The Baby (The Boss #5)

by Abigail Barnette

  He crossed the room and reached for me. His fingers skimmed up my arms and beneath the thin straps of my chemise. He toyed with them as he leaned down to touch his lips to mine. Our kiss was brief, but hungry, before his mouth roamed over my jaw and down my throat.

  I gasped and tipped my head back. The touch of his mouth set me swaying on my feet, but I trusted him to catch me. For perhaps the first time since before…

  No. I wouldn’t make comparisons. Whoever we’d been, then, we weren’t the same people, now. If I clung to our past, I would never know who we were, now. And I wanted to know him again.

  I gripped his upper arms, mystified that he could feel the same as the last time I’d touched him like this. His body was familiar; it was the man who lived in it who’d become a stranger.

  He slipped the straps of my chemise down, and the garment slithered to my feet. I was bare for him, nakedness that was not only deliberate, but soul deep.

  “Don’t think…for a minute…” he rasped against the tops of my breasts, “that I didn’t want you.”

  Relief blossomed beneath my ribs, easing the ache I’d felt all these months. I’d thought I wasn’t good enough. That he didn’t desire me, because I was undesirable. Even though I’d known the true, rational explanation behind our abstinence, I’d still blamed myself.

  But he had wanted me, and whatever emotions had held him back, they dissolved now as our skin touched with passionate purpose for the first time in months.

  “I wanted you, too,” I moaned as he pulled me against him. Reaching between us, I found his fly and popped the button. “I wanted you so much. I always want you.”

  The noise he made was almost pained.

  I dropped to my knees as he pushed his jeans down. He wasn’t quite hard, yet. I wondered if he’d taken his pill, but I didn’t ask him. I didn’t want to break the mood.

  Once I slipped my hand into his boxer briefs, the non-erection became a non-issue. I’d almost forgotten the feel of him in my hand, heavy and thick and ridged with fat veins under his silky skin. I stroked him with one hand, then with both, and leaned forward to take him into my mouth. Perhaps I had forgotten, but I remembered, now. Every cell and nerve ending, every chemical in my brain remembered how this would feel, how to make him feel. I held him at the entrance of my mouth, close enough that he could feel my breath, as evidenced in the way his flesh leapt up, straining. I licked my lips and bubbled some saliva between them before brushing them, closed, across the tip of him. I rolled up his foreskin and fluttered my tongue over the frilled edges, drooled into the opening and pumped him, spreading my spit over the head. I still hadn’t taken him into my mouth, but he was breathing fast, his hands clenched to fists at his side. He could have grabbed my head and pushed me down, and I would have let him, because I missed my Sir as much as I had missed this. But he let me go on, teasing him, first with sucking kisses along the underside of his length, then broad swipes of my tongue up, up, almost to the sensitive bridge between his foreskin and his shaft.

  “Sophie,” he breathed, and the sound brought my blood to a simmer, the heat centered in my pelvis. I felt the satin wetness between my labia as I shifted on the carpet. I was hot and achy and wanting, but it had been far too long to rush.

  I opened my mouth wide and took him in, all the way to the back of my throat, cutting off my own airway, choking on his thick length. He flexed his hips, pushing even farther, and I gagged around him, drawing back only for a second to catch my breath, then bringing him into my throat. I swallowed around his cock and let him slip free, again. What I couldn’t fit in my mouth, I plied with my hand, in a steadier rhythm than any drum. His pulse pounded against my tongue, and his hands sank into my hair, mussing it all around my head. I lost myself in the hypnotic rhythm of pleasuring him, abandoned all of my senses that didn’t involve the feel of him or the sound of his voice as he whispered, “yes,” like a prayer.

  After I don’t know how long, he pulled free and helped me to my feet. He stepped out of his jeans and underwear and pulled me against him, his cock still wet with saliva and trapped between us.

  He kissed me, his tongue hot in my mouth. Breathless, he raised his head. “Thank you for waiting for me.”

