by M. G. Morgan
It was too much.
My body already ached for him, I didn’t need to be pushed any further. I turned my face away from him in an attempt to escape the blindfold as he slipped it down over my head. Before I knew what was happening the world had gone dark and I was left naked and aching on the bed.
I strained to listen for any sound, something that would tell me what was coming next but the room had gone silent. I couldn’t even hear David breathing.
The silence caused my heart rate to accelerate and it beat against my ribcage harder and faster with every breath I took.
The suddenness of David’s hands against the inside of my thighs made me jump and I arched up from the bed. The restraints the only thing that kept me in place.
He forced my legs apart and as I felt his hot breath fanning against my already fevered skin I moaned and bit down on my lip. He was infuriating.
He knew the things he did to me, the way he made me feel. And yet still he insisted on doing this to me.
He bit down softly on the delicate skin of my inner thigh and it drew a ragged cry from me. I thrashed in his grip as he trailed fiery kisses along my skin, inching closer to the place I wanted him.
When he moved straight past the opening to my body I bucked against his body as he crawled over me.
“David, please take me out of my misery,” I said my voice hoarse as I attempted to dislodge the blindfold.
His mouth found my skin once more, trailing his kisses across my rounded stomach as he moved up. He splayed his hand across my stomach, sliding the broad expanse of his fingers up to my ribcage and the underside of my breasts.
“David…” There was a warning in my voice as his touch became feather light once more.
His mouth closed over my nipple and my mouth fell open in a silent ‘o’ of pleasure. He pressed my body back down to the bed and I fought him, my back arching, forcing him to suck and tease my nipples.
A fragile thread of desire formed between my breasts and the molten of my core as he laved his tongue across my nipple, the sensation spiralling deep into my body making breathing almost impossible.
I didn’t realise his hand had slid between my legs until I felt his fingers probing at the swollen tender flesh of my sex. Instinctively I opened my legs as wide as I could as he playfully teased me to the edge of delirium.
Without warning he thrust his finger into me, my body clamping around him as I wrapped my hands around the metal linking on the handcuffs. My body rolled and fluttered with my oncoming orgasm and I was powerless to stop it.
I didn’t want to stop it.
This was what I was made to do, I was made to love David, my body answered his call in every conceivable way.
The spiralling pleasure in my core tightened further, heat spreading through my limbs as I fought to drink in enough air to keep myself lucid.
David’s fingers danced a rhythm outside and inside my body as I teetered on the edge of pure unadulterated bliss.
And then it was gone.
He withdrew from me, leaving me hanging on the edge of orgasm like a man starved of sustenance.
“David, no! Please!” My voice was a growl of frustration and denied pleasure.
I felt the restraints disappear from my ankles and David was suddenly behind me, rolling my body over until I was on my side as his hard and very naked body moved in against me.
I gasped, the feel of his solid erection pressing against my back as he positioned himself, nestling my body to his.
He lifted my hip, thrusting up inside me in one fluid motion that had me arching against the handcuffs that still held me pinned to the top of the bed. David’s arm slid around my waist as he thrust again, burying himself all the way inside.
I bit down on my lip as all the frustration of my denied orgasm was washed away by the grinding of his body into mine. He found a rhythm, his hips curling up as he thrust his body into mine over and over.
Fighting to press myself back in against him, I cried out as he found the sweet spot within me, stroking over and back on that one place where all my nerve endings seemed to meet in one tingling and pulsing mass.
The feel of David’s hand curled around my waist, his other hand gripping my hip as he moved within me was too much to bear and my orgasm washed over me in a blinding wave of pleasure that stole the air from my lungs and my voice from my throat.
Silently I cried out, my muscles tightening around David’s thick shaft, holding him inside. His fingers dug into me and I knew they would leave the imprint of him on my skin. He growled against my neck as he let go and his body was swept up in the same pleasure I was lost in.
10
I lay cradled in the safety of his arms for what felt like an eternity. The heat from his body radiated in through my back and even though my arms were beginning to cramp, I still didn’t dare move.
There was something about the moment, if I moved then it was over and I would never get it back. It was a silly thought but I couldn’t shake it, I’d come so close to never having a moment like this ever again that now it was imperative I savour every last one I got.
David’s hand slid up over my arm, his deft fingers popping the lock on the handcuffs, releasing my practically numb arms from their bindings.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, examining the red rings on my wrists from where the metal had dug into my skin when I’d fought the restraints.
“No,” I said stretching against his body. There was a dull heavy ache between my legs, the type that filled my head with all the memories of what we had shared. A reminder of how full I had been just a short while before.
His fingers traced idle patterns across my stomach and I dozed in his grip until David shifted against me, his mouth finding mine as he stole a soft kiss.
“Carrie, I love you,” he said but his voice sounded so serious and it set my heart hammering in my chest.
