I frown. “Do you?”
“Answer the question, Max.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how this works, kitten. I ask, you answer. Do you not want me to cane your ass tonight?” I move closer, crowding her back against the wall. “Don’t tell me you want to be a boring vanilla couple now.”
She’s staring at my chest. “I don’t know what I want. And I don’t know what you want, either.”
“I want you, bent over the arm of the sofa. I want to make you scream. I want to make you wet. Then I want to fuck you until I stop worrying. I want to check out for the night. Is that so wrong?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry.”
“Then get your pretty little ass downstairs and wait for me. Naked.”
She shakes her head again. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean?” I stare at her, and for the first time since dinner started, she looks me right in the eye.
“Red.”
36
Violet
I don’t wait for Max to respond. Nothing he can say will change the fact that I need to not be here right now, before I spit out news he doesn’t want to hear. I move past him, collecting my stuff, and let myself into the garage.
The whole time, his gaze is on me. Hot, heavy, oppressive. Concerned, too, but only in so far as he had a shitty day and I was going to make that better.
Well, fuck you, Max Donovan. I didn’t have the greatest day, either. And yes, something’s wrong, but no, I can’t even begin to tell you about it.
Not yet.
But once I get my thoughts together, he’ll hear about. I shake my head, angry and pissed at him for being selfish and me for not saying anything…but I couldn’t.
And just like that, the anger slides into a cold, hard numbness as I back out of his driveway. I’m stoic as I navigate my way onto the main thoroughfare and ease into traffic.
But when I see the first Christmas lights decorating downtown, I burst into tears.
I think about calling in sick the next day, but it’s a grey, gloomy Thursday, and I’d rather try to lose myself in work than sit at home and feel sorry for myself.
I’ve fallen in love with a man who doesn’t want the same things as me. It’s such a classic trap. What was I thinking?
I wasn’t.
We were just having fun.
And now I’m an after-school special. Safe sex, kids. It’s no joke.
My stomach turns over when I think too hard about that, about how fragile that brief happiness was. How insanely, deliriously happy I was…and how it was all a sham.
I’m steaming mad by the time I hit the office. Whipping through the different emotional reactions, apparently. I snap at Hannah, then apologize. She offers to get me coffee, and when I slump in my chair, adds a muffin to the deal.
“I should go and get you a muffin,” I mumble, embarrassed.
She just laughs. “You should bill an hour or two of work. That’ll make everyone around here happy.”
I do that, and she’s right, work is good. Especially because I manage to squeeze in ten minutes of my own research. I’m going to need a good family law attorney.
Max. He’s never far from my mind, as morning slides to afternoon, then the sky darkens and suddenly it’s dinner.
I record my last work of the day and flip back to the website for a well-regarded lawyer here in the city. She’s got a page about shared custody from birth.
I should be reassured that I’m not alone in this predicament.
It feels hollow nonetheless.
“Heading home?”
I shriek and close the window before looking up at Derrick, looming in the doorway. Way to be subtle, Columbo. “Yeah. Soon.”
“Have a nice weekend.”
I frown at the calendar. “It’s Thursday.”
He laughs. “It’s also a week and a half before Christmas. I’ve got holiday shopping to do. I’m taking a personal day tomorrow.”
And just like that, I slide back into despair.
I pick up my phone and text Matthew. I want ice cream tonight. He replies right away, but with a sad face, because he’s working an overnight shift.
My phone rings a minute later.
“Hey Matthew,” I mumble.
“What’s wrong?”
“Boy trouble.”
“You want to be more specific than that?”
“No.”
“Can I beat someone up?”
“No.”
He sighs. “I’ve got Rocky Road in my freezer. It’s all yours.”
He always has ice cream in his freezer and he never eats it. Some kind of mind-over-matter gym jock head game that I’ll never understand, but right now I’m super grateful for. “You’re the best.”
“No, V. You are. And you deserve to treated as such.”
But when I hang up the phone, that just makes me cry again, because Max did treat me well. This wound in my chest is not really of his making. It’s totally because I got carried away with the fantasy of having it all.
I toss and turn all night.
I finally get out of bed at the crack of dawn. I think about Max texting me on Monday.
Then I think about the fact that I left his house two nights ago and he hasn’t texted me since.
You did safeword out.
But his silence has to mean something.
That he accepts your safeword, that he accepts that you left his house.
I screw up my face and growl at my coffee maker, which doesn’t have any answers.
Can I even have coffee? I pull out my phone. The internet seems divided. I make half a cup.
I think about Max’s silence all the way to work. It’s of my own making.
And it’s not what I want. No matter what, I don’t want to be unfair to him. He didn’t ask for this, but he has a right to know what’s going on, and a right to react however he wants.
I open an email window and type in his address.
Then I minimize it.
