by C. C. Piper
But I tried not to think about that too much.
She’d told me she looked like a beached whale, and though I always told her that wasn’t true—she was just as gorgeous as ever—I hadn’t pushed the issue. The two times we’d had sex had led to some fairly horrible dissension between us, so I wasn’t going to initiate anything in that direction.
At least not anytime soon.
My body adamantly disagreed with this decision, of course. I was hard around Jessica all the time. And I mean, all the time. I’d taken to pulling my shirt out of my suit pants or jeans to disguise this. I didn’t want to pressure her. I needed her and my son in my life too badly to allow my passion for her to wreck what we’d rebuilt together.
It might sound counterintuitive, but I loved her too much to do the two things we hadn’t yet tried: Nipple stimulation and sexual intercourse.
Also, while I’d made it a point during all my goodbyes to say I loved her, she’d never said it back to me. I’d come to the conclusion that while we’d become friends and would soon be parents together, we might never go back to any sort of romantic relationship. Not that I believed in never saying never, but I needed to be realistic about our future. She’d expressed that she wanted me in her life and in our baby’s, that she cared about me, too. But that’s as far as it went.
Until later that same night.
I’d spent the evening with her because Ashley had gone out of town with her mom. She hadn’t felt well that day, so I’d done my best to cheer her up by showing her silly video clips on YouTube.
“I’m so sick of being pregnant,” she’d complained, rubbing her vast belly. “Come out, already!” She ordered our son, and while early on I might’ve bit back a grin at this, tonight I hadn’t.
He kept kicking her every time she found a comfortable position, making her groan in discomfort. Around midnight, she’d drifted off on her loveseat, and I’d carried her to her bed, carefully settling her in. Even as pregnant as she was, her tiny frame didn’t weigh much. And I enjoyed taking care of her like this.
On the way home, I saw an email from Lars. Luckily, I’d been able to smooth things over with my boss at work. I told him I’d had some personal issues that had impacted me in a way I’d been unprepared for. I’d even confided about the health scare of the mother of my child, and he’d been forgiving enough to give me a second shot.
Had Lars been anything other than a nice guy, I probably would’ve been fired outright. I appreciated his patience with me, but for the first time ever, if I had to make a choice between my career and my personal life—i.e. Jessica and my son—my personal life would win hands down. She would always be my top priority, and this time, I’d made sure she knew that.
I’d been in a sound sleep when her ringtone went off on my phone. I jolted up in my bed, reaching blindly for that rectangle of light. “Jessica?” I mumbled, still half out of it.
“Trevor? I need you!”
That woke me up. I was on my feet pushing my legs into some sweats and tennis shoes. “On my way.”
I didn’t remember the drive from Manhattan to Brooklyn. All I knew was she needed me there. Only as I pulled up did it occur to me that she might be in labor. Without Ashley there, she had to depend on either me, a taxi, or an ambulance to get her to the hospital. I snatched my keys from the ignition and sprinted at full speed up her three flights of stairs.
“Jessica, open up. Are you okay?” I shouted through her door, and she opened it a few seconds later. I studied her, looking for signs of pain, but while her eyes were glittering in an unusual way, I didn’t see anything obviously wrong.
She was standing there in a sleeveless maternity nightgown, looking both cute and sexy, her dark nipples showing a bit through the lightweight fabric. I forced myself to look away, but my shaft grew rock hard anyway, just like always.
“Trevor, I need you to do something, and I don’t want you to argue with me.” She rubbed her lower back. Maybe she wanted another massage.
A tense kind of awareness niggled at the back of my skull, but after everything we’d been through, I wasn’t about to deny her anything. “Sure. What do you need?”
In one shockingly fluid motion, she whisked her nightgown over her head, revealing those bare breasts I’d been attempting not to notice. “I need you to stimulate my nipples.”
I blinked several times in a row. Was I dreaming? She wouldn’t ask for that. Not now. We hadn’t been sexual in an eternity. I hadn’t pleasured myself this often since I’d been a teenager. But a guy had to do what a guy had to do. I must’ve heard her incorrectly, but if I had, why was she exposing herself to me?
“You need what now?” I asked her, my eyes glued to the nipples in question. Christ, they were enormous and dark and delicious looking. Fuck.
“I can’t take being pregnant anymore. I just can’t. I was sound asleep, and the baby still woke me up. I think he’s literally running a marathon in there, just jogging around. I can’t do this for one more second.”
“So you want me to …” I trailed off. I wanted this too badly to trust that’s what she’d actually said.
“Stimulate my nipples. Rub them. Stroke them. Massage them. Whatever. I just have to get this show on the road, you know?”
I tamped down my enthusiasm. She wasn’t asking me to make love to her. She wasn’t horny. She still didn’t love me. Not like that. She just wanted me to assist her in getting her labor started. Could I really do this without going too far?
Only one way to find out.
I stepped forward and reached out to touch her, and damn, my hands were trembling with desire.
Nice and easy, Keller.
I tried to approach this like I would a back rub. Find the tight muscles and make them relax. Sure. Except as soon as my palms brushed those pebbled nubs, there was no way to pretend I was touching something as ordinary as her back. Her body responded, her nipples visibly puckering, and I closed my eyes, hoping that would help.
