by Nicole Fox
Allan, of course, didn’t argue with me. Much, at least.
“Man, that’s fucked up. I was gonna get me some!”
“You can get you some the next time. Quit your bitching. It’s not like you’ve never had pussy before.”
Allan grumbled and griped all the way home, but that was just fine with me. He would be over it by the next day and we’d be back to normal—business as usual. Most of my mind was on Evie, anyway, and how I was going to go about taking Candy Apple’s advice. I formulated a plan on the way home, and when we pulled up and I got out, I tossed the keys to Allan.
“You can park her. I got business to handle.”
“Man, if that’s code for you’re about to get some pussy, I hate you, and you can go fuck yourself.”
I laughed.
“Who knows. Maybe I’ll get a little bit luckier than you right now, fuck face.”
Allan flipped me off, but I didn’t really care. It was all good either way. I went into the house, side-stepping a couple of the maids who tried to get my attention.
“Your father—”
“Tell him he can wait. I got something that I need to handle.”
They looked a little put off about that, but they didn’t try to stop me as I made my way to my wing. There was music coming from it and, curious, I followed it to the room that Evie was staying in. I peeked my head into the room and was quiet as I watched.
She swayed her hips to the beat as she folded clothes. We had maids for that kind of stuff—but she insisted on doing things like that on her own. She hummed the beat and the tune, and I was surprised that she had rhythm enough to move well to the music.
Taking a leap of faith, I walked in. I came up behind her and slid my hands around her middle. She jumped, surprised at the sudden contact.
“It’s just me,” I assured her. “Don’t worry. It’s just me. I’m not trying to do anything.”
“Oh—okay.”
The music continued to play, and I pressed against Evie and moved with her to the music. It took her a little bit to get comfortable, but it was all right. I smiled when she relaxed and just let herself get into it instead being all uptight. It was nice.
“You know, I didn’t know that you could move like this,” I said.
“Well, not if my father had anything to say about it. I had dance lessons, but not like this. My best friend in high school taught me the moves.”
“Oh? And where is this best friend now? I need to thank her for giving you the shake, shake, shake in this nice ass of yours.”
Evie laughed.
“It was a he, actually, and he didn’t pass my father’s stringent friend-approval system. Carter was gay through and through, and my father thought he’d make me look bad so … I cut him off easy and nice before my father could do something mean or nasty to him.”
“Your father would do something like that?”
“My father hid me away in a completely different town just so that I could have my baby in secret, without anyone ever finding out where it came from, who the father was, or that I was even pregnant to begin with,” she pointed out.
“Okay. That’s a fair point. I’ll give you that.”
Rather than be upset, Evie laughed and pulled away from me.
“It’s fine. I’ve accepted the way that my father is. I don’t have to like it—it’s just fact.” She looked up at me and smiled. “Did you need something? I was under the impression that you and Allan were going to be gone for a while.
I shrugged.
“Actually … nah. It wasn’t anything all that important. I actually wanted to talk to you. You got, uh. Time?”
Evie quirked her brow.
“Unless your dad has asks me to help some dealer who doesn’t understand business despite running his own business … there’s not a whole lot for me to do at the moment and not a lot of people lining up to have meetings with me, either,” she said. She moved back to plop down on her bed. “What’s up? Is something wrong? Anything I need to worry about?”
I shook my head.
“Nah, nah, nothing like that. It’s. Well—”
“You being tongue tied is a first.”
I frowned.
“This is a bit of a first for me, all right?”
She held up her hands.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. Go on. What’s up?”
“I was thinking …we had a lot of fun, yeah? That night that we got together? And we’ve had some fun even if it’s been a little …wild.”
“Wild is a good word for it.”
“Yeah. But we’re gonna be in this for a while. You’re gonna be cooking that in there for nine months and then it’s who knows how much time afterward that we’re gonna be in this thing. Raising this kid. Looking out for it—and trust me, I’m gonna, all right? I’m not gonna be one of those men who doesn’t provide.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“I told you, I’m not about to back out on this just because this wasn’t planned. But I was thinking …maybe we get to know each other a little better, yeah? Nine months is a long time and, I mean, I’m not opposed to you. You’re a looker. You’re pretty cool.”
Evie bit her lip. She could see where I was going with this, I could tell.
“So, what? You want to go steady, or something?” She chuckled at the thought, as though it were an incredulous suggestion, but there was something else in her eyes that led me to believe that she was hopeful. Or maybe that she knew that’s where this was headed.