  We fell across the bed together, hands in hair, mouths pressed to skin, and Neil slipped down my body to lie between my legs, his mouth descending over my vulva. My hips hitched up, and he held them in his hands—not holding them down but urging me to rock against his face as he sucked my clit into his mouth and swirled his tongue around it.

  I lifted my head off the bed with a cry of satisfaction and need rolled into the same desperate, relieved sound. I sank my fingers like claws into his hair. The low light played off the silver strands in a faint golden patina. His fierce green eyes fixed on mine with startling intensity as I rose closer and closer to my peak. I kept my eyes open, letting our contact linger. I came staring into his eyes, a grateful moan parting my lips.

  I looked for any sign of the triumphant humor he often showed after he’d gotten me off; sometimes, I was surprised that he didn’t beat his chest like Tarzan, in a spectacle of self-congratulation. But I never saw it. He stayed as focused on my responses as he would during a scene, raw desperation piercing his expression.

  He moved over me, then inside of me, kissing me as he slid in. I tasted myself on his mouth; his face was wet. I licked his jaw and felt his shudder go through him. Our muscle memories took over, locking us into the rise and fall of our bodies. He threaded his fingers with mine and held my hands down above my head. It only took that amount of force, and I was done for. I needed my Sir, and though tonight, we were just Sophie and Neil, I felt him with us, and my submissive self cried out with joy. I bucked beneath him, and he stiffened as he flooded into me.

  He collapsed, and I was content to lay beneath him, my legs still locked around his hips. I couldn’t believe what had just happened between us. All of the tension and self-doubt of the past weeks, all the fears that things between us might never be the same, again, melted away. I was so relieved I laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, raising his head.

  His cock slipped out of me, a gush of wetness in its wake, and damn it, we were on my side. But even that couldn’t bring me down. “Nothing, I just really needed that.”

  A faint whimper over the baby monitor broke me from my post-orgasmic bliss. “I should get her before Mariposa does it on her night off.”

  Usually Neil offered to help, but all he did was nod and roll off.

  I scooped my chemise off the floor and pulled it on as I walked. I’d just reached the door when Neil stopped me. “Sophie.”

  I turned. “Yeah?”

  He leaned up on one arm. “Thank you. Not just for tonight. But for every night. I haven’t told you enough…”

  “You didn’t have to,” I reassured him. “I knew.”

  I’d doubted, but deep down, I’d known.

  “I love you.”

  I grinned at him. “I love you, too. But there is a baby who’ll be screaming in a few seconds.”

  He huffed a laugh. “Go on.”

  Getting Olivia settled was just a matter of a clean diaper and some rocking. She didn’t even want a bottle, probably because she was so exhausted from all the excitement tonight.

  Gazing down at her blonde curls and her chubby cheeks, I wondered if she would remember tonight. Not in a conscious way; memories were too short for that. But maybe, somewhere in her subconscious, she would have the image of those lanterns floating into the starry night sky, and she would see them in her dreams.

  I hummed a little lullaby to her and pressed my lips to her forehead. I rocked her for far longer than was strictly necessary to get her to sleep, but it felt so good to hold her little body in my arms. I could see why people liked this. It had never held any appeal for me before.

  When I could barely keep my eyes open myself, I laid Olivia in her crib and gave her light-up seahorse a squeeze so it would play its
soft, soothing tunes to keep her asleep. I closed her door gently and headed back to our room.

  On my way past the study, I noticed the screen of Neil’s computer was still lit, with the screensaver cheerfully bouncing around the dimly illuminated screen.

  “Learn to turn shit off,” I grumbled as I shuffled across the floor.

  There was an envelope on the keyboard, with “Sophie” written on it in Neil’s handwriting.

  I frowned. Why would Neil write me a letter? It didn’t make any sense. I clicked on the desk lamp. The envelope wasn’t sealed, and somehow, that made it feel less like snooping, but I still had that sick feeling in my gut that I was doing something wrong. I slipped the paper out and unfolded it.

  My darling Sophie—

  Know that I loved you more than a human heart should be capable of loving. It’s what made this decision so difficult for me.

