The Baby Plan: A Second Chance Romance

by Tia Siren

  My breath caught in my throat. “Right here?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “Right here,” Michael confirmed. “Right in this alleyway. I want to slide my hand inside your jeans”—he fit action to his words—“and feel how wet you are, how badly you want me. And I want to slide my fingers inside of you, find that sweet little spot, the one that makes you moan.”

  I couldn't help responding to him as he did just that. I tried to keep my moan down, mindful of where we were. “We're in public, though,” I reminded him, as though he didn't already know that. And I knew we wouldn't be the first people to do it in this alleyway. Certainly not the first people to ever do it in public. But I had never done it in someplace public before. Heck, I had never even had sex in the shower before.

  You could say that I'd had a tame sex life, up until that point. Sure, I'd slept with a fair number of people, but it had mostly just been quick things at their place or mine, in a bed or on a couch. There had been one time that we'd done it in the front hall because he hadn't been able to keep his hands off me. But I had never been in a position before where I felt like I couldn't walk fifty feet to a more secluded location before I started touching someone or being touched by him.

  Now, here was a ridiculously attractive, ridiculously wealthy man, and he wanted to do it with me in an alleyway, or wherever else he could lay his hands on me. Lord help me, I thought, even though I wasn't sure I was praying for this situation to end or for it to never end.

  The thought sent a thrill through me. I didn't know whether it was more the fact that he wanted me badly enough he couldn't wait the five minutes until we got back in his limo, or the fact that we could be interrupted at any time. We could be seen.

  I wasn't even drunk, which I felt like might make my behavior excusable. No matter how much I wanted to drink myself numb these past couple days, I continued to remind myself that for all I knew, I was already pregnant. I couldn't drink. Anyway, I had to admit, I wanted it, drunk or not. In public or not.

  No, I thought, shaking my head as though to reinforce the idea. I said that I wasn't going to have sex with him again, not until I figured out what my feelings were on if I was okay with the idea of having his baby.

  But when he leaned in to kiss me again, I felt my resolve melting. I couldn't help being ridiculously turned on, and I leaned up into the kiss. Besides, I was going to have to go back in to work after this, so what could it hurt, if we had sex out here. In fact, maybe it would make things even easier, remind me just how meaningless this was to him. It was just sex, the same nameless, faceless sex that he would have with any other stranger, out in an alleyway. It didn't mean that I was anything special, even if I did end up carrying his baby afterward.

  “Are you going to tell me what's going through that pretty head of yours?” Michael asked, bringing a hand up to cup my cheek.

  I shook my head, forcing myself to keep staring up at him, even though I wanted to cuddle into his chest. There were to be no cuddles with this fuck, however.

  “How do you want me?” I asked, simpering demurely at him.

  Michael's eyes widened, and he made an animalistic noise. He quickly undid the button on my jeans and tugged them and my panties halfway down my thighs. “Bend over and grab your ankles,” he told me.

  I did so, presenting my backside to him. Again, I was struck with the realization that anyone could come by and see us. I had even told Erica to come get me if I wasn't back inside in ten minutes; what if she came looking? I didn't want her to catch us in such a compromising position. Especially not after she'd been so patient, dealing with my breakdown on Monday morning. I didn't think she would appreciate hearing that Michael and I were at it again, even if this time, it really was just a fuck.

  But then again, as Michael shoved his fingers deep inside of me, I realized that this probably wouldn't take anywhere near ten minutes. We were both already so ready for the other, already so excited. I couldn't help it; I was practically dripping with slickness, thrilled by the idea that he would take me out here. It probably wasn't a first for him, like it was for me, but all the same, it made me feel somehow special.

  I snorted quietly. My parents would have a thing or two to say if they knew I felt special being fucked in an alleyway with a guy who didn't want any sort of relationship with me.

  Shame flushed over me, but it only made those prickling sparks of lust all the more pronounced. I could feel them flickering in my core, and I realized it wasn't going to take me very long at all to come. I shuddered with anticipation as I felt Michael line himself up, preparing to breach my folds.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked quietly, still hesitating.

  “Yes,” I groaned, wondering why he suddenly seemed to have some moral sense. I tried to rock back against him, and although that didn't succeed in getting his length where I needed it, at least not right away, it did seem to galvanize him into action. In a moment, he had sheathed himself inside of me.

  I did my best to remain quiet, even though my first instinct was to moan, long and low. It hadn't been too long since we'd done this, but from the way my body was reacting to him, it might have been lifetimes. I could feel myself opening to him, stretching to accommodate him. At this angle, I felt so full, in a way that I had never felt before. As Michael punched into me, I fought to remember how to breathe. It seemed impossible to keep those breaths steady, however.

  “I'm so close,” I whispered, suddenly seeking out his hand, where it rested on my hip, and twining our fingers together.

  Michael placed a soothing hand on my lower back, pumping into me in a steady, measured rhythm. I sighed, feeling more relaxed than I had in a while. I trusted him, I realized suddenly. In that moment, I trusted him more than I had ever trusted anyone else. I didn't know if that was just my mind reacting to the idea that we were outside, that he was solely responsible for keeping lookout, or if it was just that the moment was so intimate that I felt as though I knew what kind of person he was.

