by A. R. Hadley
"Well, Annie always knows what she wants." Albert took a sip of his fresh drink. Number three.
"I know." Cal spoke with pride as he unrolled the silverware from the napkin and placed the cloth on his lap.
"And if she wants this—"
"Daddy."
"I'm sorry, Doodlebug. If she wants you, Cal, then she must, as you said, see something very special in your heart."
"I do, Dad. Can we please eat?"
"I'm not stopping you from eating. Eat."
Annie tapped the toe of her boot into her father's shin, rolled her eyes, and took a bite.
"You will buy a house then?"
"Really?" she blurted before she could stop herself.
"We're talking, Annie."
"You're grilling."
"Honey, imagine that little baby—"
"Imagine him..."
"Yes." Albert fidgeted. "Imagine him, that little wiggle worm in your womb, all grown up, bringing a man to you out of thin air." He snapped his fingers.
"Not a woman, Dad?" Annie gushed.
"Fucking Christ, Annie Rebekah, you know what I mean."
Annie giggled. "Calm down. I've never seen you so worked up."
"I've never had to meet the man who wants to take away my baby."
"I'm not a baby."
"No, but you're having one, aren't you?" His voice unraveled, and he coughed, trying to focus on his plate.
Cal gave Albert one of his best faces: confidence and assurance and a dash of love. And then he turned that same beguiling mug toward Annie.
"He's right." He brushed his knuckles over her cheek.
"I'm glad someone thinks I am," Albert huffed.
Two against one. Now they were ganging up on her.
"So, you are looking for a house?"
Here they go again...
"You can't keep her tied down to some hotel room forever. I don't care how nice she says it is."
"Are you okay, baby?" Cal patted Annie’s back. She’d begun to choke, although her lips curved into a mischievous smile.
The lovers shared the inside joke the instant their eyes met.
"I'm fine." She continued to stare at Cal, her gaze intuiting carnal memories of being bound and tied up by Cal … to Cal. His.
"Drink some water," Albert said, watching the chemistry spark between them, crackling like bugs caught in a powerful watt of voltage.
Annie obeyed, taking a sip, then she attempted another bite of the mouthwatering steak. The filet melted on her tongue.
Cal placed a forkful of salmon into his mouth, and after chewing a moment, he turned his attention to Albert. "Yes, we've been looking at houses."
"Where?"
"Here," Annie interjected.
"Specifically, where?"
Cal answered, sure to keep total control of his faculties.
"Who is your realtor? Have you spoken with Susan?"
"We’re using someone Maggie recommended." Annie squeezed Cal's thigh as Albert grumbled. "Thank God you finally started to eat, baby, because he will just go on and on and on."
"Very funny, Annie." Albert grinned.
"Funny but true." She smiled.
It was true.
Albert continued his loving interrogation, going on and on and on, continuing until Annie's head was in a tailspin. Until their meal and a shared dessert of cheesecake had been consumed.
After putting down her spoon, Annie splayed her palm under her belly and peered at her father, noting the creases around the outer corners of his hazel eyes, transfixed for a moment by the gentle lines he’d passed on to his only son. Annie sighed… At least the dinner had gone better than the disastrous lunch at Beverly's.
God, a meeting with a two-headed alien would’ve turned out better than anything at her mother’s.
Her father was steady. His word was a promise. He was a little worse for wear maybe, especially the last several months — less and less a reliable safety since she’d left for college — but if nothing else, he was a giant teddy bear. Appearing rough and gruff but soft and gentle and all heart on the inside.
Annie stood in the kitchenette of the hotel room, drinking a Perrier straight from the bottle, one hand around the glass and the other cradling her tiny baby bump.
She hadn’t stopped scowling since they’d arrived home.
Home but not home.
The hotel, where apparently, she was being tied down.
She’d already been tied down in the suite. In fact, being tied down was one of the things that made the swanky downtown room feel like home, that and the man who now stood across from her — the man who did the tying, the sexy man's jacket, belt, and shoes already removed.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Cal asked.
Annie jerked her head in his direction. She shouldn’t have been surprised he knew. Perceptive bastard.
"What? I can tell when you're upset. Is it your father? I know he—"
"It's not him. I mean, yes, he can be a little temperamental, but no. He had good intentions." She drank more fizz, trying to evade answering the question correctly.
"Do you want to tell me, or do I have to drag it out of you?"
Annie's eyes sparkled like the bubbles in her drink.
Cal shook his head. "Now you would rather fuck? Your libido is out of control."
"I'm pregnant."
"Yeah, and I've fucked your sexy, pregnant body all over this place since we arrived. Between that, meeting your family, and work, I'm exhausted."
"Never! Not Cal Prescott."
"Annie, what is it? You barely spoke on the ride home."
"It's..." She shifted her eyes, capped the bottle, and set it down. "It's something you said at dinner."
Walking farther into the suite, she stopped in front of a mahogany desk and mussed her fingers through her hair. Cal followed.
"My father said it first, and then you repeated it. You said, ‘It's right.’ This is right."
"Well, isn't it?"
"It wasn't the words. It was the way you said them. Like you were convincing yourself to do the honorable thing with me. The right thing."
