by Amy Star
So why is she allowed to treat me like a doll when I’ve made it abundantly clear that I don’t fucking want her touching me?” Her voice rose to a shout by the end, and left her panting through her nose. Slowly, she swallowed, and in a more level tone, she enunciated very clearly, “Either you explain to her that she can keep her goddamn hands to her goddamn self, or I will pack my bags and be gone by tonight, because I am beyond sick and tired of you treating me like a toddler throwing a tantrum every time I say something is wrong.”
Harry held his hands up in a pacifying gesture, and Cheyenne slowly sighed out a breath, though she didn’t actually relax in the least bit.
“I’ll have a word with her,” he promised her quietly. “Alright? I’ll talk to her about it tonight.”
Cheyenne got the distinct impression that he still wasn’t putting much stock in what she was saying, but she knew that was as good as she was going to get at that point. She nodded once stiffly and offered a flat, “Good,” in acknowledgement before she picked up her wallet, turned on her heel, and stalked out of the office.
She waited until she was in her room before she buried her face in her pillow and shrieked. Most of the noise was muffled by cloth and memory foam, but even so, she was loud enough that Daphne poked her head into the room in concern.
“Are you dying?”
Cheyenne sighed and set her pillow down before she sprawled back on the bed, hands linked together on top of her belly. “I’m not dying,” she replied. “I’m just talking myself out of going on a serial murdering spree.”
“Well, if that pep talk doesn’t work out, I can help you hide the bodies afterwards,” Daphne assured her brightly.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Cheyenne replied, nodding once to show the proper level of gratefulness. Daphne didn’t linger after that before heading back to her room, and soon enough Cheyenne sat back up. With a slow sigh, she made her way out of the room and headed back down the stairs. She had skipped lunch that afternoon, so it was probably about time for her to go find something to eat for dinner.
As she passed Harry’s office, the door was closed once again, but she could hear voices from inside, muffled nearly to the point of incoherence.
It was possible Harry was just on the phone with someone from work, or he was just talking to Lorraine as he might any other night, but it was also possible that he was actually having a word with her about her behavior.
Truth be told, she hadn’t really believed him when he said he would talk to her about it; she had just assumed that he was saying it to get Cheyenne to shut up and calm down, since that seemed to be his only real concern more often than not.
She couldn’t quite restrain herself, and she carefully sneaked closer to the door until she could press an ear against the wood. Their voices from inside were still muffled, but she could at least tell that Harry was indeed talking to Lorraine, and she could finally make out the words.
“…promise, sir, I meant no harm by any of it.” That was Lorraine’s voice, lilting and simpering as ever, pitched to sound some parody of apologetic. “If that’s what she thought, then I’m very sorry she feels that way.” And of course, the requisite apology that wasn’t actually an apology. Cheyenne rolled her eyes.
“Look, Lorraine, I get it,” Harry sighed, and Cheyenne could just picture the way he would run his hand over his hair whenever he was exasperated. “I know you don’t mean anything by it, but she still wants you to knock it off.”
“Mr. Carmichael—”
Harry sounded truly baffled as he cut her off. “She wants you to stop touching her. I am telling you to stop touching her unless it’s necessary. That’s literally all that’s going on here. I don’t get why that bothers you so much.”
Cheyenne rolled her eyes to herself as she listened. She knew the answer: because Lorraine didn’t want to lose one of her intimidation tactics. But she also knew that Lorraine was never going to actually admit to that.
The silence from the office seemed piercing for a moment before finally Lorraine said, “Of course, sir. You’re right. I’ll do my best to keep the habit in check from now on.”
Sensing the end of the conversation approaching, Cheyenne didn’t linger to hear how it would end, leaning away from the door and walking away before anyone could stumble upon her eavesdropping. After all, Harry still thought Lorraine meant well enough, so she really doubted he would simply overlook it if he opened the door right then and saw her with her ear pressed against it, like she was waiting for someone to get detention in middle school.
She didn’t head back to her room, though, instead making her way into one of the sitting rooms and making herself comfortable on the couch, leaning back to keep herself carefully propped up. It seemed like every move she made had to be done so carefully by that point, lest she lose her balance and wind up on the floor, but she supposed it was nothing unexpected.
She relaxed for only a few minutes before she heard footsteps in the hallway, and Lorraine looked into the room. As soon as she spotted Cheyenne, she stepped into the sitting room, though only just far enough to clear the doorway.
Everything was quiet for a moment before Lorraine practically forced out the words, “Mr. Carmichael has informed me that you find certain aspects of my behavior inappropriate. I would like to apologize for making you uncomfortable.”
She didn’t wait for a response, instead simply turning on her heel and marching right back out of the room.
Even so, Cheyenne felt a tiny little thrill of pleasure. It had been a good moment. It wasn’t often in that house that she got what she wanted.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cheyenne had always considered herself reasonably adept at entertaining herself. The world was a wide, wide place, and there was no shortage of things to do in it and things to experience, and she had always enjoyed getting out and experiencing life outside of the home. As far as she was concerned, keeping herself busy was never going to be a problem.
