If that’s what you’re planning, you have to be sure, she’d said. You chose this course of action, so you have to be resolute.
And she was. Somewhat.
Talking to Tracy and Riley had helped clarify things for her and now she’d made a decision. One that would not be easily undone if she were to change her mind. But once it had been made, she felt lighter somehow, like a cloud had been lifted. Putting it all into execution was going to be a little difficult, but afterwards she would feel even lighter, she was sure of it.
“Okay, Robyn. I just need you to read this over and confirm that it’s what you want.”
Robyn looked up from the table where she had been fidgeting with her hands, and faced the other woman in the room. Jamila Burns was a tall, imposing sister with short dreadlocks and a no-nonsense manner. Robyn had been across a conference room table from her many times before but always as an opponent, never as a client. When she’d been lying awake the night before, wracking her brain for an attorney she might contact, Jamila hadn’t been at the top of the list, but those who were, she couldn’t get in touch with. Not about this.
Reading through the legal document, Robyn reached for a pen and made some changes, rephrasing a few things, adding a clause and deleting a few others. When she was done, she pushed the papers back across the table to Jamila for her review. The other lawyer read through the revisions, shaking her head. Finally she looked up, fixing Robyn with an unwavering stare.
“You just made this iron-clad,” she said. “Absolutely no wriggle room in here.”
“That’s the way I want it,” Robyn nodded. “When some ace team of attorneys reviews this—and they will—I want them to say that this agreement can’t be penetrated.”
Jamila tapped her pen against the table, biting her lower lip, considering.
“You know,” she said. “A court might find that it’s unenforceable. Involving the rights of a third party and all.”
“There is no third party. Not yet. Not under the law anyway.”
Jamila sighed. “I wouldn’t be representing you adequately if I didn’t advise you against this, Robyn. This kind of decision, made out of emotion? An emotion you may find you no longer have five years from now? Hell, five weeks from now, given your condition.”
“If you could just confirm those changes I’ll write you a check for your fee,” Robyn said sitting up straight, tugging at her pants where they were digging into her new, fleshier waist.
“You’re a lawyer. A damn good one. You could have done this yourself,” Jamila said, exhaling her frustration.
Robyn shrugged. “You know what they say: a lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client.”
27
“How’re we doing with dinner, Mrs. Lawson?”
Robyn walked up behind the older woman as she was putting a large salad into the refrigerator and squeezed her shoulder. She turned and smiled, her eyes falling for a moment the visible swell of Robyn’s belly.
“Right on schedule. And it isn’t as though it wasn’t a very easy meal to prepare.”
Robyn rolled her eyes. “I know. But it’s what the kids asked for, so what’re we to do?” She opened her palms in surrender.
Mrs. Lawson laughed. “I understand. I guess buffalo chicken wings is what’ll pass for high cuisine with the under twenty-one crowd.”
She looked at Robyn’s abdomen again and Robyn had the distinct impression she was resisting reaching out and stroking it. She wouldn’t have objected if she did.
“But everything’s taken care of, so maybe you should go lie down for a little bit before they get here. If you want to take a nap, I’ll come tell you when he opens the gate.”
Robyn considered for a moment. She was feeling a little worn out.
The morning, spent walking through the house with Mrs. Lawson, preparing for Chris’ return with his kids by placing flowers and opening windows, decorating with pumpkins and the like had worn her out well beyond what seemed proportionate to the limited physical exertion. When he’d asked her to help get his place ready for a weekend get-together for a weekend with his kids and a few of their friends, Robyn had at first wondered why he didn’t just have Mrs. Lawson take care of it. His housekeeper had managed gatherings far larger, after all. But then she realized that what his request was really, was yet another olive branch, a tentative reaching out which he’d been doing more and more of lately. It should have been a relief that they were friends again, but friendship was a bitter pill to swallow when she wanted more.
Waking up early that morning Robyn had driven over to the house and found that Chris wasn’t there. Instead of sending his driver, he’d gone personally to pick up Deuce and his best friend, and Jasmin and Kaden’s mother was dropping them off with their friends. Seeing him take on this new, more active role with his kids made her wonder about her visit with Jamila Burns, and whether she was really wanted to take the route she’d chosen.
“Maybe I will go lie down for a little” Robyn said to Mrs. Lawson, nodding. “No need to come wake me. I’m sure I won’t be asleep that long.” She patted Mrs. Lawson on the shoulder once more and headed for the master suite.
Upstairs now, Robyn surveyed the master suite with its dark, masculine walnut furniture, and heavy burgundy fabrics. The only things she liked about this room were that it had a balcony and an enormous bed with a very, very comfortable mattress. Well, it wasn’t as though she was a resident here. Or ever would be.
Sliding off her sandals, and gathering her palm green maxi-dress up to her hips, she crawled across to the center of that comfortable mattress and closed her eyes. In the background, through the open balcony doors, she heard the rhythmic clacking noise of a woodpecker and another, possibly a blackbird cawing laconically in the distance. That, and the cool autumn breeze, guided her gently, but quickly into a deep sleep.