I shrugged it off, though, like it was no big deal—like it wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to me. But fuck it if I didn’t like the general idea of steady. She’d be mine.
“You know. I could take you on a few dates. Figure this shit out together. Like adults with a baby on the way.”
She bit her lip. The way she moved it in and out between her teeth made me want to bite it too. She started to blush.
“Tony …are you sure you even want this because you want this, or because we have a baby on the way?”
“Can’t it be both?”
“That sounds like you’re trying to make excuses.”
I sighed. I moved toward her, standing in front of her where she sat on her bed.
“Listen. I said that I wanted to do this right.” And it seemed I was saying that a lot lately. I hoped it wasn’t all just for my Goddamn benefit. “Which means all of it, you know? I’m not saying we’re fucking—I don’t know—star-crossed lovers, but we are going to be parents and I want to have a good relationship with you. Whatever that is. I also want to take you on a date or so and show you off where I can.”
Evie stared at me for a while. Like, really stared. It was like she was trying to see through me, and it would have been weird if it wasn’t so nice to look into her eyes. They were gorgeous—captivating and shit.
I started to get worried when she didn’t answer, but when she finally did, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yeah. Yeah, I don’t see why we can’t give it a try, Tony. I want to get to know the father of my child, too.”
Chapter Eleven
Evie
I didn’t know what my parents’ relationship was like before my mother died. I had never gotten to meet her, after all, and so the only references that I had to parental relationships came from bad sitcoms from the nineties and my friends.
My high school best friend, Carter, had the most loving parents in the world. It made me sad to realize that it had been so long since I’d seen any of them. but I could remember how much they cared for Carter and how much they stood up for him, and ultimately, how much they loved not only him, but each other. It was never a fantasy of mine to be a parent like my father was—controlling, distant, and often manipulative—even if he thought that he was doing the right thing. He was my father and a good man underneath the way he was, however he was ambitious, and that ambition always outweighed anything else that was going on in my life.
No …I wanted to be like Car
ter’s parents—a wife to my husband, mother to my children. I wanted at least three. Three always seemed like a nice, well-rounded number to me. I would work and take care of them, of course, and my husband would help and do the same. I loved how Carter’s parents were equals, not the imbalanced, archaic way that my father’s peers ran their own personal lives, with the women nearly subservient and in their husband’s shadows.
As I got ready for my date with Tony, it made me laugh to realize how backward I was doing all of this. Wasn’t I supposed to have gone on the date before the sex? Before the baby? Before all of this? Wasn’t I supposed to know the father of my child was before I conceived?
I ran my hand over my belly. Earlier in the week, I had been able to go out with one of the many girls Allan was trying to get his hands on,. I needed clothes and, initially, I was just going to get some comfortable things for around the compound and perhaps start looking into maternity clothes. Ellia, however, had had other ideas, and while I had gotten things that I needed, I had left downtown with more …sexy things than anticipated.
“You’re running with Tony,” she’d told me gleefully. “You got to look the part.”
In the low-cut, emerald-green top I was wearing, my breasts were full and prominent. The jeans were nice and tight, showing off curves and ass that even I hadn’t realized that I had. The front of the shirt was flowy, but still showed off my figure without being too tight—though I didn’t have a belly, really, to speak of, it was starting to poke out.
Yeah. This should have been phase one, not phase wherever the hell I found myself. Oddly enough, it was exciting. I felt jitters in my stomach as I brushed the curls of my hair into perfect place and stared at myself in the mirror one last time before smiling at myself.
“Perfect.”
I slid on a pair of flats—which was honestly becoming my favorite thing about being at Tony’s; I would always be in these god-awful heels when it came to what my father wanted me to wear—and headed out into the hall. I was sharing the wing with Tony, and while we’d had sex, I felt like it was best if we slept in different rooms. It wasn’t something that I explicitly stated, but it was pretty obvious when I wasn’t trekking to his room every night.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about what it would be like to sleep with him, however.
I knocked on Tony’s closed door, nudging it open to peek in.
“Tony?” I called. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, just a second.”
His voice came from the adjoined bathroom in his bedroom, and I smiled a little. I leaned against the wall outside of his room, waiting. Again, the jitters fluttered in my stomach and I realized … for the first time …
This was a date I was going on that I had set up and agreed to all on my own, without my father’s input or approval. I wondered what he would say if he knew that Tony was taking me on dates.