Call a lawyer, my lawyer brain tells myself.
I open it again. We don’t need lawyers. Not yet. Even if this gets complicated—and I don’t think it will. If anything, I’m more sure that it’ll be dead simple, because Max won’t want anything to do with me or the baby.
But we’ve got nine months to reconcile how we’re going to move forward here.
I swear it’s going to take me every last second of those nine months to wrap my head around what’s happened. I owe the exact same amount of processing time to the father-to-be. Especially to him. The father-to-be-who-never-wanted-to-be.
Fuck.
I minimize the window again.
Back and forth I go, all morning long. While I eat lunch at my desk, a salad that tastes like sawdust going down.
I spend the afternoon on the phone so I don’t have to look at my computer screen, mocking me.
Finally at the end of the day, after Hannah leaves, I screw up my courage and type it up before I can chicken out again.
From: Violet Roberts
To: Max Donovan
Subject: I need to tell you something
* * *
The reason I left your house the other night was because I went to the doctor’s earlier that day and found out, much to my surprise, that I’m pregnant.
Just a few weeks along.
I don’t expect anything from you, but you have a right to know. If you would like to hire a family law attorney, another lawyer in our office can recommend one for you. Chinese wall would be in effect. I’d appreciate that you not use my name until I have time to get my own representation, as this will complicate my role within the firm.
I hope you know I intend to act in good faith on this matter, and we can be civil about any necessary discussions.
I read it back. It’s cold, but I’d rather be objective. Maybe that’s my legal instincts, or just my hurt woman’s instincts. I can’t bring myself to pour all that I’m feeling onto the page when I have no clue
how Max will react.
As soon as I hit send, my heart starts hammering in my chest. How long will it take him to read it? How will he reply?
And what if he doesn’t?
I open another window. I had three patent applications to review this afternoon, and I’m mostly done, but I should double-check my work. The words all blur together on my screen.
It takes me a minute to realize I’m crying.
Shit.
And then my computer dings.
My hands shake as I click on the new email notification.
From: Max Donovan
To: Violet Roberts
Subject: Re: I need to tell you something
* * *
Your choice. I come to your office or you meet me at my house.
That’s it?
I re-read my email, then his.
My hands shake even more.
Maybe he didn’t understand.
Maybe he just wants to talk in person.
But as I read his email again, the tone is clear. Max is ordering me to his house. A week ago, that would have made me hot.
Heaven help me…right now it makes me hot. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I furiously wipe away my tears. He wants me to show up? He wants to deal with this like a Dom? I’m there, all right. He can do his worst. But this is not how grown-ups deal with pregnancy news.
37
Max
I open the door and don’t give her a chance to speak. I pull her inside and close us off from the rest of the world.
Tangling my fingers in her hair, I tug her head back. She’s only here because I gave her no choice. And fuck, I know I should send her home, but I just can’t. Instead, I leave her an out. “You have a safeword. You’d be wise to use it now.”
She just glares at me in silence, and I’m so fucking lost. Why would she keep this from me?
I rest my hand on her flat belly, so many questions screaming through my head. How isn’t one of them. I know how. My mind wanders back to the time when I came on her belly and lower. How she touched herself, stroking her fingers through my come, sliding it over her clit and through her folds. Damn, that was so hot and dirty and…not safe. And now that belly is nurturing—I push that thought away.
The really angry part of me wants to push her to her knees and make her gag on my cock until I come. Instead, I turn her away from me. “Hands on the door and not a word from you unless it’s your safeword,” I order as I yank her skirt up to her waist. Sliding my hand back down, I drag her panties over the curve of her ass until they drop to her ankles. “Step out of them and spread your legs.” She’s still not said her safeword and that’s as much consent as I need to continue.
With my left hand pressing on her upper back between her shoulder blades, I start spanking her. No rubbing and gentle taps to warm her up—not this time. We’re in punishment territory and nothing short of her safeword is going to save her ass. That email…her assumptions…I’m seeing red and that’s not ideal, but she’s mine and she has no expectations. Fucking hell.
After a few whacks, I lay a good, hard slap on her pussy, then back to her ass. I continue spanking her, randomly adding pussy slaps until my hand starts to get sore. She takes everything I give her with nothing more than groans. I want her tears.
“Do. Not. Move.” Unbuckling my belt, I look down at Violet’s red ass and contemplate my next move. The buckle jingles as the leather slides through belt loops on my trousers. I fold the belt in half, then push the ends towards each other a bit and pull back hard, making it snap. Violet startles.
I put my hand back between her shoulder blades and wind up. The first strike falls over her sit spot. She yelps and tries to reach behind her and my dick flexes in appreciation. “I told you not to move. Do it again, and I’ll bind you. Nod if you understand.”
She nods and I immediately place the second strike across the curve of her ass. Her hands curl into fists as she lets out another yelp.