___________________
When he first touched her, she was not fully awake so it felt like a dream. She had, in her sleep, been waiting for him. His hand smoothing over her hip and down her thigh, was callused, like someone who did manual labor. Robyn now knew it was from playing guitar, which he had never done in front of her except for that one time in Paris. A hand traversed the area just behind her knee and up to her rear, then around to her abdomen where it lingered. The other crept beneath her, and around. Robyn sighed and tried to come awake, turning around to look at him
“Hi,” she mumbled, taking him in through sleepy eyes.
They hadn’t laid hands on each other in almost two months. Neither of them made any mention of that fact, nor of the fact that this—lying here together—violated the rules of their new, platonic relationship. Turning so that her back was to him again, Robyn let Chris press against her, holding her about the middle. She was still heavy, and drugged with sleep, and thought that if it came to that, she would use that excuse to herself later. But the truth was, she just wanted him to touch her. Chris’ lips brushed the back of her neck, his hands rising higher, between her breasts.
For a moment, he fidgeted with her bra and then Robyn heard him chuckle.
“What the . . ?”
He had turned her over onto her back and Robyn opened her eyes to find him astride her at her knees, his weight resting on his haunches, her dress pulled up to her underarms.
“What the heck is this?” he laughed, indicating the garment binding her breasts.
“It’s a maternity bra,” she added, recalling that he’d asked her a question.
“It looks like a medieval torture device.”
“That might be what it looks like, but it feels wonderful. You have no idea how sensitive my breasts are. Even having them move around too much is painful. And when the nipples brush against fabric . . .” Robyn groaned.
“Let’s see,” Chris said.
Robyn eyed him suspiciously. “I mean it, they’re very sensitive.”
As she spoke, Robyn saw that her description of her breasts as sensitive was having a very real, phy
sical effect on him, or maybe it was just his position astride her that was doing that. Rolling her eyes, she raised herself up onto her elbows and at the same time reached behind her, trying to unhook it.
“A little help?”
Chris reached forward, and found the hooks, taking a long time before he was able to get them undone. When they were, he helped Robyn pull the straps down over her shoulders and tossed it aside. He studied her for so long, Robyn looked down to see what he saw. What she saw were her nipples, like two dark purple bruises, the color of overripe plums, the aureole swollen to bursting, the globes of her breasts still honey-toned but now visibly lined with faint bluish veins especially on the sides where their complexion was lighter.
Chris appeared riveted. At the front of his boxer briefs, his very urgent erection, was struggling to be set free. He reached for her and Robyn pulled back a little.
“Gently,” she warned.
He nodded his agreement without taking his eyes off them. When he touched her, tentatively, at the side of one breast, both nipples immediately hardened and a small smile crossed his lips.
She knew he had to have seen pregnant breasts before, given that he had three kids, but Robyn didn’t want to remind him of the other women he’d had babies with. Didn’t want to remind herself that this experience, he had also shared with someone else.
Her face warmed, and the another part of her did as well when Chris bowed his head, moving closer, but avoiding pressing into her abdomen. She expected his tongue, but instead he blew a cool breath on one tip and watched her skin become peppered with tiny goosebumps. Squirming beneath him, Robyn yearned for the heat of his mouth. Had she not been propped on her elbows, she might have grabbed his head and pulled it down. But Chris was being careful, and had formed a tiny ‘o’ with his lips, as he bent closer.
Robyn ached with wanting him and when his lips finally made contact with one painfully sensitive nipple, she exhaled, a short, hard burst of air. With just the very tip of his tongue, Chris gently stroked the flesh he’d captured in his softly puckered lips. The sensation was hot, electric and profound, traveling instantly to her core and Robyn thought she understood for the first time what it might feel like for a man to get an erection. Her clitoris was pulsating, just as surely as if that were the part of her he had in his mouth.
Chris raised his head abruptly. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head emphatically, wanting him to continue.
And so he lowered his head again, but this time taking the other nipple between his lips, gently as he’d done with the first. But now, with his other hand, he touched the side of her other, neglected breast, his fingers testing its shape, weight and size, circling the nipple but avoiding it, concentrating on the line of her areola where she was most swollen.
Incredible as it seemed, Robyn felt the pressure build inside her, the mad dash toward climax happening not gradually but very, very fast. She arched her back, pressing her chest against Chris’ hand and mouth, wanting him to take the entire nipple between his lips and suck on it hard, even bite it. Beneath the pleasure of his tongue was a tiny sliver of pain, her nerve endings screaming, simultaneously wanting to be stimulated and left alone.
Between her legs she was throbbing, almost achingly so. Her breath was loud and ragged, and she was keening and crying out as though wounded. It was so good . . . too good. She would die. If he didn’t move his head, release her, her heart would simply burst out of her chest. Robyn had never felt anything like this before, and he wasn’t even inside her.
Shifting beneath him, she moved so that his knee was between her legs and raised herself off the bed, trying to rub herself against him. Chris, seeing what she tried to do, evaded her maneuver and straddled her legs once again. Robyn made a sound of frustration, almost angry that he’d thwarted her attempt at a shortcut toward orgasm. But it didn’t matter because the building pressure inside her had finally broken free and she was coming, hard. Harder than she ever had in her life, and screaming at what felt like the top of her lungs.
