by Lee Heaven
I had to laugh. It came at the perfect time. I laughed and sent him a thank you back. Pressing the button on, on the panel that I barely could find as it blended into the wall, I watched as the shower began to pour from the ceiling. I stepped in and luxuriated in the opulence that was this apartment. I didn’t want to go back to my parent’s tiny little house that was built almost a hundred years ago. Fuck I could probably move in and he’d never know, this place was big enough for five not one.
~~~
This can’t be right. Why would Rebecca want me to go to a court house? I sent her a text asking if this was the right place but she hasn’t answered me. I walked in the building hoping it was correct and went to the third floor like her text said. Second door on the left and slipped into the courtroom sitting in the back row.
I looked at a stunning blonde woman who stood at one table looking at a man who looked to be her lawyer and an older woman. She held a baby in her arms and looked upset about what the man and older woman was saying.
I looked at the other table and there were four guys all standing with their backs to me. I couldn’t tell one from the other. What the fuck was Rebecca sending me here for?
As the judge entered the room and took his seat the lady with the baby handed the child over to the older woman.
“Good day ladies and gentleman,” the judge began. “As I read, I see that Ms. Green is claiming paternity of the baby is Mr. Ellis and would like to ask for child support in the sum of twenty-five thousand a month.”
Mr. Ellis? That made me sit up straight. Tyler had a child? A child he was trying to ignore? A child he was trying not to claim as his?
“Mr. Ellis,” the judge continued. “Is claiming that the child is not his and would like a paternity test to confirm. He would also like a restraining order on Ms. Green for harassment.”
What the fuck was going on?
One of the guys at what I now assumed was Tyler’s table stood up. “Mr. Ellis has been asking Ms. Green for almost eight weeks to provide a paternity test. She has refused. One look at the child and it is obvious that it is not his. He believes the child is a Mr. Peter Chin’s. Mr. Chin is unemployed and lives in his grandmother’s basement. We believe Ms. Green is trying to pin this child on Mr. Ellis as an opportunity for financial gains.”
“The child is his,” the blonde woman hissed from her side of the courtroom.
Tyler’s lawyer just ignored what she screamed and continued talking. “We’d also like to ask the court that the paternity test be performed in front of your honor, to be sure that there is no manipulation of the results.”
The judge sat quiet as he looked through his papers. He scratched at his head and scrunched his eyes as if this case was just a pure annoyance to him. Fuck this case was an annoyance to me and I have only been here a few minutes. It’s plain as day as I look at the baby sitting there, that it’s not Tyler’s. That baby surely has an oriental parent somewhere. Must be that Peter Chin that the lawyer mentioned.
Finally the judge cleared his throat. “Testing is to be done in this courtroom, in front of me today. I will call for the proper people to come and take samples that way there can be no manipulation, on either side. Until the results come in there is to be no contact with each other on any side. Ma’am I suggest that if you need help with money, you look into financial assistance from the state in the mean time.” He banged his gavel on his desk and was up and out of the courtroom before I could even blink.
I stood and walked to the front of the courtroom. I placed my hand on his shoulder and he turned slowly to see who was touching him. That scowl that was always on his face appeared, I removed my hand and stepped back to leave. After last night and this morning I thought things had changed between us, but I guess I was wrong.
I didn’t run but I was out of the courtroom before he had even said my name. I heard his voice as a “fuck” escaped through the closing door. Then he was there, standing in front of me, blocking my path of escape. “I didn’t want this in your life. I didn’t want to bring this to you with all the stuff you had been through. I want you like you wouldn’t believe. I have since Sarah showed me a picture of you weeks before you got here. But you deserve better than this mess.”
I smiled. It was sweet that he was trying to protect me. “This is a stroll through the park compared to what I’ve been through. I would have stood by your side if you just told me. If you just shared, I could have helped you. It’s obvious just looking at the kid, it’s not yours. The judge sees it, but by law he has to have the test done. Let me be here for you. Let me show you that I’ve cared since the day you attacked me in Sarah’s kitchen.”
