Black Limit

by Charlotte Byrd

  Dancing the night away to one of the most common and strangest choices for a wedding song out there, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, I start to laugh watching Aiden mouthing the words along with me.

  “I don’t want this night to end!” I yell on top of my lungs, so that he can hear me over the music.

  “Me either,” he says.

  “How long do you think the party will go on?”

  “As long as the bride and groom are here.”

  “You know, just because we leave the dance floor, it doesn’t mean that the night will end,” he says coyly, taking me by my waist. I smile at him and take a few steps away as the song goes into its chorus.

  “What do you mean?” I ask coyly.

  “I hear our bridal suite calling us,” he says as he twirls me away from him and then back toward him.

  After close to forty minutes of goodbyes, we leave the party while it’s still going strong. As Aiden leads me upstairs to our penthouse, he wraps his arms around me.

  “Thank you,” I say. “For planning this beautiful wedding. For marrying me. For everything.”

  “Thank you for being there for me. And for bringing happiness into my life.”

  And suddenly, in this quiet moment on the elevator, I feel at peace. My life feels complete. Full. The man of my dreams is my husband. He loves me as much as I love him and that means everything will be okay. Right?

  I know that I will follow him wherever he will take me. He doesn’t need my permission, not that he ever did. I don’t know what the future will hold, but tonight he leads me inside the room and straight toward the bedroom.

  Putting his arms around my lower back, he turns me around to face him. His eyes turn a deeper shade without giving that familiar mysterious quality that I’ve fallen in love with. He brushes his fingers along my bottom lip. His fingertips feel both rough and soft at the same time. He leans closer to me, his breaths colliding with my face. Each breath is like its own kiss, kind and sweet and yet dangerous. After everything that we have been through, we are still standing here. More in love and more in lust than ever before.

  Aiden tilts my head slightly to the side. He buries his fingers in my hair. Our lips touch and I see flashes of light. Every part of my body is giving off sparks in anticipation.

  As he pushes me down on the bed, our tongues collide. His feels foreign, yet familiar at the same time. One kiss turns into the next, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Slowly, his lips start to make their way down my neck.

  My stomach feels a bit heavy and cumbersome and I have to lie on my side to fully enjoy the moment. After I adjust my position, Aiden runs his hands down my back and then back up to my shoulders. Shivers run down my thighs and up my arms. I open my legs a little bit wider.

  “What do you want?” I ask. “Do you want something kinky?”

  Aiden shakes his head, kissing my collarbone. “No, not tonight,” he says. “Unless you do.”

  I shrug.

  “Tonight, I just want to make love to my wife,” he says, unzipping the back of my dress. With my corset undone, my breasts pop right out and into his mouth.

  “Mmmm,” he whispers, licking my nipples. I moan from pleasure and in anticipation of what’s to come.

  “If this is how you make love to your wife, I’ll take it.”

  “You haven’t seen nothing yet.”

  Suddenly, the tone of his kisses changes. Before they were soft and careful, but suddenly, they are forceful and unapologetic. They become bordering on pain, but the good kind. Each one sends electric impulses through my body. Zap. Zap. Zap.

  Towering over me, he pulls off my dress. It slides off without much struggle, leaving me in my panties and bulging belly. He kneels down over me and kisses my belly button.

  “I don’t have that quite flat belly anymore,” I say.

  “I know.” He kisses me along my panty line. “But you will later. And even if you don’t, this is the most beautiful belly I’ve ever seen.”

  I blush at the compliment. All this time later, after everything we have been through, Aiden Black is still capable of making me blush. It’s a bit hard to believe.

  As he undresses, I watch as each one of his muscles tenses and relaxes. His six pack glistens in the twilight and I run my fingers over each individual bulge. I can’t help but lick my lips.

  “Like what you see?”

  “Yes.” I nod. “It looks delicious.”

  Through his pants, I can see the girth and the substantial size of his cock. I run my fingers over it and pull Aiden closer to me.

  His hands make their way down my body with expert precision. My legs fall open on their own after he pulls off my panties and he slides in between. Aiden slides his hands back, across the curves of my hips, and up my hipbones.

  He runs his tongue along the inside of my thighs and inhales me. I get even more wet than I was before. My body rises and falls with each kiss. I pull my legs closed to try to stop myself from getting too aroused, but it’s too late.

  As Aiden continues to tease me, my mouth dries up, along with all moisture in my body. I tilt my head back and Aiden continues to play with me.

  “Oh, Ellie,” Aiden moans. I like the way he says my name. It’s comforting and sexy all at the same time.

  After giving me one long, wet kiss in between my thighs, he pulls himself up and climbs on top of me. He’s about to thrust himself inside of me when he changes his mind. A moment later, he is lying behind me. Cradling me. Sliding inside of me, I feel him fill me up. The area in between my legs is begging for him. I don’t think I’ve ever been so wet before.

  “I crave you,” he whispers. “I love you.”

  I let out a moan of pleasure.

  He moves swiftly and elegantly. After a few thrusts, we are moving as one. Dancing an invisible dance. My feet start to tingle and I know that I’m getting close. I point my toes. Electricity courses through my veins.