  Oh god. Oh, god, Neil was leaving me. I collapsed into the desk chair. The sob stuck in my chest was the only thing keeping me from throwing up.

  I know you will never forgive me, and I certainly don’t deserve it. Please, don’t believe I chose death over you. I chose it despite my love for you, and for Olivia. And, because of that love, I cannot continue as the stone around your neck. I cannot keep you in this hell with me. And perhaps you’ll feel I’ve plunged you into a new sort of hell. But this is what’s best for both of us. I loved you with my last breath.

  Please, never tell Olivia.

  Neil. Oh god, what had he done?

  CHAPTER NINE

  I threw down the letter and raced to the bedroom. Neil lay sprawled on his back, tangled in the sheets. His chest still rose and fell in a steady rhythm, thank God, but I had no idea how long that would last. He’d left that note so that I would find it, probably in the morning. I crossed the floor to the bed in a run and shook his shoulders, shouting, “Neil! Neil, wake up!”

  He roused slowly, blinking his eyes up at me.

  “What did you take? What did you take?” I cast my gaze around the room, expecting to see empty pill bottles or something. But that only happened in the movies. If Neil was really intent on killing himself, he would have disposed of the evidence.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep.

  “Tell me what you fucking took!” I didn’t wait for an answer. I charged to the bathroom and threw open the medicine cabinet. Nothing there but his usual prescriptions.

  Except the Valium.

  I grabbed the wastebasket and poured it out. The empty brown bottle clattered hollowly across the floor. God damn him.

  Rushing back to the bedroom, I snatched up my phone.

  “Sophie, don’t,” he pleaded. “Just—”

  “What? Let you die?” I shouted. “I’m calling an ambulance!”

  “No!” He lunged for me to get at the phone, and I took a step back.

  “I swear, Neil, if you try that again, I will knock you so flat on your ass you won’t need pills to kill yourself!” I screamed, just as the emergency call connected. I didn’t even wait for the 911 operator finish asking what my emergency was. “My husband is trying to kill himself. He took a bunch of pills. I need an ambulance, right now!”

  Neil got out of bed and pulled on the jeans he’d hastily discarded on the floor. Oh, god, that’s why we’d made love. He’d planned on it being the last time.

  “Is he conscious?” the operator asked with authoritative calm.

  “He is.” My fingers trembled around the phone.

  “Do you know what he took?”

  “Valium. I don’t know how much, but the whole bottle is empty.”

  Neil headed for the door, and I raced him there, throwing myself in front of it and shouting, “No!”

  “What’s going on?” the operator demanded. “Ma’am, are you in danger?”

  “No.” Even now, as desperate as he was, Neil wasn’t going to hurt me. I knew that the way I knew the Earth was round. “No, he’s just trying to leave, and I don’t know what he’ll do.” I hurriedly recited out the address for her, even though she hadn’t asked, yet. “Please hurry!”

  “I’ve got officers in the area, and they’re on the way,” she assured me. “Are there any firearms in the home?”

  “No. None that I know of,” I revised. I had no idea if Neil had bought a gun as a backup option. I didn’t know anything about his plans. I didn’t know anything about him, right now, at all.

  “Sophie, stop this.” He was trying to sound reasonable, but he was begging. His words were slurred. All the drugs he’d taken were apparently working. My entire body shook with the adrenaline coursing through me. I was fighting for Neil’s life, against Neil.

  How did we get here?

  The intercom was to my right. I hit the panic button. That would bring our security guards in seconds. I didn’t know if they could help, or if they would think we were just having an out of control domestic situation. Either way, they would buy me time. Neil couldn’t do anything drastic in front of them. Even if he did, they would probably help me stop him.

  “I’ve got security on the premises,” I explained to the operator, while Neil scoffed as though I were having the worst overreaction in the history of overreactions. “I called them.”

  “Are you in a gated residence?” the operator asked. Only in the Hamptons would that question be on the tip of a 911 operator’s tongue.

  “We are, hang on!” I hit the intercom and shouted, “I need the gate open, right now!”

