by Emma Chase
But when Tommy’s gaze slowly coasts down, caressing me, and he lets out a long, highly appreciative whistle—I feel absolutely stunning. Like a mythical magical fairy-tale mermaid who’s emerged from the ocean and enchanted the handsomest man in all the land.
“Outstanding. You clean up nice, Apple Blossom,” he says roughly.
I wink—a gesture he’s passed on to me that never ceases to delight him.
“I get dirty even better.”
A deep chuckle rumbles through his fine, tuxedo-clad chest—making me go deliciously warm and tingly between my legs. Tommy’s laugh and smile and that hungry tender look in his eyes are the very best aphrodisiacs.
The first time we attended an affair together, I was surprised that Tommy is such a skilled dancer, though I shouldn’t have been. He’s already proven beyond doubt that he has an infinite talent in all things physical—the ebb and flow and rhythm of his body’s movements.
He’s equally capable in making polite conversation, chatting with an earl or a duke as easily as he does with the boys at his shop.
At the moment, we’re standing in the grand banquet hall, swathed in the glow of the glittering chandelier above our heads and radiance of the golden candelabras on every table, speaking affably with Prince Nicholas and Duchess Olivia.
Just behind us, my father converses with Queen Lenora, their voices carrying over to us as he tells her of my brother’s traveling ways and how he wishes Luke would come home more often.
“But the boy simply refuses,” Father says.
“Children,” the Queen laments, “always so certain they know everything.”
“True,” Father agrees. “But were we really so different at their age, Your Majesty?”
“Well . . .” Queen Lenora considers his question.
And then she answers.
“When I was young I was sure I knew everything . . . but it turns out I was right, so that’s not the same thing at’all.”
We all hear it, our eyes meeting and laughing in unison.
Prince Nicholas shakes his head in affectionate exasperation.
“She’s right on brand.”
The night goes on, and while these sorts of things are typically stuffy affairs, with Tommy beside me it’s different—a whirl of laughing and champagne drinking and heated glances and one lovely dance after the next.
Later, Tommy walks with me from the ballroom down a secluded hall in search of the lavatory. And we encounter Wessco’s other prince—the now heir to the throne, Prince Henry, and his wife, Princess Sarah.
They have two children at last count, nearly four-year-old Princess Jane and three-year-old Prince Edward. But when they step out into the hall—from the door of what appears to be a broom closet—it’s apparent they’re still mad for each other.
“Oh, hello,” Princess Sarah says to Tommy and me, immediately flustered and blushing a blazing bright pink. “We were just . . .” she gestures to a framed landscape on the wall “ . . . admiring the lovely artwork.”
Henry Pembrook has had a reputation for being a rascal his whole life—and marriage hasn’t tempered that a bit.
“We were making out,” he confesses.
“Henry!” Sarah gasps.
“Oh, look at their faces—they knew you were lying. You’re rubbish at it.”
He loops a possessive arm around her shoulders, turning her towards him.
“We’re going to have to work on your game face, sweetheart. For instance, you can practice saying you’re not hopelessly, desperately infatuated with me—until you’re able to declare it believably.”
Sarah grins, looking up at her husband with adoration in her big brown eyes.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be that good of a liar.”
Henry dips his head, whispering breathlessly, “Good.”
Tommy takes my hand and we slip discreetly past them—not that the future king and queen would notice.
They’re already making out again.
* * *
Tommy
A MONTH AFTER THE ROYAL charity gala, Abby and I get sloshed. Shit-faced. Not two sheets to the wind—but three. The kind of intoxicated where the corners of your vision take on that mellow pleasant haze and your joints are liquid and it’s impossible to keep your hands off each other.
The scene of the drunkering is Katy’s Pub, where we met up with Lo and Ellie, Henrietta and Harry, Kevin and Bea, my sister Janey and some worthless twat she’s been spending time with, for a melding of the friend groups.
Abby doesn’t see as much of Kevin and Etta around the hospital these days, as they’ve each branched off into their surgical specialties—so they spend time catching up and drinking more rounds than I can count of some fruity cocktail that I can taste on her sweet breath. Lo, Janey and I get into a shot contest that starts off friendly but escalates into a battle royale for shit-talking rights. Ellie—the poor lass—is the designated driver, though she doesn’t seem to mind, because she’s ecstatically knocked up.
Again.
When the night is done, she and Lo drop us at Abby’s building, where the two of us rush randily up the steps to her flat as quick as our flying-high feet will take us. We make it just inside the door—barely slamming it shut—before we’re wrapped together so close you can’t see where she begins and I end.
Our mouths slide together, wet and moaning. And fuck, I’m so gone for her. My luscious, lovely girl—it’s like I have amnesia—and any time before when I didn’t crave her, want her body and soul, has been wiped from my memory.
And all that’s left is her and this and us.
I press Abby back against the wall, sucking at the skin of her petal-soft neck and earlobe—grinding the granite pipe of my cock right there against that spot where she loves it and needs it. Abby’s chin lifts and her mouth opens and I slide to her lips, breathing in the same air, pumping harder against her.
