Aced

THE FEAR STILL HOLDS My heart hostage.

I try to push it down, not think about it, and go about my day to day with work, the boys, and Colton, but every once in a while it rules my thoughts. It doesn’t matter that I’m seven months along now. The worry this will all be taken away from me like it has the two times before still sits in the back of my mind with each twinge of my belly or ache in my hips.

And so here I sit in the nursery amid piles of onesies, diapers, and receiving blankets afraid to open a single thing in fear I’ll jinx this. That if I open one package of clothes, pre-wash one load of laundry, put sheets on the mattress of the bassinet, I’ll cause my long-awaited dream of motherhood to come crashing down.

The rocking chair is safe though. I can sit here and close my eyes and feel the baby move, enjoy the ripples across my hardened belly that allow me to breathe a little easier each and every time I feel a kick. I can rest my hands on my abdomen and know that he or she is a fighter, is healthy, and can’t wait for me to hold him or her in my arms. I can sit here and feel the love surging through me for this baby Colton and I made together, and know without a doubt, this perfect little being will only cement and make stronger the love we feel for one another.

And I try to maintain this feeling to will away the worry when I rise from the rocking chair and run my hand over the mattress on the crib. I can’t believe this is really happening, that in less than three months’ time, there will be this new addition to our life and everything and nothing will change all at once.

Moments in time. How easily we shift from one role to the next and never question the butterfly effect of these transitions. How will this one event segue into the next? Or will it?

A baby. Our baby. Even though the life is growing inside me, and I can feel him or her move every now and again, I’m still staggered by the reality of it.

Carefully, I sink to my knees to sort through the baby gifts stacked on the floor. By the looks of the stacks, our friends and family are excited to meet and spoil Baby Donavan. I reach out and pick up a fuzzy yellow blanket, my smile automatic as I hold it up to my cheek to feel its softness.

“Does a baby really need all this stuff?” Colton’s voice startles me. He’s leaning with his shoulder against the doorjamb, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his shorts. Every inch of his toned, tanned chest all the way down to that V of muscles, calls to the pregnancy hormones that have been ruling my sex drive these past few months.

And even without the hormones, I’m sure I’d still be staring because there is no shortage of want on my end when it comes to him. Just the sight of him gets my blood humming, my heart racing, and makes my soul content.

I take a moment to appreciate my handsome husband. My gaze scrapes over every inch of him before lifting to take in that cocky smirk on his lips that tells me he knows exactly what I’m thinking. And when I lock onto his emerald irises, the amusement I expect to be there isn’t. Instead Colton’s eyes are a mixture of guarded emotion I can’t quite read. It’s reminiscent of those first months of dating, when secrets were kept, and I hate the feeling of unease that tickles the back of my neck from its reappearance.

Forcing aside the innate need within me to ask and fix, I tell myself if something’s wrong, he’ll tell me when he’s ready. I shrug off the niggling worry. It’s probably just pre-baby jitters. He’s been handling this all so much better than I thought he would, but at the same time the past few weeks he’s withdrawn some. And while that concerns me, I know he’s bound to have some fears and reservations like most impending parents.

“I’m not sure if it’s all needed. It’s definitely a lot of stuff for one little baby.” I finally answer as I glance at the piles of gifts around me.

“You’re gorgeous.”

The unexpected comment has my eyes flashing up to meet his and love to swell in my chest. Disbelieving he can see me as beautiful when I feel like a beached whale, I let the soft laugh fall from my mouth as I shift onto my butt, brace my hands behind me for support, and stretch out my legs. “Thanks, but I don’t really think that a huge stomach and toes swollen like sausages qualifies me for the gorgeous category.”

“Well, in that case, maybe just the beautiful category,” he teases with a flash of a grin as he enters the room. He looks around, picks up a checkered flag baby quilt that causes his eyebrows to lift in amusement before he moves to where I’m sitting.

“Hmm,” I murmur, nowhere near agreeing with the beautiful consensus. But when I look back up to meet his gaze, I can see that when he looks at me, beautiful is what he sees, and I’ll take it, because when a man sees you at what you feel is your worst and thinks you’re at your best, you don’t question it.

“You’re working too hard, Ry,” he says as he lowers himself to the floor in front of me. I force myself not to sigh at the refrain, but it’s the one thing we’ve argued about lately, his want for me to take maternity leave. “You need to stop doing so much. Let others help you.”

