“Yes.” I could never forget my first pregnancy and how scared I’d been. I was so stubborn that I left Connor in the dark much longer than most people would—though I knew he’d figure it out. I just didn’t acknowledge what was happening, and the silent battle became something more intimate between us. Something that strengthened our trust.
We might seem strange, but I can’t see that event happening any other way.
“I’d never been more captivated by a person in my entire life, and that time only furthered my belief.”
“What belief?”
He licks his lips. “‘You have a place in my heart no one else could ever have.’”
I drill a piercing glare at him, my wrists still pinned by his hand. “And I’d believe you more if you didn’t quote F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Ice Palace.”
His grin is blinding. “What I said was real, even if they’re not my words.”
“Fine.”
“Just fine? You’d give up that quickly, Miss Highest Honors?”
I nearly smile at the title he uses for me, as though reminding me of who I am and why I should continue to treat myself like royalty. “I took something from you today that I can never give back.” My smile vanishes completely.
Say it, Rose.
So I say it, and even supine beneath him, my words feel like mine. Like a force of nature. Like the surge that propels a tidal wave. “I’m pregnant.”
He does a poor job at concealing a smile, which means he let it pass through for me to see.
“She said we probably conceived in September, so I’m not far along, but I’m pregnant. And I heard this news alone in a doctor’s office, and all I wished was that you were beside me. I wished that you were there.” My eyes flood, but I restrain tears from spilling over.
With his free hand, Connor cups my cheek, his thumb skimming my bottom lip. I search his deep blue eyes as they illuminate. “But I’m here with you now, Rose, and anything else sounds too predictable to belong to us.”
Translation: ordinary is boring, darling.
I expel any lingering remorse. I’m pregnant. Internally, I might as well belong to the nauseatingly cheerful scenes in Disney films, birds chirping while I twirl and stroke my hair and sing.
Outwardly, I am Ursula.
This attracts my husband. Connor kisses me…gently. More gently than I ever like. My gaze narrows.
Richard.
His lips fall to my ear. “You didn’t think I’d take you deep and hard, did you?”
He’s going to punish me.
In the best way.
I glare. “I thought you’d be a mediocre narcissist with terrible hair. Which you are.”
“Mediocre? Terrible hair?” His hand tightens around my wrists. Oh God. “You could’ve picked less obvious lies.” His other hand disappears up the bareness of my thigh.
“It’s my opinion—” I gasp as he tenderly strokes his fingers between my legs, my lacy panties obstructing his skin from my skin.
“Open your eyes, Rose.”
They closed on their own accord. Just as I open them, he pulls me further onto the bed and pushes the chessboard aside. Before I hone in on the fallen pieces, he holds my face so…softly. I grimace, aching for his force. I’m not fragile dishware.
I could tear him limb by limb if I desired.
I don’t, however. I only desire his strength to trump mine until I’ve melted entirely in his hands. He won’t lower his body weight on me, but he’s stepped off the ground, his pelvis fit above mine.
Connor captures my blistering gaze. His eyes so fixated on mine, he might as well be fucking me with them.
I pulse.
My lips part.
He whispers tender, quiet French that I struggle to understand, dizzied and lit up. I break my wrists apart to hold onto his shoulder. Swiftly, he seizes my hands once more and stretches them above my head. When I try to protest, Connor pins them, removes his other hand from my thigh, and he reaches towards the end table.
Connor purposefully grinds his hardened cock against my panties.
My toes curl. “Connor…”
I choke on a moan, my whole body clenching with arousal.
His erection is outlined in his drawstring pants, and I imagine him inside of me. Hard. Deep. Rough. Not this gentle shit.
Being six-foot-four, he has the arm-span to reach the end table and open the drawer, all without moving off me. Just forward. Grinding in.
I tilt my head back and see him collect leather handcuffs. He shuts the drawer and then locks the cuffs around my wrists. I now lose the ability to break them apart.
I try to skewer him with a single glare.
Connor only grins.
Ugh.
