by Amy Brent
“Ah!” I cried out, momentarily forgetting that there could be other people in this forest who might think I was being eaten by a bear or something and try to come help. My pussy pulsed hard and he pressed his fingers against my clit, as though absorbing the feeling through me, and moments later I felt him climax inside of me, his cock twitching and filling me before he slowly pulled himself out. I stood there, legs shaking, eyes closed, mouth gasping for air like I was a fish flopped up on land and trying to stay alive. I was distantly aware of him undoing the bindings around my hands and catching me in his arms before I keeled over on the spot, but it took me a moment to think about anything logical like getting dressed again or trying to stand by myself.
“That was…” I struggled to find the words to describe what had just happened, but I knew I didn’t need to with him. I knew he already understood where I was coming from.
“Yep,” he grinned, and planted a quick kiss on the side of my forehead. “Come on, get dressed – I don’t want us caught out after you made all that noise.”
“Sorry,” I apologised as I put myself back together with slightly trembling hands. He shrugged and grinned, obviously pleased with himself.
“Hey, I was the one who made you make those noises,” he pointed out, and I took his arm when I was done and leaned against him for support. He wound an arm around me.
“Yeah, guess so,” I agreed, unable to come with anything more clever given the current state of pleasurable mush that my mind found itself in.
“Hey, your hands are cold,” he remarked. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“Agreed,” I sighed, and allowed him to lead me out of the woods – and it took me until we were back at the cabin to realize that we hadn’t collected the firewood we’d set out to. And I wondered if this walk had even been about firewood at all.
Chapter Eleven
“Come on, it’s going to be fine,” Laurie assured me, watching me with an amused expression on her face as I paced back and forth through the cabin.
“Yeah, I know it’s going to be fine,” I looked up at her. “I just want to get this over with, that’s all.”
“Well, get in the car and let’s be done with it,” she suggested, yawning and stretching. “You sure I’m not allowed to have a coffee? It’s so early-”
“We’ll talk to the doctor about it,” I replied, and then resignedly went to pick up my car keys and headed for the door. “You ready to go?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she skipped up to join me, and then slowed down, placing her hands over her stomach. “Ooh. I’ll be glad to get to that doctor. Maybe he can tell me while I’m feeling sick all the time.”
“I think they just diagnose that as pregnancy,” I teased lightly, and she slapped my arm playfully.
“Okay, well, maybe he can do something to make it a little easier?” She suggested. “That’s what I meant.”
“I know,” I replied, and held the door open for her to head inside. It was so early that it was still pretty dark out there, but the city was a long drive away and our appointment was pretty early in the day so we had to get out of these at this ungodly hour in the morning.
“I’m so excited to do all the baby-stuff shopping,” she remarked as I helped her into the front seat.
“No expense spared,” I promised her, just like I had the day before when she had convinced me that we needed to come down to the city to do all of this.
I pulled away from the cabin, and within a few minutes she was fast asleep; she had been exhausted these last few days, and I supposed that was the pregnancy taking hold once and for all. I glanced over at her, the sporadic cars swooping by us on the road lighting her sleeping face, and smiled. I couldn’t believe this was really happening.
It had been about six weeks since she had told me about the pregnancy, and she had finally convinced me that we needed to head into the city so we could get a doctor involved and start looking our furniture for the baby. I knew it was early days yet and that there was still plenty of time for things to go wrong with the baby, but the thought of returning to the city had still scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to return there, not after so long away – not after why I’d left in the first place.
But, as I drove, I found myself less unsettled than I was sure I was going to be. Maybe it was just having her by my side that made me feel better, or maybe it was just because I was over all that shit to begin with and hadn’t realized it yet, but as drew closer and closer to the place that not too long ago I had fled from, I found myself calm. Relaxed, even. I was looking forward to seeing how the pregnancy was going and, while I wasn’t exactly personally thrilled for the shopping, I was keen to see Laurie enjoying herself amongst the cribs and mobiles and babyseats.
Not to mention the fact that I had made sure that this would be a special night for us; there had been this restaurant, in the middle of the city, that I had been trying to get seats at for practically the entire time that I’d lived there. Extra, it was called. But I had never managed to land a table there no matter how hard I’d tried or how many arms I’d tried to twist. On the off-chance, I’d called the previous evening after Laurie had gone to bed, to see if they had any spare seats going, and to my surprise, they did. One table, early in the evening, giving us plenty of time to go home and celebrate in our own inimitable way afterwards. She didn’t know yet, but I was looking forward to surprising her with it.
In fact, there was so much I was looking forward to doing with Laurie I could hardly keep it all straight in my head. Since that crazy hook-up in the middle of the forest, I had finally been unleashing my kinkier side on her; it had taken a while for me to accept that the woman who could be mother of my baby could also be this crazy, wanton demon in bed, but now that I was there I couldn’t believe I’d hung about so long in coming to that realization. And I fell asleep next to her every next, and would lay my hand on her stomach and think about everything that was going on in there. I prayed that the baby would be okay, even though I didn’t exactly have any specific god to pray too – and I prayed that whatever was happening between the two of us would survive the pregnancy as well. It felt so delicate, so fragile, so new, and all I wanted to do was make sure our relationship made it out of all of this unscathed. We had only been together a few months at most, and yet I was finding myself developing some serious feelings for her. Maybe that was just the pregnancy, caveman shit kicking in and telling me to stick next to my woman, but I was sure that I would have found myself in the same position had we still been trying.
