makeup on yet, has her hair pulled back in a messy pony with several pieces falling out by her ears, and looks one bend away from busting out of the Nirvana shirt she’s wearing. The material is stretched tight across her belly.
I smile at her.
My wife is sexy as fuck pregnant.
“What are you doing, Mrs. Tennyson?” I ask.
Beth smiles then, and fuck, what that smile does to me.
That’s her Reed smile. She calls it that, so it’s not weird that I call it that. And fuck anyone who says it’s weird.
I get that smile. Not them. Never them. So fuck off. I’ll call it what I want.
“Cleaning off the apples for the party,” she answers with a sweet tilt of her head.
I chuckle. “I think that one you got there’s good. You can probably move on.”
Beth blinks, looks down at her hands, and then quickly drops the apple into the large tin bucket on the bar. She huffs out a breath.
“You all right?” I cross the room and stop in front of her, folding the rope and setting it down between us on the bar top. I keep my hands wrapped around either end. “Beth . . .”
Lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes wide and glassy, she stares at the rope.
I can hear her breaths leaving her. Ragged. Wanting.
Hungry.
“Uh . . .”
“I miss getting tied up,” she shares, lifting her chin to look at me.
My eyes widen.
She clears her throat, pausing for a breath. “Not that the sex we’re having now isn’t amazing, because it is,” she continues. “But it’s not you, Reed. You tie me up and you spank me and you do really dirty things, freaky things, awesome things, and you’re not doing them anymore. We’re having Beth is pregnant sex. And I miss Beth is just as much of a freak as I am sex. Because I am. I mean, you know, with you I am. And watching you with that rope is driving me crazy. Because I know what you can do with that rope, Reed. I know exactly what you can do with it. And I want that. So, yes, I agree with you. Hanging nooses from the ceiling is a bad idea. But you tying me up with that right now is not a bad idea. It’s a great one. It’s an idea that needs to happen before I explode.” Her shoulders sag. She places her hand on her swollen belly and nods once. “There. I said it.”
Eyebrow cocked, I look from her face to the rope in front of me and back up again.
Jesus. That shit almost sounded rehearsed.
“You been wanting to say that to me?” I ask, needing to know if it was.
“Yes.”
“For a while?”
“Yes.” She drags her teeth across her bottom lip. “I know you’re worried, but I checked with my doctor and she said we’re fine. A lot of pregnant women spot in the beginning. It had nothing to do with you restraining me the way you did that night. She said it didn’t.”
What the . . . “You told your doctor about the way we fuck?”
“I needed to make sure it wasn’t what caused the bleeding. And it wasn’t.”
I run my hand down my face, a heavy breath leaving me.
Jesus Christ. I suspended Beth from the ceiling that night and took her ass while she rode a dildo. Now the entire Obstetrics department at St. Joseph’s Hospital is probably aware. News like that travels.
I’m sure my name will be mentioned in textbooks now.
Reed Tennyson—the man who took his kink too far. Don’t do what he did.
I exhale slowly. “Beth—”
“I miss you.”
Her whispered confession lowers my hand and presses a heavy weight on my chest.
“I know you need that stuff,” she continues, her shoulder lifting with a jerk. “I know you love doing it. And . . . well, I need it too.”
“I need you,” I correct her, needing this to stick since she’s obviously questioning it. “I don’t need to tie you up to get off, Beth. I feel like I’ve m
ade that point pretty damn clear. You smile at me and I’m like . . . fucking there, just from that. You know how you get to me. I’ve told you. It doesn’t take much.”
“I know. But it’s not the same.”
“Sweetheart . . .”
“Reed, please.”
“What if I hurt the baby?” I throw my fear out into the open between us. “What if I go too far with it and something happens? The last time we played, you started bleeding, Beth. I can’t . . .” I shake my head as that same worry forms a knot inside my stomach. “I can’t stop picturing that. It scared the fuck out of me. I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I thought I was losing you both.”
The sound of Beth calling out from the bathroom—I can still hear it. The panic in her voice. The fear. I can still see the tears in her eyes. I can’t do it.
