by Kendall Ryan
I let out a murmured curse as she gagged a little, and then I forced myself to thread my fingers through her hair again, willing myself to pull her away and focus instead on her pleasure. When I tried, though, she only released me with a little pop and shook her head.
“Not this time,” she said. “I want to make you come.”
“But—” I tried to argue, but she silenced me again by swirling the tip of her tongue around my swollen head, all the while staring deep into my eyes. Then, slowly licking her lips, she shook her head again.
“Don’t you want to give me what I want?” she pouted.
“I—” I broke off, growling as she bobbed against my length, sucking hard and deep until my eyes dropped closed and I leaned back into the chair, trying to force myself to think of something, anything other than how good it would feel to spurt my hot need inside her mouth…feel her throat close over me.
I imagined how hot it would be to see my seed dripping down onto her breasts while she took me deeper inside her warm, wet mouth.
As I moved my hips in encouraging thrusts, her tongue stroked the underside of my shaft, stopping every now and then to tease the sensitive tip. In that moment, I would have given anything for her to rip off that bikini and let me watch her breasts bounce as she worked me up and down.
“You have no idea how hot you are,” I groaned.
She smiled at me, though her hand never stopped its work. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“You’re the sexiest woman alive. Every time I lay eyes on you I want to tear your clothes off and have my way with you right then and there.”
“Oh, yeah?” she cooed, rolling her tongue over my sensitive tip as I jerked into her mouth.
“Yes,” I groaned. “Right now all I want is for you to take that top off and let me see your perfect breasts, baby.”
“Do you know what I want?” she asked, and I struggled to breathe as I stared at the way she was working me over
“What’s that?”
“I want you to come in my mouth and watch you lose control. How does that sound?”
I swallowed hard. “My girl gets what she wants.”
“Good.” She offered me a mischievous grin then sank to her knees again, taking as much of me in her mouth as she could and working me long and deep. This time there was no gentleness in her touch. No, she was all urgency and need and want, working me fast and hard and coaxing me toward the finish line.
Her tongue flicked over me, teasing me even as my balls drew up and I readied myself for her.
Staring into her eyes, I managed to grit out the words, “Going to come,”
And she smiled around me, her tongue twisting over my tip as I jerked and threaded my hands through her hair. Closing my eyes, I focused on her warm, wet lips and groaned as the wave of pleasure shot through my body, rolling over me like the ocean waves in front of us.
In that moment, I lost control, flexing and pulsing as hot come spurted from my cock into her waiting throat. She never slowed, working me through it, taking me deeper as I came. I couldn’t stop the deep guttural sound coming from my mouth that I didn’t even recognize as my own. My vision blurred as I tried to find my breath again.
When I’d finally stopped twitching, she pulled away and lay beside me as I fought to catch my breath.
I turned toward her, relishing the swollen redness of her lips.
“Let’s get married.” The words slipped from my mouth before I’d thought them through, but there was no doubting I meant them. I wanted to spend every day of the rest of my life waking up next to her face. I wanted to have that baby we’d been so afraid of at first. I wanted everything—with her. But I knew it was risky. She was already gun-shy. What if this was the thing that sent her packing?
“What?” She laughed, sweeping her hair to one side before lying back on my chest.
“You heard me. I want you, Bren. Marry me.”
This time, she sat up and met my eyes. “If that’s the way you react to a blow job, you must not have had very many in your life,” she joked, but her hand fluttered to her throat and her eyes gleamed.
A good sign?
“It wasn’t that, although, shit, that was so damned good. It was you. Bren, I love you,” I murmured. “Be my wife, baby.”
She blinked at me, her eyes wide. “You haven’t had time to think this through.”
“I don’t need time. I know that I love you. I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. I know this is fast, but we’re perfect together.”
She searched my gaze for a long moment, then shook her head and said, “Look, um, I think we’re both a little high off the vacation fumes. I’m not saying no. I’ve never felt this way, to be honest. But I just want to make sure we’re not rushing things. Let’s put a pin in it, okay? Talk when we get home…”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, looking her over as I nodded. Even now, I could feel her edging away from me, and the deep closeness I’d felt between us was crumbling like a wall made of sand.
Sure, marriage was fast and I knew she had her issues with intimacy, but I also knew how she felt about me—I could feel it in the way she kissed me, the way she touched me.
So why pull away?
“Bren,” I said, but she was getting up and dusting herself off.
“I’m going to hit the shower and take a nap, okay?” she said.
I nodded. “You sure, baby? You okay?”
She nodded. “I’ll see you in a little while.”
I watched her march into the little outdoor shower, all the while wondering to myself if I ought to call her back and set the record straight. But there was nothing to fix. I loved her, but she hadn’t said she loved me. And she hadn’t agreed to marry me.
A knot formed deep in the pit of my stomach, the kind you get when you’ve done something rash while overwhelmed with emotion. I grabbed my shorts from the sand, pulling them on quickly before wading out into the low tide.