Cal stood at her profile, touched her shoulders, and began to rub them. "Annie, we've been over this. I don't need to keep reassuring you. I want you in my life with or without the baby." He kissed her cheek.
"Forever?"
"Yes, Annie. Forever. That's what’s right, okay? Please, put this to bed."
"To bed?" She bounced her eyebrows.
"You don't stop, do you?"
"Take me to bed." She dragged the vowel of the last word out.
"Don't beg, baby. It's not very becoming of you." He slid a finger down her cheekbone.
"You love it when I beg you." She smacked Cal's shoulder in good fun.
In an instant, he spun her around so that the front of her body pressed against the desk. Then he lifted her black wool skirt and breathed against the back of her neck. "Do you want me to spank you?"
Yes! Yes! Yes!
She dropped her head, trying to catch her breath. Her desire began its wonderful ascension up the hill of an endless dull ache.
He parked her skirt above her waist, stripped her tights and panties down in one fell swoop, and grabbed her butt cheeks.
"Jesus, Cal." Annie gasped, lunging forward and gripping the edges of the desk. "I thought you said you were exhausted."
"You need to understand me." He slid his palm toward her ache and began to stroke her folds slowly, drawing her out, listening for the sounds, watching her head roll back and side to side. He slid a finger toward her clit, and as he began to massage it, her moaning increased.
"I love you," he whispered. He intensified the onslaught, using his thumb in circular motions over her swollen nub while pushing two fingers inside her body. Her moisture swallowed him.
"Fuck." She gyrated her hips, unable to speak any other word.
"You're not going to come yet. You need to listen to me first, Annie. Do you hear me?"
"Y-e-s." The word came out in syllables.
Cal slapped her unsuspecting butt cheek while continuing to fondle the inside and outside of her wet sex. "Do you want more?"
She bit her lower lip. "Uh-huh."
"What?"
"Yes!" she growled.
He slapped her other cheek even harder.
"Oh! Fuck..." Lost in the stinging maze of pleasure, she twisted her lower lip, bruising it between teeth.
He gave her beautiful ass several more rhythmic lashes, and then he intensified the desecration between her legs, massaging her and finger-fucking her the way he knew she liked best, bringing her closer and closer to orgasm, and then he stopped.
A loud hiss escaped her mouth.
"I'm going to marry you, Annie — because I want to." He began the assault again, moving his fingers perfectly against her waves and her tide, feeling the rippling inside her.
He spoke near her ear in a throaty whisper. "I want you. Forever." His two fingers traveled deeper into her core. "This is only the beginning of our life together, and it is right. Say it’s right."
"It's right," she moaned, writhing her hips against the desk and his palm.
"Again," he said, thrusting his clothed erection against her butt cheeks, and his two fingers in and out of her warmth.
"It's right.”
"Again."
"It's right." She moved and spoke in perfect unison with his fingers, crying out repeatedly.
"Fuck, Annie. I need you." His voice took on a guttural sound, breaking like static on the radio. He splintered. He took his hand away from her center and turned her body around to face him, gripping her shoulders.
"Nothing has ever been this right for me, and nothing or no one else ever will be." He opened his pants, pushed them down, then lifted her hips, placed her bottom on the edge of the desk, and entered her greedily, sealing up her wet space with every inch of his cock.
Annie scratched behind his shoulders and neck, exhaling wild sounds, the declarations of him filling her so deeply and so tightly and so immediately.
"I need you too," she panted.
"Good." He began to pump her.
"Good?" she said with a burst, almost in a laugh — a righteous, sobbing laugh.
"Is it too much?"
"No."
"I mean, am I hurting you?"
"No." Her eyes rolled far, far, far into her head. "Show me, Cal. Like always. Fuck forever into me."
He exited, then reentered her body, looking into her eyes with each plunge. The desk shook with their weight as he filled her pussy with his love, his lust, and his fucking out-of-this-world need for her that would never die.
His forever.
Each time he slid his full length back inside her, Annie cried out and screamed.
Nothing could stop him. Possessed and making his own fervid sounds, Cal pummeled her again and again and again.
"Oh God..." Annie trembled, legs wrapped securely around him, ankles at the small of his back. She found herself inside another state of consciousness.
"I need you." He held himself deep inside her with that blow and those words, holding, holding.
He wanted to live inside of her. Forever became a synonym for Annie.
Sweat dripped off his forehead and down the front and back of his shirt as he looked at their conjoined centers. Tears welled in his eyes. He kept his head tilted toward her chest.
"I need you, Annie Rebekah Baxter." His voice cracked. Damn it. The baseball-sized lump in his throat would surely burst before his cock.
"God, you’re beautiful." He ran the tip over and over her clit, and then he filled her again and began to thrust slowly. "Come, baby. Come all over me."
Annie sobbed as she began to writhe, impaling herself against Cal's body, twisting and rocking her center over him as she lifted her head toward the ceiling, screaming out several broken, earthy grunts. Her body shook violently against his, shaking uncontrollably, until she became limp.