Maybe that was why I had been reluctant to head down to the city. Even though I knew it was necessary, it felt like involving the outside world in what was going on between us would sully it somehow – I hadn’t even told my family about her, even though the baby would be there in a matter of months. I just wasn’t sure how to explain it to them, my motivations for doing this in the first place or what I now shared with Laurie, and the thought of putting it all into words was exhausting when I compared it to crawling into bed next to the woman I was falling for and forgetting about the rest of the world for good.
I drove through the night and into the morning, watching as the day broke over the mountains that surrounded the cabin and wondering what everyone else was on the road for this early. Maybe a few of them were couples like us – maybe one or two of them were having kids right now, on their way to the hospital first thing to make sure everything went to plan. The thought made me happy, especially when I imagined Laurie and I doing it in a few months time. I would totally have told my family by then. For sure. No doubt. Probably.
She slept, letting out little snuffles and moans occasionally as though something was bothering her in her sleep. I wondered if there was something on her mind; I felt as though she’d been holding something back from me. Just once in a while, she would look over at me, and I would see something like regret in her eyes as though there was something she wanted to tell me but couldn’t quite find the words to yet.<
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But I couldn’t spend my whole life sure that she was hiding something from me. Every time I found myself doubting her, I remembered what I had been through with Julia – all the pain she had caused me, all the suffering. And I know I couldn’t let her get inside my head like that. I knew I couldn’t let her keep dictating the way I lived my life; it wasn’t worth it, and she wasn’t worth it, and there was nothing in me that wanted to allow her to have that kind of influence over me anymore. I loved Laurie, and that was all that mattered.
I grinned to myself and glanced over at her once more. There was that word again – love. I had been thinking about it a lot over the last week or so, the word sounding more and more like the only descriptor that made sense for the way I felt towards her. I hadn’t said it to her yet, but I had come close a few times – once when she was lying on my chest and staring at the fireplace peacefully a few evenings before, and once when we had been out for a walk together when she had slipped her hand into mine and squeezed softly. But I had wanted to make it special for her; I had wanted to make sure that she knew that this wasn’t just something I was blurting out. That I had thought about this and that I was sure of it. That was why I had booked the restaurant, to show her that I had planned this and meant it and wasn’t going to take it back. I was nervous as hell about dropping the word on her, especially considering that I hadn’t said it to anyone since I had had my heart broken and that it had only been a couple of months, but I knew I had to. I had sat on my feelings for her for long enough and I wanted her to know I was serious with this.
Finally, we reached the city limits and I took a deep breath as I drove past the boundary and into the place I had been avoiding for so long. Somehow, it didn’t feel like that big of a deal, not with her at my side.
“Hey,” I placed my hand on her leg gently, waking her, and her eyes fluttered open. She stretched and let out a grumpy little grumble, and then smiled when she saw that we were almost there.
“How long, do you think?” She asked, yawning and covering her mouth.
“Maybe twenty minutes,” I replied. “How are you doing?”
“A little nervous,” she admitted, but managed a smile. “But I’m ready for it.”
“Me too,” I squeezed her leg and put my hand back on the wheel, drumming my fingers excitedly. I was ready for this. For the start of our future together.
Chapter Twelve
I sat in the car and peered out of the window, wondering when the fuck Cormac was going to finish paying for parking and come back to pick me up. I drummed my fingers on the frame of the window and bit my lip. My heart felt as though it was about to pump straight out of my chest, and I was long since done with the doctor’s appointment by now.
Everything had been okay, thank goodness – in fat, the baby was doing really well, and I put it down to the bright mountain air clearing out all the city gunk from my body with every single breath. I had been able to pass off my nerves at being back in the city as worry over how the appointment would turn out, but now that it was done I would start looking suspicious any minute now.
I knew I could have requested we go somewhere else for the appointment and the shopping, but I would have had to tell him why and I couldn’t handle that right now. I would tell him eventually, of course – I figured I would have to – but for now I just wanted to keep it under wraps.
He finally returned to the car and I snapped my head up at once, plastering a big smile on my face so he wouldn’t wonder why I was looking so down. He had noticed it a couple of times already, but I had managed to pass it off as just hormones.
“You ready to go?” He asked, and offered me a hand to climb out of the car. I took it and got to my feet; it had only been a couple of months, but I already felt as though this thing was weighing me down a little. I ran my hands over my stomach, remembering only an hour before when I had first seen that thing squirming around inside of me, it’s little heartbeat loud and clear on the screen. We didn’t know the gender yet, but I could tell from the way he squeezed my hand so tight and looked down at me with that enormous great smile on his face that he was as excited as I was to find out what kind of child we were going to have. Whatever it turned out to be, I knew I was going to love it so much – as much as I knew I loved him, and that was saying something.