And just as suddenly, it was over, and she was descending from her peak, vaguely aware that Chris had removed her underwear and was poised between her legs. Thumbs on her nipples, not pressing but merely present, he cupped her breasts and through half-open eyes, Robyn saw that he was large and tumescent, ready to enter her.
“Tell me how it feels,” he said, his eyes on hers. “If it hurts . . .”
Robyn nodded, only partially comprehending his words. She let her heavy eyelids drop and so when Chris moved forward and pushed himself between her lips, she could not see, but only feel. And it felt . . . glorious. He was so hard, and so erect that in that position he was pressing forward and upward, against the front of her inner walls, pleasurably, painfully stretching her. Moving back and forth with slow strokes Chris was touching a spot deep inside her that had never, she was certain, been touched before.
Each time he nudged her there, she opened her mouth wide, not altogether sure whether she wanted to moan in pleasure or push him away to relieve the discomfort. The sensation was both things at once, intoxicatingly good, and yet almost agonizing as well. And when Robyn saw Chris’ face, fixed in a grimace, she thought that it must feel that way to him as well. His fingers dug hard into her hips, holding her steady, preventing her from doing what, by instinct she wanted most to do—slam herself into him, hard.
“Baby,” he breathed. He sounded like he someone begging for relief.
“Yes,” Robyn said, her voice like a grunt.
And Chris let go. She felt him flooding her, copiously filling her. Robyn didn’t even know if she came again too. For a moment, it felt like they were one person.
Not just joined, but one.
___________________
Robyn’s head was resting partly on his chest, part on his upper arm, which was falling asleep. But Chris didn’t want her to move. Last night, he hadn’t slept, but instead paced the suite, working on the laptop and then shutting it again when he couldn’t concentrate. The planned get-together with his kids had him on edge, but even more than that was the knowledge that Robyn was coming as well. She hadn’t been back to the house since before he went to Paris, and it hadn’t felt the same without her.
Now that he was here and she was here with him, he didn’t want to move, and he didn’t want her to move either. Lying this way, he could look down at her body without her knowing he was checking her out. Her breasts—always impressive—were larger. And the nipples . . . damn, it was better not to look at them too long or he would want her again, and it was probably better to take it easy. At least until she was further along and her carrying her pregnancy to term was almost assured.
Her pregnancy. Their pregnancy.
Looking down at the swell and slope of her stomach, the reality of it had begun to hit home. Deep inside his chest, something wrenched and twisted. Next to him Robyn sighed and then stretched her arms above her head, then she was sitting up and the blood rushed back into his now numb arm.
“Why did you let me?” he asked. “Just now when I came in, why did you . . ?”
“I was horny,” Robyn said, smiling at him.
Chris didn’t smile back. “No, really. Why?”
“I told you,” she said, but she was avoiding his eyes. “And also . . . I missed you.”
And when he didn’t respond, she shrugged. “Look, don’t get all freaked out. I know it was just . . . I know it doesn’t change anything.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I know it was just sex,” she said matter-of-factly.
Shaking his head, Chris took her in. The determined way she was holding his gaze and holding in her emotions. Grabbing her by the arm, Chris pulled her back down to him, wanting to tell her that it wasn’t just sex, that it was way more than that. But things were moving so fast. Between her being there, and the kids being downstairs with their friends, he didn’t recognize his life anymore. Robyn turned in his arms, tilting her head back
ward and looking up at him. A shock of hair fell across her eyes and she reached up to push it aside.
Just like this, Chris thought before he kissed her. This is what I’ll think about when I think about you. Like this.
They ate Mrs. Lawson’s spicy buffalo wings for dinner, but unable to stand the thought of having her get dressed, Chris brought everything up on a tray to his bedroom suite. Spreading a towel in the center of the bed, they ate with their hands and made a mess, Chris eating about a dozen all by himself and Robyn picking at about eight or so. With the wings, there was a large Caesar salad and Budweiser drank out of the can to wash it all down. Robyn drank fizzy San Pellegrino and burped her way through the meal, making very ugly noises but looking more beautiful than Chris had ever seen her.
“At some point are we going to get dressed and go join the kids?”
“They don’t want us to join them,” Chris said. “The little ones are watching a movie and Deuce is showing off the bikes.”
Just as he’d sucked the last bone clean and tossed it onto the considerable pile in the plate at the center of the towel, Robyn leaned across it and kissed him, square on his greasy, buffalo sauce covered lips. Sitting upright once again, she smiled.
“I missed you,” she said quietly. “I missed you so much.”
And there it was again, that feeling, that funny twisty feeling in his chest and gut.
“Remember when you once told me you never give anyone anything they don’t deserve?” she said out of seemingly nowhere.
“Yeah?”
“Well, Iris Greenberg called me,” It sounded less like a statement and more like an accusation.
“I know. She emailed me and said you two had a couple phone conversations and you found a place. So maybe you can take me to see it.”
She opened her mouth as though to say something and then seemed to change her mind and instead shrugged.
“What? You don’t want me to see it?” Chris asked, trying to read her expression.
Afterwards Page 28