I look down to the blanket in my hands, hating he’s right and that he can see how much I’m struggling with ceding control. “I know, but there’s just so much to do before the baby comes that only I can do. With the new project coming online and Auggie struggling at The House and . . .” My voice trails off thinking of the newest addition to the brood and how much attention he needs that I’m not going to be able to give him. Everything on my invisible task list is screaming at me for it to be done—like yesterday, done—and there are not enough hours in the day. Becoming overwhelmed by the mere thought, I blow out a breath as tears sting the back of my eyes. My internal struggle about letting people down resurfaces; I already feel I’m dropping the ball, and I haven’t even started maternity leave.

“Breathe, Ry. I know your type-A personality wants to have all your ducks in a row,” he says, “but it’s not possible. Other people can do things. It might not be just how you want it, but at least it’s help. And if it doesn’t get done, it will still be there after BIRT comes.”

“Colton!"

“What’s wrong with BIRT? Baby In Rylee’s Tummy,” he states innocently, knowing damn well he’s just trying to irritate me. Or make me smile.

“Stop calling him that.” I smack a hand on his leg as he laughs out loud, and he grabs my hand before I can pull it away.

“Him? Did you just say him?” Our long-running debate about the baby’s unknown gender just became front and center. He pulls my arm, and I move forward at the same time as he leans in. He presses a tender kiss to my lips that sends a shockwave of desire way down to my core. I can feel his lips curve into a smile as they remain against mine.

“Yes, I said he . . . but that’s just a pronoun,” I murmur, loving being close to him. The past couple days he’s felt so far away. I’ve just chalked it up to him feeling as overwhelmed as me but for different reasons: the points lead he’s barely hanging onto with the Grand Prix coming up next month, the baby shower today with over fifty women filling his sole private place on earth, and the impending changes in general with the baby’s birth. It’s a lot for any man to adjust to, let alone a man who never expected to have most of them in his life.

Is he still okay with all this? Saying he’s ready to have a baby and really meaning it are two completely different things. I know he has no regrets—wants our baby as much as I do—yet I can’t seem to quell my concern about how he’ll adjust to the inevitable changes to our lives.

He holds my hand idly in his lap. The need to connect with him and ease my worry rides shotgun beside my want and desire for him. And the impulse to sate both is just too great to not give in to, so I graze my fingertips across the fabric covering his dick and love his quick intake of air.

“Are you trying to distract me, Ryles?”

“Never,” I tease, my mind now fixated on the temptation just beneath my fingers.

“We were talking about pronouns, remember? He is just a pronoun?” he asks trying to get back to the topic at hand. He swears I should know the gender because after all, I’m the one carrying the baby. Men.

And while I have a fifty-fifty chance of being right, I know it’s a boy. Has to be. The little boy with dark hair and green eyes who has filled my recent dreams. A freckled nose that scrunches up when he causes mischief and melts my heart just like his daddy. But that’s all an assumption, mother’s intuition, and is not something I’m going to verbalize.

“Uh-uh.” His fingers tighten on my arm as I try to cop another feel of him, distract him from becoming fixated on a pronoun that may or may not be right. “Pronouns.”

“Well, if you want to talk grammar . . . I seem to remember that wet and willing are adjectives,” I murmur, knowing damn well he’ll be able to read both mischief and desire in my eyes. Two can play this distraction game, Ace.

He throws his head back and laughs, and I know he has caught my reference to the words he teased me with the very first night we had sex on Sex. He pulls me even closer this time and doesn’t hold back when his lips meet mine. We kiss like we haven’t seen each other in weeks. Need mixes with greed. Passion collides with want. My body vibrates with desperation because how can it not when he can push every one of my libido buttons with such a simple connection?

His kiss is like gravity, pulling at every part of me until I want to cling to him and hold on so I’m never taken away. Our tongues meet, demanding at first, before the kiss morphs into a tender reflection of love and desire. His free hand comes up to cup the side of my face, his thumb running over my cheek as he ends the kiss despite my protests. And at first I take the look in his eyes as one of amusement over me wanting some form of physicality with him yet again, but when he speaks, I know it’s because he is seeing right through my attempts.

Damn him. He knows me too well.

“Did you forget I’m the master of the game of distraction, Ryles?” He lifts his eyebrows and a cocky, lopsided grin pulls up one corner of his mouth. “I see what you’re trying to do here.”

“Are you turning down sex?”

“Oh baby, I’ll never turn down sex with you . . . I just want to get back to pronouns.” He grants me a lightning-fast grin as he cuffs both of my hands and laces our fingers, presumably to prevent mine from wandering and tempting him further. For a man who doesn’t want to pick a name, he sure seems set on clarifying his parts of speech.