It didn’t.
Now, all I could do was give my complete attention to the feel of those incredibly globe-like breasts in my hands. She moaned as my fingers closed around her, shifting so that more of her filled my hold. My breathing accelerated, as did hers. In my best attempt at remaining clinical, I spoke.
“Are they sore like they used to be?” Yeah, that was it. Ask something like a doctor would. Only the response she gave me wasn’t nothing like what a patient’s would be.
“No. That feels … uuuuhn …” She moaned again, and I held my breath. “Suck on them.”
“Huh?” was my uber intellectual response.
“Suck them, Trevor.”
“Yeah?”
“Please …”
No way on God’s green earth was I saying no to that. So I bent low enough to wrap my lips around her left breast. She made a new sound, one I’d heard her make when we’d been in bed. It was a cross between a moan, a cry, and a keen. It’d always driven me wild, and now was no exception. I nearly came untouched from that alone.
But she wasn’t finished.
“More, Trevor. I need more.” So I switched to the other, sucking it deeply into my mouth. She tasted so good, like warmth and woman and love.
I banded my arms around her to get a more stable hold, one hand on her back and the other at her hip. Her belly bulged out against mine, but like the last time, knowing she was expecting my child was a turn on rather than a turn off. It made me want to possess her, to hold her, to have her.
I was barely hanging on to my higher brain functions when she undid that, too. “Make love to me, Trevor. Make me yours again.”
And that was all she wrote.
Faster than was probably advisable, I swept Jessica’s legs out from under her and rushed her over to her bed. I yanked down the bikini panties she wore, and traced a finger amongst her folds, finding her so slick that my balls tightened dangerously.
“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re so wet,” I said out loud, my mind consumed with
lust. I’d never been with a woman so ready for me, not even Jessica herself. She was dripping, for God’s sake.
I tore my sweatpants and hoodie off in a flash and reclined on my back on her mattress. Reaching for her, I helped her straddle me. I was just about to ask her if she was okay with riding me when she sank down onto me inch by inch, making my ability to vocalize evaporate as I released a long groan instead.
She created the rhythm she needed, rocking on me more raucously than I would’ve thought she’d like in her current condition. I held her hips before remembering her specific request, and then drew each of my thumbs along her nipples, squeezing them very gently. The belly restricted many positions, but I was more than willing to let Jessica show me whatever she needed.
“Trevor,” she hummed. “Ohhh, Trevor, yes.”
Already, she was close. I could feel her inner walls thrumming with a tension that was escalating second by second. I shifted my hips up and down, matching her motions, our rhythm synching flawlessly.
“Trevor?” Her tone was different this time, and I knew she wasn’t merely calling out in ecstasy.
“Yeah? You okay?”
“I need to tell you something.”
My first instinct was to say, “Now?” But I didn’t. I was here for her. I was doing my best to prove to her that I would be whatever she needed. I wanted to show her that I loved her in whichever way she could accept it. The truth was, I was hers. Totally and without question. She slowed, almost stopping.
That didn’t bode well.
I swallowed, fearful that she was about to shut this amazing moment down. “What do you need to tell me?”
She stared unwaveringly into my eyes. “It’s just that I …” she trailed off, nearly killing me.
“Yeah?” I prompted her, internally screaming at myself to not thrust upwards.
She leaned forward as far as she could, resting her hands on my cheeks, her thumbs nuzzling my bristly chin. “I love you,” she whispered, and then she came.
Because I was so still, I could feel every throb and every pulse. She held my eyes, her jade green irises a thin circle as her lust took her over, and I knew that she meant what she’d said, that she’d forgiven me, that at long last, she was mine.
And that knowledge and the feel of her milking me was more than enough to set off my own orgasm. I pumped into her, my body drawing our both my pleasure and hers. It was glorious, and surprisingly tender in a manner that sex had never been for me.
Sated, she slipped down and slightly off to the side, and I roped my arms around her delectable body.
“Jessica?”
“Mmmm?”
“I love you, too.”
I felt her smile against my chest, and I wanted to preserve this moment forever. It was in this serene state of mind that both of us fell asleep.
It was dark when I stirred, but the yellow line of predawn hung right at the horizon out the window. Not my window, but Jessica’s. I was in her bed. And she was awake and jostling me. I put out a hand to soothe her.
“Don’t have to get up yet. Just relax,” I muttered, but then the jostling became harder.
“Um, Trevor?”
“Uh huh.” My eyes drifted back closed.
“I can’t tell for sure, but I think my water just broke.”
That was enough to jolt me out of bed like I’d been electrocuted. “You’re in labor?”
“Well, I think so. I’ve been having these pains every few minutes. At first, I didn’t think much of it and went back to sleep, but now they’re harder to ignore. And there’s this embarrassing stain on my bed now.”
I flicked on the lamp and saw a small pool of moisture between her legs. And it wasn’t just a sex wet spot, either.
“Uhm, how long do you think it’s been since it started?”
“A couple of hours, maybe, for the contractions. The water breaking thing just happened, though.”
