by Lili Valente
And as I fuck her with my fingers and my dick, making her scream with pleasure by the time I’m done, I’m filled with the overwhelming certainty that it’s too late. It’s too late to pull back, to hold on, to keep from falling in or going under. I come with a primal sound of pleasure-pain, my cock jerking hard inside this irresistible woman, and as she wraps her arms around me, holding me tight, I give up.
I let go.
I fall.
And as I suspected, there’s no end in sight.
Chapter 16
Amanda
*
Three weeks later…
*
It’s the first bone-marrow-chilling day this year and it’s been raining non-stop since last night. The sky is grey, the river is a sad, silvery snake winding away from the cloud-shrouded city, and every person I pass on my way up Ash Street is bundled in layers of somber North Face rain gear, and looking quietly resentful about being forced to function on such a dreary Monday afternoon. It’s a day for questioning the life choices that brought you to a city where most of November, December, and January are spent bundled up against the seemingly perpetual drizzle, but I can’t stop smiling.
Yes, I’ve turned into that girl—the giddy, goofy, spring-in-her-step Pollyanna whose mere existence is offensive to people in the grips of Seasonal Affective Disorder. As a sometimes sufferer of SAD, I know that at times the sight of a glowing pregnant woman wearing a pink raincoat over her elephant scrubs and bright yellow galoshes, happily splashing through the puddles with a grin on her face, would have been enough to make me weep in the ladies’ room for my entire lunch hour, wondering why I couldn’t see the sun through the rain clouds.
I’m in obnoxiously good spirits, but I can’t seem to help myself.
I’m in love! Obscenely, deliciously in love!
I haven’t worked up the guts to tell him yet, but I will. Soon. When the time is right. And until then, I’m enjoying the novelty of being crazy about a man who’s obviously also crazy about me.
Alexi is the polar opposite of Arnold. He doesn’t play it cool or try to hide the fact that he can’t get enough of my time, my attention, or my increasingly pregnant body. He makes me feel wanted, desired, treasured, and in less than twenty minutes, I’ll be kissing him hello for the first time since he left for an away game Saturday night.
And then there will be pumpkin soup and gourmet grilled cheese at our favorite restaurant, and then more kisses and promises to meet at the house for a proper welcome home as soon as I get off work because we are both still every bit as desperate to get each other’s clothes off as we were two months ago.
More desperate, at least in my case.
I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy hormones or the fact that I’m finally in a healthy, functional relationship, but I can’t get enough of Alexi’s body. I’m a shameless, hedonistic, cock addict whose biggest concern about her pregnancy weight gain is when her expanding belly will grow so large it will begin cutting into the number of sex positions available to her and her drop-dead delicious Master of Orgasmic Ceremonies.
God, I can’t wait to see him, to feel him, to know that tonight I’ll be going to sleep in his arms still buzzing from the incredible things he makes me feel.
I bite my lip and practically skip across the street to the Happy Time Hot Dogs—Ten Inches of Quality Meat, or Your Lunch Is Free!—food truck. I spend my time in line thinking of Alexi’s ten inches and wishing it were Friday so the general practitioner’s office where I’m temping would be closing at noon instead of four-thirty. I pay for a number two and then hurry down the street with my two dogs and bag of homemade potato chips.
Alexi’s plane landed only forty minutes ago, but he assured me he would have no trouble making our noon date. A glance at my new step-tracker—a gift from Alexi after I idly wondered how many more steps I was taking now that I’ve added a morning power-walk around the neighborhood to my routine—reveals I’ve got fifteen minutes to spare, which should be just enough.
I round the corner near my old apartment building to find Norquist in his usual spot beneath the church steps. He’s sitting cross-legged beside his grocery cart, a heavy blanket wrapped around his thin shoulders and a festive red and green scarf coiled around his neck. He looks cozy and warm and rather dapper, his aluminum foil top hat lending him a jaunty air that helps banish the worry that’s nagged at me since my move across town. Norquist seems to be faring fine and looks no worse for wear after his run-in with the jerks who robbed him.
