I lift her off the counter and start walking to my bedroom, stumbling to stay upright as our lips are glued together, neither of us willing to separate.
We’re frantic as we undress each other. My jeans, socks, underwear? They’ve disappeared. My shirt? Tossed in the corner of the room. Her clothing? They meet the same demise. Could be kicked under the bed for all we know. It doesn’t matter.
For what we have planned, clothes aren’t necessary. And I hope she doesn’t have plans tomorrow, either. Possibly into the next day.
We fall to the bed in a tangle of limbs, laughing and moaning when my hardening dick brushes her thigh.
I abandon her lips so I can become reacquainted with the rest of her silky skin. The trip down her neck is especially fun. Though, not as fun as when I get to her favorite spot. I’ve never seen someone as sensitive as she is, but the second my lips wrap around her tip, she practically explodes. The sounds she makes are such a turn-on.
Her fingers find the back of my head, as if to keep me in place. As if I have any desire to leave.
“Nik!” she cries out and I smile against her skin. “That feels so good.”
Not wanting to leave her other breast out, I shift my focus and spend some quality time with her there, as well. Before she can come, I kiss down the rest of her upper body.
When I get to her stomach, I pause, looking up at her then down at where our baby is growing. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of it, obviously, I was. But being right here is… different.
“Holy shit,” I whisper. “You’re pregnant.”
She smiles shyly. “Welcome to the party, Nik.”
“Always a smart ass.” I shake my head. “It’s not that it hadn’t clicked yet, but…” I sit up on my knees and splay a hand over her stomach. “He’s growing in there. Right now. That’s wild.”
“Or her,” she reminds me.
“You said you were sure it was a boy.”
“How the heck should I know? I’m barely two months along and it’s not like I’ve done this before. I’ve convinced myself it’s a boy because raising a girl scares the crap out of me.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “But raising a boy doesn’t?”
“Ehh. Not really. They can be rambunctious and wild, but so can girls. I don’t know, I have sisters and it was an emotional mess growing up, especially when we were on our periods at the same time.”
“Going on record here to say that I wasn’t the one who called you emotional or a mess or that raising a girl would be scary. Also, for the record, boys can be emotional, too, so basically it’s going to be a fun ride.”
“Definitely.”
“Now. Where were we?”
“I think you were about to let me have a little fun.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mm hmm,” she says, grinning and next thing I know, I’m flat on my back, my head by the foot of the bed, and her lips and hand are wrapped around me.
“Holy shit!” I shout. I bite my bottom lip and pray that I don’t embarrass myself. It feels way too good for me to last very long and I don’t want it to end this way. She works me up to the point where if I don’t stop her, this will be done, and I give her the universal signal to stop by tapping her on the shoulder.
She shakes her head and I tap again. “Baby, as much as I’m enjoying it, I have more plans for tonight.”
With a pop, she releases me and climbs up my body. “Fun hater.”
“Ha! Right. Fun extender, is more like it.”
“You say potato, I say… ahh!” I cut her off by flipping her over so I’m on top again.
“You were saying?”
“Mmm,” she hums, her top teeth sliding across her bottom lip. “What kind of fun did you have in mind?”
I rub myself against her entrance. “A little bit of this,” I murmur and she hums again. Thoroughly enjoying herself. Her legs are spread wide, her dark hair fanned out against the comforter, olive skin on full display. She’s not the least bit shy with me, nor should she be. Her body is beautiful. I push myself inside of her and groan. I’d forgotten how amazing she feels.
“And a lot of this,” she adds for me, now wrapping her legs up and around my hips.
“Is this okay?” I ask her. I know sex is safe during all stages of pregnancy, but I still feel like I should ask her.
“More than okay. It’s…” she trails off, sighing.
She doesn’t need to say anything else, though. I feel it, too. There’s this song about being made for someone and that’s how I feel around Ashley. She’s everything I never felt around anyone else before her. “Yeah,” I agree, pumping in and out of her and relishing in being able to do so without any barriers between us. Not that it’s the first time, but this time, we really don’t have to worry.
Moving together, we climb higher and higher toward our climax.
I lick the pad of my thumb and rub against her clit. She curses and tightens around me. She looks between us, to where we’re joined and then into my eyes.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispers, looking back down. “That’s so sexy.”
“Fuck.”
It’s not long before I feel the telltale sign that I’m about to come.
“You there?”
“Almost,” she whispers, squeezing her left breast and the tip. That isn’t going to help me any. Unless she wants me to come right now. Seeing her touch herself? Holy hell.
“Want you to come with me,” I grunt.
“Let go,” she says just as her own orgasm hits her long and hard. She screams my name, her head thrashing side to side against the mattress and I follow right behind her, collapsing off to the side of her.
“I’ll move in a minute. Or an hour.”
“No rush. I don’t think I can move anyway.”
After a few moments, I kiss her shoulder and slowly pull out.
We make quick work of cleaning up before crawling into bed. She drapes her leg over my thighs and plays with the hair on my chest.
“I don’t want to screw this up,” she whispers.