I’d jumped the gun because it felt right. I’d wanted to. I’d rushed it when I’d known how skittish she was, and now it remained to be seen what would happen from here.
Waves crashed in the distance. I heard the spray of the shower, but I closed my eyes, focusing instead on whether or not I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bren
I sat in the doctor’s office, swinging my legs back and forth as I listened to the ticking of the clock on the wall behind me. In truth, the clock—along with my healthy sense of panic—was the only thing keeping me awake. I was still jet-lagged from the plane ride home yesterday, and though I’d briefly considered canceling the appointment, I knew it had nothing to do with my exhaustion.
No, it had to do with fear. A dark shadow of terror had taken root deep within me, coloring every one of my thoughts, and ever since we’d touched back down in the city, it had grown in strength, threatening to choke me from the inside out. At my age, the window for having children was already getting smaller. I knew that.
But to be having irregular periods at thirty?
It couldn’t be a good sign.
Right?
I glanced again at the steel door handle, willing it to turn and allow the doctor inside. The nurse had already taken my temperature and weight along with my blood pressure and the other tests they did whenever I went into the office. With some luck, she wouldn’t mention to anyone else who exactly the patient in exam room B was, but if she did…
Well, I’d worry about that later.
For now, I just had to put all my energy into willing that door open.
All this stress and worry could be for nothing, after all. I simply couldn’t know for sure until the doctor appeared.
Which, after a few more menacing ticks of the clock, she did.
After glancing down at the tablet in her hand, she grinned at me and clicked the door closed. Carefully she made her way to the rolling stool in front of the little granite countertop in the r
oom and then spun around to face me.
Slapping her hands against her knees, she said, “Well, Miss Matthews, I’ve taken a look at your chart and I understand you’re having a few concerns about your fertility, is that right?”
I gave her a shaky nod. “It’s just that I got my period really late last month and then it only lasted a little while before disappearing again.”
She pursed her lips, looking like she was concentrating deeply on every word I said, then tilted her head to the side, letting her brown ponytail spill onto the counter behind her.
“Has this over happened before?”
I nodded. “Once or twice.”
“May I be frank with you, Miss Matthews?”
“Bren,” I corrected her. “And yes, absolutely.”
My stomach tightened and I linked my fingers together in my lap.
“You are right to be concerned about your fertility. At age thirty, sporadic or irregular periods tend not to be a good sign. But there’s no reason to be scared, okay?”
No reason to be scared? I felt like she was the big bad wolf, blowing down my entire house of twigs and leaving nothing but a desolate patch of dirt in her wake. A whole plot of nothingness where not even a weed would grow. Mason’s face, crumpled and disappointed, flashed through my mind, but I forced myself to nod and listen to what she had to say next.
“Now, it says on your chart that you’re not looking to conceive anytime soon, but we can still run some tests and see what’s going on. From there, we’ll know what our options are.”
“And if I’m—” I started, then choked on the words and tried again. “If I can’t have a baby naturally, what are the options?”
The doctor hugged her tablet to her chest, crossing her arms over the top of it. “Well, if there’s an issue, which there may not be, you might opt for an egg retrieval.”
“What would that do?”
“Essentially, we would freeze your eggs for surrogacy or in vitro fertilization, depending on the particular issue with conception.” The doctor nodded knowingly. “Also, now that you are thirty, it might be time to take conceiving a little more seriously. By thirty-six, your eggs could become geriatric, which would mean the option of freezing them would be off the table and, of course, any pregnancy you might have would be higher risk. It is six years away, but it’s something to think about if you’re serious about having children.”
I nodded, trying to mask the heart-stopping panic oozing through my body like a disease. Taking a deep breath, I tried to speak, but the doctor held up a palm to stay me.
“Look, Bren. I know this is a lot. Just remember that it could have just been a one-off. Sometimes stress or diet or even environment can have a lot to do with our cycles. I wouldn’t get too concerned about any of it just yet.”
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“Positive. Now, just to be on the safe side, I’m going to send in a nurse to get some samples for a fertility test, and I’ll call you within a week or so to let you know the results. Good news or bad, you’ll be hearing from me, so don’t worry when you see me on your call list.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” My sigh of relief stuck in my throat and I leaned back again, staring at the ceiling as she slipped from the room and a nurse re-entered.
Closing my eyes, I waited as she explained the test to me. They already had a urine and blood sample, so the only thing they didn’t have from me at this point was a piece of my soul. Then again, depending on the news the doctor gave me next week, they might take a bit of that as well.
When the nurse left, I got dressed quickly, then slipped from the room and ensured my copay was handled before sliding out of the practice and into the wide, silent atrium.
This, I knew, would be the most daunting part of my trip—even more so than the doctor’s visit. Because, idiot that I was, I’d failed to notice that the doctor I’d scheduled my appointment with housed their offices just down the hall from Bentley Women’s Medicine.