“Yeah, sure,” I stretched as I stood up. “How much money can we spend on this, again?”
“As much as you want,” he reminded me.
“Yeah, I just like to hear you say it,” I teased, and he tucked an arm around my waist and leaned down to plant a quick kiss on my cheek. It was a little odd, being around people out in the real world again, but I was beyond proud to be seen on the arm of what had to be one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. As he pulled back, I leaned against him and smiled. Even though there was some part of me scared shitless at being back in the city and so close to the life I had left behind a few months ago, I felt so safe around him that sometimes it was hard to remember what I had been so unsettled by in the first place.
“So, where first?” He asked, and I shrugged.
“I have no idea where to start looking,” I admitted. “So…the nearest department store, I guess?”
We headed out of the parking lot, his ridiculously fancy car looking out of place alongside all the people-carriers and beat-up, well-loved vehicles. It was a bright, sunny day, one of those crisp, cold ones that made you feel as though the air was trying to take chunks out of you every time you took a breath.
We did a little shopping for the nursery, but it was hard not knowing what gender the kid was going to be; we picked out a couple of possible cribs and changing tables, but since we would have to get it all delivered it was really just looking for ideas more than anything else. And besides, my feet were starting to hurt and I found myself starving hungry all of a sudden. It had a habit of hitting me like that, when I was least expecting it, this ravenous hunger suddenly sticking its head up over the parapet of my brain to announce that it needed to be taken care of that second or else there would be trouble.
“Can we stop for something to eat?” I asked as we left the fifth shop in a row we’d checked out, and he glanced down at his watch. He had been acting a little cagey all day and I couldn’t figure out why, and had eventually just put it down to me projecting my own discomfort at being in the city out on to him.
“Yeah, I think we can,” He grinned at me, and I tucked my arm through his.
“You know anywhere nice?” I asked ponderously. We were so far away from my old neighbourhood that I couldn’t think of one place around here I actually knew; this was where rich people came to shop and eat and live, and up until a few months ago, I had hardly counted myself as a part of that number.
“I have somewhere in mind,” He replied, flashing me another smile. Fuck, sometimes when he looked at me like that, with that expression on his face, somewhere between joy and disbelief as though he couldn’t believe that he was actually with me, I felt my heart swell to the point of bursting. I almost said it to him there then, almost dropped the words that I had been carrying silently with me for the last few weeks, but I bit my lip and kept it in for now. It was still a little early for that, and I didn’t want to freak him out by being too forward. But then, if knocking me up in the first month of knowing me wasn’t forward, then what was?
“Is it close?” I asked, patting my stomach. “I’m pretty sure baby needs fed right now.”
“Oh, baby does, huh?” He teased. “Well, I can’t turn down baby now, can I?”
He led me around the corner, down another street, and finally he came to a stop in front of a restaurant that I had actually heard of. I mean, I was pretty sure everyone in the city had heard of this place. It was the kind of place you joked about being taken for your anniversary, never expecting to land a table there – hell, even if I had, I would never have been able to afford anything more than a side salad. It was expensive, exclusive, dramatic, and renowned all over the country,
and it took me a long moment to realize why we’d come to a stop outside of it.
“Are you serious?” I gasped suddenly, as Cormac stood there next to me looking up at the sign above the door. He nodded.
“You have a table here already?” I asked, and he nodded again. He couldn’t hide the smile on his face now; he’d been trying to play it cool till this moment, but I guess hearing the shock in my voice was exactly what he’d been going for.
“Yeah, I booked it out for the two of us,” he replied. “I wanted to…I just wanted to make tonight special.”
“It’s always special when I’m with you,” I replied, soppily, and found that I was nearly choked up; I put it down to the hormones, as I had done with pretty much everything these last few weeks, but I knew at least part of it was because I’d never had a guy treat me like this before in my life. Not just the amount of money he had to have been dropping on getting us a place at a restaurant as amazing as this one, but just the thought, the fact that he’d even considered that I might be worthy of a place like this. I looked down at my outfit nervously, and then up at the diners already in that place.
“I’m not sure I’m dressed for it,” I remarked, but he shook his head and headed for the door.
“Trust me, they won’t mind,” he promised me, and held the door open for me to make my way inside. I took a deep breath, trying to forget the fact that this dress had cost me twenty bucks five years ago and that I was wearing a pair of scuffed-up black sneakers into the fanciest place in town, and stepped inside.
I had never seen anything like it before. I had worked in some fancy-ass hotels over the years, but nothing that even came close to this restaurant. A large fountain sat in the middle of the room, water cascading down over classical-looking sculptures of intertwined bodies; the place was decked out in royal red and gold, so far removed from the minimalism of Cormac’s place. A host approached us, dressed in a fancy suit and looking like he’d been plucked straight from the lobby of some European hotel in the thirties or something. He gave my outfit the once-over but didn’t say a thing when he saw the way my hands were resting on my stomach. Instead, he glanced up at Cormac and smiled expectantly.