Hard Luck

by Sara Ney

Either way, I’m interested to find out.

  We have only done it twice now, but we’ve already gotten into a rhythm where we feel comfortable with each other. Comfortable enough that I don’t hesitate to remove the panties from her body, slowly sliding them down her thighs.

  The sleepshirt comes next, and before long, we’re both naked as the day we were born.

  True moans when I slide my hands up her rib cage, cupping her breasts, kneading her nipples with the tips of my fingers.

  Her body has my child growing inside, and it’s the sexiest thing I have ever seen. No cover model on any magazine compares to how beautiful this woman is.

  She’s unabashed.

  Unembarrassed.

  Unapologetic.

  Her tits are amazing and she smells amazing, too.

  I’m basically crouched between her spread legs, and I can’t decide if I should immediately go down on her or climb up her body and do the old-fashioned dry hump. It’s a classic that I love and would love to bring back—my sex life full circle.

  There is nothing better than a dry hump ending in a climax, and I fondly recall coming inside my jeans as the horny teenage boy I was in my youth.

  Ahh, those were the good ol’ days.

  Decision made, I climb my way up her body, dragging my hard erection over her smooth leg until it’s lined up at the apex of her thighs.

  “Are you actually trying to dry-hump me right now?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “I’m here for it,” she moans, head thrashing against the pillow when the tip of my cock rubs against her clit.

  She’s already wet; I can feel my dick getting soaked, and it’s not even close to being inside.

  “Don’t get too comfortable fucking me this way. At some point, I’m going to demand you c-come inside me. I want to feel you.” Her head tips back again. “God your dick is incredible.”

  She sounds like a porn star, the noises she’s making.

  “Shh, babe—quiet.”

  “Then shut me up. I want your tongue in my mouth.”

  Whoa.

  Booty call True is a sex goddess.

  We mimic sex as I move up and down over her, sliding back and forth, back and forth, up and down her body—up and down her pussy, fond memories rekindling.

  This is a night I’m not likely to ever forget.

  True looks up at me, and I try to read the expression on her face, the expression in her eyes as she watches me move over her.

  It’s as if she wants to say something, but no words can escape her lips because they’re parted. The kind of parted lips that come from being aroused and turned on and lost in the throes of passion.

  Eyes slightly glazed over.

  Cheeks red, flushed from her rising heartbeat.

  I’m sure I look almost the same way in her eyes.

  Everything about this moment has gone from fun dry-fucking to serious, passionate…

  Something.

  I don’t know because I can’t put my finger on it, but the mood has definitely changed. It’s charged.

  Electric.

  We’re not even worried in the least that her older brother is going to come storming down the hall and knock on the door, because we’re lost in each other.

  I can see it and I can feel it.

  Up and down.

  Up.

  Down.

  Skin to skin.

  Fuck, this body of hers.

  It was meant for me.

  Made for me, even.

  I think I’m romantic because of being raised by all women, if you don’t include my father, who is not actually a woman. Ha ha. But you get what I’m saying. Because I grew up with six sisters and one mother, which is seven women, there was no way—no chance in hell I was escaping from that household anything short of a male feminist.

  Every holiday was a lesson in the importance of meeting someone’s emotional needs—dinner reservations and small tokens of affection.

  Chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Gifts for Christmas. Cards for birthdays, maybe flowers. All things I learned were important to my sisters, so maybe they were important to someone I might want in my life.

  I know I need to show that someone how I feel.

  Watching my sisters go through heartbreak with every shitty boyfriend. Listening to my mother lecture them on the way they deserve to be treated by a man. Listening to them lecture me on the way to treat a woman.

  So the romance thing? Easy.

  If that’s the type of man True Wallace wants in her life—something I have yet to discover—then she needs to look no further than me. I am a Renaissance man, born to please my woman.

  Happy wife, happy life.

  Just ask my father how he’s sustained several decades with my mother with very few fights—that I can remember, anyway. No knock-down-drag-out fights that some couples have. Certainly having seven children…which included six girls…would have caused some fights, yeah?

  But no, not really.

  Arguments, yes.

  Fights? Eh, hardly.

  Then again, Mom comes from a family with three girls and two boys, which means my aunts are often all up in my parents’ business. Which means any arguments or fights Mom and Dad had? Are and were going to involve his wife’s sisters.

  There’s no getting around it.

  Dad isn’t an idiot.

  No man wants to fight with his wife and her sisters all at the same time because they can’t keep their nose out of each other’s business—and certainly not out of his.

  The last thing he ever wanted was Aunt Zoila, Aunt Gabriella, and/or Aunt Mia coming to Mom’s rescue during an argument. What sane man wants to argue with four women at once?

  It’s bad enough that Dad has six daughters.

  They kept trying and trying until they had a son, then Gloria was unplanned, and well—none of us would have it any differently.

  “Eres tan hermosa,” I whisper, my cock hard and balls heavy. “You’re so beautiful.”

  “I don’t want to wait anymore, babe. Stick it in.”

  I falter.

  Stick it in?

  Do women say shit like that?

