“When did you first know about the others?”
“When I got the dead Chuckie’s money. This been going on since then—I just don’t talk about it unless I trust someone.”
“I’m glad that you trust me,” I said.
“You one of my best friends—it time that I share this with you.”
“Are you certain that all of them are your half-siblings?”
“Yeah—I sure. I done the tests and they turned out to be legit. Mi papi was a dog. He cheated time and again on my poor mother, Guadalupe.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Look, the cookie, it is what it is. Besides, none of my siblings—half or whole—don’t ask for much. Sometimes, they just need a leetle bit of help to get through the week or the month. And they shouldn’t be punished because our papi couldn’t keep his cock in his pants. So I help them. It no big deal.”
“But forty-two people,” I said.
“Oh, honey, that just the siblings,” she said with a wave of her glittering hand. “Epifania hasn’t even talked about the cousins, the aunts, the uncles, and even the friends she used to know way back in the day who only call when they need a check. All of them want a piece of me, and who am I to refuse them? Look, the cookie, I got lucky with the Chuckie, OK? Really fucking lucky, especially when that sonofabitch die and I got half a billion dollars just from being his wife? Epifania know how lucky she got. Because believe me, Yennifer, when you born on a banana leaf like I was? And then you somehow become what I am today? It would be sheet karma to turn your back on your family and friends. Many of them desperate. They need help. So? I help.”
“They’re lucky to have you,” I said. “And I mean that.”
She lifted her martini to me and drank.
“Now, look, there’s something I wanted to ask you today,” I said. “What are you doing Christmas eve?”
“Spending it with my Rudsy, I guess. But that three weeks out, right? I haven’t really thought about it yet. Why you ask?”
“Because Alex and I are going to throw a party that night. We’d love it if you and Rudman would come. Please say that you will.”
“Oh, the honey, we so gonna be there! Epifania love a party. And just a week or so later, you gonna bring new child into the world. It be a big celebration before your life go to hell!”
“Before my life goes to hell?” I said.
“I’m kidding! Well, sort of. Actually, I’m not joking at all. Epifania not the mothering type, Yennifer. Hell, I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to spleet open my little meow-meow for another human being, especially after I just had it tightened! You know—I’ve seen that ‘Alien’ movie. In fact—I fear it, because I study it close. I think that kid of yours is gonna burst through your belly, so make sure you have a few good doctors around you, OK? Because if that sheet happens? Epifania telling you right now—it gonna be a mess!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LATER THAT DAY, AFTER returning to Wenn, I started the guest list for the baby shower and then did some paperwork until six, when Tank drove Alex and me home to our apartment on Fifth.
As I looked out the window with Alex holding tight to my hand, I thought that the city looked beautiful. The store windows and buildings had been decorated for the holidays, and as we passed them, I thought that the decorations were creative and stunning. Would there be snow in Manhattan this Christmas? I hoped so, but one never knew. Sometimes no significant snow arrived until January.
After Tank dropped us off and we wished him well, Alex put his arm around my waist, we entered our building, took the private elevator to our penthouse suite, and as we stepped into the foyer, Alex kissed the back of my neck as he helped me out of my overcoat.
“You’re driving me wild already,” I said as I leaned into him.
“That’s the plan.”
It had been two months since we’d made love, which seemed ridiculous to me and was likely why I was so horny now. But in the devastating wake of our miscarriage—and as my pregnancy became increasingly visible and thus more “real” to each of us—the sex had dwindled.
We were so worried about going through another miscarriage, it was as if I’d become some sort of porcelain doll who could be broken by sexual intimacy. Somehow, we’d become too afraid to do anything that might harm our baby, despite the fact that my doctor had said time and again that it was perfectly safe to have sex.
But neither of us had believed it. This child meant so much to us, we had been willing to forgo our more carnal desires in an effort to protect it.
But that ended tonight.
I was eight months into my pregnancy, and it was time to listen to my doctor’s advice.
“You’re more beautiful to me than you’ve ever been, Jennifer,” Alex said as he stood behind me. “I say it to you every day, but I’m not sure that you believe me. Still, it’s true. I don’t think you’ve ever been this beautiful—or sexy for that matter.”
“Sexy?” I said with a trace of insecurity in my voice. How could he possibly find me sexy, especially now? I longed for the figure I once had, but that was long gone. “I think I’m past the point of being ‘sexy,’ Alex. I mean, look at me, for God’s sake. I’m far from the woman you used to know.”
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re not. But here’s what you need to know, Jennifer—you’re carrying our child. You’re almost at term. And every day I look at you, I don’t think I’ve ever been more turned on by you. Or that I’ve ever loved you as much as I do right now. So,” he said as he took my hand and started to lead us toward the bedroom. “How about if I show you how much I love you? How about if I show you just how damned sexy you still are to me? Especially now. Particularly now.”
I knew in my heart that Alex meant what he’d said, but I still felt so uneasy about the changes in my body that I couldn’t help feeling nervous about making love to him now. This would be the first time he’d seen me naked in months—and the very idea of it unnerved me. Seeing me clothed was one thing. But naked? That was taking things to a whole new level.