Clearly, she had never considered what it might be like to be stuck in the house for an extended period of time. Oh, certainly, she had always known in a theoretical sense that she could get sick or injured or something similar, but other than a bout of the flu in high school and bronchitis in college, she had always been healthy, and she had assumed it would always stay that way.
It had never quite occurred to her that she didn’t need to be ill to still be stuck in the house, and maybe she should have considered that to be some sort of oversight, but mostly she just regretted that she hadn’t seen it coming.
(Then again, getting pregnant hadn’t exactly been penciled into her schedule, and she certainly hadn’t planned on triplets.)
Time seemed to pass in slow motion, at times. Cheyenne still went to work, but her schedule had been trimmed rather extensively, and most of her coworkers jumped to help her in any way that they could while she was there, so even when she was at work, there were long stretches of time where it seemed like she was doing nothing at all.
(As it turned out, people were excruciatingly willing to help once the word ‘triplets’ became involved. Had Cheyenne been a slightly more vindictive person, she might have tried to use that to her advantage, but mostly she simply waited for the offers of help to come to her.)
When she was at the house, she was frequently alone, considering how much more free time she found herself with than anyone else. Daphne did her best to keep Cheyenne company, and Harry was there each and every evening, but even so, it felt like the world was passing her by in great swathes of time. She could tolerate it up to a point, but eventually it began to feel like she was getting ready to scrape herself out of her skin if that would make something actually happen.
She was bored, to put it frankly, and there was no real way to sugarcoat it. She was accustomed to being active and moving at all times, and that was the way she preferred it. Finding herself slowed, sometimes to the point of stopping altogether, left her feeling as if the entire world had decided to pull h
ard to port without warning, as if she was going to go toppling over without a chance to find her feet. For years, she had hardly ever allowed herself the time to just sit and exist, and she found she didn’t particularly appreciate the experience when it was thrust upon her.
(Not helping the situation at all was the fact that she felt slightly ill with some frequency, and she felt as if she was slowly expanding to fill the entirety of the enormous house, no matter how ridiculous she knew that was.)
She never really mentioned it, though. She didn’t want to whine, and really, ‘oh, I’m just so bored’ wasn’t likely to come across as anything other than whining, especially when Cheyenne was already on thin ice with regards to one of the house’s most frequent visitors. So, she refrained from mentioning it.
Or at least, she refrained from mentioning it directly. Daphne would feel guilty if she knew that Cheyenne was feeling neglected, and she imagined Harry would feel bad about it as well. More importantly than that, the information would make its way into his idle chatter with Lorraine, and quite frankly, Cheyenne didn’t want Lorraine to know even the simplest details about her emotional state. She didn’t want Lorraine knowing she was bored, because who was to say that Lorraine wouldn’t think of something to do with that information?
She could just imagine the lioness covertly slipping in hints that it meant Cheyenne was too much of a handful. Oh, certainly, she wouldn’t say it out loud, but Cheyenne had no doubts that Lorraine could use even the smallest, dumbest details to make someone look bad to even the most unobservant of audiences.
So, she stayed quiet and instead simply tried to keep herself busy as much as she could around the house, even if it meant infringing on private spaces a bit more than she strictly should have. Whether it was her barging into Daphne’s room without notice or strolling into Harry’s office with hardly a knock to announce herself, it didn’t matter. And maybe they had some idea of what was going on, as neither of them seemed particularly inclined to scold her for the intrusions.
(Even better than that, every time she waltzed her way into Harry’s office while Lorraine was in there, he dropped his conversation with his personal assistant in an instant. Of course, yes, certainly he always resumed it again reasonably quickly—typically after just greeting Cheyenne—but even so, Lorraine always looked so unsettled by it for just a split second each time it happened. Maybe it meant Cheyenne was petty—and she was willing to bet that it most certainly did—but she treasured those brief moments.)
She didn’t want to be needy, but she was going out of her mind. And she was beginning to think that more drastic measures might be necessary.
Cheyenne wasn’t quite sure what she had in mind when she wandered into Harry’s bedroom that night. She supposed she didn’t actually have anything in mind, as it wasn’t as if she was actively hoping for one thing or the other to happen. She simply sat down on the edge of the window seat as Harry absentmindedly tidied the wardrobe, and it all seemed so strangely domestic, as their conversation meandered from topic to topic. Work, changes Harry planned to make around the house once the weather began to warm back up once again, updates on the triplets, and anything and everything in between, though the conversation never went anywhere near Lorraine or the relationship that Cheyenne and Harry had shared in the past.
It was comfortable. More so than Cheyenne had expected it to be. And it felt familiar in a way that made Cheyenne feel as if a hand had wrapped itself around her heart and squeezed.