He wants pronouns? I’ll give him pronouns, all right.

“Like stick it in me, type of pronouns?”

He shakes his head and chuckles. “Not those specifically, no.”

“You’d rather talk grammar than please your wife?”

That flash of a grin is back. “No, I’d rather discuss why you hate the name BIRT.”

“You’re exasperating. And a tease,” I say, knowing I’ll get the sex eventually if the tenting of his shorts is any indication of his state of mind. He may be resisting now, but I know sex will win out in the end. It always does.

“So you think the baby is a boy?” he asks, eyes wide, voice excited. And the lighthearted tone tugs on my heartstrings.

“Does it matter what I think, considering you won’t even discuss names with me? I mean we’re getting close to the wire here, Donavan.”

“I love when you Donavan me,” he says then squeezes my hand when I try to pull away. “C’mon, Ryles, fly by the seat of your pants. Let the moment rule us. Live dangerously,” says the racecar driver to the social worker. All I can do is sigh in exasperation.

“Our baby’s name is permanent. It’s not a decision to be made on the spur of the moment.” I still can’t believe he’s sticking to his plan of naming the baby after we meet him or her. I thought this strategy was a joke the first time he brought it up but now know different.

“Look, you have names you like and I have names I like. Why don’t we just wait and see what BIRT looks like when he or she is born and then we’ll both say them and go from there?” I narrow my eyes at him, desperate to know the names he prefers or if he likes any of the ones I’ve thrown out at him over the past few months. His silence on the topic is killing me. “Live dangerously with me, Ry.” He chuckles as I shake my head, trying to feign irritation and hide my own smile.

“I already do live dangerously. I married you, remember?”

“Oh baby, I remember. No man is going to forget the things you did to me this morning,” he says with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

I blush immediately, momentarily embarrassed by my very needy and very horny self, that didn’t resist him despite knowing the caterers would be arriving at any moment. And of course the thought of his eyes heavy with desire and his cock thick and hard in my mouth makes my body ache to have him again. This time for my pleasure though, and I don’t think he’d have a problem delivering on that demand.

I have to force the image from my mind because I think he accomplished exactly what he was hoping for with the comment.

“Now look who’s trying to distract whom. BIRT’s name?” I arch an eyebrow as his laughter rings around us. The man is relentless. “What if I don’t like any of the names you pick and you don’t like any of the names I like?”

“Well, that’s easy.” He shrugs. “I’ll distract you.”

“That must be the word of the day. Nice try, but that’s not easy to do when it comes to something this important . . . oh God, that feels good,” I moan as he takes my foot into his lap and starts rubbing its instep. Everything I have been overdoing the past few days between work and getting ready for the shower has manifested in the size of my swollen feet, so this feels like absolute Heaven. I sag against the wall at my back, eyes closing as I welcome the pleasure he’s giving me.

Screw chocolate, forget sex with Colton, and forgo paradise, because this, a foot rub after being on your feet all day when you’re pregnant, is absolute nirvana. He uses his adept fingers to push and press and rub to put me in a pleasure coma.

I lift my head and open my eyes to find him looking at me with a huge grin on his face. “What?”

“See?” He shrugs. “Distraction. All it takes is changing the subject, shifting gears somehow, and I can get what I want.”

He thinks he’s so crafty that I’ll fall for it every time, but when it comes to Colton Donavan, I learned a long time ago that he likes to play dirty to get what he wants. Good thing I’ve learned from the master because I know all his tricks and will put them to good use against him.

“Magic hands,” I murmur breathlessly, as his thumb presses against a pressure point that feels like it mainlines an electric current to the delta of my thighs.

“Your feet are so swollen.” His head is down as his fingers rub their way up to my calf bringing me much more joy than they should.

“There are other things on me that are swollen,” I deadpan. And the reaction I want from him is almost instantaneous when his eyes flash up and hands still momentarily. That lopsided grin of his—part arrogant bad boy, part eager lover—graces his lips as he holds my gaze.

“That so?” He tries to feign nonchalance and yet his reaction already told me he’s willing to play my game. Time to see how quick he will take the bait because this woman is desperate for more than just his touch on my instep.

“Mm-hmm. Swollen means super sensitive. And sensitive means intense.” I run my hands over my breasts that are spilling out of the cami tank top. His eyes follow and take notice of my nipples hardening from my touch against the thin fabric. I may have a huge belly, can’t see my ankles, and would never have thought in a million years I’d be seducing my husband at seven months pregnant, but the way he looks at me—with a predatory gleam, not to mention the hitch in his breath—tells me he doesn’t care. He finds me sexy. He still wants me. And that provides the confidence I need to give me the wherewithal to keep going.