I stepped into his space, up close to his body, so even a piece of paper couldn’t slide between us. With my hands at my side I rested my head on his chest, right at the base of his neck. I inhaled his clean expensive cologne and whispered his name. I felt his hesitation for just a second before he had his arms wrapped around me. Standing like that for a few minutes I felt like I was in heaven. He slid his hands up my back and wrapped them around my face, tilting it back till we were looking eye to eye.
“I can’t promise it will be easy,” he whispered as I nodded my head. His lips touched mine. It was electric even though it was chaste.
A foot stomped and someone snorted behind me. Tyler lifted his head and his scowl was back on his face. He didn’t let go of my face and if it was possible he pulled me closer to his body.
“Is this the reason you won’t claim your kid,” I recognized the voice as belonging to the blonde that was in the courtroom.
“Walk away Emily, he just said no contact,” Tyler gritted through his teeth.
I wiggled out of his hands and turned to face the blonde. She sneered at me as I met her eyes. This close it was obvious she was not a natural blonde, her roots were starting to come in ever so slightly. She had on an inch of cover-up and eye shadow. She was fake from top to bottom. I wondered what Tyler saw in her, it was plain as day she was not a nice woman.
“You mark my words,” she pointed a finger in my face. “When this test comes back and proves that this is his kid, I will be back in his bed and you will be just a memory of a whore he slept with.”
I started laughing, bending over hands rested on my legs laughing. I looked up into her face, “Have you been talking to my step-father. Whore, that’s original, he’s called me that since I was about sixteen. It was his way of trying to get me to do what he wanted. You sound exactly like him. But you see the thing is,” my voice changed from the laughter I had just had a second ago to stern and forceful. “I never listened to him and I sure in hell ain’t going to be listening to you. When the test comes back and proves that he’s not the father and you’re nothing but the cheating whore that the papers have said you are, than you will be the memory of the whore he slept with.”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to have contact. The judge just said…” she started.
“The judge just said you and Tyler shouldn’t have contact,” I interrupted her. “I was not part of that deal. How about this, you have something to tell Tyler, you tell me first and if I think it’s necessary, I will pass the message on to him. If Tyler has something to tell you, he can let me know and again if I think it’s necessary, I’ll pass the message on to you. Until that time, why don’t you take your liposuctioned ass and fake tits and go walk away.”
I was somehow standing an inch in front of her, ready for the fight if she was willing to throw down with me. No bitch I didn’t know was going to get away with calling me names and threaten me. If Sarah was here she would be standing right behind me ready to beat this woman down. It was then that her lawyer noticed her and walked over grabbing her arm muttering about just telling her to stay away from Tyler.
A few hours later after a couple of cotton swabs of everyone’s mouth, Tyler and I walked out of the court house. The media, catching word of him being there, were out front going crazy as we walked down the stairs. They were sc
reaming question after question at Tyler. Asking him why he was here, who I was, questions about Sarah and Decker and even Tobias and Maggie. Tyler just took my hand and pulled me through the crowd and into the waiting car without answering one question.
Tyler slid into the back seat next to me and pulled me into his side. “I’m sure those picture’s are going to be horrible. I think my eyes were wide as saucers. How do you guys deal with this all the time?”
He chuckled placing a kiss on my temple as the car sped away from the curb, at least sped as fast as Manhattan traffic would allow. “Like we just did, head down and don’t answer their questions. You will learn soon.”
Chapter 8
It’s been two weeks since that court date when Tyler had his DNA taken. The results had come back that Friday, the problem was the team had left for a two week road trip. I’ve practically moved into Tyler’s apartment. I just found it easier to be staying here or down at Sarah’s instead of trekking the kids back and forth every day. I only have this luxury for a few more weeks and then the kids start school and I’ll have to travel back and forth every day.