As I draw closer, he looks up. I grin and wave, but his expression remains impassive. I’m starting to worry that I’ve overestimated his ability to remember people he doesn’t see every day, when recognition sparks in his eyes and a smile spreads across his face.
“Hey, by the way, all along the day, Amanda!” he warbles in welcome, holding out his arms like a toddler waiting to be picked up. “Look at you! So big and beautiful! Pretty mama!”
I laugh as I put a hand to my belly. I’d forgotten that I wasn’t showing the last time I saw him. “Thank you! Still a long way to go, but I’m getting excited. Can’t wait to find out if she’s a girl or a boy.”
Norquist huffs in amusement. “She’s a boy. Going to be a boy. Norquist can tell.”
“Oh yeah?” I prop a hand on my hip. “How? Because I just asked a doctor friend, and she said the ‘carrying low means a boy and high means a girl’ thing is a total myth.”
“Looking too pretty, pretty mama,” Norquist says with a knowing nod. “Has to be a boy. A girl steals her mother’s beauty, but a boy makes his mama glow. You’ve got the glow, so now you know.”
“Well, thank you. That’s very sweet.” I hold the bag of food out between us. “I thought you might be hungry.”
Norquist springs to his feet and gathers the bag of food reverently into his arms. “Thank you, pretty mama. Didn’t expect an angel today, but you come when I least expect it.”
“I’m no angel,” I say, his gratitude for such a simple thing making me feel terrible for not coming back to check on him sooner.
Yes, I’ve been busy with life, work, growing a baby, and falling in love, but that’s no excuse. I’m about to apologize—and promise to visit more often—when a roar of rage sounds from behind me.
I turn to see a man with sweat-soaked black curls framing his face and a grimy chef’s apron tied over his jeans chasing a shorter man out of the diner across the street. He’s clutching one of the giant meat spits that spin lazily at the back of the restaurant, fingers of both hands digging into a hunk of what smells like lamb as he jabs the sharp end of the shawarma stick at the other man’s backside.
The smaller man, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and pale blue boxers, dodges, avoiding getting stabbed in the ass by mere inches, and scrambles away, heading for the street. He’s nearly to the curb when a black sedan zooms by, sending the water in the gutter spraying into the air.
The man’s eyes squeeze shut as the cold, filthy drops rain down, but he doesn’t stop moving. He spins, stumbling to the left, remaining in motion as he swipes at his eyes. Which is a good thing, because Chef is still hot on his tail, lunging forward with his makeshift weapon, jabbing and snarling and making more angry roaring sounds, which are soon joined by a high-pitched wail from a woman in an oversize T-shirt—and nothing else—who explodes out onto the sidewalk behind him.
Norquist and I gasp in unison as the woman’s bare feet slip on the slick sidewalk and she goes down hard, her long, tangled hair flying into her tear-streaked face.
I glance at Norquist, but he shakes his head, “No, no. None of our business!”
“But they’re going to kill each other,” I say, turning back to the drama in time to see the chef get perilously close to stabbing Boxer Guy in the gut.
He lunges and misses, lunges and misses, lunges and connects, catching the shorter man in the thigh, where the spit sticks and lodges as the hysterical woman grabs hold of Chef’s arm and tugs him away.
Screaming, shouting, and an abundance of tearful begging ensues. I don’t understand the language, but it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that Norquist and I are witnessing a love triangle gone terribly wrong. Chef lifts his clenched fists into the air, shaking them in front of Barefoot Lady’s sobbing face, while Boxer Guy reaches with trembling hands for the spit stuck in his leg.
He grabs hold of the meat and tugs, sending the ruined lamb shank rolling to the ground as a gush of red flows down his thigh. Still trembling, Boxer Guy brings a hand to his too-pale forehead, shaking his head listlessly as he watches the blood flow from his wound in rhythmic spurts. Chef must have hit an artery, and now that the spit is gone, there’s nothing in the way to slow the bleeding.
“He’s going to pass out,” I mutter, cursing as my prophecy comes true a moment later. Boxer Guy crumples to the ground, knocking his head sharply on the pavement as he falls. Before I make the conscious decision to move, I’m halfway across the street, hurrying onto the curb ahead of a bus barreling down toward the river.