  “Oh, Aiden,” I moan, biting the edge of the sheet. A wave of pleasure comes over me and I hear him moan my name. His movements speed up the closer he gets, driving me wild.

  “Ellie! Ellie!” he yells in my ear. A few moments later, he stops moving and collapses into me. I turn around to face him and snuggle up against his powerful and protective body. I close my eyes and relax. Everything is going to be okay. I just know it.

  Chapter 50 - Ellie

  When we have a sit-down…

  The only thing that would make my wedding more perfect is a dream honeymoon somewhere where the water is crystal clear and the sand is as white as snow. Unfortunately, real life isn’t like that. The thing that awaits me not long after the wedding is that sit-down with the Assistant DA and the main detective along with who knows who else. But they are the main people who will be sitting in judgement and deciding whether this case will indeed go to trial.

  Thurston and the rest of my legal team have postponed the sit-down for as long as possible. In fact, it has been more than a few weeks. Luckily, the DA himself postponed the meeting a full month because of another trial that he was prosecuting. Well, here we are. It’s finally here. The morning of.

  Luckily, the meeting is scheduled for one in the afternoon. I’m not a morning person in my normal life, but this pregnancy has really taken it out of me. I spend most mornings sleeping in until well past nine and then walking around in a daze for close to an hour as I try to do anything to keep the nausea at bay. This morning is no different except that I have the strong suspicion that my bout of morning sickness has something to do with possible doom, which may result from the sit-down.

  “You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine,” Aiden keeps saying over and over. He’s pacing the room. Cracking his knuckles. Drinking about five cups of coffee. All signs that everything is not alright. I’ve never seen him this nervous before. And the more he tries to cover his tracks, the more obvious his anxiety becomes.

  When I’m finally ready, I glance at myself one last time
in the mirror. I’m wearing a flowing above the knee floral dress. It’s business casual and maternity, of course, since it’s thirty-nine weeks today. At first, I thought about going for a traditional gray suit with a pencil skirt. You know, the works. But it was so uncomfortable to sit in that I had to go with something that gave my body room to breathe. I have no idea how long this meeting will go for, but I have to be comfortable. At least, as comfortable as possible.

  “Aiden, no matter what happens today, it’s going to be fine,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve decided to make it so. No matter what. What I mean is that we will get through this.”

  This makes him feel a little better and that in turn makes me feel better, too. Maybe I can get through this with just some positive thinking.

  We arrive at a nondescript office building downtown fifteen minutes before our appointment. Someone shows us inside and toward the right office. It’s a large conference room with a big view of the city through the wall-to-wall windows along the far side. I hope that I get to sit on the side facing the view.

  As soon as we come in, everyone introduces themselves. All the names get jumbled together except for two. Thomas Mann, the Assistant District Attorney, is a large intimidating man in his late forties. He has a big frame and about fifty additional pounds on him. He sits directly across from me at the conference table and buries his head in paperwork. His appearance is somewhat disheveled, almost sweaty.

  He whispers something to the guy next to him as I shake Detective Egan’s hand. The DA is asking him something about another case. His words are frantic and disoriented. I can’t quite make out what he’s saying, but it doesn’t sound good. It sounds like their case is falling apart.

  “I thought that we were going to see Detective—“ Thurston starts to say, but Detective Egan interrupts him.

  “I’ve taken over the case from him,” he explains. “He has taken a leave of absence.”

  I was wondering why Egan didn’t look familiar. I thought that too much time had passed or I didn’t have a great memory of him before, but I guess not. Getting even more agitated and flustered, Mann excuses himself for a few moments. We all sit here in silence until he comes back.

  “Okay, let’s get this over with,” he says when he comes back. “I don’t have much time. Everything in New York seems to be falling apart without me.”

  My heart skips a beat. I thought that I would have time to explain, to make my case. I glance over at Thurston, who shrugs his shoulders lightly. Someone turns on the camera. They place me under oath.

  “I’ve reviewed your case,” Mann says, finally looking up at me from the file. “Carefully.”

  “Okay,” I mumble. Thurston nudges me. I’m supposed to be more forceful. Confident. We had talked about this in our prep. But right now I just feel meek and scared.

  “If you had reviewed my file, then you should be well aware of the fact that what happened at my apartment was pure self-defense,” I say, sitting up straight. The words escape my lips just as we had practiced them.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mann mumbles. “But you see here, there’s the issue of your online journal where you clearly state that you want to kill Blake.”

  “Yes, so what?” I say, shrugging my shoulders. I’m trembling inside, but on the outside I’m calm and collected. Arrogant even. I’m challenging his authority with my gaze.

  “You don’t think that’s a little strange?”

  “Not at all. That man ruined my husband’s business. He got him fired. He almost forced himself on me, nearly raping me. And then he attacked my husband and put him in a coma, Mr. Mann,” I say. “I’ve had a lot of reasons to want him dead and I vented about that in my private online journal.”

  “Don’t you think that’s just a little bit convenient though?”

