by M. J. Kane
“Hey, you still have the dress on,” I reached over to grasp the fabric bunched above her hips and below her breast. “Your necklace and heels were the only things you were supposed to be wearing.”
A laugh of satisfaction came from her sexy lips. “You should have pulled it over my head.” She nodded at me. “You still have on pants, socks, and shoes.”
Resting on my back and still unable to sit up, I kicked my feet. The weight of the fabric and shoes were hard to miss. “Oh?” I wagged my eyebrows, which caused her to laugh again. I pulled together enough strength to toe off my shoes, kick off the pants, and dispose of the condom.
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
There was no condom. I’d just made love and emptied every ounce of me inside of her without protection.
“I…”
Ebony looked down at my empty hands. When she looked back, her eyes were wide with horror.
“Baby, I’m sorry, I”
She held her hand up and silenced me. Not good. I slapped my forehead. This could not be happening. I was about to leave town in few hours. I wanted to give her a night to remember, not leave her…pregnant.
“I’m sorry, Ebony. I wasn’t thinking…”
“Me neither.” She sat up on the bed and gripped the fabric pooled around her hips.
I sat up to join her.
“It’s not your fault, I usually check to make sure we’re safe but…damn it, Brian, I wanted you.”
“I skipped a step and didn’t realize it. Baby,” I reached for her hand, “I wasn’t trying to make you pregnant.”
She nodded, but didn’t speak, her eyes focused on the other side of the room.
I studied her face, worry taking over. I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb. “Ebony, baby, talk to me.”
“I’m not on birth control.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
Her eyes closed. “It makes me sick. I haven’t been on anything for the past year. I was supposed to see my doctor to get an IUD, but I’ve been so busy with school, work, and looking for another job…” She faced me, eyes wet with tears. “We’ve always been careful, Brian. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to trap you or”
I wiped her tears. “I know.”
Damn. All it took was one time to get her pregnant. Never once did I ask if she was on birth control. I did my part in protecting us both by making sure we always had condoms. Tonight I lost all control and look at what happened.
“How long will it take before you know for sure?”
Ebony ran a hand over her face and sniffed. “There’s a test, but I have to wait to see if I miss my period. That won’t be for another two weeks.”
“Okay. Tell me what you need and I’ll pay for it. Just”
Before I could finish, she got up from the bed, pushed the fabric over her hips and kicked it into a corner of my room. She dug into the dresser and pulled out my old baseball jersey she slept in when she stayed over. Without another word, Ebony walked out of the bedroom in the direction of the bathroom. I heard the door shut firmly behind her.
Reality slapped me upside the head.
I was an ass.
Neither of us needed her pregnant, not now. I wanted her to be the mother of my children, but the timing was off. Way off.
I was well on the path of making the money needed to support a family. But this was not about what I wanted. Ebony hadn’t graduated college, let alone establish herself in her field. Damn, I could have just screwed her life up…literally.
A myriad of possibilities ran through my mind. Was this mistake going to cost her her career? Would Ebony end up hating me for the rest of her life? What if she decided she didn’t want anything else to do with me and had an abortion? Or worse, what if she had an abortion and never told me she was pregnant?
Scenario after scenario ran through my mind, none of them had a happy ending.
What had I done?
Chapter 21
I leaned over the sink and splashed ice-cold water on my face.
Just when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse. Loss of a mentor, a job, my bank account low.
And now the chance I could, at this very moment, have a new life growing within my womb. The image of the miraculous explosion of DNA splitting and duplicating as soon as sperm met egg, from a show on the Discovery Channel, forced me to sit on the closed lid of the toilet.
A baby.
But not just any baby, Brian’s baby. The man I loved and wanted to have his children…one day. Was it possible fate decided to speed up the timetable against my will?
I sighed. Okay, the chances of me not getting pregnant were equal with the chances of me getting pregnant, fifty-fifty.
My mind went blank. I stood and splashed more water on my face. I could only imagine what Brian felt. He was ready for a baby just as much as me. His career was about to launch off the pad in hours, while mine raced toward the finish line.
Having a baby right now could sabotage both of our careers.
Yet, as crazy as it sounded…a small part of me wanted to have some part of him left behind for the next few months. Getting pregnant would be a way of making sure he came back to me.
Oh, great, not only was I insecure, I was turning into one of those women who trapped their boyfriend into staying with them.
How would Brian feel after spending months on the road, with women coming up to him wearing next to nothing and size two waistlines? He’d come home to discover his already voluptuous girlfriend had taken on the profile of a barge.
Brian wanted to have a family. Maybe he would be happy. But on the other hand, if he viewed this mistake as a forced reason to hang around…
I didn’t want to speculate. I could be completely wrong.
I flushed the toilet and washed my hands to carry on the pretense of leaving to use the bathroom. I closed the door behind me silently.
Brian lay sprawled on the bed, naked, and inviting. One of his hands rested on his chest, his fingers drumming silently. His other arm was draped across his face, his mouth was drawn tight in what I assumed was disappointment.