The bus blares its horn as it zooms past, but I don’t turn to wave an apology to the driver. I’m too focused on getting to Boxer Guy and applying pressure to his wound, hopefully keeping him from bleeding out before help arrives.
Falling to my knees beside him, I tug my scarf from around my neck with one hand as I reach for the phone tucked into my coat pocket with the other. Wadding the pink and white fabric into a thick ball, I press it tightly to his leg, summoning a thin moan from the barely conscious man as I dial 911.
I’ve just finished giving my location and a brief description of Boxer Guy’s injuries when Barefoot Lady screams behind me. I glance over my shoulder to see the chef running back out the front door to the diner with another spit of meat and a tragic, hopelessness in his tear-filled eyes.
He shouts at the woman, who screams for help in English as she turns to run. Unfortunately for her, this part of town isn’t known for being overly helpful, and her escape route is currently blocked by an unconscious bleeding man and me, the only person with the presence of mind to see the collision coming.
But there isn’t time to move out of the way, and I have to keep pressure on Boxer Guy’s wound until the ambulance arrives, so I simply hunch my shoulders and brace for impact.
The bitter taste of fear floods into my mouth, but the collision isn’t nearly as bad as I’m anticipating. Barefoot Lady is tall, but slim and lanky. She tumbles lightly over my head and shoulders to land sprawled awkwardly on Boxer Guy’s chest, her T-shirt riding up to reveal a pair of yellow smiley-face panties.
The situation would almost be funny if all parties involved weren’t so upset, a man wasn’t bleeding, and Chef wasn’t still holding his meat spit as he rushes around me to help Barefoot back to her feet. Thankfully, seeing Barefoot take a tumble seems to have muted Chef’s murderous impulses for the moment. He falls to his knees, letting the chicken shawarma roll to the wet pavement beside its lamb brother as he wraps his arms around Barefoot’s waist and presses his cheek to her belly. She threads her fingers into his damp curls and bows her head, sobbing quietly as sirens fill the air, moving in fast from the north and south.
Within minutes, two police cars are on the scene, followed quickly by an ambulance. I relinquish my first-aid duties and move out of the way as the EMTs load Boxer Guy onto a gurney and lift him into the back of the waiting vehicle. I lean over, wiping my hands on the driest part of my soaked scrub bottoms.
I’m congratulating myself on the minimal amount of blood on my clothes and stealing glances at the drama unfolding as Chef is cuffed and read his rights, when I feel a sudden prickle at the back of my neck.
I lift my nose, catching the scent of angry alpha male on the damp breeze.
“I swear you smell different when you’re angry.” I turn, looking up, up, up into Alexi’s stormy eyes with a sheepish smile. “I knew it was you, just by your smell. Kind of amazing, right?”
But my beautiful, angry man is not amused.
Not even a little bit.
Chapter 17
Petrov
*
“You still can’t see the humor in the situation? Not at all?” Amanda peers up at me through her once-again too-long bangs, clasping and unclasping the fingers fisted in what’s left of her lap.
In just the past week, her baby bump has become a full-fledged, rounded thing of beauty. She gets prettier, sexier, more irresistible with every passing day, but I refuse to be sucked in by her big brown eyes. Not this time. Not when the memory of seeing her on her knees, hands soaked with blood, is so fresh in my mind.
“The weapon was a lamb shank shiv,” she continues. “A shiv shank. Or a shank shiv, I guess. Either way, it’s kind of funny, right? I mean, now that it’s over and we know the man is going to be okay, of course.”
I grunt, still too scared to find anything about this situation funny. That’s why, instead of heading for home along with the rest of the exhausted commuters streaming out of the city, we’re here at the self-defense school Saunders runs with his girlfriend.
Well, his now ex-girlfriend.
But their ex status didn’t stop him from reaching out to get Amanda a one-on-one appointment with Hailey ASAP. He made the call while Mandy was giving her statement to the police and I was grabbing her a sandwich so she wouldn’t be late back to work. Now, four hours later, we’re sitting outside the gym attached to the battered women’s shelter off First Avenue, waiting for the teen self-defense class to finish up so Mandy can head in for her private session.
