Strawberry Wine

by E. Jamie

  Laura pressed her fingers into his shoulders. “Dinner’s warming up….”

  “Later,” he urged, sliding his fingers into her hair.

  She began to undo the buttons of his shirt. His mouth moved down her neck, sucking lightly while she slid her fingers along the muscled wall of his chest.

  She knew she'd have marks on her skin tomorrow. She didn’t care. She liked the idea of being marked by him, branded on the outside in the same way she felt branded by him on the inside.

  He smelled of leather and soap, but it didn’t mask the scent that was distinctly his. Like fresh wet grass.

  They went on a picnic once. The skies opened up when they were halfway through their chicken salad. Before Caleb could rush back to his car, Laura hooked her legs around him and suggested they stay a little while longer. She felt surrounded by Caleb. He was around her, underneath her, on top of her. His scent, matched with the scent of the wet grass, made her shatter three times that day.

  Laura slid her hands into his now open shirt and pulled up the white tank underneath, groaning when she ran her hands up his chest and feels the hot, muscled skin.

  “Disrobe, Detective,” Laura ordered, running her nails gently across his abs, feeling his body clench in response.

  Caleb stepped back a little and shrugged out of his jacket and shirt before lifting the undershirt over his head in one quick move.

  She pressed her mouth to his chest, pressed her tongue against a flat nipple and heard him suck in his breath. She imagined him with an ugly scar running down the middle, imagined it had been he who'd been shot. He who had almost been taken away from her.

  She buried her face in his chest and shuddered, trying to push the horrific thought away. “I love you,” she whispered. Laura ran her hands up his arms, digging her fingers in with gentle pressure. She felt Caleb lift the nightgown a bit to take her ass in his hands, making her jump when he pulled her closer to him. Her mouth sucked at the pulse in his neck. He bent his knees, and she could feel him hard against her.

  She poked him back with her finger in his stomach, swallowing his soft laugh in her mouth.

  He hooked a finger in the strap of her nightgown and eased it down. Laura's stomach tightened nervously. She eased away from his embrace and moved around behind him, kissing his back. She wrapped her arms around his waist and began to undo the belt at his jeans. She smacked his behind lightly with it, making him laugh. God, she'd missed his laugh.

  “Laura, get back here,” Caleb demanded, turning his head.

  “Is that an order, McKinney?” she asked, saucily lowering her hand to his erection while she kissed his shoulder blade, pressing her lips to the smooth skin.

  Caleb whipped around and grabbed her hips, lifting her off her feet, carrying her into the bedroom and setting her on the bed. “You bet your ass.” His hands slid up her

  Thighs, and he got down on his knees and lowered his mouth to hers, groaning when he felt soft, moist bare skin instead of underwear. “Oh, I like this.”

  “Thought you might.” Laura grinned.

  He nipped her collarbone and cupped her breast through her nightgown.

  Again, he reached for the strap to pull it down.

  Again, Laura stopped him. She felt ridiculous, but she just didn’t want to let him see the scar on her chest. She cupped his face in her hands and slid her tongue into his mouth to distract him.

  He looked at her but didn’t comment. He just eased her nightgown up her thighs until she was partly bared to him. “You have no idea how much I missed the sounds you make when I do this,” Caleb groaned, his eyes darkening right before his mouth fastened on her.

  Laura arched back, and her thighs parted wider, giving him better access. She cried out his name while his tongue worked its magic. She grabbed his hair, trying not to pull too hard as her hips moved forward, wanting more. Her nails clutched the cool sheets, contrasting with the heat of his mouth.

  When her hips begin to dance urgently on the mattress, Caleb switched to just sucking on the nub of flesh and eased two fingers inside of her.

  “Oh please...oh God. Caleb...love you...”

  He crooked the two fingers and used his teeth on her with just the smallest pressure.

  She came apart, her body exploding with liquid fire bubbling through her veins.

  When she regained her brain function, Laura realized with a panicked start that the top of her nightie had slid down, leaving the material bunched around her waist and her entire upper body visible to Caleb, who climbed up along her body.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Smug bastard.” Laura tried to cover her chest with her arms, but Caleb shook his head and pulled her arms down.

  “Laura, stop,” he urged, his eyes softening. “I love you. Not your chest, impressive though it is,” he added with a small smile.

  Laura rolled her eyes at him and punched his chest.

  “This scar. It reminds me how much I love you. How much you mean to me. This scar means that I could lose you at any second. It means that I almost did. Not just because of that bullet, but because of fear and pride. It'll fade, and even if it doesn't, I don't care. I have you, and I love—” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on her collarbone—“every”—his mouth moved down her chest, kissing the scar—“damned”—he cupped her bare breast in one hand—“inch of you.” He closed his mouth over her nipple and pushed her to lie down.