Well, it’s only one date, and you have no idea how it’s going to go, and you two are just trying to get to know each other because you’re pregnant. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
When Tony came out, I was pulled, blessedly, from my thoughts. I was stricken, though, by how good he looked.
He wasn’t suit-and-tied dressed up, which I hadn’t expected because he had told me to go sexy-casual. But his button-up shirt was tight in the right places and not buttoned all the way up, showing off part of his chest. Short sleeves let me see his arms and, oh, I would always be reminded every time that they were bare just how cut Tony really was, and just how strong, thick, and masculine he was. Nothing like the kind of men my father set me up with.
I was satisfied to see that he was doing the same amount of staring right back at me, eyes moving up and down my body. It was nice to know that, even pregnant, I was still appealing, even if only for now, while I didn’t have a large, pregnant belly.
He smiled at me and held his arm out. I took it and we headed downstairs.
“You know, you look … really Goddamn good,” he said. I laughed.
“Thanks. I couldn’t tell with the way that you were staring at me.”
“Don’t make fun of me. I’m only a man and I like what I like.”
“Well take it all in, because you get to have this all night,” I said, before I could stop myself and before I really thought about my words.
“Is that a promise?” he asked me, amused. “Because I would totally take you up on the offer.”
# # #
Our drive into town consisted of blaring music, Tony and I singing at the top of our lungs, and me realizing that I really, really, enjoyed fast cars.
He drove us out, zipping and zooming along the highway, out of our city and into the next one over. He figured, apparently, that that would help minimize the risk of someone we knew personally recognizing us. He didn’t want to be cooped up in the house and didn’t want to force me to be the same, but also didn’t want to make too many waves—I could appreciate that.
While our city was large and certainly had places to party, the next over was literally a party city. Lights shined upward into the night sky and music blared from every direction. People went from one club to another to another, and I was honestly awed; this wasn’t something that I had ever done before—certainly not on a date.
Tony parked us in a private garage. He got out and came over to my door, holding his arm out as he let me out.
“So, what do you want to do first?”
I looked around. There was so much. How was I supposed to choose? I looked back to him, smiling.
“Surprise me.”
He grinned at me and led us down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of the bustling city foot traffic. I took in everything—the lights, the sounds, and the smells of the food being cooked by the street vendors. There was the hint of alcohol in the air, too, and I was tempted to ask if we could stop at a bar before the realization hit me.
“So, you know I can’t drink, right?” It was a thought that occurred to me as he steered us into a club with thumping, loud music with reverberating bass.
Tony laughed.
“Babe, I make it a point to make sure that my dates can have fun with me without the booze—I mean it’s a bonus, but still. Nah. We’re gonna dance and you can show me more of those sweet moves of yours.”
There were so many people in the club, it would have been suffocating if it weren’t for the fact that Tony kept his hands on me the entire time. He stood behind me with his hands on my hips and his body pressed to my back. He rocked to the beat of the music as we bobbed and weaved onto the dancefloor, and he pulled me back a little harder so my ass was ground against his crotch as we found a place and stayed there.
I’d never been clubbing—at least not unless you counted the couple of times that Carter and I sneaked into the gay bar he liked going to. I wasn’t sure if that did count; it wasn’t like he was actually my date and it wasn’t like I picked up anyone there, either. But it was fun.
This, though.
Tony’s hands on me.
His face in my neck.
His body pressed to mine.
I found an easy rhythm with the music, rocking and rolling my hips against him. It wasn’t intentionally sexual, even though I felt the stir of his cock against my ass. But it was …fun. Exhilarating. I put my hands on his and guided them up to touch me freely over my belly and just under the rise of my breasts before I moved them down, teasingly preventing him from touching.
“Ah, so mean.”
I chuckled and wiggled my ass against him.
“I’m being nice, aren’t I?”
He nipped playfully at my neck, and I shuddered. I turned around, looping my arms around his neck, and ground up against him that way.
“So,” I said, raising my voice a little so he could hear me even with the heavy bass of the music playing. “You always take your dates here?”
He smirked. “I’ve never been on a date.”
I raised my brow.
“How is that even possibl
e?”
He laughed.
“Because, Evie. I pick up girls from bars, and maybe I’ll take them home. Usually, we find a nice place to, ah, work out our tensions, and then we part ways. But actually planning on bringing a girl out in public? Never.”
I tilted my head. My lips quirked into a little smirk. “So, I’m your first date, then?”
Tony rolled his eyes, but looked away, embarrassed.