I was beginning to have second thoughts about all of this when we entered the bedroom and Alex kissed me so deeply that all of my fears and insecurities fell away. My hormones were running so high, it wasn’t lost on me that apparently I could swing from shame to lust with a mere thrust of my husband’s tongue in my mouth.
“Let me undress you,” he said.
Before he could, I dimmed the bedroom’s lights to a warm glow and then turned to him. “How about if you undress first?” I said.
When he grinned at me, his dimples were planted so deeply in his stubbled cheeks that I could have come right then and there. But I remained steady as I removed his suit jacket and tossed it onto a nearby chair. I tried to keep my wits about me as I took off his gray tie, his crisp white shirt, and then the white T-shirt beneath it. And then I just stood back and looked at his naked, muscled torso for a moment before I removed his belt and pants.
To my surprise, he wasn’t wearing underwear, and what was lifted before me—full and thick and throbbing—sent me into a state of lust.
“You’re not wearing any underwear,” I said as I looked up to meet his heated gaze.
With an arched eyebrow, he kicked off his shoes, removed his socks, and then he turned me around so his cock was pressed against my ass.
“Do you think I’m unaware of that?” he said in my ear as his hands ran down the length of my body.
“Well, no. I mean, obviously no. It’s just that—”
“It’s just that what?”
“It’s just that you surprised me...”
“Good,” he said. “I wanted to surprise you, and I plan to continue to surprise you. Lift your arms over your head.”
I hesitated.
“Come on, Jennifer—because I’m not sure that I can wait much longer. It’s been too long. I’ve missed you. I want to be inside you—first with my tongue. And then with the rest of me.”
With a sense of trepidation, I lifted my arms as he’d asked, and suddenly the black dress I was wearing was off my body and flying like a shadow across the room. Standing there with the glittering city lights stretched before me through the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows at my left, I felt Alex’s hands unclasp my bra and remove it as cool air tightened around my aroused nipples. Deftly, he pulled down my panties and the dark hose I was wearing, and then—as naked as the day I was born—he took me by the hand and turned me around so that I faced him. As he did so, I closed my eyes and wanted to cringe at being so exposed to him. But when I found the courage to open my eyes and look at Alex, I felt something shift inside me when I saw the lust in his eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he said to me. “My God, your breasts...”
“Are enormous,” I said to him.
Tentatively, he lifted his hands to cup and massage them, and he did it so gently, it sent my body on fire as tingles of anticipation plunged through me.
“Lie down on the bed,” he said in a deep voice.
“On my—?”
“On your back.”
Oh, dear...
The moment I laid down, Alex went to work, pressing his tongue inside of me so tenderly, it was like an erotic tease. I tried to look over my belly to see his face, but it was impossible. Instead, I could only feel him, and what I felt was delicious.
Naturally, it was then that the baby started to kick.
No! I thought. Oh, God, no. Not now. Go back to sleep—please. Mommy needs this!
“Are you alright?” Alex asked as his eyes appeared over the dome of my belly.
“I’m fine,” I said in a soothing voice. “In fact, I’m more than fine.”
“I just asked because it felt as if your body shook for a moment.”
“It probably did. I mean, come on—look where your mouth was a moment ago.”
“Sorry—it just felt different.” He shook his head at me. “Never mind.”
As his head dipped from sight and he went in for the kill again, I gave in to the pleasure he was giving me. When his tongue slid deeper inside of me, my hands instinctively went to my breasts, and as I touched them, I felt myself getting closer to my first climax of the night.
“You’re amazing,” I said.
He growled against me.
“I’m getting close.”
His growl deepened as his tongue licked my folds, and my hands cupped my breasts even harder. When he unexpectedly went straight for my clit and covered it with his lips, his tongue began to dart over it—and then, when he swiped his stubbled chin across the top of it—I was through.
My back arched as I began to climax. I writhed beneath his touch, I shouted out his name, and I squeezed my breasts so hard, I watched in horror as fluid shot straight out of them as if two fire hydrants had just been unleashed in our bedroom.
As my climax crashed through me and I gasped in delight, horror, and despair, I realized that I’d just become the human equivalent of two fire hoses as my breasts released torrents of lactic fluid that hit the ceiling with two distinct splats before the milk rained down on each of us just as our baby slammed another fist or leg into one of my ribs.
“What the hell?” Alex said. “Do we have a leak? What the fuck was that?”
“That was me!” I shouted out in shame. “Apparently, I’m lactating early! And of all times, this is the time that my body decides to betray me! I’ve officially became Old Faithful! My boobs just blew!”
I turned on my side in embarrassment as Alex came up beside me.
“Jennifer, it’s natural,” he said as he stroked my back.
“Tell that to the dripping ceiling. We’re going to have to have it repainted because of me.”
“Oh, come on,” he said quietly in my ear as he kissed the nape of my neck. “You’re just lactating—that’s a good sign.”