  Apparently, they do, or maybe it’s just women with two dickhead brothers who have no filter.

  I want what my parents have: years-long—decades-long commitment. They laugh and love and enjoy spending time together, and you cannot fake that for that long. What they have is real, and what they have is what I want.

  And I want that with True Wallace.

  This is no longer just about sex or the baby.

  I’m not even mad about how sappy I sound in my head right now. And I’m about to give her what she wants.

  I have a feeling that once True Wallace completely lets her guard down with me, she’s going to be the partner I’ve been looking for my whole life. Granted, it’s only been twenty-nine years, but still.

  A guy can dream big, can’t he?

  Carefully, I reach between our bodies and, using one hand, grab hold of my cock to ease the tip into her wet slit. Inch by inch and goddamn it, it feels good. Heaven on earth.

  Stop romanticizing this, dude. She called you to bang her; she’s not looking for a ring.

  “Faster.” True’s demand wakes me from my daydream.

  No, not a daydream—fantasy.

  Having her as my girlfriend is a freaking fantasy.

  “Yes…” she moans. “Feels sooo good.”

  Faster faster, more, more, more.

  I give it to her, panting like a lovesick dog, breaking out into an actual sweat. Me, a guy who can run miles in minutes with no problem. What the actual fu—

  “Fuck…oh…yes, Mateo, yes.”

  Whoa. I’ve barely made a sound because I haven’t had to. She’s making enough noise for the both of us, and if I don’t keep her quiet, big brother is going to be banging on this door louder than I’m banging her.

  True comes before I do with a shrill moan I’m betting I’ll hear agai
n in the hospital labor and delivery room when she’s giving birth. What a monster I am.

  I do my best not to crush her when I collapse, spent, rolling to the side and staring up at the ceiling.

  It’s quiet. Peaceful.

  Until…

  “I think I hear something.”

  “That’s my lungs struggling to find air,” I joke, chuckling while she shushes me.

  “I heard something.”

  We listen.

  Someone is definitely maybe awake, definitely maybe in the hallway. Or not.

  “Shit,” I whisper uncertainly. “You heard that too, right?”

  We are so screwed.

  Seventeen

  True

  Mateo presses his index finger to my mouth, giving his head a little shake to quiet me as he inches down my body again.

  He pauses.

  “I think that was a door.” His lips say the words though no sound comes out. Luckily, I can read his lips.

  There’s shuffling outside, feet against the carpet.

  A knock on my door.

  Crap!

  This seriously cannot be happening.

  “True?” My brother jiggles the doorknob. Hesitates. “Open up—is everything alright?”

  Mateo and I go completely still, freezing on the bed like stone statues.

  “True?” Jiggle, jiggle.

  “Say something,” Mateo whisper-hisses as he flies off the bed, fumbling around for his pants and making a beeline for the first available hiding spot: the closet.

  I wait until he’s safely inside before calling out to Tripp.

  “What’s up?”

  He knocks again. “Open up. Why is the door locked?”

  Ugh, what is he, the noise police? Why isn’t he going away?

  WHY ISN’T HE.

  GOING.

  AWAY.

  Big brothers are so freaking annoying.

  “Um, j-just a second, jeez!” I locate my bathrobe and pull it on, running my fingers through what is surely sex hair before rushing to unlock the door and yank it open.

  “What.” I sound peeved because I am, yanked out of a sex euphoria by my obnoxious older sibling who seems hell-bent on checking on me as if I were a child and not the one having a child.

  He stands there glaring, mammoth arms crossed. “Is everything okay? I thought I heard noises.” His neck cranes so he can peer over my shoulder. “It sounded like you were being strangled by an alley cat.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t hear anything.”

  “You heard nothing? It was coming from this side of the house.”

  “Maybe you heard the sound of your own nosiness.”

  Tripp rolls his eyes. “That’s impossible—you can’t hear your own nosiness. Why was your door locked?”

  He is going to beleaguer the point until it’s dead in the ground.

  I widen my stance. “I’m not allowed to lock my door? What is this, Mom and Dad’s house?”

  His nostrils flare. “What if there’s a fire and you can’t get out?”

  “Suddenly you’re worried about fires? You’re being ridiculous—having my door closed and locked is safer than having it open.”

  I pull my robe together and hold it closed with one hand while wedging my body in the crack of the open door to block his view.

  We have a stare-down—a standoff, if you will—the kind we had when we were kids and both refused to back down from a bet or a squabble. Or if we were arguing over the last Oreo in the cookie jar.

  Can’t stop, won’t stop, won’t back down.

  “Why was your door locked?”

  I barely contain my ire.

  He has ruined my orgasmic state with his high-handed brothering.

  “Fine. I won’t lock my door anymore. Happy?”

  My brother’s inquisitive brain isn’t done piecing together the puzzle of the sounds he heard, and he tilts his head inward. “You’re sure you didn’t hear anything weird?”

  Why is he like this!

  “You know what,” I blurt out, aggravated. “Maybe I didn’t hear anything because I was too busy masturbating.”

  His jaw drops to the floor.

  Good.