I lay another on her sit spot, then one just below the one on her ass. I continue in that fashion, one strike directly below the last upper strike alternating with one strike across her sit spot. In reality, it only takes five strikes to cover the lower half of her ass, eleven strikes in all, because I start and finish with her sit spot. She’ll remember this lesson every time she sits her ass down.
Tossing the belt to the ground, I crowd her from behind. I rub myself against her tender skin as I reach around her and slide my fingers between her folds to find her slick and wet. She rocks against my hand and I quickly unfasten my trousers, releasing my dick. No condom. Not this time. Not ever while she’s carrying my baby inside her body.
I position myself at her entrance and nip her earlobe as I whisper, “I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk straight.” Except, I’m not.
I want to savour the moment. My first time bareback is not going to be a hard, fast bang. It is, however going to be up against my front door, because I’ve waited long enough.
I grip both Violet’s hips like I’m going to slam my way home, then slowly push my way inside her slippery heat. I stop about half-way, because it’s not right. It’s not how it’s supposed to be.
I pull out and turn her around.
I’m so fucking angry and confused and hurt and—in love. The revelation hits me so hard I can barely breathe.
Tipping her chin up, I study her face, desperate for a clue that she feels something…anything for me.
She just glares back.
And maybe that's what I deserve. God, maybe I'm so broken inside that's what I want now, because this isn't feeding Max the sadist. This rough, raw rub against my soul is something else entirely, and I should step back.
Max the Sadist would walk away.
And as she holds my gaze, her chin pointy and hard and righteous, I realise…that's what she thinks I've done.
With a wounded growl, I hoist her up against the door and fit my bare cock against her entrance.
I love you, my mind whispers as I press inside her. She doesn't think it's possible.
She might not even want it.
Fuck, that fills me with rage and I jerk my hips, filling her that final inch. She gasps and her breath hitches.
Good. Come undone for me, kitten. That'll make two of us.
She's carrying my baby.
I bury my face in her neck and lose myself in her body until we’re both spent. She’s mine. They’re mine—and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
38
Max
My breath is ragged as I press my hand against the inside of my front door, Violet still sandwiched between my body and the unforgiving oak. She silently rights her clothes.
“Now it's time to talk.” Taking her hand in mine, I start towards the living room. With the angry fuck out of the way, I’m ready to be calm and rational. I think. I hope.
“Is there really anything to talk about?” She tugs her hand from mine and my world drops out from under me. When she'd submitted to me at the door, I'd thought…hoped that I'd have a chance to calmly steer the discussion around her pregnancy.
"You dropped quite the bombshell on me," I say, my words biting despite my intent to remain calm.
"You had a right to know my situation."
"Our situation."
"I don't expect anything from you."
“Why the hell not?” Okay, so much for calm.
“You don’t want kids, I understand that. I can work with that.”
My first instinct is to protest, because God fucking damn, I want this child. I want her child. But something tells me that won't work with her. Something hard and cold inside reminds she's not wrong. I have said, repeatedly and in different ways that I've never thought of myself as a father.
As painful as it is to linger in those thoughts, at this moment when all I want to do is take her in my arms and make promises I'm not fucking sure I can keep, I owe her fucking honesty.
It's th
e only thing that matters to her. I take a long, deep breath and try again. “No matter what I’ve said about wanting kids, I know one thing beyond a doubt—I would never, ever abandon a child I helped create. And in not abandoning that child, I would also never abandon that child’s mother.”
She gives me a beseeching look. “You may say that—you might even think you believe it, but you don’t change your position on life altering decisions like children in the blink of an eye. You just don’t.”
“A positive pregnancy test is a blink of an eye. Are you telling me your position on children didn’t change in that blink?”
She shakes her head. “No. I’d hoped for children one day. We hadn't talked about it because I didn't think it would be now.”
"So how are you so sure that I need to be cut out of the picture?" Damn it, I need to control that biting tone.
She frowns. "I never said anything about cutting you out of anything. I just…no expectations. Because we didn't talk about what I want since it wasn't that strong either way." She touches her belly and it's like a knife through my guts. "But even though that wasn't what our relationship was about—"
I hold up my hand. Enough with the fucking past tense. "Is about. We have a relationship and it is about shit, got it?"
She presses her lips together and nods shakily. "Okay. Even though…this…isn't what our relationship is about, I still heard loud and clear it wasn't what you wanted."
Fuck. Cold fear slithers up my spine.
How do I let her inside my head? How do I make her see that what I want and what I fear I'm not capable of are two totally different things?
I have no choice. There’s no way she’s going to understand anything without me giving her some sense of my childhood.
“Can we go sit where it’s more comfortable? Please?”
She nods and I use the moments it takes to walk to the living room to emotionally prepare for what must come next.
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