“You hate me right now, don’t you?”
His question startled me.
“No, I don’t.”
“Ebony, baby, don’t lie. Just tell me the truth. I’ll understand.” He removed his arm from his face, his electric gaze zeroed in on me. He was serious.
I settled on the bed, leaned down, and kissed him lightly. “No, Brian, I’m not mad, this is on both of us. Besides the chances are fifty-fifty, right?”
That was a big, fat lie. My chances were more than slim.
Since not being sexually active, my focus was not on maintaining protection. I didn’t take the pill because of blood clotting issues in my family. Hormone shots caused weight gain and uncontrollable nausea. I stopped taking it all together once I broke up with Patrick. I should have known better.
The history of women in my family’s ability to conceive like the Virgin Mary flooded my already half-frozen brain. How could I forget?
My mother told me once that every time my father looked at her, she got pregnant. Plus, twins ran on her side of the family. My sister wasn’t any better. She’d been on birth control religiously since the age of sixteen before she and her husband decided they wanted kids. Once she stopped taking the pill, she thought it would take a year before she would conceive. Imagine her delight when she found out she was pregnant four months later.
Four months.
With a family like mine, what were my chances? I decided to keep that information to myself. The last thing Brian needed was an unnecessary distraction because of guilt.
And, oh, boy, Brian’s side of the family seemed pretty potent as well. After all, Mr. Young helped add five lives to the world’s population. What if Brian inherited his father’s potent gene, as he’d inherited his intense blue eyes?
Brian studied me without speaking.
I pulled back the sheets and crawled
into bed. After a minute, he joined me.
“Ebony, there’s something I need to tell you.” He waited until he had my full attention. “I had already planned to say this, but now the timing just feels…wrong. But it’s still true.” He watched me with imploring eyes.
Uneasiness settled in the pit of my stomach. “Tell me what?”
He reached for my hand and kissed it tenderly. “To tell you how much I love you.”
I felt my eyes widen, not because of his words, but because of the sincerity in his voice and eyes. The eyes never lie.
“We’ve been together for less than three months. This last month has been crazy. We haven’t been together as much, and there is still much more for us to learn about each other.” He looked down at our linked fingers. “Baby, you don’t know how much your support has encouraged me. If it weren’t for you, this opportunity wouldn’t exist. Having you by my side and not be angry or discouraging has made me aspire to be more, to do more for you. I want to make you happy.”
“Brian, I’m happy, because I’m in love with you, too.” I smiled, blinking back the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes.
He returned my smile and wiped the tears. “Good, because when I come back, I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you happy. The first thing is looking into buying a house. I need a place of my own, so when I ask you to marry me”
I gasped and covered my mouth.
“…that part of our life will already be established.” His grin went a mile wide. “Yes, Ebony, I want to marry you. We’ll take time to get to really get to know each other first, but believe me; I’m going to buy you the biggest ring I can find.”
I laughed; the fear disappeared. The issues plaguing my life were no longer important. The only thing that mattered was hearing him say he wanted to marry me.
Not just because I could be pregnant, the ‘P’ word hadn’t been mentioned, just that he wanted me.
His hand went to my flat belly as though he’d read my thoughts. “If we just made a baby, it came from the love I feel for you, it’s not an accident. If not, then when we start our family, there will never be a ‘oops’, just pure, unadulterated love.” He angled his head, his smile charming. “Can you handle it?”
“Oh, yeah.” I beamed.
“One more thing.” He released my hand and dug into the nightstand. He removed a box of condoms and left them available for easy access. “Not trying to play baby roulette.”
I giggled and nodded in agreement.
He dug in again and pulled out another box. A beautiful shade of purple paper and glimmering silver tinsel sat in his hand. I felt my mouth drop open. Since my hands were in my lap, Brian placed it in my palm.
“Open it.”
It wasn’t a ring; the box was the wrong shape. I wanted to shake it to see if I could guess what hid inside. It was a struggle not to rip apart the beautiful packaging; the anticipation drove me crazy.
What I found left me speechless.
“Do you like it?” Brian’s brow creased as if my approval of his gift were a life or death issue.
In my hand was a fourteen-carat gold charm bracelet with three charms: a guitar, a heart and
I studied the third charm. “A giraffe?” I laughed my surprise.
“I told the sales woman you took care of an orangutan for a living, and she looked at me like I was crazy. It was either this or a cat or dog. I wanted it to represent your dream job. This was the closest thing they had.”
“It’s beautiful. I love it. Thank you.”
Brian let out a sigh as his shoulders relaxed. He slipped the gold chain from my fingers and looped it around my wrist. “This is a promise. I chose these charms because they represent our hearts, our desires, and our future. As we grow together and accomplish more, I will give you another charm to celebrate.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Adding a baby bottle was not the first charm I planned on getting you. I was thinking of graduation and marriage.”
I pushed him back on the bed, moved the covers, and climbed on top of him, settling in the only place I wanted to be.