He leans teasingly close. His pink lips brush against mine as he whispers, “What am I?” I inhale his words as much as he breathes in my own.
“Average,” I combat.
“Wrong.” He puts distance between our mouths, as though to say you get none of me.
I grow more insolent at the idea. “Who even said I wanted to kiss you?”
“Who even said you were smart?” he rebuts with this conceited nonchalance. He’s sexy. No he is not. His lips curve upward. Yes he is. No, Rose. I bristle at my contradictory thoughts.
Dear God,
Make it so that I can loathe all parts of my husband.
Sincerely,
Rose Calloway Cobalt.
“Princeton said I was smart. I say that I’m smart,” I tell Connor. “And I never said that I wanted to kiss you.” I lift my head and shoulders off the bed. He presses a palm between my breasts, pushing me back down.
He’s reached the last button, and he slowly, too slowly, fully opens my shirt. My breasts come into view, my sensitive nipples at attention. My body begs to be manhandled, but I’m too stubborn to verbally plead.
Connor strokes my hair out of my face, and I anticipate him yanking the strands hard. He never does, and a frustrated sound rumbles my throat.
“Yes?” he asks, full well knowing why I made that noise. “Do you ache for something, Rose?”
“Your death.”
He nearly laughs.
“And to slaughter your laugh.”
He hooks my panties with his finger, and he lifts my leg, his lips trailing a hot, feather-light line from the inside of my knee to the inside of my thigh.
Bite me.
I dizzy. As he pulls my panties halfway off, he stops, his mouth partially against my thigh. “What am I?” he asks.
Give in to my husband?
Never.
I breathe, “Ordinary.”
“Incorrect, Miss Highest Honors.” He carefully, too carefully, slides my panties down my legs instead of ripping them off. I want his large hand against my throat. I want him drilling into me. All I have to do is answer correctly.
My arousal mounts, my legs in his possession. I pulse once and twice, hungering for his cock. He slips my panties off my ankles, and I suck in a breath.
“I loathe your face,” I tell him. I love his face. Why does he have to be so handsome? His perfect abs. His wavy hair. Even his moisturized skin. It’s annoying. Everything about him. Is. Infuriating.
“Such lies, darling.” He tenderly kisses my knee before stretching my legs wider again. He’s knelt between them, and he rolls down the band of his drawstring pants. Dear God.
My collarbones jut out. “Connor…” I can feel myself getting wet.
His erection emerges—long, thick and incredibly hard. Ready to fit deep in me. He removes his pants but takes his time to fold them, all to irritate me and prolong what I crave.
My body wants to buck up. My back wants to arch. Do not betray me, body. Prepare for battle against thy husband.
I buck up towards him.
Dammit.
Connor quickly places his palm on my lower abdomen, gently pushing me back down. Then he delicately, too delicately, places breathless kisses from between my breasts, over my nipples, do
wn to my ribcage, lower and lower, spending extra time on my abdomen. And the place where our baby will grow strong.
He pauses, only to look up at me and ask, “What am I?”
My legs tremble. I jerk against the handcuffs, pleasure swelling. “You’re appalling.”
“Réessaie.” Try again.
“Run-of-the-mill, typical, common—”
Connor abruptly seizes my handcuffed wrists, and he brings my arms down in front of me. Then he laces my fingers together and extends both my middle and index fingers, pressed like I’m miming a gun. He holds my gaze, and he lifts my hands higher—up to his mouth. My muscles burn in satisfaction as he pulls.
“What am I?” His deeply whispered words stimulate me much more than the sight of his body. My veins scald and blood rushes to my clit.
The sensations escalate so quickly that I forget to spout off an answer.
“Rose,” he says again. “What am I?”
“Maddening.”
Connor takes my fingers into his mouth. His eyes still on mine. I shudder, my body quaking. I nearly come at the sight of his unrivaled confidence. My lips part, breath caught in my throat. As he skillfully sucks my fingers, he slowly pushes his hardened cock into me, but he never thrusts. He never rocks deeper. He just stops and torments me. Full but no friction. Full but no aggression.
