by M. S. Parker
As soon as my brain started working again, I reached down and pulled her to her feet. My mouth crashed into hers, and I pushed my tongue between her lips, tasting myself but not caring. If anything, it just made me more determined to give her as much pleasure as she’d given me.
I moved her against the wall, my hands on her breasts, between her legs. She squirmed as I slid a finger between her lips, finding her clit already swollen, her pussy wet. With rough, deliberate movements, I brought her quickly, swallowing her screams as she came.
Finally, as her jerks and shivers stopped, I broke the kiss and put my lips next to her ear.
“I have a few ideas of how we can pass the time while you keep and eye on me.” I took her earlobe between my teeth and tugged on it. “Are you game?”
She took a shaky breath before answering with a firm, “Yes, please.”
Fourteen
Aline
This wasn’t my bed, but it also wasn’t the one I’d been sleeping on in Martina’s guest room either. This mattress was much nicer, but the biggest clue was that I wasn’t in bed alone.
I smiled even before I opened my eyes, anticipating what I’d see next to me. Six feet, six inches of leanly muscled goodness. He was self-conscious of the scars on his torso, but I saw them as proof of his bravery, his selflessness.
He’d earned each and every one of them, along with the one that ran down his left cheek, from his temple to just under his mouth. From his behavior and things he’d said, he definitely saw himself in a before and after way, but I’d only ever known him like this. My physical attraction to him wasn’t despite his scars or because of them. It was simply him.
When I looked at him, my heart gave a funny skip. His rust-colored hair was a mess, and I found myself brushing it back from his face, enjoying the feel of the soft strands. While I had no doubt that he had nightmares about the things he had been through, right now, he looked peaceful.
Without warning, my stomach lurched, and I scrambled out of bed. My hand over my mouth, I barely made it to the bathroom. It wasn’t until the retching subsided that I realized Eoin was next to me, his expression saying that he wanted to help but didn’t know how.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, closing my eyes for a moment. It was time to talk about that phone call.
“It can’t be the room service,” he said. “I ate the same thing you did.”
The sound of water had me opening my eyes, and Eoin held out a cup. I took it gratefully and rinsed my mouth.
“Let me clean up,” I said as I managed to get to my feet. “I’ll be out in a few minutes and we can talk.”
He looked confused but didn’t argue. Instead, he did as I asked, even closing the door behind him. I appreciated the consideration because I did want some privacy, not only so that I could brush my teeth and wash my face but so that I could pull myself together enough for what I needed to do.
Once I was as composed as I knew I would ever get, I went back into the main room where a fully dressed Eoin was sitting at the table. I appreciated his having dressed. This wasn’t the sort of conversation I wanted to have with either of us naked or even partially so.
I sat across from him, hiding my hands under the table so he couldn’t see how I was twisting my fingers together. If I could continue to appear collected and calm, maybe he wouldn’t realize what a nervous wreck I was.
How upset I was about how irresponsible I’d been.
“Yesterday, you texted me to say that you were leaving town for a job and that you’d reach out to me to let me know your schedule. When I received that text, I was in a pharmacy. And when I called you, it was because I had something, I needed to tell you before you became unreachable for an unknown amount of time.” I forced myself to meet his eyes. Out of all the emotions roiling through me, not one of them was shame. “I took a pregnancy test, and it was positive.”
He leaned back in his chair, stunned. I had a feeling that, if he had been standing, he would’ve fallen. My stomach was in knots as I waited for him to say something.
I wasn’t going to rush him or get mad that he didn’t instantly have a response. Even if I’d given him this kind of news without everything he’d just been through, it would have been unfair of me to expect him to process instantly and give me the reaction I wanted.
Especially since I didn’t really know what I wanted him to say or do.
Nearly two full minutes passed before he finally spoke. “I thought you said you had an IUD.”
Not where I’d hoped his first thought would go, but at least a logical one. “I do.” I blew out a breath. “When I got home after…I was supposed to make an appointment with my doctor, but I’d forgotten until yesterday morning after I threw up. When I called Dr. Rhimes and told her everything, she said she couldn’t get me in until tomorrow morning. And then she said that I should get a pregnancy test because it was a possibility.”
“A possibility? So the test could have been a false positive?”
He didn’t sound upset or eager or anything, really. His face wasn’t blank, exactly, but he was definitely not broadcasting what he was feeling. Not with his expression or his tone. Not a single thing.
Apparently, I did have at least some small expectation of what I’d wanted from him. Some concern or attempt of comfort. But, I reminded myself, he’d just been through a lot. That helped me not to be too annoyed. Who knew how different his reaction would have been if the accident hadn’t happened and we’d had the rest of our conversation on the phone?
“It could be,” I said. “Nothing’s one hundred percent.”
And there it was. A split second of something real in his eyes.
Something that looked an awful lot like relief.
For the second time that morning, I felt like I was going to throw up. Tears pricked at my eyelids, and I was suddenly grateful that neither of us had turned on more than just a lamp in the corner. Shadows could hide what I couldn’t quite manage myself.
