by Kira Graham
By the time that I’ve poured hot water over the bag, Alex reemerges, looking exactly the same as she did before disappearing into the shower. I don’t mention this, however—just hand her the tea and tell Ma that I’ll call her later, my eyes going over every inch of Alex while she adds sugar to her cup and stirs.
“Listen, Alex. I, uh—I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I haven’t handled everything that’s happened all that well, and I know—”
“Two,” she cuts in, her eyes meeting mine over the rim of her mug, staring while she takes a small sip.
“Two what?”
“Two babies. Twins,” she tells me, still staring at me as if she can look into my soul. “That’s what the doctor was having a fit about when I went in last week. And that’s why this is so…” she says, waving down at her belly, which is indeed a little larger than I would have expected it to be after only—what is it now, four months since we slept together?
“Two?” I croak, a tightness filling my chest at the news.
It scares me to death, but also fills me with a glowing awe that morphs into a smile. I feel my lips curve up, watching her eyes stretch when I bark out a laugh and shake my head. Two. For some reason, and against the natural order of my mind, this makes it so much more real for me, and in a way that suddenly causes me to lose the panic and finally calm down.
Two babies. My babies, I think, my eyes going down to Alex’s stomach, where her pink t-shirt is stretched tightly. My hand clenches with the need to reach out and touch it, but I keep myself away, knowing that I have no right to just lay my hands on her. Whatever happens from here on out, I need to remember that Alex is carrying my children, and that it’s up to me to make sure that she’s okay—and that they are, too.
“Why are you smiling at me? Stop smiling at me. This is a disaster. Two babies. Oh, Jesus help me, how am I going to look after two of them without making a mess of it? I opened an email while I was in the bathroom and saw all of the catalogues that Ma keeps sending me, and there’s just so much. What the hell is a diaper genie? And why are bottles so different from each other? Did you know that they make these pump things to milk a woman’s tits? Like a cow?” she whines, blinking back silently when I snicker and try not to laugh.
This is what I missed the most, I think. The things that come out of her mouth. Alex is a wreck right now, which I know by the way that she rambles from one thing to the next, but leave it to her to make it funny.
“I, uh…” I mumble, clearing my throat and trying not to look at her breasts, where they’re pressing against her t-shirt.
Are they bigger? They look bigger. I wonder if her nipples are different—
“See? Even you can’t form words, and I’m the one who has to actually think about these things. I used to have a dog—did you know that? I had to give him away, though, because the first time that he shit on the floor, I threw up so much that I had to call Uncle Jack to come help me. I can’t even clean up dog poop, Chilli! How the hell am I gonna deal with two diapers full of baby poop, at least three times a day?” she asks, her voice going higher and signaling what I like to call Alex-mode.
What most folks don’t know about her, mostly because she usually just hangs out in the periphery, throwing in her two cents every now and then, is that Alex is a kook. She gets emotional and paranoid, and she has a penchant for rambling when she gets riled up. Like now. Rosetta probably doesn’t even know that of all of them, Alex is the meltdown queen. I’d hate to tell Tee, but if Alex ever had to help someone hide a body, things would go wrong, and fast. Alex would freak the hell out and end up getting them both arrested.
“I’m going to help you,” I answer, taking a chance and walking forward to pull her against my chest.
When she doesn’t immediately hit me in the nuts, I take that as a good sign, and when she sniffs and presses her face into my chest, I allow myself to relax and enjoy the way it feels to hug her again. Though of course my dick hasn’t gotten the memo that this is about comfort, not sex, because the stupid bastard immediately stiffens and starts to swell, sniffing around for that warm, tight heat that I remember.
“You? You ran out of here as if your ass was on fire, Chilli,” she mutters, stiffening as she tries to push away from me.
But I pull her closer and lean down to kiss her hair, my jaw tight as I fight the immediate need to lay her down and take her. It’s elemental and sudden, but right here and now, I would give anything to see her, to feel her, to taste her, and definitely to get my dick back inside her.