When at last Harry emerged the whole way from his wardrobe, he turned and took a step towards her in a way that seemed absentminded before he ground to a halt, something like realization flickering across his features for a moment, before leaving him looking slightly disappointed.
Cheyenne gave herself perhaps half a second to ponder her next course of action before she simply acted, not giving herself any time to back out and get cold feet. She lifted a hand, crooking two fingers to gesture Harry closer. He smiled crookedly and closed the distance between them, and Cheyenne spread her knees apart, inviting him to stand between them once he was in front of her. She reached a hand up as he leaned down, her fingers curling around the back of his neck as she urged him down the rest of the way, tipping her head back to meet his lips with her own.
Harry’s hands landed on her shoulders at first, before they began gradually sliding, one along one of her upper arms, and the other to cup the back of her neck and head. His fingers tightened slightly around her arm, and without any real conscious decision to do so, Cheyenne found herself getting to her feet, straightening up to her full height as the kiss continued. Granted, her full height was still nothing much in comparison to Harry’s own, but if nothing else, he was no longer bent double at the waist, and as he threaded his fingers into her hair, he bore down on her with renewed vigor.
When his tongue swiped along Cheyenne’s bottom lip, she opened her mouth just enough to grant entrance. Their tongues pressed together only briefly before sliding apart.
Whatever Cheyenne had initially had in mind was entirely irrelevant by then, as it was fairly obvious where everything was going after that point, and she was happy to let it happen, moving easily as he urged her on, his hand sliding from her arm down her side, settling on one of her hips, giving her a few coaxing prods in the direction of the bed. She began moving in that direction without needing him to tell her twice, walking backwards carefully so as not to break the kiss.
Harry was careful as he backed her towards the bed, as if she was going to break into pieces if he moved too suddenly. Cheyenne wasn’t sure how she felt about the kid gloves. On one hand, she didn’t want to feel as if he was treating her any differently, even if he so clearly was. On the other hand, she ached everywhere more often than not, even in places and ways she had never expected to, and so she appreciated the gentle handling more than she otherwise might have.
Where before Harry would have pushed her down on the bed and scrambled on top of her, that time he waited until the backs of her thighs hit the edge of the mattress before he picked her up off of the floor and lifted her the scant few inches to seat her on the edge of the mattress. She scooted herself backwards and turned, so she was facing the proper direction on the mattress, and Harry climbed up after her, one knee on either side of her thighs as he straddled her.
He pressed at her shoulders until she began to lay back, and then there was the slight complication of him not being able to simply lean down and kiss her as he had in the past. Instead, he had to shift to the side, coming at her from an angle to avoid laying on her belly.
It was a bit of a juggling act, all things considered, but Cheyenne couldn’t say she minded right then.
Everything seemed to drop into slow motion as they kissed, tongues sliding together languidly. It wasn’t until Harry’s hand began to slip up the bottom of her shirt that she realized they had still done basically nothing. They were still fully dressed. It seemed surreal to think that they had both been in the bed at the same time, for so long, while both clearly in the mood, and yet nothing had happened quite yet.
(She didn’t want to think that their previous relationship had been devoid of affection, so she didn’t. She swept the thought aside to contemplate it later, rather than letting it ruin the moment.)
Slowly, they stopped kissing, separating with some reluctance so Harry could sit up. He reached back over his head, seizing a fistful of the back of his shirt and pulling it over his head. Cheyenne watched with interest as his abs were revealed, and her interest only intensified once he tossed the shirt away and his hands instead moved to the fly of his pants.
He sighed in relief as he popped the button and tugged the zipper down, and his cock sprang free as he pushed his pants and his underwear down his thighs until he could kick them both over the end of the bed.Cheyenne’s gaze raked over him greedily, until he began unbuttoning her blouse, starting at the top and unfastening one button after the other, until the last button was released, and the blouse f
ell open.
Truth be told, Cheyenne didn’t feel especially attractive just then, and she hadn’t for a while. She felt more like a water balloon, filled too much and waiting to burst until the skin of her stomach was too taut and too smooth, and she knew she wasn’t even close to the end. She didn’t want to know what she was going to look like by then.
Harry didn’t seem to particularly agree with her assessment, as he stroked a hand over her stomach with something almost like reverence for a moment before he recalled that he was taking her shirt off. Cheyenne sat up finally as he gave the fabric an expectant tug, lifting her hands as it slid down her arms, until Harry could brush it aside without a care.
Cheyenne reached back for the clasp of her bra, only for Harry to beat her to it, fingers unlatching it deftly. Cheyenne let him pull it off of her, and she didn’t argue when he urged her to lie down once again. He circled his fingers around her nipples afterwards, and Cheyenne let out a breath caught somewhere between a sigh and a moan. Her face heated afterwards, slightly embarrassed by how sensitive she was. Though maybe it was something she should look at as a boon for the time being.