Okay. I could handle this. We prepared for this. We have a game plan. No problem. So why was the hand I’d just scrubbed down my face trembling. Time to buck up and show Jessica she could depend on me no matter what. I threw on my clothes and shoes.
“So, we need to get to the hospital. Where’s your bag?”
“In that corner.” She pointed vaguely to the right, and I saw the backpack.
“Cool.”
“Owww,” she hissed out, clutching her stomach and breathing in short puffy breaths. “That one hurt.”
“Dr. Carrey said the contractions needed to be four minutes apart before we left, right?”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“Have you been timing them?”
She nodded. “The last one was five minutes ago.”
“Let’s get you dressed,” I said, opening drawers and closing them. I didn’t even know what I was looking for.
“My sweats are in that bottom drawer. Help me up, and I’ll get them.” Carefully, I held out an arm so she could leverage herself up. She bent over, obviously hurting again. “Ohhh. That one was bad. Like, really bad.” She said once it was over.
Screw waiting for the four-minute mark. She was in pain now. I automatically reached into the drawer she’d been heading for, finding a set of pink fleece pants and an oversized maternity t-shirt. I didn’t know where her underwear was and frankly, I didn’t care. She’d have to strip them off anyway, so what was the point?
Once we were both dressed, I slung her backpack over my shoulder, took her arm and led her step by step toward my SUV. I felt this unsettling combination of a need to rush and an equal need to move with extreme caution. The anxiety of the situation ratcheted up to new heights every time she experienced a contraction.
Even in the past few minutes, they’d grown stronger and closer together. She had another one as we reached the sidewalk outside, and even though she was taking these short little Lamaze breaths, she stopped halfway through and cried out. Jessica had broken out into a sweat now, and I had to get her to the goddamn hospital.
When the contraction released her, she burst into sobs. “I don’t know if I can do this, Trevor.”
“You can, okay. I know you can. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
She looked terrified, and I just couldn’t take it. So, I scooped her up and carried her straight into the parking garage. She clung to me for dear life, her curly hair tickling my neck, and as I bleeped the locks, I took a split second to look into her face. She glanced up at me, too, and despite the direness of the situation, I knew somehow, everything was going to work out.
“I love you, Jessica. I’m so proud of you. After our son arrives, why don’t you move in with me? What do you think?”
Only after I said the words did it occur to me that now might not be the right time to bring this up. Too late, though. My request was already out there.
I watched the emotions cross her face like a parade. First, there was shock, following by concern. Then a radiant smile lifting her mouth and sparkled in her jade eyes.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes, you’ll move in with me?” I clarified.
“Yes,” she repeated. “I love you, Trevor, and all I’ve ever wanted is a fam—” But then her smile twisted into a scowl of discomfort.
Another contraction. I breathed with her this time. She was still in my arms outside the passenger side of my vehicle. Her stomach was against my chest, and I could feel the damn contraction squeezing her myself. Jesus.
“Here’s my proposition,” I said, as I latched on her seatbelt once the contraction passed. “One, we have this baby. Two, we make sure everything is awesome with you both. Three, we move you both into my place. Sound like a plan?”
She was smiling again. “Definitely.”
BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT
Jessica Souza and Trevor Keller are overjoyed to announce the birth of their son, Joshua Trevor Keller. He was born at 11:12am at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, New York. He weighed seven pounds two ounces and was twenty-one inches long
. Both mother and child have been released and are healthy.
Epilogue - Jessie
SEPTEMBER
Every time I peer down into my baby boy’s adorable chubby face, I can’t believe he’s here or that he belongs to me and Trevor. It feels unreal to see Joshua live and in person, even when he’s in my arms. His miniscule hand roots around over my heart, and I shift the cup of my nursing bra so he can latch on.
I’ve gotten better at breastfeeding over these past few weeks. At first, I didn’t know if I could do it. My son had a hard time staying attached to the nipple, and I found the whole thing uncomfortable. But now, thankfully, we’ve found our stride.
“Hey there, gorgeousness,” Trevor said as he brought over a microwaveable breakfast croissant and a cup of herbal tea.
He always insists on feeding me before he goes to work. Being here with him in his apartment has made my life so much easier. I don’t have to focus on cooking or cleaning or anything but taking care of our baby. And as soon as my man comes home, he takes Joshua so I can rest or jump in the shower. It’s been so much better than I once imagined.
“I’m running a little behind, but I wish I didn’t have to go, especially on a Saturday,” he said, his expression regretful. Trevor has been incredibly attentive. Not only to me, but to our son.
“Me, too, but we’ll be fine.”
This past Monday I went back to school to finish out my teaching degree, something I’d looked forward to but also dreaded. I’d considered backing out of it a million times, but Trevor always reminded me that Joshua will only be without one of us for a few hours a day. I hated the idea, even though I trusted his new nanny with all my heart.
Ashley will be the one here with him. She graduated last semester, but so far, she hadn’t found a job. This solution, though temporary, worked out for all of us.
“Commence Mission Stay Awake,” Trevor said, his smile wolfish as he waggled one eyebrow at me.