Not a good idea—
Though why not? We have to get married now, so we may as well call a truce, I tell myself, even as I try to be sensitive to her needs. And nothing says “truce” like hot, sweaty, and much-needed sex. It’s the icebreaker of all bad relationships, after all. And isn’t that what we have? A bad relationship that we’ve messed up by being two big, cowardly idiots?
“It was a shock. Be fair, Al. We slept together, and admittedly, I reacted poorly to that situation, but I did try to apologize and fix things. You ran away. And then you pop up again, pregnant and sending me silent death threats with your eyes. I was thrown, and then when you told me that the baby—ahem, babies—are mine, it was a shock. I needed a minute to think, babe,” I say softy, using my chin to nudge her face and get her to look at me. “Give me a break. I have an outbreak of hives when a woman asks me to take her to breakfast the morning after,” I snort.
She snorts, too, and giggles, but then gets serious when she looks up at me again.
“We really messed everything up. Didn’t we? And now…this is a good thing. I mean, babies are innocent, and they’re supposed to be a happy event. They’re good! I keep telling myself that, and I really do feel that way; it’s just…” she says, trailing off and going silent, her eyes so wide that I almost feel sorry for her.
See? This is the problem with taking two people who run at the first sign of trouble and throwing them together. Alex wants to ignore what’s happening and pretend that everything is fine, while I—I have the unholy urge to start running and keep going until I collapse. But when you add babies into the mix, running isn’t an option, and unfortunately for Al, neither is hiding. Christ. I don’t know how we’re going to get through all of this, but as a man who understands the words, “You fix this, or I fix you”—Ma’s words—I know that it’s up to me to get this right. And I want to. That’s the most important thing to remember here. I want to be with Alex and make her happy.
“You’re freaking out a little. I get it. See? We’re the same. We just needed some time. Now, we’re okay. And now that we truly are okay, we should talk,” I say softly, gulping down my lust when she rubs against me and presses her swollen breasts to my chest.
Sex isn’t important right now, Chilli. It just isn’t. This is about reassuring your woman, not about being a pig.
“About the fact that you should try out for the Olympic sprint team?” she scoffs, her smile making me chuckle and shake my head, even as my balls go tight, reminding me that there’s more than one head at play here.
“Ha ha, funny girl. I said that I was sorry,” I grumble, tightening my ass to keep myself from rubbing against her in return.
“Yeah, well, your sorries are one thing, but this is another. How the hell did your sperm get through a condom and the pill, you freak?” she hisses, sounding aggrieved even as she grins and shakes her head.
“Super overachievers,” I murmur, my grin falling when she looks up at me and loses her own smile.
Sexual need hits me then, reminding me that I haven’t been with anyone in months. My dick, already hard, belches out a stream of fluid, and my balls draw up tightly, demanding release. It’s her, though, I think, as I gulp and try to watch her face for a sign—it’s Alex that does this to me. The way that she smells of some floral perfume and sugar, and the way that her lips look when she bites into them, the move arousing me further. She’s beautiful, and I want nothing more than to push her down onto a f
lat surface and gorge myself on her. I want that feeling back, the all-consuming, purely physical pleasure that I felt when I was inside her that first time. I crave it, the way a junkie craves his next fix. God help us both—I can’t resist her, not when she’s looking at me with her own need blazing from her eyes as she licks her lips and swallows, audibly.
“This isn’t a good idea,” she breathes, even as her eyes go to my lips, her tongue licking out as if she’s thinking about tasting me.
“I don’t care.”
And that’s the truth. I don’t care that we have talking to do, and that sex won’t solve any of our problems. I especially don’t care when I lean down and kiss her, her taste filling my mouth when I suck her tongue deeply in with my own.
All I care about now is the way that she moans and all but climbs me, wrapping her legs around my hips so that her hot sex meets my hard cock and has me lightheaded with lust.
I want to throw her onto the couch, rip her clothes off, and fall on her like a beast. Instead, I take the time to kiss her back while blindly stumbling towards her bedroom, my mind alive with one clear thought: Nate lives here, and no way in hell is he seeing my woman naked. That’s the thought that gives me the strength to get us to her bedroom, slam the door shut, and lock it.