  Whatever it was, I would gladly have stayed there in that moment, clinging to his hand and rocked into bliss, forever.

  The moment was too good to last, though. Michael gave a few sharp thrusts, angling upwards, going even deeper into my core. I couldn't help crying out at that, although I tried to muffle the sound with my hand, the one that wasn't braced against the brick wall to keep me upright.

  We came in unison, both practically convulsing in the wake of our bliss. It rocketed through me even more powerfully than in the previous orgasms I'd had with him. It was as though my whole body reacted to the pleasure I was feeling, every single hair standing up and every single muscle clenching and unclenching.

  I would have collapsed, if not for his hands against my hips, holding me in place as he shot cum inside of me.

  Finally, I was conscious enough to straighten up and pull away from him. I winced, over-sensitive, as he slid out of me. Quickly, aware that we were still out in public and that we hadn't been as quiet as maybe we should have, I tugged my panties and my jeans back up. Michael was likewise adjusting his clothes.

  Suddenly, what we had done hit me. But where I expected to feel shame, I felt a strange sense of glee. It was as though something inside me was cheering. As though I wanted to do it again.

  I blushed, pushing aside that thought. If we stood out here going for round after round of sex, we were bound to get caught. Besides, he had already done what he had, no doubt, come here to do: he had filled me with his seed, so that I could hopefully conceive his child.

  Soon, there would be no more need for trysts like this. I would be pregnant, and his work would be done, at least until the baby was born.

  The thought depressed me, and I had a hard time meeting his eyes. “I have to get back to work,” I told him.

  “Wait, Paige,” Michael said, an almost desperate note in his voice. “Please, I didn't mean for that to happen,” he said. “I really do want to talk to you.”

  I shook my head. “Now is
n't a good time,” I told him. “I have to get back to work.”

  When I glanced at Michael out the corner of my eye, I could tell that he wanted to say something else. But when I shook his hand off my arm, he had no choice but to let me go. He nodded grimly and watched as I headed back inside.

  As for me, I wanted to say something else as well, but I wasn't sure how to say it. There was a name for it, this feeling that was welling up inside of me. There as a word, a feeling, that perfectly described the way I wanted to wake up with him every morning, the way that I wanted to fall asleep with his arms around me every night. There was a name for this feeling, which I had never expected I might feel.

  But I wouldn't even let myself think of what that word might be.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Michael

  Chris dragged me to The Shift again that Friday night, despite my protests. I had been avoiding Paige just as much as she'd been avoiding me, and I had no desire to show up on a night when I was sure she was working. How did I know she was probably working? Well, it was a Friday night, after all, and I knew she needed the tips.

  I felt guilty about that again, even though I knew I had no reason to. She had been doing fine until I had come along. And I couldn't pay her upwards of a million dollars if she didn't end up conceiving a child. That was the deal, after all; I wasn't just giving her a handout. I understood that her rent was going up and she could probably use the money now, but that wasn't technically my problem.

  All that aside, I didn't want to be there at The Shift, but there I found myself.

  “Come on, I don't get what the big deal is,” Chris said from where he was sprawled across the couch in my office. “You're fucking the bartender, right? Or have things gone sour already?”

  I frowned, wondering how much to tell him. “She's been acting weird lately,” I finally admitted.

  “What did you do?” Chris asked immediately, sitting up and putting his feet down on the floor.

  I sighed. “I don't know,” I admitted. “She just started acting weird, like she didn't want to see me anymore.”

  “So find someone else to fuck,” Chris said, shrugging. He frowned. “I can see why it would be awkward to pick up in front of her, but if you didn't do anything wrong, I don't see what the big deal is. She's made it clear she's not interested in anything more than you. It's not like she has any grounds for bitchiness if you move on to someone else. Unless she's already pregnant.”

  “I don't know,” I told him. “That's what I just can't figure out.”

  “Huh,” Chris said. “What exactly has she been doing?”

  “Nothing, that's just it,” I said. “She's avoiding me. So I'm avoiding her.”

  Chris smiled a little. “Right, this sounds like high school,” he said. “Maybe it's that time of the month? I know you'd like to think your little swimmers are the most fertile, but maybe you didn't manage to get her pregnant this round.”

  “That's possible,” I said, frowning as I thought about it. Paige had told me that she was ovulating, but she had also mentioned something about having been on birth control and not re-upping her prescription for the month. If I remembered correctly, birth control could mess with a woman's cycle, so maybe coming off it could do the same. How would she know if she was really ovulating?

  I groaned, realizing it could be a whole extra month before she conceived. With things already so rocky between us, who knew what the next month could hold.

  “Look, I'd try to give you advice, but I'm not really a relationship guy,” Chris said. “So, the only thing I'm going to say is, avoiding women never seems to work out.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “You're probably right. But what do I even say to her?”

  “Find out what's wrong,” Chris suggested. “Don't chicks love it when you listen to them?”