“And I love you, David, what’s wrong?”
He tightened his grip on me and pressed another kiss to my shoulder. “Nothing,” he said but I wasn’t convinced.
Whatever was on his mind had him worried but I knew he wouldn’t share it with me, not until he was good and ready and I would just have to wait for that moment.
Cuddling in against me, I listened to the sound of his breathing as it deepened and he fell into sleep. My own exhaustion over everything that had happened put me on the brink of sleep too but my mind was still whirring.
David had something in mind and whatever it was I knew I wasn’t going to like it. All I could do was hope that his plan worked because if it didn’t then Andy and Dominic would have him right where they wanted him and that wasn’t a position I ever wanted David to find himself in.
11
Bright lights flashed past my eyes making my already dizzy head worse. It had been like this since David had scooped me up in his arms and ran with me from Taylor’s house.
Slipping in and out of consciousness seemed like a good thing but every time I fought to the surface of my consciousness it was because of the pain that flared through my body.
It felt as though I was being ripped apart from the inside.
Clinging to David I tried to lift myself up off the bed as another wave of agony washed through me.
What was happening?
Instinctively I knew it was the baby, there was something wrong and there was nothing I could do to fix it.
“David, please, you have to help the baby…”
My eyes rolled back in my head once more as another spasm of pain wracked my frame.
The spasm passed and I fought my way back to myself. David’s hand was wrapped around mine as he raced alongside the gurney the paramedics had laid me out on.
The lights flashed over my head and I fought the urge to roll around. Heat poured out through my skin, as though I was baking from the inside out. And if I felt like this, then how was the baby managing?
I felt the wave of pain swell within me and I had just enough time to see Davi
d’s panic stricken face as the doctor’s pushed him out of the way.
His hand left mine and I grabbed out at nothing but air. I needed him, needed to know he was with me throughout this.
The pain crashed into me and the world went dark once more.
12
The pain was gone.
But I kept my eyes clamped shut. What if it was nothing but a trick? What if when I opened my eyes what awaited me was worse than any physical pain I had endured.
The sound of a chair creaking made me curious and I peered out from beneath my eyelashes.
It hadn’t been a nightmare.
It was real.
David sat with his face buried in his hands and bile rose up the back of my throat.
“David…” I said, my voice hoarse.
He sat up in the chair, automatically reaching out to me and wrapping his hand around mine.
“Carrie, thank Christ, I…” he trailed off and the fear in his eyes set my already frayed nerves on edge.
“The baby, how is the baby?”
He dropped his gaze to the floor and my stomach lurched.
“David, the baby, is the baby all right?” I knew my voice was borderline hysterical but what did it matter.
I needed him to answer me, to tell me the truth.
“They don’t know, they need to run some more tests…” he kept his gaze averted, his eyes looking anywhere else but at me.
Did he blame me?
Why wouldn’t he? It was my fault this was happening, I should have been more careful, I should have protected our child better…
There was a hollow ache in my chest as I tugged my hands away from David and pressed my fingers to my still rounded belly.
I couldn’t feel anything, there wasn’t even a flicker and despair washed over me, my heart breaking.
Taylor had sworn he would take my child.
I would never get to hold her in my arms, never get to feel her soft skin beneath my finger tips.
I had one job in this world, to protect her, to keep her safe and I had failed.
A sob tore from my throat and I tried to swallow it back but it was no use, my tears flowed hot and heavy.
“Mrs Ashcroft?” The strange voice pulled me from the hollow ache that wanted to swallow me whole.
Scrubbing my hands across my face I dashed away the tears and drew myself up in the bed as the doctor stepped into the room.
“I’m glad to see you awake, there was a moment where you had us all worried,” he said, the ghost of a smile hovering around his lips.
“Is the baby, is she…” I couldn’t finish the sentence and it took all my strength not to simply break down.
“We need to run some further tests but from what we can tell she’s alive,” he said.
I stared at him, my brain refusing to comprehend what he was telling me. How was it possible, after everything I’d done to her how had she survived? I’d felt the pain of losing her. My body had fought to protect her, to keep her but I had known I was losing the war…
“How?” It ripped from my throat in a hoarse plea. It was the only word I could get out and I knew it was woefully inadequate. There was so much I needed to know, so many questions I wanted to ask.
“She must be a fighter. The blood work came back and you were injected with a powerful sedative, it’s more of an anaesthetic and the baby reacted badly to it. You both did. You’re both lucky to even still be here.”
My mind instantly reeled back to the moment Andy had jabbed the needle in my neck.
It was just a warning…
He’d planned all of this.
“Because the amount was so low you responded to the drugs we gave to counter its effects.”
He hadn’t wanted to kill my baby but he had planned on pushing it to the edge, he’d wanted me to suffer. He’d wanted us both to suffer. I glanced over at David, his face was pale and drawn, the circles beneath his eyes told me he hadn’t slept in some time.