I’d much rather be at home cooking Mandy dinner, feeding her something delicious before having my way with her up against the cabinets while she’s loading the dishwasher. But if she refuses to stay out of trouble, the least I can do is ensure she’s able to defend herself.
As best she can, considering she’s five months pregnant.
“Did you remember that you were pregnant?” I ask, voice tight. “I mean, did that register anywhere in your mind before you jumped in front of a man with a knife?”
“It wasn’t a knife,” she murmurs. “It was a shank shiv.”
I shift in my seat, raising a pointed brow.
“Or a chicken shiv, at that point,” she hurries on, pulling her hair into a ponytail while avoiding eye contact. “But he didn’t use the chicken shiv, and I didn’t jump in front of him. I was just trying to keep a man from bleeding to death before help arrived. And I did, and I wasn’t hurt. So I think the case of the would-be meat murder ended mostly happily, all things considering. I don’t understand why you’re so cranky.”
I cross my arms, the muscle in my jaw twitching as my teeth grind together in the back.
“I think you left your sense of humor in Canada.” She blows her bangs out of her eyes with a huff. “But I guess that’s understandable. Canada is lovely. If I were a sense of humor, I would want to stay there.”
I glare down at her.
“Sometimes, I wish I were still Canadian. I mean, I’m still a citizen, obviously, and a Canadian at heart,” she breezes on. “But sometimes I wish I was still physically north of the border. Times like now, for instance, even though I know you’re not as mad at me as you look. You just have evil prune face when you’re worried.”
I slide my arm across the back of her chair and tip my head closer to hers. “You’re not going to convince me to laugh this off. Not this time.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, pitch rising. “You haven’t heard all my material yet. Like this one—how do you get a hundred Canadians out of a swimming pool?” She pauses, lips curving in a thin smile. “You ask them to get out of the swimming pool. Get it? Because Canadians are so polite?” Her smile withers at my lack of amusement. “No? I have one about the prime minister, but sometimes Americans don’t get it because they don’t know we call our prime minister the P.M. That’s vital to the joke making sense, so…” She trails off with a sigh. “Okay, fine. No jokes.”
“Seeing
you in danger doesn’t put me in a joking mood,” I say, adding a gentler tone, “You should have called 911 and let the professionals handle the violent man and the victim. For the baby if not for yourself.”
She lifts her chin, her stubborn streak flaring the way it always does when she’s defending the underdog. “I understand that’s the way you see things, Alexi, but I wasn’t in harm’s way. And even if I were, it couldn’t be helped. Sometimes you have to do what’s right, not what’s safe, and I’m not going to apologize for keeping a man from bleeding to death.” Her focus shifts to the gym door, anxiety tightening her features. “Unless it will get me out of this. Then I will apologize as much as you want. I don’t think I’m cut out for self-defense class. I don’t like gyms. Or physical violence.”
“Could have fooled me.”
She glances up at me, lips pursed, but before she can respond, the gym door opens wide, releasing a stream of laughing, gossiping, sweaty teenage girls. They flood into the waiting room, tumbling over each other like puppies as they fetch backpacks and purses from the cubbies on the opposite wall, too focused on digging out their phones to notice the old people waiting in the row of folding chairs against the wall.
“Jesus,” Amanda murmurs softly. “They look so young. In my head, teenagers are older than that.”
“Babies,” I agree, a fresh wave of uneasiness pricking my skin. “If we have a girl, she’s never leaving the house. Not until she’s at least twenty.”
“Twenty-five,” Mandy counters, reaching out to take my hand, her attention still fixed on the girls gathering their things. “At least, not alone. She’ll need to have Mom or Dad with her to keep the creepers away. She’s going to be pretty. I mean, I’m not too bad to look at and you’re rock-star gorgeous, so she’ll probably need body-guarding pretty much full time.”
I curl my fingers around hers, melting the way I do every time I remember that we’re in this together. Mom and Dad. It has a nice ring to it, especially when Mandy’s the mom in question. “I’m sorry I’ve been a cranky bastard. As much as you scare me sometimes, I… Well, I wouldn’t want you to be anyone else.”