  I grinned over at him but had to admit it was a good plan. That evening at the bar, I spent a few minutes watching Paige before I approached her. “We need to talk,” I said, hating how ominous that sounded.

  “I'm working right now,” she said, indicating the beers that she was in the process of pouring.

  “Look, I just want to know what's wrong. That's all,” I told her.

  “Like I said before, nothing's wrong,” Paige said, her voice falsely cheerful.

  “Of course not,” I muttered. “You were just cute and chatty and personable last week, but this week, you'll hardly say two words to me.”

  Paige set one of the bar glasses down on the counter with a bit too much force, causing beer to spill out over the rim. “I don't know what you want from me,” she snapped. “I'm doing what you asked me to do.”

  I frowned at her. “I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, honestly confused.

  “The contract,” Paige said, as though I was acting deliberately obtuse. “This is a business transaction, nothing more. We don't need to be friends. We just need to have sex, get me pregnant, and otherwise follow the contract.”

  I could hardly believe what I was hearing. It was true that the contract was there to prevent either of us from starting to think of this as a normal relationship, but she was taking things a little too far. Maybe I had been more right than I'd realized when I'd suspected she could deal with this coldly and efficiently. She seemed almost too cold.

  “There's nothing in the contract that says we can't hang out or be friends,” I told her. Unless maybe she was worried about that friendship turning into something else? Was she admitting to already developing feelings for me?

  “I'm not interested in being your friend,” Paige said coolly, and I had to nix that idea. No, she legitimately wasn't interested. Huh.

  “Have you done any tests yet?” I finally asked her, remembering what Chris had said, about how maybe she was avoiding me because she was already pregnant and starting to have second thoughts about our arrangement.

  “I start my period next week if I'm not pregnant,” Paige said. “I'll wait until then to do the test. I'll let you know as soon as I get the results.”

  “Okay,” I said. It felt like there should be something more to say, something to convince her we could, in fact, be friends. “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow night,” I finally tried.

  “I've got work tomorrow night,” Paige said shortly.

  “Just go,” Erica said, having been following the whole conversation from her place nearby at the bar. She gave me an unreadable look and then turned to Paige, who was scowling at her.

  “I don't want to go,” she said. “And what's more, you know I need the work. Saturdays may not be as busy as Thursdays, but I still make a lot of my tips on those evenings. Plus, I know the hourly rate isn't that good, but I could use all the help I can get with rent this month. You know that.”

  “I'm not asking you to take off the whole night,” Erica said, rolling her eyes. “Although if you do, we can cover you, no problem. But get dinner a little early, and you'll be back in here before things start getting busy. You know our Saturday crowd tends to show up later anyway.”

  Paige had her lips pressed together tightly, and I could tell that she resented her friend's involvement in the conversation. I would have to remember to thank Erica later.

  For a second, I wondered what Erica was playing at. If I remembered correctly, Paige had said the woman was a romantic, so maybe she thought if the two of us spent more time together, we would manage to put together a relationship beyond the one where I was paying Paige to have my child. But Paige was behaving as if she didn't want anything like that.

  She gave her friend a look. “Erica, I made a commitment to be here at work. The other day, leaving early, was bad enough, but I can't keep blowing off parts of my shift. You're my manager, and we live together. Everyone else is going to think you're giving me special treatment.”

  Erica rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows that if they had something in their personal life they needed to sort out, I'd let them take time off, too,” she said. Her eyes softened.
“Look, you're not going to be able to focus on your work and put on a happy smile until you sort this out. So really, I'm looking out for your best interests as well as my own.”

  Paige sighed, but she didn't seem to know what to say to that.

  “If you don't go to dinner and talk about whatever's going on between the two of you, I'll fire you,” Erica threatened. “I'm sorry to say it, but that's what it's come to.”

  I knew it was a bluff, and I could tell Paige thought so as well, but finally, Paige nodded. “All right,” she said. “We'll go to dinner tomorrow.” She turned toward me, giving me an inscrutable look. “But it needs to be an early dinner so I can get back here and still work most of my shift. You can pick me up at 5.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Is there anywhere in particular you'd like to go? A specific type of cuisine that you'd like?” I didn't know why I asked it. It was just, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't really know anything about her. Things like her favorite food, her favorite type of flower, her favorite color; maybe I should learn those things.

  Not that I was trying to date her, I told myself sternly. It was because those preferences might be the same favorites as the child we were trying to make.

  “You're the one who asked me to dinner,” Paige snapped, clearly done with the conversation. So done, in fact, that she moved down to the other end of the bar and started serving people over there.

  Erica gave me a sympathetic look. “She really loves Thai food,” she told me.

  I sighed. “Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for getting her to come out with me.”

  “You'd better fix whatever it is that you've done to her,” Erica warned, narrowing her eyes at me. “She's been mopey all week.”

  “I'll try,” I promised, even though I wasn't sure how to fix it when I didn't even know what was wrong with her.

  I watched Paige move back and forth along the far end of the bar, wondering what her deal was. I wish she would just talk to me about whatever it was. I didn't believe it when she said she didn't want to be friends with me. We had too much fun together for that to be true.