  When he finally stretched out naked above her, Laura saw the boy she loved change into this powerful, beautiful man. Harder, tighter. His body moved with a slow, drawn-out rhythm only experience can give. When he pushed into her, Laura's body locked around him, and she thought, thank God. Thank God she could touch him again, feel him again, love him again.

  He took her gently, mindful of her recuperating body. His lips dropped kisses on her face and he brushed the blonde strands from her forehead while he moved deep and leisurely within her, as if they had all the time in the world. As if she couldn’t feel how his breath hitched and held with the restrained urge to explode.

  She cupped his behind and pushed him deeper still until they were just grinding against each other.

  “Laura...my...I love you. My God...”

  Their bodies were damp against each other, sliding hot and urgent as their climax neared.

  They came at the same time. Bodies tightening when they dove into the warm, explosive heat that had always been between them.

  He took her again in the morning.

  ****

  She couldn’t be a cop anymore. It killed her at first, and she didn’t know what to do with herself until Sergeant McKinney gave her a recommendation for a job teaching new recruits at the police academy.

  “It's not the same, but at least I get to pass on my vast knowledge of how to beat people up,” Laura told Caleb while they shared a bath. She played with the shampoo on his hair and gave him a beard with a handful of bubbles when she straddled him.

  “Vast indeed,” he agreed with a laugh.

  “You know, when I woke up in the hospital and you looked like an adorable little lumberjack?” She ran her tongue down along his wet shoulders.

  “Mmmm?”

  “I thought it was kinda hot,” she purred into his ear.

  He stirred between her legs. “Really?”

  “Mmm-hmm. You looked kinda crazy. Dangerous, even.” She lifted her hips and settled down onto him.

  “Don't think they'd go for the lumberjack/grizzly bear look in the department.”

  “Bunch of tight asses,” Laura grumbled. “Oooh, God,” she hissed, her body responding to him fiercely, as always.

  “Speaking of tight asses.” Caleb grabbed her behind and pinched it, thrusting up hard.

  ****

  She was halfway through a weapons lecture when the room swam dangerously and she had to grip the podium to keep from falling down. Laura shook it off as just simple fatigue until she passed out while preparing the next day's lesson.

  She told Doct
or Comel that she thought she must be having some sort of kooky reaction to the new meds he had her on.

  He countered with the news that she was pregnant.

  Laura swore, leaning back against the chair.

  “That's how it usually happens,” he pointed out. “Now what the hell you were thinking? You never heard of condoms?

  “Of course we used protection. It just...those things aren't foolproof, you know.”

  A baby? My God, my God, myGod, myGod, Laura thought, her mind working at

  warp speed.

  “Yeah, well, you two proved that,” he grumbled, turning away. He picked up a file from a steel drawer against the wall. He threw it on the desk, across from Laura.

  She picked it up and leafed through the loose pages. “What is this?”

  “All the reasons you of all people should not get pregnant.”

  Laura’s back stiffened.

  “Relax—though you're the last person I'd describe as being maternal, your attitude is not what I'm talking about. You have to stay on your drugs, Laura, throughout your pregnancy. We don't know what, if anything, that'll do to the fetus.”

  “You mean they could hurt it?” Laura wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Can't I just go off them for the pregnancy and then go back on once it's born?”

  “You need your ears examined too? Throughout your pregnancy, missy.”

  Laura blinked. Nobody had ever called her “missy” in her life. No one else would dare. It was almost laughable. She needed to see Caleb RFN!

  “You need to share this info with the father, and if you two can make a decision on whether or not to terminate the pregnancy before the kid is born, I'd appreciate it.”

  “Termin—” Laura's jaw dropped, horrified. “There will be no termination.” God had given her another chance to have Caleb's child. A chance to do things right. She'd been feeling so chilled lately, Caleb had been grumbling that she kept turning the heat up in their apartment. Now she felt suffused with warmth. It felt like God had touched her head and whispered, 'You are good enough. We will give you this gift because you have suffered enough and deserve to be happy.’

  “You might change your mind after you read the file.”

  They should have waited two years at least before pregnancy was attempted. “Attempted my ass. The damn condom must have been defective.” Laura said under her breath as she read while walking down the hall. Damned McKinney sperm! What was it with the man? God give him a higher concentration of the stuff or something?

  Premature babies, low birth weight, danger to mothers, unknown chances of deformities, etc... Geez!

  “Mmm, just the woman I was looking for.” Caleb grabbed her when she walked into the apartment and wrapped an arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet and carrying her towards the bedroom.

  Laura almost cried out, startled, but Caleb covered her mouth with his own, stifling the attempt. The file was crushed between them. For a few seconds, all thought flew out of her mind while his lips slid across hers, warm and sweet with coffee.