  “Yes, Ms. Scaife,” the nightshift guy said immediately.

  “Sophie, just stop!” Neil patted the air with his hands, gesturing for me to calm down. “Let’s talk about this.”

  “Stay on the phone with me, ma’am,” the operator instructed.

  “God damn it, listen to me, Sophie!” Neil shouted, and I flinched. We’d had arguments before. We’d had shouting fights. But not like this. He looked like he hated me.

  Then, all that fight left him, either from the pills or his desperation. “Please, just let me do this. Please. Please.”

  “Ma’am, if you are in danger, I want you to move to a room with a lock on the door.”

  Was she fucking kidding me? I was supposed to just walk away and let my husband kill himself? I honestly didn’t think he would do anything to me. But if he wanted to try, I’d go down fighting for him.

  “For god’s sake, Sophie, I am not suicidal! Hang up the phone!” he ordered.

  “You’re not suicidal? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Ma’am?” a voice asked outside the door. Probably one of our security guys. “Is everything all right?”

  “No!” I called back. Into the phone, I said to the operator, “Look, I have a baby in the house. I’m going to hand you off to a member of our security staff, and he’ll stay on the phone with you.”

  I didn’t wait for her to give me permission. I opened the door and let our guys inside. “I need you to stay on the line with 911, and watch Neil until they get here. Can you do that for me?”

  The guy looked nervously to Neil. Of course, because he was where the money was coming from. But Neil just rolled his eyes and said, “If it’s going to make her feel better, you might as well come in.”

  I glowered at him and shoved my phone at the security guy. Ugh, how awful was it that I didn’t remember his name?

  That wasn’t really my main concern at the time. I hated to bother Mariposa when I’d given her the night off but I hurried to her room, one door down from the nursery, and knocked. “Mariposa? Are you up?”

  I shouldn’t have expected her to be, given the hour, but I still held out hope that I wasn’t waking her. I had to knock again before I heard her shuffling to the door. She opened it, blinking, her hair up in bantu knots and her feet in fluffy penguin slippers. “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” I stated firmly. “I’m really sorry to ask you to do this, because it’s your night off, but I need you to take care of Olivia. Neil is…�
�� What did I say? Neil is suicidal? Neil is being taken in by the police? Nothing sounded good. “Neil is really sick, and he needs to go to the hospital.”

  “Oh, my god.” She crossed herself and put her hand over the crucifix necklace she wore. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Just take care of Olivia,” I said, because there really was nothing she could do. There wasn’t anything that anybody could do.

  “It’s no trouble,” she assured me. I gave her grateful nod, but I couldn’t speak. I was too muddled.

  I careened back to the bedroom and ran into two police officers entering the foyer, led by security. Their car was parked outside, lights swirling. I heard sirens in the distance through the open door.

  “Are you the one who called it in?” one of the cops asked brusquely as we followed the security guard toward the bedroom.

  “Yes. I’m his wife.” Too late I thought of the advice I’d heard people dispense so often before. Never call the police when someone is having an episode. But I hadn’t called the police. I’d called for an ambulance, and they’d sent the police.

  God, I hoped our money really would buy us a more compassionate response. I hated myself for thinking that way.

  “Ambulance is right behind us,” the second officer said from behind me, and he sounded markedly less tense. “Is he conscious?”

  “Yes, conscious. Not combative, I swear. He’s mad at me for calling for help, but—”

  “Sophie!”

  I spun, nearly knocking into the officer behind me, at the sound of my mom’s panicked voice. She was wrapped in her coat, her hair askew. Tony was behind her, in a t-shirt and pajama pants.

  “What happened?” Mom asked. “Are you all right? Is it Olivia?”

  “No, it’s not Olivia.” My chest ached. The pressure built and built and burst my lungs, forcing air through my vocal chords to blurt, “Neil tried to kill himself!”

  “Oh, honey, no!” Mom covered her face.

  “Ambulance is here!” someone called, and I spun toward the bedroom, not sure of what to do.