“Whether we have a baby now or later, I love you, Brian.” I leaned down and kissed him deeply.
His fingers ran over my hip. I cringed and sat up. “Ow, it’s sore.”
He looked down at his hand and realized he’d gripped my tattooed hip. “Sorry.” He pushed the shirt I wore aside and studied it from the angle where he lay. “It’s beautiful by the way. What made you get a butterfly? Why not a heart or a rose?”
I sat up and stared down at his marked biceps and traced them. “You told me your tattoos were symbols that mattered. I decided my tattoo would do the same.” I reached for both of his hands and pulled them to my chest.
I marveled at the subtle differences in the pigment of our skin. My caramel to his cream; the two complimented each other like a perfect blend of coffee. I could imagine what our baby would look like. Our child would be light skinned, with skin as bronze as his, only naturally. The hair would probably be brown with golden streaks and eyes as blue as his. Beautiful.
“Butterflies don’t start out as butterflies, they’re caterpillars. Just ordinary insects you rarely pay attention to. But then one day, they disappear into a cocoon and emerge changed, different. They’re no longer ordinary; they are magnificent, beautiful winged creatures.” I pulled his hand to my heart.
“Since meeting you, I’ve come out of my cocoon. I was alone with a one-track mind, but you’ve changed me. You’ve challenged my mind and made me see life, love, and relationships in a way I never thought would work for me. We went from friends, to lovers, to…being in love. You’ve supported me and taken interest in ways no other men have. These differences,” I held up our linked fingers and kissed his hand, “mean nothing. The heart is what’s important. So, I chose the butterfly. And it’s blue because of your eyes. They’re the first thing I noticed about you.”
“I may be pushing the man-code here, but that has got to be the most beautiful and sincere thing anyone has ever said to me.” He chuckled. “Come here.”
I lay down on his chest, and this time when our mouths met it was like magic. Every inch of my body tingled, warming me from my head to my toes. Brian deepened the kiss as he slid his roving hands up under the jersey and pulled it over my head. Naked again, he rolled me over onto my back. He pulled back and stared into my eyes. For the first time, I truly felt loved. This was home. This was perfection. This was the one thing I would never be able to be without again in my life. Not just love, but the love of this man.
Brian was my soul mate.
He pulled one of my hands from behind his head, linked our fingers, and pulled it between our chests.
“You are mine, and I am yours. No matter how far apart we are, my heart, my body belongs to you. There will never be another woman for me. Do you trust me?”
That was such an odd combination of words that for a moment I couldn’t answer.
“I need to know, Ebony, do you trust me to be away from you and know I’m not sleeping around?”
“Yes…I trust you.”
His eyes closed, and he hung his head and sighed in what must have been relief. When he opened his eyes again, he focused on me with a soul-searching gaze.
“I trust you, too, with my heart. I need you to understand, I’ve never given my heart to another woman, not like this. Please, please, wait for me. Everything I’ve promised you will happen as soon as I come home. Don’t doubt that.”
“I’m not going anywhere. After tonight, no one else will touch me except for you. My body and my heart are for no one else but you.”
There was nothing else to say. I pulled his mouth back to mine and sealed the deal. Brian didn’t waste time. With our hands linked, our mouths mated. He parted my thighs with his and eased between my legs. His kiss traveled down my throat to my breasts while his free hand ran the length of my body.
“I want to be inside you and stay until I have to leave,” he whispered as he wor
ked his way back up to my chin.
I moaned, wanting the same. He made a move to enter me, but stopped abruptly and reached for the condom box.
“Baby roulette,” we said in unison. One day, in our old age, we would look back at this night and laugh.
A deep groan emanated from his throat as his head dropped down on my chest.
“Damn it, it’s empty,” he said in frustration.
“Look in my purse, I always have some.” I pointed to my side of the bed where it sat on the floor.
Brian released our fingers and shifted for the bag. Not willing to search, he dumped the contents onto the floor. I seconded his impatience.
“Yes!” He sat up, covered himself, and slid right into home.
I had no idea how long we made love, but it was slow and beautiful and everything I ever wanted.
Tonight would sustain me until Brian came home.
Chapter 22
This cannot be happening.
The contents of my oversized purse littered the cashier’s counter. “I put it in my bag…”
An annoyed grunt came from the man standing in line behind me.
Irritation made my checks hot. I stuffed my things into my purse. “I’ll come back.” I muttered, grabbed my backpack from the floor, and moved out of the way.
So much for buying my book today. School had been in session for less than a week, and I had already fallen behind. My final year of college should not start like this. I stomped out of the campus bookstore while muttering under my breath.
I could only hope my professor would be lenient since this was the first assignment. Who was I kidding? He already made it clear that if the assignment wasn’t on his desk by the deadline, I would be screwed. I needed that book. It was my fault I didn’t have it on time. I’d spent the last few weeks focusing on finding another job, managing my finances, and spending as much time as possible with Brian before he left.