I kiss the top of her head. “Me either. We won’t. We need to figure out what we both want and go from there.”
She nods against my chest and ducks her head. I can tell she’s worried and that’s understandable. I’m worried, too.
There’s more than just our hearts at stake this time around.
“We’ll figure it out,” I promise her.
This time she doesn’t nod, but she does look up at me. “You think we will?”
“We’ve been through the crappy stuff to know what doesn’t work.”
“That’s true.”
“See? We’re practically experts now.”
“I’ll start writing down our relationship advice so we can publish it,” she says sarcastically.
“Always the smart ass.”
She wraps her arm around me and curls in closer. It hits me that I’m in bed, naked with the woman who’s going to have my child in seven months. But it doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable or freaked out.
Maybe it should, but then again, this wouldn’t feel so right if it did.
And it definitely feels right.
Chapter Thirteen
Ashley - five weeks later
“Are you able to make it to my appointment tomorrow morning?” I ask Nik, settling on my couch for the evening. It was a long day at work. It was like every person within a one-hundred-mile radius who hadn’t brushed their teeth in a year decided to come get a cleaning. I’ve never been more grateful for having to wear a mask, gloves, and glasses in my entire career.
I picked up a couple slices of pizza and a bottle of Naked Juice Green Machine from a gas station on the way home because I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to cook anything.
“Dumb question, Ash. Of course, I’ll be there. They said we might be able to hear the heartbeat, yeah?”
It was a dumb question. Nik’s made it clear from the beginning that he planned to be involved in every step of th
e pregnancy. In fact, over the last five weeks, he’s also made it clear that he’s definitely on board with whatever is naturally developing between us. We still haven’t had “the talk” about what each of us wants, but as they say, actions speak louder than words. We haven’t spent the night together since the night Josie gave birth to Jay. Well, that’s not exactly true. I spent the next day with him, which turned into the next evening. I went home on New Year’s Day thoroughly ravaged and tired. In the best way possible.
Since that night, we’ve flirted and been affectionate with each other, but beyond little kisses and hand holding, nothing physical has happened. But we talk on the phone and text daily, see each other for meals, and have even caught a movie we were both looking forward to seeing. It feels a little like we’re dating, but we haven’t named it.
Maybe that’s why it’s so good between us.
No labels.
“Yes, that’s what they said. But I’m sure there are times when it doesn’t happen.”
“It’ll happen,” he says assuredly.
“I hope so.”
“How are you feeling today? Week twelve. End of first trimester. Kind of a big deal, right?”
“Yes. After we hear the heartbeat, I think we can start sharing our news. I had a little morning sickness this morning but it wasn’t bad at all. Just more like a queasy stomach. I ate tortilla chips because that’s all that sounded good, and it really helped. Kind of crazy.”
“Probably the salt,” he guesses. “Josie said the same thing about tortilla chips. They’d always calm her stomach.”
“She’s the one who suggested them, actually.”
I can hear the smile in his voice when he replies, “Oh yeah? Good. Good. She bugging you too much?”
“No,” I say, smiling back. Josie and I became instant friends after Jay was born. She’s invited me over to hang out a few times on my days off. I bring lunch with me and we sit together and stare at Jay, watch Food Network, and laugh over childhood stories about Nik. Or, Niko, as she calls him. When I asked Nik if it bothered him, he looked at me like I was out of my mind and said he didn’t care. Even when she showed me a picture of herself dressed as Cinderella and him dressed up like Belle in Beauty and the Beast. When I asked him about it, he simply shrugged, smiled, and said, ‘she wanted to play princesses. We’d just gotten done having a Nerf war so it was her turn to choose.’
He’s so confident and sure of himself. It would be intimidating if he acted like he was better than others, but that’s not how he is.
“If she gets to be too intrusive, you’ll let me know?”
“She’s fine, Nik. I like your sister,” I promise.
“That makes me happy. We should probably talk about me meeting your sisters, too.”
I groan. “Really? Wasn’t meeting my parents enough? That went really well, remember?”
“Yes, it did. Your parents are great. Dinner together was nice. But, yes, I need to meet your sisters, too. We’re doing this together, right? We need our families’ support and that includes everyone.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. But the thing is, my sisters have become gigantic shits over the past few weeks. I’m pretty sure it’s just jealousy over me being pregnant since neither of them are having luck in that department, but it still bothers me.
Grace, especially, hasn’t been acting like herself. Lucy thinks something is going on with her husband, Samuel, but Grace hasn’t told us anything. Which isn’t necessarily a surprise. None of us have ever really liked Samuel much. He’s… I don’t know how to explain it other than calling him a jerk but that’s not fair because that’s not a great description of him. He’s always been relatively nice to our whole family, but it feels fake. Almost as if he feels he’s doing us a favor to be in our presence.
“Let’s set it up, then.”
“Fine,” I grumble.
He chuckles. “It’ll be fine. Even if they’re rude as fuck, I don’t care. I can handle whatever they throw at me. It’s just a chance to try to get to know each other. If we don’t get along so good that we’ll be best friends, it’s not a big deal, right?”