She tugs at my hair and pleads against my mouth.
“If you don’t get inside me, I’m literally going to die.”
And we’re laughing together because she read my mind.
I sweep us to the sofa because the bed is just too bloody far.
And we pull at the abomination of the clothes that stand in the way. When she’s wearing nothing but bare soft skin, I want to slow down and savor and lick up every inch of her.
But she won’t let me.
She’s fire in my arms, lashing and burning for me.
I guide her to her back on the sofa, spread her legs and hook one arm under her knee. Holding her hooded eyes with mine, I suck at the pads of my fingers and stroke her pussy, slipping inside and coating her with the added slickness.
Not because she needs it—she’s already dripping—but because it’s dirty and hot and she likes watching me do it.
I withdraw my fingers and bend my knees, sliding the head of my cock between her folds—then I surge in fully with a single thrust. She’s perfect and slippery and so clenching tight my eyes roll back in my head.
Abby moans my name.
And I growl, “Christ, you feel good.”
Three pumps later, the small non-pickled portion of my brain wakes up and kicks me. Pointing out just why Abby feels so damn good.
It’s because I’m not wearing a condom.
Shit.
And she’s not on the pill—it gives her migraines.
Double shit.
I freeze.
“Wait,” I pant, raking in air to my starving lungs. “Wait, wait, fuck, wait . . .”
But her hips buck and a sob breaks from her like I’ve broken her heart.
“No, don’t stop.”
I grasp her thigh, holding her still.
“I need to get a condom, love.” I lean over her, kissing deep and stroking with my tongue, promising, “Then I’ll come back here and fuck you into oblivion, I swear.”
Abby stares into my eyes—and her green orbs are clearer, heated yes, but conscious and aware of what she’s about to sa
y.
“I don’t want you to get a condom. I want to know how it feels . . .”
She squeezes her pussy deliberately, clamping down hard like she’s trying to trap me inside.
Her hips lift slowly, rotating and rubbing against me. And her words are liquid silver, nitroglycerin temptation.
“Don’t you want to feel it with me, Tommy? Just you and me and nothing in our way?”
I laugh. Painfully.
It’s ridiculous question—asking a man if he wants to go raw is like the grand-prize jackpot of fucking. No one in his right mind, or not, would say no.
But still, I run my thumb over her cheek and draw her eyes to mine. Because I have to know she means it, that this is what she wants. I need to know she’s certain now and she’ll still be certain tomorrow.
It’ll break us if she’s not.
“Are you sure?”
Abby bites her lip—a tantalizing sex goddess who owns me in every way. Keeping my gaze, she drags her hips up and down slowly, hugging my cock in a scorching embrace and rubbing her clit against my pelvis.
“I’m sure.”
I climb up her body, spreading her hips wide and driving into her hard.
Abby lays back with a sigh and a smile on her perfect fucking mouth. Her eyes are closed, her arms are raised and her hips are high—giving herself over completely to the pleasure.
Completely to me.
I ride her just like that for several moments, pumping steadily in and out—relishing the feel of her and the scent of sweat and sex that rises up between us. Loving how her beautiful tits sway in time to my movements.
I look down where my cock stretches her tight, slick flesh—and I love that too.
And too soon that exquisite pressure coils tight, building low and surging, making my balls heavy and my blood hot.
I rise up to my knees and my fingers dig into Abby’s hips, yanking her to me as I thrust forward again and again. The obscene wet slap of our skin echoes in the room, mingling with gasps and moans.
“I’m going to come,” I groan. “I’m going to fucking come so hard.”
And Abby’s right there with me—writhing and reaching for me. Keening, jagged pleas pour from her lips, driving me mad.
Yes, come.
Yes, inside.
Let me feel it.
Please, Tommy, please.
Please, please, please . . .
Her words are wild, filthy, gorgeous rasps, and I can’t hold back.
I jerk her to me one last time, and then I’m spilling and pulsing inside her, my body strung tight. She comes at the same time, and I can feel every beautiful bit of it around my cock—each spasm and sweet contraction of her roiling release.
Later, in the bed, we go at it again.
It’s lazier the second time around, less frantic but still intense.
And when Abby slides up over me, straddling my waist, I can see my come glistening on her thighs. When she sinks down on me and I feel her filled and sticky wet from me—it’s the hottest fucking moment of my life.
We fall asleep meshed together, with her splayed across my chest and my arms holding her. And everything is right and perfect in the world.
Until five weeks later . . . when Abby wakes up puking her guts out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Abby
STUPID, STUPID, SO DAMN STUPID.
That’s the mantra that repeats in my head as I set the pregnancy test on the bathroom counter with shaking hands. Tommy went out to purchase it early this morning—right after I woke up sick and retching and we looked at each other and thought the same thought at exactly the same moment.
That night. That wild, beautiful, stupid night that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
And I may have a whole other reason to remember it now.