“Intense is good.”

“Intense is incredible,” I all but moan as our eyes lock in a playful war of wills over who is going to make the first move. “Swollen means tight. Responsive. Multi—”

“I think I need to inspect,” he says as he shifts onto his knees, his gaze never leaving mine. His hands slide up my thighs, feather-light touches laced with intent, moving my loose knit skirt with them as they go.

“If you inspect, you must try out the goods,” I taunt. His touch tests my resolve, the sight of his tanned chest and scent of cocoa butter in his sunscreen bending my restraint.

“Demanding, are we?” He stops and lifts his eyebrows, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Haven’t had any complaints yet,” I toss back at him as he leans forward and presses a whisper of a kiss to my mouth. When he starts to pull away, I move with him because I want more. Always do when it comes to him.

Mirth flashes through his eyes because he knows he’s caught me in a catch-all: trying to be the seductress when all I want is him, in me, on me, doing something to me, and very soon.

“Do you want something?” he asks, as his fingers continue their tantalizing ascent to the apex of my thighs. I love the hiss he emits when his thumbs brush over the swollen flesh, discovering I’d taken my panties off when I changed into more comfy clothes after the shower. His touch falters, a small show of the desire and need to control warring within him before he moves his fingers back down toward my knees.

“You.” Why beat around the bush when that sweet ache deep in my lower belly is already flashing with heat and the one and only person I know that can sate it is sitting before me?

“Me?” He dips his head down and presses a kiss to first my left and then my right thigh. From beneath his thick lashes, he looks up at me then slowly wets his bottom lip. “Is that why you’re not wearing any panties? What specifically do you want from me?”

His hands begin to move again, seducing me with his contact and mesmerizing me with the knowledge of what he’s withholding.

My laugh is low and laced with suggestion. “Well, it’s not just what I want from you per se but more where exactly I want you that’s important.”

“Do you want me here?” he asks as the pads of his fingers graze ever so softly over the seam of my sex. Even though I try to stay still, I arch my hips in a nonverbal begging motion.

And then he removes his fingers.

“Don’t tease me, Donavan.” My body aches on the verge of pain for him to touch me again. His chuckle fills the silence of the room as he leans forward, his eyes on mine, and then uses his tongue to trace around the outline of my nipple through the fabric. Just enough to let me know what it feels like but not enough to let me succumb to the sensation of it.

“Oh, I’m not teasing, Donavan,” he says back, mimicking me with mirth in his eyes and purpose in his touch. “I’m just getting the lay of the land.”

“I’m pretty sure the lay of the land is that you need to fuck me soon.”

I love the lightning-fast grin that flashes over his features and the slight stutter in his movement from hearing me demand like this. He tsk-tsks with a shake of his head and another taunting tease of his fingertips.

“Rest assured, I intend to fuck you, sweetheart, but I’m all about equal opportunity.”

My muscles clench at the first part of his statement while I’m trying to figure out just what he means by the last part, because now is not the time to be witty. Now is the time to give the hormone-riddled woman exactly what she wants.

“Equal opportunity?” I sigh in frustration and then gasp in surprise when Colton uses his knees to press my legs a little farther apart and at the same slides his fingers between the lips of my sex. If it were physically possible, my body sags in relief and tenses at the same time because I’ve finally gotten his touch and now I just want more.

“Yep,” he says as he lowers his head, the warm heat of his mouth closing over my clit his fingers have exposed. My head lolls back against the wall as a ripple of pleasure washes over my body. My hands are in his hair, fingers gripping, and hips lifting to tell him I want more from him. Cool air hits when his mouth releases the skin he’s sucking on. My hands try to keep him in the cradle of my thighs and a chuckle falls from his mouth, the reverberation heightening the nerves he’s just brought to the surface. “Equal parts pleasure here,” he says, dipping his head down again so his tongue slides up and down the cleft of my sex . . . and here.”

An incoherent moan falls from my mouth as Colton slides his fingers inside me and curves them to hit the nerves within. And my God . . . thoughts escape me and sensation overwhelms me as the combination of his fingers and tongue begin to satisfy my insatiable need for sex.

He creates a rhythm all his own: the slide of his tongue, the skillful movement of fingers inside me, the soft sucking on my clit. My body reacts: muscles clench, back arches, hands hold tight as he causes the ebb and flow of sensations needed to climax.