“Whatever just came out of me is literally dripping on us now, Alex. How can that be a good sign?”
“Let me get a towel,” he said. “I’ll be right back—because just so you know, Mrs. Wenn, I’m not finished with you yet. Tonight, you will get properly laid.”
Seriously? What if my boobs blast again? And what about you, Alex? If you can manage to get it up after that disaster, then I seriously need to think about getting you a cape of some sort. Because if you can, you will officially become my own private superhero.
In the end, it turned out that he was my superhero. Because when we found the right position for us—me lying on my right side with him thrusting slowly yet deeply behind me—I began to let go of my embarrassment and instead allowed my love for my husband to sweep it aside. Cradled in his arms with his breath hot against my neck, it soon became clear to me that this was no mercy fuck. Alex wanted this. Hell, he was into it.
“Come with me,” he said.
I was so close that I did, and when I did, it was obvious that he wasn’t finished. Because after he came, he was still throbbing inside of me, ready to go for another round, which I welcomed. At that moment, it occurred to me that the changes in my body meant nothing to him because he was in love with me. If I was still beautiful in his eyes, then I seriously needed to reassess what beauty meant to me, and how I needed to view my body now.
Later, when we were spent and satiated, I didn’t hesitate when Alex asked me if I’d like to join him in the shower. He stood next to the bed, offered me his hand, and I took it. Because Alex was so strong, he somehow made getting out of bed seem almost effortless. I hadn’t gotten out of bed with such ease in weeks.
“You’re amazing,” I said as I kissed him. “Thank you.”
He wrinkled his brow at me. “For what?”
“Just for being you, Alex. You know—the man of my dreams.”
AFTER A LONG, HOT, and relaxing shower, during which Alex washed my body and my hair, he changed the bed while I toweled off in the bathroom.
“Do you need any help?” I called out as I applied lotion to my arms, legs, and hands.
“I’ve got this.”
A moment later, he arrived naked in the bathroom with a red-silk nightgown draped over his arm. It was lacy and sexy, something I’d purchased on the fly at Saks months ago when I somehow thought that this late in my pregnancy, I’d actually want to wear something so alluring.
Turns out that after tonight, I did.
“I see you in this,” he said.
I cocked my head to one side. “Do you now?”
“Absolutely.”
After I put it on, I looked at myself in the mirror, lifted my damp hair over my shoulders, and finally saw in my reflection the glow that so many others had been seeing in me all along. When I entered the bedroom, I noticed that the bed was made and that the covers had been turned back.
“You look hot,” Alex said. “And I mean seriously hot.”
Before I could tell him otherwise, he stopped me. “You do. I mean that. You really do, Jennifer.”
When we got into bed, Alex laid down beside me, and we held each other close for a long while as he gently put his hand on my belly.
When our baby kicked, I turned to look at my husband with a smile before we drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
THE NEXT MORNING AT Wenn, I sat opposite Blackwell in her office with the door closed while I waited for her to respond to all that I’d just unloaded on her.
“When you say that you hit the ceiling, what you really meant to say was—”
“That I hit the damned ceiling, Barbara. With milk from my ballistic boobs.”
“That simply can’t be...”
“Well, it is. Why in the hell would I be lying about that, of all things? It happened. I’ve officially become a milkmaid with a couple of turbocharged tits in the bedroom.”
“How grotesque,” she said.
“As if I could help it.”
“If you had any sense of decorum, you could have kept it from happening.”
“What are you talking about? It just happene
d.”
“Then perhaps you should be studied. You know, by doctors. People in white lab coats. People with curious, calculating minds...”
“Hilarious.”
“No, I mean it. You could be science’s next cutting-edge thingy.”
“I came here today looking for support, not mockery.”
“And I keep looking at your breasts hoping that they’re properly swaddled. You know, with the thickest of padding. Absorbent padding. A firewall of padding.”
“So, let me get this straight. My shame is your endgame—is that how this is going to go this morning? I came here expecting more.”
She leaned back in her chair and gave a toss of her black bob while she popped an ice cube in her mouth. “Seriously, Maine?” she said. “You expect me not to run with this? Because what you’ve just given me is comic gold.”
“What I’m telling you is deeply personal.”
“Then you should have saved it for your priest.”
“I’m being serious. Last night was a nightmare, and it was embarrassing. As kind as Alex was—and he was kind, you have no idea how kind he was—I need to know if this is normal, and whether I should expect it to happen again.”
“Well, of course you should expect it to happen again. Apparently, you’ve begun lactating early, which is perfectly natural. Some women start to lactate far earlier in their pregnancy than you have, and you can take my word on that. Because I’ve been there myself.”
“The same thing happened to you?”
“You mean hitting the ceiling with both barrels? Not quite. But if you mean lactating early? Yes. It happened when I was pregnant with Alexa—of course it would have happened with that one. The whole Mother Earth thing, right? When she was in the womb, I think she was already tie-dyeing T-shirts—and I had to pay a heavy price for it.”
“What price?”
Holiday: Annihilate Them, #2 Page 6