I was so close, I was almost done. Well, not really—even after surgical residency there are years to still prove yourself, specialized instruction and training to be considered the top in the field, but still . . . how could I have been so stupid?
The answer is simple. Happiness makes you careless. Joy breeds recklessness. When everything is good and wonderful, it’s so easy to slip into the illusion that it will always be that way. That nothing could possibly go awry.
I step out of the bathroom pale and nauseous and face Tommy where he sits on the edge of the bed with his elbows braced on his knees, an alien expression of seriousness clinging to his handsome face.
He stands and moves to take me in his arms.
“It’s going to be all right, sweets.”
But I squeeze my eyes and shudder, turning away from him.
“No, it’s not.”
This is going to change everything. It already has for me.
I sit at the edge of the far end of the bed. And my grandmother’s voice joins the chorus of stupidity ringing in my ears.
Choices must be made. Sacrifices. And for women and wives and mothers—the sacrifices will always fall on us.
“If it’s positive, would you get an abortion?”
My head whips up. Because Tommy Sullivan is a Catholic boy—a crooked-haloed angel—through and through. But there’s no judgement or coaxing in his tone—he’s not trying to sway me in either direction—he genuinely just wants to know where my head is at.
“Would you want me to?”
“No,” Tommy says—quick and definite.
Then he swallows harshly, and looks at some spot beyond my shoulder.
“But if that’s what you wanted, I would understand. You won’t lose me over it.”
My answer is already set. I know it through and through, down to the marrow of my bones.
“I wouldn’t have an abortion, Tommy.”
And it’s the ramifications of that truth that has my throat narrowing and my heart trying to crash out of my chest.
Tension releases from his shoulders and a long, relieved breath slips from his lips.
“Good. That’s good.”
And he gazes at me gently—almost happy now.
I’m not.
However this turns out—whatever the little stick of chaos proclaims—there is no happy outcome for me.
Sixty seconds later, Tommy disappears into the bathroom. When he emerges, he sits beside me and takes my hand—his expression sweet and his words soft.
“It’s negative. You’re not pregnant, Abby.”
And there it is.
The crush of relief . . . and the vise of disappointment. A sadness over what could have been and a strange, out-of-body confusion at the planted seeds of new wants.
New dreams.
It’s an altering that sends my thoughts tumbling.
Because once upon a time I had a plan. A straight line and clear path to get to where I wanted my life to go. Perhaps I wasn’t precisely happy, but I was satisfied.
Then Tommy Sullivan came along . . . and he changed all my plans.
And now he’s doing it again. I could see that life with him. I can taste it—babies and a home, the scent of dinner cooking in the air and the sound of laughter and little feet.
Is that who I am now? Is that what I want?
And if so, when?
How?
“Could you . . . could you go for a bit, Tommy? I need to be alone for a little while.”
Confusion pulls at the corners of his mouth. He leans over to comfort me because that’s who he is—that’s what he does.
But his touch and his scent and the sheer presence of him muddles everything.
It always has.
I dart up from the bed and step back, not meeting his eyes.
I sense it when he rubs a hand down his face and when he speaks, there’s pain in his voice. I hate that I’ve put it there.
“Don’t do this, Abby. I’m begging you, don’t do this.”
“And I’m begging you to leave. Please. I just . . . I just need to think.”
I hate this. The short breaths and swirling panic and sickly spin of no
t knowing what I want or how I feel.
“To think about fucking what? It’s negative! It’s fine—we’re fine.”
It’s the first time he hasn’t been careful with me.
Because he doesn’t understand.
Every space Tommy occupies he controls—he runs the room. He’s confident, sure—in himself and his wants. Always. He makes decisions in a snap and it’s done. Nothing controls him, nothing sends him spiraling, nothing makes him falter.
But I don’t work that way. I never have.
I need time and distance and quiet—just a little.
“Come on, Abby. Just talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
I push out the first thought that’s front and center in my mind.
“I don’t want to end up like Ellie.”
Or maybe that’s exactly what I want. Why I’m so flustered. It’s strange—the confliction. This tearing of desires that stem from the same beginning—like the end of a branch split in two.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Tommy bites out.
He’s insulted now—defensive—and I don’t blame him at all.
“Do you know that she’d planned to go to graduate school? To become a psychologist? And then she met Logan and all that got put aside. And now she’s home, having babies, one after the other.”
“You have no clue what you’re talking about. Ellie’s mum was murdered when she was young—family is everything to her. She’s staying at home with the boys because it’s what she wants—what she chose! And if the day ever comes that she wants something different, Logan will break his back bending over to give her that.”
“Do you want that? Children?” I ask.
He straightens up, resolute and unapologetic.
“Yeah, I do. Someday.”
I stare at the floor, trying to pull myself together and organize my thoughts. But I just end up saying stupid things out loud.
“We were raised differently. We’re different people, you and I. If I was with someone like Riley Bowen who understood what my career—”
“You wanna date Reilly fucking Bowen? Is that really what you’re saying to me?”
“Yes. No—I mean not how you think; I’m not explaining this right.”