  “Not at all.” I shrug. Nonchalance is my motto. “I’m a writer, as I’m sure you know. We all express ourselves in different ways. I express myself in my writing. That’s all I was doing.”

  “I see.”

  “I wasn’t planning anything, if that’s what you are insinuating. My only plan was to never see him again and to get him out of our lives forever. But I never wanted to kill him. And then he came into my apartment and attacked me. I did what anyone in my position would do.”

  Chapter 51 - Ellie

  When I walk out…

  Time seems to stand still in this conference room. Every moment is carefully tracked and monitored. Not by any of them, but by me. Every moment lasts a lifetime. Mr. Mann looks me up and down, narrowing his eyes.

  “I see that you are not fully convinced,” I say.

  “I have my reservations.”

  I take a deep breath. I have to try harder. I have to make him understand.

  “I killed him with a pen, Mr. Mann.” My cool and collected nature is starting to fade away.

  “Yes, it appears as though you did.”

  “Well, there are a lot more powerful weapons out there than pens. And if I were planning something like that, I certainly wouldn’t use something like that when he had a gun.”

  Mr. Mann considers this for a moment, as if he hadn’t thought about this before. Of course, he did. I know it. We all know it. Nothing new is going to be revealed in this meeting. The only reason we are all here is for him to evaluate me. If he wants to take this to trial then I have to be unsympathetic. A porn-writing temptress as my first attorney saw me. So, it’s my job to persuade him that I am not this person at all and that the jury will not see me this way.

  “Mr. Mann, what can I do?” I ask after a moment of silence.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What can I do to convince you that I didn’t do this on purpose? That I was just acting in self-defense?”

  Mr. Mann turns his head toward Detective Egan. They talk in hushed tones. We all wait.

  “Mr. Mann,” Thurston says after waiting for one of them to say something for a while without so much as a word. “What we have here is a young woman who was attacked by a man with a gun. A man who had it out for her husband and her. He was unstable. She did what anyone in her position would do.”

  “I’m sorry, but given the nature of the journals that we found, I am not so sure that it’s that simple,” he says after a moment.

  My heart sinks. I thought that we were making progress. I thought that this might finally come to an end.

  “Ellie, may I speak frankly?” Mr. Mann says.

  Just as I nod, wetness spreads down my legs. I get a shooting pain in my back. Oh my god. No. What’s happening? I try to stay calm. It’s going to be okay, I say to myself. Everything’s going to be okay. I just have to get through this.

  “I know that you had your issues with the victim, but the details of your online entries do not make you a very sympathetic defendant. And that’s before I even tell the jury what you do for a living.”

  “I didn’t plan on this,” I say, my voice going up at the end. I’m getting desperate. I’m breaking character. But I’m going into labor and my back is hurting like the worst cramps of my life.

  “And what exactly is it that I do for a living that’s so horrible?” I ask. “I write stories about love. Yes, they have sex in them. So, what? Real life has sex and there’s nothing offensive about two people in love expressing that love physically.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the way the jury will think about it.”

  I’ve had enough. I stand up.

  “This interview is not over,” Mr. Mann says adamantly.

  “You don’t think I’m sympathetic, Mr. Mann? I am a newlywed whose fiancé was attacked and put into a coma by the same guy who attacked me. He had a gun and I had a pen. That’s all. I could’ve died, but I didn’t. I fought for my life then, just like I’m going to fight for my life if you decide to take this to trial. I write romance novels because I love the idea of love. I believe in true love and that’s exactly what my husband and I have. We are destined to be togethe
r and I have no doubt in my mind that not only will he stand by me through this whole ordeal, he will also bring our baby to court with him. So, why don’t you think about that? Why don’t you think about what it will be like for you to put an innocent young mother on trial to defend herself against nonsense charges? Maybe your bosses won’t look at that too keenly. Maybe they’ll think that you should go out there and prosecute real criminals, not an innocent woman who should be at home taking care of her infant.”

  I push my chair back and walk toward the door.

  “And now, gentlemen, you will have to excuse me, but I have to go have this baby.”

  Chapter 52 - Ellie

  When I have a baby…

  My cool and calm and everything is going to be okay attitude goes out of the window as soon as we get to the parking lot. That’s when I realize that I’m about to have a baby and I freak out. To be honest, I’ve been terrified of giving birth. I know that many women look forward to the experience and want to feel every last bit of it. Well, not me. I’m really a wimp when it comes to pain. Especially, the kind of pain that I don’t have much control over.

  With all the drama surrounding my arrest and the wedding, I was able to put it out of my mind at least a little bit. Or at least, put it on the back burner. Well, not now. Now, Aiden is rushing me to the hospital as my stomach seizes in pangs of pain. I don’t know what labor is going to be like, but I’m terrified. When I first got pregnant, I got a little Google-happy and read a lot of forum posts about what different women’s experiences of labor were. Well, let me tell you, if you want to appease your anxiety about something, do not read about other people’s experiences on an online forum. The issue is that women with good experiences of labor and delivery, you know, the ones that go smoothly and ones where nothing exciting happens do not take time out of their day to write their birth stories. The only ones that do are the ones with real stories to tell.