Cal waited until her cries trailed off and the pulsating stopped, then he pushed her knees up and took her deeper. She sucked a sea of air into her lungs, gaining a second wind as she moved in unison with his rhythm, crying out again and again to the beat of his necessary pounding, lost in a haze of the it's right and wanting the fucking to never end. Never.
"Look at me, baby," he heaved. "It is right." Cal peered into her eyes, lost in them. "I love you, Annie." He pushed up and into her, grinding the reason into her body.
She cradled his face. "I love you, Calvin Prescott."
Right after her whisper, he began to shake with almost as much violence as she had displayed. He released deep into her core, loving the feel of her insides and the sweat and the cum, loving the smell of their sex. The two of them together had made a fucking baby with that smell, that love, that everything.
"Fuck ... Annie." Cal dropped his head, exhausted in the best way. "I want to do this with you forever."
She giggled. "I think I understand you now." She lifted his chin, using only her index finger. "You made your point."
Cal smiled as he carried Annie to the bed. After setting her down on the cotton sheets, he lost his clothes and climbed in next to her, stroked her face, and wiped away a single tear escaping the corner of her eye.
"You have no need to doubt our love ever again. It's right," he whispered.
Annie nodded, holding onto more tears as she pulled his face toward hers and kissed his lips. "I am yours."
"You are," he said, nuzzling her cheek. "Mine. Forever."
"Forever," she repeated, and rested her head in the crook of his neck — the place where she always fit perfectly.
a book
to read
to cherish
to savor
the pages flicker across your eyes
I'll warm you on cold nights
I'll smooth out your wrinkles
bound by promises
sky
circles
breath
and
God
Fasten
attach or join two parts of something
make fast and secure
focus attention
As Annie made her way down the simple staircase into Maggie's kitchen, she was acutely aware of the life jostling around inside her body.
Her beautiful, champagne-colored satin gown clung to her buttocks and belly, causing a mild constriction with each step. The dress rumpled at her bosom and back, a fancy swoop scooping low near her tailbone.
The only intricacy on it was a unique embroidery — shining like the silver dangling from her ears — banding above the waist of her protruding belly and forming thick straps over her shoulders. The skirt pleated at her thighs, and the hem hit the ground in the front, stopping at a point just covering her bare feet, leaving a slight trail on the floor at her rear.
The wedding gown shimmered like a newly formed pearl.
The star of it, though, was Annie. The bride filled it out beautifully. Wore it to perfection.
Grasping the rail with the hand holding her flowers — roses, pink and pearl — her other hand cupping the edges of her curved stomach, she attempted to hold the weight of the baby in her womb as she made her way down to the first floor of the Allens’ quiet house.
"I hope that lucky bastard makes you as happy as you’ve made me all these years," Albert said as she reached the bottom.
His hazel eyes glistened. He looked so polished in his best suit. Checkered wool. Almost too fancy for the casual beach affair.
"You don't need to worry about me anymore." Annie cupped his face while he held her wrists.
They blinked away tears.
Seconds later, Annie excused herself and lifted the bouquet into the air. She peeked at the dress, ran a hand over her hip, then checked behind her and over her shoulder to see if everything was in its rightful place.
Maggie and Beverly had made a fuss earlier. It all had to be proper. Old and new and blue.
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The two mothers, along with Tabitha, had thoroughly examined Annie's makeup (minimal) and her hair (a braided crown on top with soft curls flowing on the sides), after which she’d kindly shooed them away. She’d even just asked the photographer to wait outside. The moment, the descending of the staircase, was meant only for her and her father. Alone. Still, she knew the two of them shared the room with a ghost.
"Tell me … not to worry,” Albert said with a shake of his head and a scoff. “Bunk, Annie. You just wait until you hold that little baby for the very first time.”
She fanned out the pleats near her thighs.
“You look fine. Your dress is fine,” he said. “Do you hear me?"
Annie stopped the mussing and fussing and gave him her full attention, sporting a lopsided grin.
"Good." He sandwiched one of her hands between his. "You’ll learn that a parent’s concern never ends." He rubbed her palm as if it needed warming. "No matter how old they get, you’ll worry."
Albert squeezed his daughter's hand and sighed, looking through the glass wall of windows, past the white chairs full of guests and arbor Cal stood under. His eyes began to foam like the salty bubbles hitting the shoreline.
Placing her other palm on top of their hand sandwich, she squeezed. The specter in the room was in the hazel of his eyes, the lines of his forehead, and the slump of his shoulders. She’d seen it many times before.
"He’s with me.” Annie gave their sandwiched hands a shake. “In my heart, Daddy." Albert glared at Annie as she spoke. "He’s here with me. With us."
Pull it in, she thought. Shhh. She would not succumb. She had to contain the lion’s share of grief.
She didn't know if it was possible, but her father's eyes implored her further. And she found it difficult to hold his gaze. Glancing at him and then away, she bit the inside of her cheeks and denied her own tears. The grief would have to rise up and over her like a wave. Breathe. Cal was waiting. Like a wave. She sucked in a strong breath through her mouth and exhaled the shakes and onslaught of panic. Cal was waiting.
She looked again at her father, assuring him with her eyes and posture that he had the strength to go on, continue, endure.