Tyler took me on that date the Thursday before he left. However, when Tyler asked me to dinner he didn’t think about traveling time, so instead of dinner we had to do a lunch date instead. It wasn’t any less romantic and Tyler made sure to pull out all the stops. Rebecca had given me the day off and I waited for him to pick me up down at Sarah’s apartment. As I answered the door he handed me another white hyacinth flower. He had a rented town car parked out front, we slid into the back and the car travelled across town to Greenwich Village. He took me to this cute little Italian restaurant, La Lanterna di Vittorio. Amazingly it wasn’t expensive and flashy like I was expecting. It was cute and had a feeling like I was sitting in a little restaurant out in the countryside of Italy. The glass atrium ceiling let natural light shine in and the ivy crawling along the wall and trellis made it feel like you were sitting outside.
We sat there eating a fifteen dollar pizza and drinking a four hundred dollar bottle of wine, just getting to know each other, talking about our lives, our likes and dislikes. He told me about how he dreamed of playing baseball for the majors since his father taught him how to throw a ball as a toddler. It was basically every American boy’s life he is living.
I knew my turn was coming. I knew he was going to ask about my kids and husband. I was going to have to tell him my story and I was going to have to tell him that I can never have kids again. He smiled at me as he asked about my life growing up. I told him about my biological father walking out on my mother when I was only a couple of months old. How I’ve never met him and have no desire to meet him. I told him about my mom meeting my step-father when I was two and how a year later they were married. After my brother was born, two years later, was when he started to treat me different, like I wasn’t good enough for him. By the time I was a teenager it was a daily occurrence to be told that I was a screw up and that I would never make anything of myself.
“The day after I turned eighteen I dropped out of high school and followed my boyfriend down to North Carolina where he just finished Marine boot camp. After I found him screwing some girl on the side of our apartment I moved to Myrtle Beach where I ran a bar…” I hesitated as I wondered how he would take the next part of my story. He placed his hand over mine and gave it a squeeze as if to tell me to come on it can’t be that bad. “Jeremy wasn’t my first husband. I met Kristopher the same night I met Jeremy. I didn’t even like Jeremy at first he was an asshole. But Kristopher, I fell in love with him after a few days. It was a whirlwind romance, we were married ten weeks after we met. Our three month anniversary was September 11, 2001. Less than a month later he was shipped out to the Middle East. Less than three months later, two days after I found out I was pregnant, Kristopher was killed. He never knew I was pregnant. I never got to tell him.”
Tyler’s jaw was hanging open. “Wow, that’s heavy!” he whispered.
I nodded my head at him. “Jeremy wasn’t always an asshole. He used to love me more then I loved for him. I was seven months pregnant when he asked me to marry him. I agreed and over the next few months I fell in love with him more and more. He raised Kris as his own son, never treated him any different than he did Felicity.”
His thumb absently slid back and forth across the back of my hand. “When did everything change?” He asked with softness to his voice.
I watched his thumb move back and forth across my hand. I watched as he absentmindedly moved back and forth soothing my frazzled nerves. “I was pregnant with Felicity,” I said quietly. His hand stilled in its movement. “No,” I quickly said. “He didn’t hit me when I was pregnant. When I was pregnant they found cancer.” His hand didn’t start moving yet, it just rested over top of mine. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking now. “It was all over my uterus, ovaries, everything. It wasn’t harming the baby so I didn’t have to worry about terminating her, but it was too much and by the time the baby was born it would have been almost impossible to remove with therapy and treatment. So we decided to remove everything. I had a full hysterectomy. Twenty-five and I couldn’t have another kid.”
His thumb started moving again. He hadn’t gotten up and ran away. He didn’t start trying to come with excuses to get out of this date. He sat there looking at me like he still wanted me.
“Shortly after that,” I continued. “He was released from the Marines and we moved back to his home town. Felicity was just about one the first time he hit me. It was all text book, he hit me, ran away came back begging for forgiveness, promising never to do it again, I fell for it, and the circle continued until I finally fought back in the beginning of the year. Now here I am.”