“And the baby? Will she make a full recovery?”
“Well we’re hopeful, things seem to have stabilised for now but as I said, we still have a few tests to run to make sure everything is as it should be… It’s still early days.”
“I can’t feel her moving,” I said, fear plain in my voice.
“That’s to be expected, the baby was completely sedated, you fought it but the baby wasn’t fit to. The drugs we gave you to counter balance it have worked to an extent but we need to give it a little more time to make sure there is a full recovery.”
I wanted to feel happy. He’d reassured me the baby was alive and yet I knew from the way he was speaking that it wasn’t something to celebrate just yet… She wasn’t yet out of the woods.
“When will we know?” I said.
I didn’t want to ask the question, if everything went wrong and I ended up losing the baby then I didn’t really want a time limit on it.
But I still needed to know.
“We should have a clearer picture in the next few hours and over the next few days all going to plan you should start to stabilise. You should be fit to go home tomorrow but you’ll need to rest.”
I nodded and swallowed past the lump in my throat.
Days, it would take days to finally know the outcome.
I didn’t want to wait days, I wanted to know now but it wasn’t possible.
“Thank you, Doctor,” David said, his voice strained.
He stood and held his hand out and the two men shook hands across the bed.
Did David feel the same as I did? Was he as anxious to know the truth and if he was, then how was he hiding his true feelings so well?
The doctor turned and strode from the room, leaving me to sit in silence with David.
What was I supposed to say to him? He knew this was all my fault, he knew I’d failed our child so why wasn’t he blaming me?
“I want you to tell me everything that happened on the island,” he said finally, his voice breaking the silence between us.
I bit down on my lip and shook my head. The last thing I wanted to do was relive my failure.
“Carrie, I need to know what they did to you. I need to know everything…”
Closing my eyes I sucked in a deep breath.
He was right of course, he deserved to know the truth even if that meant he would never look at me with love in his eyes ever again.
He gripped my hand in his and lifted it to his mouth, the kiss he pressed against my palm was soft and the emotion in his expression…
I drank it in. It would be my last chance to feel this close to the man I loved because once he knew the truth he wouldn’t ever want to look me in the eye like that again.
How could he? How could he love me, when I wasn’t even sure if I would be fit to look at my own reflection without feeling disgust.
“Fine,” I said, wrapping my fingers a little tighter around his.
13
I studied his face, searching for any signs of the revulsion I knew I would find there.
And yet, he just seemed blank.
There was nothing, no hatred, no disgust…
It wasn’t possible. He should hate me, hate me for the risks I took, for the way I endangered our child.
“Carrie, I’m so sorry…” he said, the words tripped from his tongue but I couldn’t make sense of them.
Why was he apologising to me?
“If I could have protected you, I should have done more to keep you safe… I let you down, I let you both down.”
I shook my head and cupped his face with my hand.
“You did nothing wrong, this is all on me. I was the one who went to the Sovereign Club, if I hadn’t then…”
It was David’s turn to shake his head.
“No, they were coming for you anyway. Dominic and Andy had already made up their minds. Their father’s orders were clear and they weren’t pleased with my hesitation.”
“David, not wanting to kill someone is a pretty good reason to hesi
tate.”
“Not when your life and Jenson’s hang in the balance it’s not. I failed you, I failed you both and now…” He trailed off and buried his face against my belly.
It broke my heart to see him so destroyed, so broken.
I wanted to gather him into my arms and hold him until all the pieces of his broken soul were put back together.
He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve to carry the blame for something that wasn’t his fault at all.
“You didn’t fail us, we’re still here. We’re all still here and nothing is going to change that. You heard the doctor, she’s a fighter…”
“How can you be so sure she’s a she, I thought we were going to wait until…” David trailed off and nodded. “He told you didn’t he? He already knew.”
“Taylor told me, I didn’t ask him how he could be sure but I figured seeing as he knew so much of everything else it wasn’t a stretch to imagine him knowing the sex of the baby. And well the doctor pretty much confirmed it.”
David smiled and pressed his lips to my bump.
“A little girl…” he said, tears glistening in his eyes.
The depth of his emotion brought my own tears trickling down my cheeks. But it also brought something else.
They’d stolen something from us, the joy of discovering the gender of our baby, they’d taken it and ripped it apart. They’d tried to take her life…
Taylor had wanted to rob me of the opportunity of being this little one’s mother.
He’d failed but it didn’t change the fact that he had tried.
“We’re going to make them pay for this, David.”
He glanced up at me, his expression growing colder at the mention of the one’s who had tried to rob us of our joy.
“I can’t let them get away with it, I can’t let them come so close to taking her from me and not make them suffer in return.”
David nodded and brushed his fingers against my cheek.