  “Now. Will there be anything else? Or can I get back to my nocturnal extracurricular activities?” My tone challenges him to say more stupid shit, but he doesn’t—can’t—his face turning crimson red before he spins on his heel and stomps back down the hallway from whence he came.

  His door slams shut.

  I shut mine too—locking it behind me.

  “You can come out now.”

  Mateo falls out, laughing. “I cannot believe you told your brother you were masturbating. What expression did he have on his face?”

  I widen my eyes, flare my nostrils, and drop my jaw, exaggerating all three movements before sticking out my tongue. “Like this. The face you’d make walking in on your parents having sex.”

  We laugh and laugh and laugh some more.

  Quietly, of course, before it’s time to get him dressed and sneak him out the front door.

  I kiss him on his way out, pulling him in by the collar of his hoodie, drawing him close.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  The thrill of the evening still has my heart racing.

  “If anyone was going to booty call me, I’m glad it was you.”

  “Aww.” Another kiss on his lips. “Drive safe.”

  “I will.” He begins his jog down the sidewalk, turning back toward me when he’s on the road, hands stuffed into the front pockets of his sweatshirt. “Dream of me tonight, True Wallace.”

  “I…”

  Will.

  Unable to finish the sentence, I give him a little wave.

  Eighteen

  Mateo

  Me: Can I ask you something?

  True: Of course.

  Me: Why didn’t you get ahold of me after we slept together? What did I do wrong?

  True: Nothing. You did nothing wrong.

  Me: But you wouldn’t let your brother give me your number. I just—it’s been on my mind to ask because I thought for sure I did something wrong that night. Maybe said something to piss you off.

  True: No, Mateo, you didn’t do anything wrong. This was definitely an “it’s not you, it’s me” situation, which sounds cliché but…that’s definitely what it was—me being afraid of my own damn shadow.

  True: Plus, to be honest, I was kind of embarrassed that I slept with someone I barely knew. I was scared you were going to tell people and my brother was going to find out and I kind of FREAKED out.

  That makes sense, actually.

  True: Then I went back to traveling for work, and then I got sick (which we now know was morning sickness), and I came back from a trip and my freaking roommate had defaulted on our rent and we got evicted. It was a blur.

  Me: It’s fine—people get ghosted. I just wanted to ask.

  True: It was shitty of me to ignore you. The least I could have done was say, “Look, I’m not interested.” But I was immature and selfishly avoiding you because it was the easy thing to do.

  True and I are finally at a place where we’re being honest with each other, and I never want that to change. I want it to keep getting better.

  I want to be her best friend.

  Everyone thinks a guy’s best friend should be another guy, but I always thought it should be their life partner. Just like my mom and dad. Mom and Pops.

  I send her a few more messages asking about what time I should be at her brother’s place—today is the day we’re going to tell Buzz about the baby if True can muster the courage. It seems sometimes, where her brothers are concerned, she’s still their younger sister and still afraid of what they’re going to say.

  How they’re going to react.

  I know it’s going to be really freaking hard because Buzz Wallace is stubborn, proud, and overprotective.

  I grab my car keys off the table by the front door of my co
ndo, giving it one last glance to make sure none of the lights have been left on before walking out the door.

  The ride to Tripp’s place is stressful. It seems like every song that comes on the radio reminds me I’m about to walk into the lion’s den.

  My palms are sweating and my gut clenches a bit, the nerves getting the best of me.

  I arrive at Tripp’s place and pull into the driveway, noting the vehicle I’m all too familiar with parked behind True’s car. Jiggle the car keys as I walk up the sidewalk to impending doom.

  “What are you doing here?” Buzz demands to know when he throws open the front door by way of greeting.

  Goddamn, he’s one rude son of a bitch. “That’s no way to say hello to your best friend.”

  “You’re not my best friend, Noah Harding is,” he tells me bluntly, in no mood to joke around.

  Shit.

  This isn’t going to end well.

  If he’s already agitated by the sight of me on his brother’s front step, just think of how irritated he’s going to be when we tell him I got his sister pregnant.

  “Tell me how you really feel,” I say, trying to step around him and into the house.

  He’s not having it and bars my entry. “Seriously, dude, why are you here?”

  “I was invited.”

  “By who?” He glances over his shoulder at his sister, who’s now lingering in the doorway of the dining room located just off the entryway.

  “By me,” she says, walking forward. “And Tripp, obviously.”

  “Let him in, asshole,” comes another male voice from the back of the house.

  The dog barks but doesn’t come charging to the door.

  Buzz eyes me suspiciously but steps aside. “Something shady is going on and I don’t like it.”

  Well, one thing’s for certain—nothing escapes his notice.

  “You think because I’m here something shady is going on?”

  I mean, he’s not wrong—but super rude of him to be this suspicious. What the fuck did I ever do to this guy? I thought we were friends, and he’s acting like I’m here to bang his sister then steal her away.

  Which…I kind of already did.

  Ha!

  I enter the house, gazing around, seeing it for the first time during the day. Obviously the last time I was here it was the middle of the night, having been snuck in through the front door then snuck up into Tripp’s guest bedroom by his sister.