My shoulders dig into the mattress, and my back arches, asking to move forward. I can’t deny myself what my body craves any longer. I’m so pent up that I moan when his hand skims my breast. I breathe and cry out like I’m being lit on fire.
“Connor.”
He pops his mouth off my fingers. “What am I?” he asks in such a demanding tone. He kneads my hip, giving me a taste of force that he’d use all over my body.
I squeeze my eyes shut, all my soldiers abandoning this battle.
“What am I?”
“A god.” He drives so hard forward that I instantly come. Clenching around his cock. He thrusts deep and hard, building me to another peak before I descend from the first. I struggle to keep my eyes open.
He kisses me with rough affection, my lips swelling beneath his. My body blazes with my mind, and he tugs my hair. Yanks until the pressure lights up every nerve. Before my eyes roll back, I peek at his ass that flexes as he drives in, so fast it’s like he’s running a marathon between my legs.
Connor.
He groans against my mouth. “You want to be ridden hard, Rose? You want me to grab every fucking inch of you?”
I mutter out a pleasured approval.
He bites the flesh of my neck, and I gasp sharply. Connor. He sucks my neck before wrapping his hand around my throat. I love when he chokes me, but I know he won’t do it for long while I’m pregnant. He’s gentler about this than usual.
He whispers in the pit of my ear, “You can feel how hard I’m fucking you.” He goes deep, so deep that I arch into him and moan into his shoulder. Connor holds me against his body, cupping my ass, and pushing me closer, until he’s so far in I can hardly breathe.
We both hit a staggering climax.
Even before we calm, I ask him in a tired voice to stay in. I’m not sure he even hears at first. I keep my cheek on his shoulder, my muscles fatigued and eyes shut. I feel him carrying me, my legs still around him, and he rests my head against my pillow, his body pressed up against mine.
I fight to stay awake.
Connor is on top of me, unlocking my handcuffs. He also, very clearly, heard my request.
“I think I just had this strange nightmare,” I say with more contentment than I planned.
He sets the handcuffs aside. “What made it a nightmare?” He kisses my sore wrists, watching me intently.
“I called you a god.”
His lips rise in his next kiss. “Then your nightmare is my dream.”
“Not your reality?” I rebut.
He leans forward. “All my dreams are realities, darling. And your dreams are my dreams.” He presses the warmest, most loving kiss to my forehead.
2019
“Fuck it.”
- Ryke Meadows, We Are Calloway (Season 1 Episode 13 – Cornfields & Butterbeer)
< 8 >
January 2019
The Meadows Cottage
Philadelphia
RYKE MEADOWS
“Why the fuck did we volunteer for this?” I ask Dais, gripping the base of a silver ladder.
She stands on the second highest rung with only one foot. “Because he’s one of our closest friends.” Daisy rips a piece of duct tape with her teeth and adheres the string of a long blue banner to the ceiling. Our first floor is just one big fucking room, no foyer or archway to hang this across.
I grumble, “He’s annoying as fuck.”
My statement is interrupted by ping ping and bop bop sounds. Ten feet away, surrounded by a mound of fucking pillows in the living room area, our eleventh-month-old baby bangs on her kiddie keyboard. Nutty, our white husky, sleeps through the terrible music, curled on the foot of the stairs.
Sulli’s not going to win a fucking musical award any time soon. It’s not like we expected her to be musically inclined. Daisy can barely hold a tune, and I’m not that fucking great at singing either.
Though I’m a hell of a lot better than my little brother.
“But you love him,” Daisy mumbles, biting another piece of tape.
“That’s a strong fucking word to use between me and Connor.”
She slaps the tape onto the ceiling and then glances at me with a lopsided smile. “So salty, that Ryke Meadows.”
I just know that whatever we fucking do, he’s going to shit on it.
So yeah, maybe I am a little fucking salty.
The tape suddenly peels off for the fifth time, and the banner falls onto Daisy’s head. I reach up and clasp her thigh, so she doesn’t fucking plummet.