“I can’t,” I tell her.
She pulls her lips between her teeth and looks away, blushing in her embarrassment for bringing this to my attention. For wanting it, maybe.
I frown.
She’s disappointed now.
Fuck though. Not as much as I am.
My wife needs something and I can’t give it to her.
My hands grow tighter and tighter around the rope as I take in a deep breath, thinking, weighing the consequences. I play devil’s advocate with myself.
I could do this with Beth and everything could be fine. That incident was a one-time thing. It wasn’t even related to what we did. Listen to the doctor. Doctors know everything.
Or . . .
Fuck that doctor. She doesn’t know shit. I was too rough with my wife and nearly cost us our baby. The best thing to do is wait the five months we have left. What’s wrong with regular, standard-issue sex? With Beth? Nothing. That shit’s fantastic.
But she’s right. I do love the really dirty things we used to do. The freaky things. Awesome things. God, do I love it. She’s so right.
The act of sex isn’t the only thing that gets me off. It’s the lead-up with Beth. The prolonged, almost agonizing wait. The way she looks with her hands above her head or behind her back. Her skin—wrapped in rope. Glistening with sweat and red from my mouth. How she quivers and drenches my hand the second I touch her. The begging. The begging. How we’re both shaking and panting when I finally . . . finally take.
Okay, so maybe we don’t go all in.
Fifty percent kink. Fifty percent normal fucking. That might work.
“Maybe we just don’t involve any dildos,” Beth murmurs, her eyes slowly meeting mine again.
I laugh under my breath, feeling lighter, like she somehow plucked the worry right out of me. And when I open my mouth to tell her “Okay,” or “Maybe, we can try it,” she cuts me off.
“It isn’t me, right?”
My brow furrows. “What?”
Hands resting on her belly, Beth looks down at herself. “I know this gets in the way a little,” she says. “I already look so different. My face is rounder and God, my butt—”
“Don’t even finish that thought, ’cause that’s fucking crazy,” I interrupt, lifting her head. “Your ass could be the size of this room, and I’d still want to do you at all times. You being pregnant, Beth? I am into that. I am into that in a big fucking way.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Are you kidding?”
She blinks, and I can see on her face how much doubt she’s holding onto.
I could tell Beth anything right now. I could say how unbelievably attracted I am to her, looking the way she does. I could tell her she’s never looked more beautiful to me, and it wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t hear it.
I look down at the rope again and run my thumb over the harsh fibers. “Fuck,” I groan, pushing it aside. “I can’t use that. It’ll hurt you.”
Her shoulders pull back. “What?” she whispers, voice racing with excitement.
“That isn’t like the rope I use and I don’t have any with me, so . . . I mean, if you want to do this now, I’m gonna have to use something else. Or we can wait until tonight when we get home, which I think is the better idea. Hattie or whoever could walk in and catch us. I can’t imagine explaining to anyone why I have you tied up on the bar. Or what that would do to business here.”
McGill’s Pub would close. I would be to blame for it.
That’s nice. I’m sure Danny would really warm up to me after that.
“There’s always the storage room.”
My brow lifts at her suggestion.
Beth wets her lips and steps closer, reaching for the rope. “Hattie and Danny won’t be back until later after the party starts. And nobody else is coming in. The door is locked. But just to be on the safe side, we could use the storage room. It’s private.”
“And what are you doing with that?” I ask, tipping my chin at the rope as she clutches it against her belly. “I told you. It’s too rough.”
“You’re wearing a belt, right?”
“Yes.”
“I have an idea.”
“Do you?” I smirk, bringing my arms across my chest and standing tall. “A kinky one?”
“I think so.”
“That’s fucking hot. Care to share, Beth Davis from McGill’s?”
Her eyes narrow as she fights a smile. “That’s not my name anymore.”
“I know. It’s just a habit.”
“Have you changed it in your phone yet?”
I nod my head, grinning. “No.”
“Reed,” she giggles.
“What? It makes me happy when I see it.”