Once there, we’re no better than starved beasts. I keep kissing her as she rips at my clothes and lets me rip at hers. I don’t know how we manage, and I don’t care, but by the time she’s naked and I’m standing in nothing more than socks, I can’t wait another moment. I need her now, and nothing but complete possession is going to cut it for me.
Alex has other ideas, though, and I find myself hissing out a curse when she suddenly drops to her knees in front of me and sucks me into her mouth, as if this alone is all she’s wanted. It’s as flattering as hell and feels so good that I lock my knees and let her taste me, fighting back the need to come so hard that I taste blood in my mouth when I bite through the inside of my cheek.
She sucks, licks, and uses her teeth to gently tease me, her playful moves unlike anything I’ve felt before. As crass as it is to compare sexual moments, I can safely say that no woman has ever teased me this way before. I’ve been with women who try to act playful and coy, but in the end, they go for it and work sex like it’s a job they want to excel at. With Alex, it’s nothing like that. I watch through eyes that are no bigger than slits as she opens her mouth more widely and pulls back, her eyes dancing wickedly when I groan, immediately missing the heat and tight fit of her lips. She’s enjoying this, and the more I groan and fight my control, the more turned on she seems to get. Enough that I almost come when I notice her hand sliding down between her legs, before her moan vibrates along my flesh.
That snaps the last of my control, and before she can fight me, I have her on the bed, her legs spread as I thrust home and suck her fingers into my mouth, my tongue sweeping along each one to taste every hot, creamy drop of her arousal. The taste makes me long for more, and, as greedy as I am, I consider pulling out so that I can go down on her.
Thankfully for us both, Alex doesn’t seem at all inclined to let me go, wrapping her legs around me, whipping her fingers away, and rearing up to kiss me, sending me more deeply into her depths. She’s too tight, I think, even as my eyes cross in pleasure and I groan, all of my focus on the point where we’re joined. Too tight and hot inside for me to last.
I have to last, though. If I’m going to have even a whisper of a shot with this woman, to prove that we should give this a go, I can’t be some two-pump chump who blows his load before she gets off. Knowing this, I force myself to hold still and pull my mouth from hers. Once I do that, I regain enough sense that all it takes to regain control is a reminder that this has to be perfect. And God, it really is. Now that I’m not ready to kill us both in order to get off, I take the time to look at her, really look, for the first time. Her skin is glowing, and her breasts are so swollen and full that I have to take a deep breath and caution myself against falling on them like a maniac.
Leaning in slowly, my eyes still searching her face, I slowly flick my tongue across her left nipple and feel her tighten inside even as she moans and squirms.
She’s sensitive there, something that I may or may not have read about, and something that I am grateful to know, because I would never want any of this to hurt for her.
“They’re so much bigger,” I breathe against her skin, taking my time to wet each areola before I suck on her, taking it easy until she moans again and presses closer, silently letting me know that she’s okay for more.
My dick is near the point of exploding, and she’s not helping when every time I suck on her breasts, her sex tightens, locking my cock in a stranglehold.
“They’re sensitive. Oh! Oh, yes. More,” Alex whimpers when I softly nip at her nipples and release one with a pop before rearing up to look down at her.
She’s gorgeous, simply breathtaking to look at as I slowly pull away and then glide home, thrilling at the way that she moans and claws at my back, spreading her thighs more widely as if wanting me deeper. I’ve never made love to a pregnant woman before, so it’s not easy for me to resist that call and keep my thrusts measured. But I do, though I almost lose my load when Alex moans and digs her nails into my ass, demanding that I go deeper and take her harder.
“Slowly,” I grate, feeling sweat running down my temples as she moans beneath me and tries to take what she wants.
I’ve never been used before, just for the sake of an orgasm, and I don’t think that I’d ever want to be used. Unless the woman doing the using is Alex. She’s spectacular as she completely ignores me and uses my body to attain her own pleasure. I feel her body go tighter, feel her sex grow wetter, and watch as she builds to an orgasm that will take us both over. As if caught in a spell, I forget to move at all and just take in my woman as she does the work, sweeping us both over the edge.
One moment, I’m awestruck by her look of bliss, and the next, I feel her sheath clamp down around me, the sucking contractions pulling me over the edge along with her. Pain, bliss, and release all slam into me, and I feel my balls go tight before I come so hard that I stop breathing.