The silence between us turned awkward, and I pushed to my feet. “I should change.”
I was in the bedroom before I remembered that I didn’t actually have any clothes to change into. I’d come straight here from the hospital, and what I was going to wear had been the absolute last thing on my mind. I did, at least, have a clean pair of underwear in my purse. I’d made that a habit for years, and my time in Iran had made me almost compulsive about it.
I probably spent more time than necessary in the bathroom, but I needed it to get my emotions in check. I really hoped that this was some sort of placebo effect and not pregnancy hormones rearing their ugly heads. If I was pregnant, I didn’t want to be a basket case for the next nine months.
If.
I didn’t know the numbers when it came to the likelihood of an IUD failing or a pregnancy test giving a false positive, but both did happen. As my mind bounced around, I wondered if the insanity of my last couple months made it more or less likely that I’d beat the odds. And what would that look like? Was it beating the odds if I was pregnant or not?
And that was the moment I realized that I hadn’t asked myself one very important question.
Did I want to be pregnant?
I hadn’t intended it to happen. Hadn’t even considered it a possibility. Honestly, I hadn’t even been thinking about having a family in the near future. Obviously, I didn’t dislike children, as that would have made my field of study quite foolish, but a baby at this point in my life wasn’t even close to being on my radar.
Eoin wasn’t the only person who was just now processing this information. Even though I’d technically known about it longer than he had – either counting or not counting the amnesia – things had gone pear-shaped almost from moment one. I hadn’t been able to actually think about it yet.
I needed to do that. How could I hold Eoin’s reaction against him when I hadn’t truly thought it through yet myself?
My phone’s alarm went off, making me jump. I reached for it, not r
emembering why I had an alarm set for today. When I saw what was on the screen, I closed my eyes and cursed under my breath.
At least I now had a legitimate reason to leave.
I had promised my parents I’d have lunch with them today.
Wonderful.
Fifteen
Eoin
I thought I told Aline goodbye, but I honestly couldn’t be sure. A part of my brain was even wondering if I’d dreamed the entire conversation while still sleeping next to her in bed. Or maybe I’d actually passed out again in the hospital and was now unconscious, and my mind was trying to freak me out to wake me up. Or maybe I’d actually died, and the afterlife was just some strange shit that made no sense.
Because there’s no way this could be happening.
Could it?
I’d had sex with a lot of women over the years, and since graduating high school, I’d always used condoms, even if a woman said she was on birth control. Then I’d met Aline, and all that had gone out the window.
And now, she might be pregnant.
Might.
Possibly?
Probably?
Shit.
Then again, when I considered the odds, the fact that this was the first time anything like this had ever happened to me, I supposed it wasn’t too far-fetched. Shit like this happened every day.
Hell, it’d happened to my brother, Alec.
At least I knew how my family would take the news. Well, more or less. I’d already been enlisted when all of that had happened, but it wasn’t actually that hard to figure out.
While my parents hadn’t been the sort who’d expected abstinence from any of us kids, they’d also been big believers in making sure all of us understood the possible consequences of our actions. When they’d given us each the sex talk and discussed birth control, they’d also told us that the only way to one hundred percent avoid pregnancy and STIs was to not have sex. Well, other than the obvious exception of rape, of course, and none of us would ever blame a survivor for anything that came from something like that.
If we did have sex, we’d be expected to take responsibility for anything that came up because of it, but they wouldn’t tell us how that responsibility was supposed to look. The only thing they’d made clear was that brushing consequences off wouldn’t be allowed, and the first of us to go through this situation had risen to the occasion just like he always had with everything else.
Alec married Keli, but the marriage hadn’t lasted very long. He’d done the whole joint-custody thing until earlier this year when Keli had gone off the deep end and dropped Evanne at his house with primary custody papers, before running off with a boyfriend. That had sparked off a whole other kind of shitshow.
Aline wasn’t Keli, but out of everyone in my family, Alec was the only one – that I knew of anyway – who could understand what I was going through. It was a workday, but I never called Alec just to talk. If he saw my name on the caller ID, he’d answer.
My phone was in the bedroom, and as I stood to get it, I realized how much time had passed since I’d sat down. And how fucked up I’d actually gotten yesterday. The pain wasn’t bad enough to stop me, but it was enough to make me grimace as I walked, working the stiffness out of my muscles. A hot shower would do me some good too, but I wanted to talk to my brother first.
He answered on the second ring. “Eoin? Da said you were in an accident. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I winced as I rolled my shoulders. “Sore and I have some nasty bruises, but nothing more serious than a concussion.”
That was more than I probably would have told him if something like this had happened before this past spring, but I’d put my family through enough worry this year. For him, knowing more would be better, not worse.
“Do you have a few minutes to talk?” I asked. “I could use some advice.”
Only the very brief pause before he answered told me that he was surprised. “Sure. What do you need?”