Daisy pushes the banner off and then mock gasps, “He’s touching my ass.”
I raise my brows at her and then move my hand up to her round ass. “Now I’m touching your fucking ass.” I pat her ass and squeeze.
She puts her hand to her forehead. “What will my husband think? I let another man fondle my butt?” Daisy theatrically falls backwards off the fucking ladder.
I anticipate it so much that I easily catch her in time. My baseball cap, that she was wearing, drops off her head and thuds to the hardwood.
In my arms, she looks up at me.
I look down at her. “Your husband is thinking he’s married the craziest fucking Calloway girl.”
Her lips curve upwards. “You’re friends with my husband?”
I toss a piece of hair into her face, and then I fucking kiss her. My body warms at our embrace, and I feel her smile beneath my lips.
She mumbles into the kiss, “Hi, husband.”
I nip her bottom lip and whisper, “Hi, wife.” I abruptly toss Daisy over the couch. She lands on the cushion with a contagious smile.
Sulli laughs at the sudden sight of her mom.
Daisy sits up and leans towards Sulli. “You didn’t know, peanut butter cupcake? I can fly.” Her voice is so melodic—I could listen to her talk to our daughter every day.
I gather the blue banner and go to the nearby kitchen counter. Like I said, our first floor is all one fucking space, divided off by furniture.
“Let’s just fucking tape this across the barstools.”
“I like it.” Daisy makes a silly face at Sulli before helping me re-tape this thing. When we’re finished, the words are bold and clear in her handwriting.
Happy 30th Birthday, Connor!
“He’s going to fucking hate it.” This actual fact almost makes it worth it. Truth is, he will most definitely shit on everything, I most definitely do love the guy, and I also really fucking love when he’s given a hard time. Which is rare. Because not much, if anything, flusters him.
“Very true,” Daisy says. “Connor Cobalt doesn’t appreciate the finer things in parties.”
“
And what are the finer fucking things, Calloway?”
She outstretches her arms and tosses them higher into the air. “Blindingly bright decorations! Birthday sashes! And cake! Every birthday must have cake.” Daisy bows.
I want her in my fucking arms.
To hold her and kiss her and just fucking love her.
These sentiments never recede. Never end.
Daisy goes still. “You did remember the cake, right?” Rose and her sisters left that task up to my brother and me.
“It’s in the fucking freezer.”
Lo thought it’d be funny to give him a vanilla ice cream cake. Out of irony. If we had to deem anyone “vanilla” out of all of us, Connor Cobalt would be the last on the list. And you know what? I highly doubt Connor will shit on Lo’s vanilla fucking cake because it’s coming from Lo.
I’m not bitter. If anything, I’m glad that one part of Connor’s birthday might go right because of my brother. Connor may hate celebrating his own birthday, but there’s a part of all of us—even me—that wants him to enjoy today.
How, why, do I fucking care about him? In one breath, I want to see him struggle for once. In the other, I want him to be as happy as the rest of us—because anything else just feels wrong.
“Dada!” Sulli exclaims, in the midst of teetering towards us on two feet. She already succeeded at walking last week (we videotaped the event), but her legs still tremble beneath her with each wobbly step.
Daisy and I angle towards our daughter. There’s nothing fucking cuter than this baby in a green onesie and her dark brown hair in tiny pigtails. I have thick hair, so it wasn’t a surprise that hers grew in fast.
Daisy crouches and waves and cheers Sulli on.
As I stare between them, guilt gnaws at me. Just tell your wife what fucking happened yesterday. I can’t.
I lean an elbow on the bar counter.
I can’t break Daisy’s heart. It’s the last fucking thing I ever want to do in my lifetime. She doesn’t have to know.
Sullivan skirts past Daisy, laughing as though she’s in a race against her mom. Then our baby starts to climb up the rungs of the wooden barstool.
“Hey there,” Daisy calls out. She has a hard time telling Sulli outright no.
Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) Page 8