I was still waiting for his excuses to begin but they never came. Instead he slid his chair around the table till he was sitting right next to me. In the middle of the restaurant he pulled me into his arms and planted his lips firmly on mine. My hands curled into the lapels of his sports jacket. I pulled him closer to me as his tongue swept across mine. Deeper and deeper the kiss became, and if it wasn’t for the clank of the dishes being cleared from the table I don’t know if we would have stopped.
I wanted to cry as we walked out of the restaurant to find two town cars sitting there, one to take me back to the apartment and one to take him to the airport. He pulled me into his arms, “Stay at my place, sleep in my bed,” he whispered against my lips. I nodded and he pulled my bottom lip in between his teeth before he let go and kissed me one more time. Then we were both in our cars his headed toward the airport and mine headed in the opposite direction towards the apartment.
Over the past two weeks we spent our time talking on the phone and texting each other. And now I was waiting on his couch for him to walk in the door within the next couple of hours. Sarah’s daughter, Josie, had come back from her summer vacation in Europe and she and Maggie took all the kids over to Central Park for the evening. My feet were killing me from being in heels at work all day. I rubbed at the soles of my feet as I heard the click of the lock and the door being opened. I looked toward the door and watched as Tyler, dropped his bag by the door and left a trail of clothes as he stripped off his shoes, followed by his socks, dress coat and tie. By the time he reached me his shirt was pulled from his pants and half unbuttoned.
He sat on the couch and pulled me into his lap. He kissed me deep and hard. His tongue swept across mine over and over. He pulled me into him tighter as I shifted to straddle him. His hands gripped my hips and he pushed his hips up as I pushed mine down. I could feel how hard he was. He was straining against the zipper of his black dress pants. My fingers worked at the buttons on his shirt, as I undid the last button my fingers grazed along his rippled abs. My hands slid up his muscled torso, over rock hard pecs and over his strong wide shoulders as they slid his shirt off, tossing it onto pile on the floor. His fingers worked at the buttons to my shirt, pulling it from my shoulders and tossing it on the floor landing somewhere near his.
Tyler flipped us so he was lying on top of me and slowly inched my skirt up as his fingers trailed a line of fire up my thighs. Just as my fingers undid the button and zipper on his pants, his fingers breeched the side of my black lace panties and sunk into my wet pussy. We both let out a grunt in unison. My hands stilled as he slid his fingers in and out.
I looked up into his electric blue eyes and got lost in the sensation his fingers were causing in my body. My fingers started to work again at his zipper, finally bringing it down all the way. Hooking my fingers into the elastic of his boxer briefs, pushing I slipped them over his hips, scrapping my nails against the skin of his ass as they pass over it. His hips pushed forward connecting his hard cock with my clit. A buzz went through my body, I was floating somewhere high above the clouds, and colors were bursting everywhere.
A blurry outline of Tyler hovered above me. As my vision focused I watched as his chest heaved as if he was struggling to breath. His named whispered across my lips and he slid into me. The focus I had on him was short lived as my eyes rolled into the back of my head at the feel of him as he filled me so deliciously. He stilled as his hips met mine, his eyes focused on me and stayed there until my eyes were focusing correctly again. I smiled at him and wiggled my hips to get some friction moving. I wanted to explode. I wanted him to move.
Tyler slowly slid his hips back and dragged out of me till only the tip of his cock was still inside of me. He slowly moved back in, it wasn’t fast enough. It wasn’t hard enough. I wrapped my legs around his waist, tightening my thighs as I tried to pull him into me.
“Tyler, move faster,” I begged as he hovered over me.
A smile spread across his handsome face as his hips began to move. He was giving it to me how I needed it. His cock filling me and giving me what my body was begging for. He bent his head and captured a nipple in his mouth. The electric pull he had on my body was overwhelming. He skimmed his teeth over my taut nipple as his hips began to piston his cock into me faster and harder.