The pleasure doesn’t stop, even when it feels like I can’t come any more, but morphs into a soft, pleasant agony when her continuing spasms force small, uncoordinated spurts of come to leave my body. And as the pleasure holds us both in its grip, and the bliss of finally feeling this again sinks in, I realize something that I think I’ve known since the first time I ever touched this woman. This isn’t a mistake.
In fact, I think that Alex may possibly be…
More than just a friend.
Chapter Ten
Alexandria
The moment my eyes pop open, I know that I have made a huge mistake. A big one. The kind that has me waking up beside a naked man who is splayed out on his stomach next to me, with his very nice ass in the air and his sleep-slack face turned toward me, easy in its state of repose.
Check me out, using fancy words and shit.
Sighing softly, I turn my head on the pillow to look at Chilli, and, as always, I am struck by how handsome he really is. No, not just handsome, I think. Beautiful. He’s so beautiful that I can’t always look at him, for fear of asking myself what he must see when he looks at me. Not that I don’t like myself—I mean, I am awesome to look at in my own way. Chilli, though—there is nothing about the man that isn’t amazingly awesome. He’s…otherworldly.
On the other hand, I’m just a normal woman with red hair—dark, thank God, because I don’t wanna look like a carrot—and blue eyes. Everything else about me is pretty plain-ish. I’m not ugly or anything, just…I dunno. It’s hard to describe what I look like to myself after looking at Chilli freaking Hart, who’s had modeling offers, panties mailed to him, and press coverage—not because he’s famous, but because of his looks.
In fact, Chilli is famous for being famous for his looks, if that makes sense. It’s almost like the Kardashians.
Though there is no good reason for their popularity, and even pop culture will admit that the exact reason that they’re the powerhouse brand they are is still a mystery. With Chilli, you know that it’s that face. He’s got a face that, if you’ll excuse my idiocy here, would launch a thousand ships. He’s gorgeous in a way that defies explanation, and it doesn’t help one bit that he’s also kind, funny, smart, and one of those guys that chicks like being around.
And one of those chicks just happens to be me, so yeah, I’m in deep shit just looking at the guy. So imagine what it’s like for me to have him sexing me. Which explains why I stop thinking clearly whenever he’s within kissing distance. Dammit.
Looking at him, I try to make out just what it is that makes him so…yummy. He has long eyelashes that make me green with envy, a square jaw that is lightly stubbled with dark hair, and the very tiniest, almost invisible, cleft in his chin.
But I can’t tell you which one thing makes him this handsome. It’s all the separate parts combined together, I guess. From his slightly askew-ish nose, thanks to a bar fight that he didn’t win because he’s too easygoing to fight on command, to the way that his full, pink lips seem to puff out, just…because. Dammit. Why is he so sexy? It’s hard to look at sometimes, because, without sounding like some self-esteem junkie who doesn’t know how to like herself, I feel really plain next to him. If I had to say it in the best way I know how, I would say that he’s too pretty for me. Cleo was right: never fall for a man who’s prettier than you—it’s just asking for trouble. Or ego issues. We should all have fallen for men with potbellies, grease stains on their grimy white wifebeaters, and enough body hair to clothe a small town in the winter time. And yet here we are, in love with men who make sexy look as easy as breathing. Thanks, Cleo. Just…thanks, for making me aware that I am so screwed.
How she fell for Adonis is beyond me because, as hot as Chilli is, Adonis is no slouch. None of the Harts are. Even their mom Athena is hot, and that’s saying a lot because I don’t find any other old people good-looking. Not even Chuck Norris, whose poster I still have in my closet somewhere. Young, he was yummalicious. Old, not so much. But my point is, the Harts are all just effortlessly gorgeous, while I’ve struggled all my life to find something about myself that I like. Don’t you dare freaking roll your eyes at me, as it wasn’t easy to look past orange leg fuzz, a brow that I had to start waxing when I was twelve—or risk resembling freaking Jim “Elastic Face” Carrey—and boobs that came in only after I’d learned how to beat the hell out of bullies for teasing me.