“Oh, and seeing Beth Tennyson from McGill’s wouldn’t make you happy?”
“That would make me lose my mind.”
“Then change it.”
“I will. I just like remembering you and your dick deprivation. Oh, how far you’ve come, sweetheart.”
She throws her head back and laughs, hand to her chest.
I like to tease my wife about her little autocorrect mishaps. Telling me she didn’t get dick very often instead of sick very often right after we first met isn’t something I’m ever likely to forget about.
“Seriously though, Beth, if we do this, I need to be careful. Okay? For me and my own sanity. Nothing too wild.”
“Careful,” she repeats through a smile.
“Yes.”
“That can be hot.” Her voice drops lower and melts, moving like a warm touch up my spine and making my skin tingle. I feel it everywhere.
Everywhere.
Dick hardening in my slacks, I watch Beth move down the bar. Her eyes meeting mine over her shoulder, drawing me in . . . in.
“Is that a we’re doing this now, so move your ass look?”
“Come with me, Mr. Tennyson.”
My chest heaves.
Right. Fucking right.
We’re doing this now.
The storage room is just off the kitchen, nestled in the back corner of the pub beside the giant, walk-in refrigerator.
I’ve never been back here when it’s been this quiet. I can hear every sound as I follow close behind her—the smack of Beth’s boots against the wood floor. Her heavy breathing. The thundering beat of my heart.
Beth walks through the kitchen and steps inside the room, flicking on the light overhead. I follow in behind her and look around the small space.
I’ve been in here before. Once, to help Danny lift something. Crates of canned food and supplies are stacked against the wall and scattered along the floor. There’s a metal table in the middle of the room, which I know is used for sorting. Aside from that, there’s really nothing else in here. And there’s definitely not much room. But it’s secluded. It’s got a locking door.
Very private.
I close the door behind me and lock it, drawing Beth’s attention before she stops beside the table and turns around.
“So, I was thinking you could use your belt to bind my wrists together, and then tie the rope to the belt?”
I follow her eyes to the exposed b
eams above her head.
God bless Danny for keeping shit rustic in here. I fucking love that guy.
“You want your hands above your head?” I ask, stalking closer, my fingers working at my belt. I whip it off.
Beth sucks in a breath. “Yes,” she whispers, tipping her chin up to look at me when I stop an inch away. “God, yes, please.”
I smirk. “Begging already, sweetheart? I haven’t even touched you yet.”
“It isn’t going to take much.”
“Really?” I run my finger down the side of her neck to the dip between her collarbones, feeling the wild hammering of her pulse and the labored swallow she seems to manage.
“Really really.”
“Mm.” I take the rope out of her hand and place it on the table with my belt, leaning in to press my lips to her ear. “Get undressed.”
Beth nods once, immediately reaching for the hem of her shirt. Her fingers tremble.
“Nervous?” I ask, stepping back to watch.
“No. Worked up.”
“Yeah?”
“Reed, you have no idea. I’m like, the horniest woman ever.”
“Lucky me.”
Her shirt hits the floor. Her bra is next.
Panting, she locks eyes with me and wets her lips, and that’s when I finally look at all of her.
I stare at her swollen tits, so full and heavy, and the bump she has.
Being as tiny as she is, Beth started showing early. It seemed to happen overnight. She woke up two months ago and boom. There it was. It shocked us both. Beth seemed a little uneasy at first. But me? I was fucking giddy over it. I still am. I love looking at her. God, I love it. Her body is fucking unreal all the time, but like this? With her nipples a shade darker and permanently hard, just aching for my mouth. The curve of her hips. Her ass, peach-shaped and tasting as ripe as one—I would fucking know. I eat it enough. Jesus. It’s torture looking at her and not touching. But I do look.
Seconds tick by, and it gets to her as much as it’s getting to me. The waiting. The watching I’m doing. Shyness dips her head.
“Do you see how hard I am, Beth?” I ask, shoving my jeans and boxers down.
Head still lowered, she looks at me from beneath her lashes. At my dick, and my hand moving over it. Stroking. I squeeze the tip and moan.