I nod and stand up from the couch, bringing my empty bottle to the kitchen to rinse out and drop in the recycling bin. “Right. I just don’t want Grace saying anything offensive.”
“You said that she doesn’t care about education and stuff like that?”
I fill up a glass with ice water and grab a bag of pretzels, bottle of mustard, and a plate and bring my snack to the living room. “I know I did, but for whatever reason, she’s been kind of a jerk lately.”
“Set it up,” he says, ignoring my comment about her being a jerk. If I had to take a guess, it won’t bother him in the least if she is a jerk around him. He’ll brush it off and move on. It doesn’t seem like he lets people’s opinions of him get to him. I wish I was more like that. Instead, I tend to dwell on it. I want everyone to like me.
“Fine,” I sigh, squeezing some mustard onto the plate and dipping a pretzel into it. Before eating, I say, “But I’m not making any promises. You’ll probably hate Grace’s husband Samuel and become fast bros with Lucy’s husband Grant.”
“Did you just seriously use the word bros?” He chuckles.
“Yes. And I stand by it.” I grin.
“You’re being cute,” he says. “That’s pretty typical of you but I like it better when I can be with you while you’re being sweet and cute.”
“I’m being cute, huh?”
“You’re always cute.”
“What are you doing now?” I ask, feeling a flutter in my stomach as his words settle.
“Watching TV. Like normal.” He laughs lightly.
“Same. But I’m eating pretzels dipped in mustard.”
“Not shocking,” he remarks. He’s not wrong. I have this little snack almost every night. The little pretzel twists are my favorite. Dipped into regular yellow mustard.
“Tell me about your day.”
This is something we started doing last week. More than just the typical asking how each other’s days went. This is details to help us understand what the other does all day long.
“Had that big estimate go out today for the new elementary school in Liberty.”
“When will you hear if you got it?”
“End of the week but I think I’ve got a pretty good chance. Talked to the Superintendent and even though he’s not the one deciding, the school board is, he said they want the job to stay with as many local contractors as they can. If I get it, it’ll really solidify the business.”
“You’ll get it. Your recommendations speak for themselves. Your customers love you and your work, your employees are incredible. I have faith.”
“Me, too, but I don’t want to assume anything, you know? It’d be great. Only downfall is that they want to get started immediately, which is fine for us, but considering they want to get the new one up and running for the next school year, we’ll all be working like fucking maniacs for the next several months to meet our deadline. It’s going to be a scramble if the weather doesn’t cooperate because we have no room for delays. That means your last few months I’ll be busy as shit. Don’t like that so much.”
“We can figure it out.”
“Yeah. We can.”
“I’m still surprised they’re just now looking for an electrical contractor. Don’t big jobs like that usually have all their contractors in place way in advance?”
“Usually, yes, but they didn’t plan well, apparently. The board wasn’t coming to an agreement on anything. I heard something about a big donor threatening to pull the money if they didn’t get their shit together. I have no idea if that’s true or if that’s just gossip but regardless, they finally got moving and now they’re scrambling. Sometimes a large construction company will be hired and they’ll contract out the rest, like electrical and plumbing and get approval. But the school wanted to be the one doing all the hiring. I think that’s also where some of the disconnect and delay
s are coming from. The board is trying to do something they don’t know much about.”
“Sounds stubborn to me.”
“Probably. But, they’re getting it done now. And it’s going to be a really nice building when it’s complete. It looks like a shitshow now, though.”
Him talking about a brand new elementary school makes me realize that our kid will be going to that same school one day. That’s pretty wild to think about.
“What went down at the dentist office today?”
“A lot of gross teeth that needed cleaned.”
I hear him gag and it makes me laugh. “Nasty. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Today I had to wonder, too.”
“Can’t blame you.”
We talk a bit more before saying good night and making a plan for Nik to pick me up for my appointment. Luckily, I have Wednesdays off and have been able to schedule appointments on my day off so I don’t have to take time off from work for them.
Getting ready for bed, I can’t help but lift my t-shirt and turn so my profile is facing the bedroom full-length mirror. I’m only twelve weeks along and I’m not showing yet. It doesn’t stop me from running my hand up and down over my stomach, examining my mid-section for any changes.
Then I push my stomach out, suck it in, push it out. Laugh at myself.
Push it out again and let my hand rest on my rounded stomach.
Not satisfied, I pull one of my little throw pillows off the bed and shove it under my shirt, moving and tucking the material so it looks a little more real.
“Huh,” I say to myself. “That’s not so bad.”
Of course it doesn’t look bad. It’s a tiny pillow stuffed under my shirt — not the basketball that will be there in a few months.
For good measure, and because now I’m having a little bit of fun, I dance around my bedroom, moving my stomach up and down and watching it in the mirror. I know it will look a lot different when it’s full with a baby and it makes me kind of excited to see.
I go on to try on different tops with the pillow underneath just because I’m curious what I’ll look like, ending with my scrubs. Since I wear navy blue scrubs every day to work, I’m curious what I’ll look like. Then I add another pillow, which stretches the material to the point that it’s tight.
Together: A Surprise Pregnancy Romance Page 13