“I met this girl.” Shit. I sounded like a teenager, but I decided to plow on. “The first job I did with Cain, the girl…woman we were hired to…find…”
Shit. This was harder than I’d thought. I didn’t know how much of this was important. I’d never had to actually tell anyone in my family that I was dating someone because I’d never really done it before.
“Her name’s Aline, and we’ve been seeing each other since then.”
I really hoped I didn’t have to spell out that ‘seeing each other’ meant sex. Not because I’d never talked to my brothers about sex, but it was different with Aline. I didn’t want him thinking about her that way, even if I knew he wouldn’t really be thinking about her like that. No, his relationship with Lumen was solid, and he’d never fantasize about someone else’s girlfriend, but I still didn’t like even the idea of it.
Maybe a blunt, rip-off-the-bandage approach would be best.
“There’s a chance she could be pregnant.”
He didn’t say anything immediately, but that was okay because I knew he was thinking. He wasn’t an impulsive sort of guy, which was another reason that talking to him was a good idea.
“How high is a ‘could be’ chance?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “She has an IUD and a positive pregnancy test.”
Another few beats of silence, and I wondered if he was going to ask me if we’d used a condom too, but he didn’t.
“The two of you have been together a month?”
“More or less.” It was an honest answer, even if I kept back some details.
“How do you feel about her?”
That was a good question, and I wasn’t sure I had a good answer. I did my best. “I like her a lot. I care about her enough to work my ass off to be with her.”
“Do you have to work at it because she’s high maintenance or because you’ve done some dumb stuff already?”
The question held a bit of teasing in it, and I knew that wasn’t because he thought this was funny. He’d almost completely fucked things up with Lumen more than once because he’d been an idiot.
“Mostly the second one,” I admitted. “She’s a bit…naïve. No, not naïve. More like optimistic. She believes that she can change the world with enough hard work and compassion, and sometimes, that makes her not see how the world really is. I like that most of the time, but sometimes, it can be annoying.”
“Does she make you want to be a better person without her tellin’ you to be one?”
This one was easy to answer. “Yes.”
It took me a moment to realize that the noise he made was an attempt to cover a laugh. Lumen really had been good for him.
“Hate to tell you this, little brother, but I think you’re a bit past like and care. If you’re willin’ to change yourself for a woman, you’re well on your way to love.”
The l-word should have just added to the near panic that kept wanting to push its way forward, but it didn’t, which made me wonder if what I was feeling was actually panic or something else entirely.
“Look, Eoin.” Alec sounded serious now. “I’m not going to tell you what the right thing to do here is, but I will give you one piece of advice based on my own personal experience. Don’t be an idiot and fuck things up with her because of this.”
I frowned. “I’m not quite following you. When you found out Keli was pregnant, you married her, and it was definitely not a good thing.”
“If Aline hadn’t told you that she might be pregnant, would you have wanted to keep seeing her?”
Another easy one. “Yes.”
“Is she the sort of woman who’d lie so she could get pregnant?”
“No,” I said, my temper sparking at even the idea.
“I’m not makin’ accusations here.” His tone was mild. “But you defendin’ her instead of letting my question make you suspicious says a lot.”
Suddenly, a thought popped into my head, prompted by his question and the fact that it’d come after my comment about hi
m and Keli. “Was that what happened with Keli? Did she…”
“I don’t know.” Alec’s voice was quiet. “I’ve never…it doesn’t matter now. However it came about, having Evanne in my life is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
I didn’t doubt it. As much as I loved Evanne, I knew it couldn’t match how much he did.
“I’ve never told anyone except Lumen about what was happening when Keli told me she was pregnant,” he continued. “But you need to hear it too. I had planned to end things with Keli. Had, in fact, intended to do it when I met her that day. But, when she told me, I decided that providing a home with both mother and father was more important than my feelings for Keli.”
Shit. I hadn’t really known much about the relationship or spent much time around Keli during my rare times back home, and I’d never really liked her, but this was a surprise. Only until I really thought about it, though. Alec had been eight when our mother died, and it had been harder for him to accept when Da and Theresa had married. He loved Mom and all of our siblings, but I could see why he would want Evanne to have both of her biological parents raising her together.
“What I meant about drawing on my personal experience wasn’t about what happened between Keli and me. I meant Lumen. I almost lost her because I had some picture in my mind of what I thought my family should be instead of embracing what I truly wanted. I tried to force things with Keli not only once, but twice, and if Lumen hadn’t been the amazin’ woman she is…”
His thought trailed off, but I didn’t need him to tell me what would have happened if Lumen hadn’t been the woman she was.
“If you want to be with Aline, then be with her and take whatever comes with it, baby or not. Don’t force it just because you think that’s the ‘right’ thing to do, but also don’t let fear rule you. Being afraid doesn’t make you a bad person, just human. Your lass is probably just as terrified as you.”
It was good advice, and I allowed myself a moment to let it all sink in. “I’ve got a lot to think about.”