  She grabbed the side of his face with her free hand and then tightened it around his shoulder, her eyes burning with tears. God, she didn't think it was possible to feel this happy. She felt none of the fear she thought she should, and she imagined Caleb would be over the moon when she told him.

  He talked to her about the future all the time. His eyes clouded with worry when he talked about wanting their world to be safer, but he was happy that Laura wasn't a street cop anymore.

  She wanted to tell him off when he spoke like that, but she knew he had a point. One of them should be safe if they were to have a family someday

  It was very hard to kick your boyfriend's chauvinistic ass when you wanted to have his children more than anything in the world.

  Still, they couldn't have a safe city unless they fought for it, and now that Laura has been demoted, Caleb was the best cop she knew. That scared her, but where in the past, that fear would have made her run, now it made her hold on to him with everything she had.

  Caleb pulled back. “You okay?”

  “Mmm. So okay, you have no idea.” She smiled, reaching for him again.

  He laughed against her mouth and then gasped when she lowered her hand to cup him through his pants.

  She then moved to her knees, unbuttoning his pants. “So what did you want to tell me?” Laura asked before taking him into her mouth.

  “Oh God...,” he moaned, pushing his hips closer to her.

  “Dinner...tickets...date...penis... Oh shit...pianist.”

  Laura couldn’t laugh at the moment, so she smiled with her eyes up at him.

  He tightened his fingers in her hair, and she knew he was about to reach his climax.

  When he did, Laura thought about the baby growing inside of her.

  He smiled dreamily at her while she rose to her feet and pushed him back onto the bed. “It's a date,” Laura said, patting his cheek. She moved the folder under the bed before Caleb gathered her in his arms and rolled on top of her. The date tomorrow night would be the perfect time to share her news.

  ****

  There was a high risk of miscarriages in pregnant patients who’d received heart transplants. Laura shuddered while she held her rosary in her hands, sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading the folder while Caleb was at work.

  “Lord, hear my prayer. Please let me keep this one.” She placed a hand over her stomach. “I'll try and be good. I'll learn to be a good mom. You know Caleb will be a good father. Don't take this chance away from him. Not again. I know I should tell him about the baby. I will, I promise. Tonight. Maybe he'll be so happy about this baby, he'll be able to forgive me. Please let him forgive me.” Laura trembled, tears filling her eyes. “But even if he can't, I beg you, let us have this baby.”

  In women who’d received heart transplants, pregnancy could pose a danger to the mother's life.

  “Even if you have to take me instead,” she whispered, holding her beads close to her heart.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Laura was on her way out of the police station after visiting with William when she fainted.

  Karl and William rushed her to the hospital, and Caleb’s heart stopped when his father’s worried voice informed him of what had happened.

  Laura. God, no. Please! he thought, imagining the worst when he braked and turned the car in the direction of the hospital.

  His heart was pounding in his ears, and he prayed the whole way to her room. When he burst in, Laura was tucked in a bed, her eyes closed. Karl was sitting beside her.

  “How is she?” Caleb asked, terrified while he tried to see if the woman he loved was all right.

  “She's fine. No thanks to you,” Dr. Comel said, coming into the room.

  His heart slowly returned to its normal rhythm. “What's wrong with her?”

  “Nothing about seven months won't cure,” he informed him with a snort.

  “What the hell are you ramb...” Caleb's mouth dropped open when the possibility dawned on him. When he noticed Karl beaming at him, he dared to hope he was right. “Is she? She's...oh my God...she's pregnant?”

  “I knew there was a brain behind that pretty face,” the doctor remarked. “Though the jury's still out, considering how stupid you would have to be to get her pregnant in the first place. I’ve discovered she's still got the scarring from her first pregnancy to worry about, on top of the fact that she is still not out of the clear with her heart—”

  “Wait, what?” Caleb asked, his mind snapping back to the first part of the doctor’s statement.

  Karl made a sound that was half a squeak, half a moan, and he dropped his head, covering his eyes with his hand.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, his chest growing tight.

  The doctor’s mouth opened, then closed, uncomfortably. He looked first at Karl and then back to Caleb in obvious confusion “I thought you knew. This is her second pregnancy. Her first miscarriage left som
e scarring that might impede the growth of this new baby.”

  Caleb felt his legs grow weak, and he grabbed for the hospital curtain. “First pregnancy... My God... Karl?”

  Karl said nothing.

  “Mike?” he asked, holding his breath.

  “No,” Karl replied.

  “Yours?”

  “Come on, man!”

  “Mine... It was mine?” Caleb asked, shaking.

  Karl sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “You need to wait for Laura to wake up and ask—”

  “I'm asking you!” he screamed at him.