Of course, Mason would have already been in the office for hours by now, but that didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking to walk past his etched glass double doors. And when the bell on the door chimed behind me after I’d walked by, my heart leapt into my throat.
I debated whether to turn around and see my fate, but the decision was snatched from me when I heard a familiar, deep rumble of a voice behind me.
“Bren, what are you doing here?” Mason asked and I turned around, heat already surging to my cheeks.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m just heading out, actually. I didn’t mean to interrupt your day.”
“I was just about to go for lunch, actually. You want to join me?”
“Miss Matthews!” An airy female voice cut between us and I turned to find the nurse striding toward me with my jacket in her hand. “You left your coat,” she said, then gave a polite nod to Mason.
“Dr. Bentley,” she said.
“Hey, Marlene,” he said back, and then she turned on her heel and strode back to her office.
Mason watched her for a long moment, then turned to face me, his gaze searching mine.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I had a doctor’s appointment, that’s all.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” he asked. It didn’t take a genius to hear the hurt in his voice, like I’d betrayed him with some sort of sordid doctor switching affair, but I ignored it, squaring my shoulders as I took a deep breath.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about this.”
“There’s not much of anything you do want to talk about,” he shot back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means if something is wrong, I have the right to know. When two people care about each other and are trying to form a relationship, they share things.”
I shook my head. “All I do is disappoint you, Mason. There isn’t a baby tying us together anymore. Maybe it’s better if we just take a break.” I hoped he couldn’t hear the pain in my voice. All I wanted to do was run. Because I could already feel my heart starting to crack. And when it shattered, I might not ever make my way back from the agony. Better to glue it back together myself, make a clean break and pray it stayed knit together.
“You don’t mean that. After the island and—”
“What are you going to do? Charter a trip every time we’re reminded of our real life circumstances? We’d never leave the place,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.”
He tried to grab for my arm, but I pulled away and strode toward the revolving doors, not bothering to turn when he called after me. I’d made myself clear and—most important of all—I knew if I turned and saw his face, I would never be able to leave again.
But leaving was the right thing to do. Mason wanted children. I’d known it since the first moment I’d told him I might be pregnant, and even more so when we’d both been so let down when I wasn’t.
And if I couldn’t have them? Then what kind of monster would I be for leading him on and denying him the one thing he wanted most of all?
Biting back another swell of panic, I got in my car and drove to the one place I knew I’d be able to think through my options. The zoo was closed today as part of some conservationist holiday, but I knew that I’d be able to get in regardless.
When I got there, the parking lot was empty save for one bright orange Fiat. Mandy’s car.
Jangling my keys as I walked, I let myself in and headed to my friend’s office. It was empty.
Odd.
When she saw my car, there was no doubt she’d call, but for now I wanted to be alone anyway. Holding my breath, I made my way to the cheetah enclosure and stepped inside Cocoa and Nibs’s shelter. Except rather than a great lumbering dog and its friendly cheetah companion, I found Mandy with a cheetah on her lap as she stroked him.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
The cheetah didn’t bother looking up at me, but Mandy pursed her lips, never stopping her soft
strokes on the animal’s head.
“Nibs died this morning,” she murmured, her throat clogged with unshed tears.
I blinked, the breath leaving me in a whoosh. “What? No, he was in perfect health.”
Mandy shook her head. “It was sudden. Looks like he had leukemia and we didn’t see it.”
My heart froze. “Poor Cocoa.”
Mandy nodded. “We’re going to try and bring in a new dog, but…”
She didn’t have to say the rest. We all knew what usually became of the cheetahs who lived without their dogs and the dogs who lived without their cheetahs. The depression could set in, making it harder for them to eat or function. And eventually? It was that depression that could kill them.
I’d never felt more connected to one of the animals in the zoo in all my life. I had barely dodged this bullet with Mason myself and now, seeing this animal in so much pain, it was a much needed reminder that love fucking hurt.
Who needed that in their life?
Carefully I took a step toward Cocoa, and when she didn’t move, I began to stroke her in time with Mandy.
“What brings you here on a holiday?” she asked. “I haven’t told anyone about Nibs yet.”
“No, I just came to visit them. I had a couple of things I wanted to think over and I thought this might be a nice place to do it.”
Mandy nodded. “So the doctor’s visit didn’t go well?”
I sighed. “Not exactly.”
“But they can’t tell you anything until they run the tests. So now you wait and wonder, right?”
I nodded. “How’d you know?”
She offered me a small, sad smile. “Because I’ve been there.”
“You…?” I asked and she nodded.
“A year after I got married, we decided we wanted to start a family, but…” She shrugged. “Well, things didn’t happen like we thought they would. It took us seven years and several miscarriages to conceive. It was awful at the time, obviously. I felt like I’d let my husband down.”
“I’m so sorry, Mandy. I can’t believe you never told me,” I said.
She shrugged. “It was a hard string of years, but it all worked out for us in the end.”