“C’mon, Ry,” he murmurs. The heat of his breath against my slick skin makes me writhe and buck into his hand. “Come for me so I can fuck you when you’re still coming. Coat my cock with your cum while its sweet taste is fresh on my tongue.”

His words are like that last lick of gasoline thrown onto a smoldering fire. Incendiary. Provocative. Inevitable.

I give into the moment—the feeling, the everything with him—and crash over the edge into that free fall of white-hot heat. It sears up my spine, out to my fingers and toes to gain strength, before slamming back into my core where he’s continuing to push my climax to beyond bearable. Intense is too tame of a word for what he’s made me feel.

Every. Time. The simple thought flickers how he gives me nothing less than his best every single time.

My muscles are so damn tight—my mind so lost in that post-orgasmic wash of pleasure—and my nails are digging so hard into his shoulders that I’m not sure how he escapes the confine of my thighs. But when he does, with my arousal still glistening on his mouth and hunger burning in his eyes, I can’t help but stare at him and thank every damn lucky star in the sky that he’s mine.

Because Colton Donavan on any day is drop-dead handsome, but when his waist is framed between my thighs, his chest bared so every inch of bronzed skin is shadowed for effect, and the look in his eyes says he’s going to take me as he sees fit—no holds barred—he’s indescribable.

Rogue. Rebel. Reckless.

The words flit through my mind, memories colliding from another place, another time, but still so fitting all this time later as he undoes his shorts and pulls his dick out. It’s thick and hard, ready to claim, and hell if my mouth doesn’t water at the sight, my damn hormones kicking into overdrive again despite having just come.

“Colton.” His name on my lips is a plea and a demand all at the same time that causes his arrogant smirk to return.

The crest of his dick presses against my pleasure. His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. His eyes flash to mine one last time before he looks to where he’s slowing pushing into me.

“Fuck,” he moans. “I love watching your pussy stretch around me. Love how it pulls tight when you take me in.”

His words hit my ears but my body is completely focused on him filling me, stretching me, drawing pleasure with each and every tilt of his hips. So many sensations and emotions flush through my body. All I can do is close my eyes, lay my head back, and lose myself in the onslaught of desire I know is coming.

He’s gentle yet demanding, drawing all the way out before taking his hand and guiding his cock so its head can rub right where I need it most. My nerves are so sensitized that when I shift my hips, my eyes open in shock at how damn good it feels.

And the look on his face tells me he knows my reaction well enough to know he’s hit the spot perfectly. So much so he’s determined to do it again. Pull me to the surface from my post-orgasmic state so I can momentarily catch my breath before he shifts into high gear and pulls me back under the next wave of pleasure.

He begins to do just that, picking up the pace, looking down at me with concentration in his eyes and pleasure etching the lines of his face. The muscles in his neck and shoulders are taut, and his mouth is pulled tight as he pushes us both beyond the edge of reason.

My pulse speeds up but my mind slows down. The sting of the carpet into my back. The press of his fingers into my thighs. The feeling of oblivion as he swells inside me. My name on his lips. The sight of him coming undone.

“Colton,” I cry out, my back arching as I let his action dictate my every reaction. Anything else I say is incoherent because my second orgasm is always so much stronger. This one is no exception. I fumble for something to hold onto and instantly Colton’s hands find mine, lacing our fingers as I succumb to the sensations he’s drawn from me.

Now that he knows I’ve had mine, he begins to chase his own release. And even though I’m still coming down from my high, it’s impossible to drag my eyes away from him: teeth biting into his bottom lip, hips bucking harder into me, and his head falling back, lost in his own bliss.

“Goddamn it, Ry . . .” he moans brokenly, the sexiest sound in the world to me because I put it there. When he empties himself into me, he stills—his hands, his hips, his breath—lost in the wash of pleasure. And then slowly he lifts his head up as he unlaces our fingers, and that satisfied grin turns up the corners of his mouth as his eyes meet mine. “Damn, woman.”

“Mm,” I murmur, groggy and sated and completely enamored with him.

“Intense enough for you?”

Like he has to ask. “I think I’ll keep you.”

He laughs, deep and rich, as he withdraws from me and crawls over my legs so he can lean over me on his hands. He looks at me long and hard, so many things in his eyes I can’t decipher. The one I can is the one that’s most important. It’s the look that tells me I am his whole world and hell if I’m going to argue with that. What sane woman would? He’s the total package: sexy, thoughtful, generous, mischievous, and most importantly, all mine. Love isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel for him.

“I don’t think you get a choice in that matter.”