Every Second With You

Chapter Twenty-Six

Trey

Somewhere in the dark corners of my mind, I’m vaguely aware of her kicking off the sheets. Then shifting positions, her bare legs brushing against mine. Her breathing is regular, not the slow peaceful rhythm of someone sleeping.

She’s awake, and something kindles in me too, jolting me up.

“You okay?”

She’s lying on her back, staring at the ceiling with her hands on her stomach. The moon glimmers in the open window, casting shadows across her skin.

She nods, but her lips are pressed tightly together, and something is off. Something’s wrong. I can sense it; I can smell it.

I sit upright. “You’re not okay. What’s going on?”

I survey her quickly, looking for the evidence of something, anything. My eyes are drawn to her hands, splayed across her stomach. Tightly.

A shot of fear hits my heart, and every muscle in my body goes taut, like an electrical line.

“Harley, what’s wrong?” I rasp out.

“The baby’s not moving,” she whispers, and the tremors in her voice sear through me, gripping me.

I lay my hands gently on her stomach, moving them around, feeling the roundness and waiting, waiting, waiting for movement.

None comes, and my entire body goes cold and clammy. No way is this happening. No fucking way.

I lick my lips, and swallow hard. “How long has it been since you felt the baby?”

She shrugs nervously. “A while. I don’t know. Maybe dinnertime?”

“And how often do you usually feel the baby move?”

“I don’t know,” she says, but her shoulders start shaking and she covers her eyes with her hands. “More than this.”

The whole room spins like it’s become a tilt-a-whirl, spiraling out of control. But whatever is happening, I can’t crash with it. I have to be strong for her. I have to take care of her. That’s my job, that’s my mission, that’s my singular focus. And, as the cold loop of memories starts to flicker in my head, I try to swat them away, my brain scrabbling for an answer.

I snap my fingers, landing on an idea. “Didn’t Debbie once tell you to drink a Coke? That a sugary drink would get the baby moving?”

Her eyes widen and shine in the dark. “Yes!”

“Stay here.” I jump out of the bed, race downstairs in my boxer briefs, and yank open the door to the fridge. But the kitchen in this side of the duplex isn’t stocked, and the shelves are empty, so I open the door onto the deck, and quietly slip into Robert and Debbie’s kitchen, praying I’ll find something sugary—and there it is. A gleaming red can. I grab it, and hope it does the trick.

The second I return to our dark bedroom, I crack it open and thrust it at Harley. She’s sitting up, cross-legged on the bed now. She takes a hearty gulp.

“Drink it all,” I tell her, motioning with my hands for her to speed up. I’m racing; my heart is on a freaking speedway.

“I’m drinking it as fast as I can,” she says, in between sips. She downs more of the can, and then sets it on the nightstand. I lean over her, rattle the can. “There’s more left. You need to finish it.”

“Fine,” she says, and then drinks the rest of the can quickly.

When she’s done, her hands return to her stomach, and mine do the same, and now there are four hands keeping watch, and two fearful hearts.

“I’m really fucking scared, Harley,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says.

Then neither one of us speaks for another few minutes. We wait, and I’m aware of everything. The rustle of the curtains. The low hum of the house. The lull of the waves, back and forth on the sand. My own frantic breath. And hers, too.

Please, god, don’t let this be the end. Please, let our baby be safe.

Then I feel it. It’s like a roll against my hands, and she does too. Her eyes light up, and she starts laughing, a long, luxurious laugh full of relief.

I exhale all the breath in the world, and lean my forehead against hers. “God, that freaked me the fuck out,” I say, never taking my hands off her. I’m rewarded with another wave, like the kid is doing somersaults inside her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out,” she says.

“Harley, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“No, I do. I should know better. I got you all worried, and the baby was probably just sleeping. God, I’m an idiot.”

I lift her chin gently with one hand. “Harley, you’ve never been pregnant before. This is all new. It’s okay. You’re not supposed to know all these things yet.”

“I don’t want to scare you, though.”

“I have to learn to deal with it,” I say.

“And you did. You saved the day with a soda. You’re my hero.”

I laugh and kiss her cheek, then her neck, then her belly. And it feels like the baby is kicking me in the nose now. “Now we’ve got him all worked up with sugar,” I say, resting my head in her lap and looking up at her.

“Or her,” she points out.

“You know what I realized when I was racing to the kitchen?”

“What did you realize?”

“That I’m really attached to our kid already,” I tell her, and she smiles so sweetly and so sexily, that I’m a goner.

“Don’t make me fall more in love with you by saying things like that.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Oh, a challenge. I accept. So how’s this? The two of you are everything to me. You’re all I ever want.”

“Can we name her Paige then? Or Jessica? Or Sarah?”

I shake my head. “Or maybe Finn or Caleb for a boy?”

She shakes her head, and laughs. “Some day, we’ll find names we both like.”

“Yeah, I bet we’re going to be those parents who pick the name as they leave the hospital with the kid,” I say.

Then I curve a hand around the back of her neck, and pull her in for a deep kiss, searching her mouth with my tongue, tasting the sweet sugary Coke on her lips. Her hair tickles my stubbled jaw, and I kiss her harder, needing more of her, wanting all of her. I hold her tight in my hands and kiss and kiss and kiss until my lips feel bruised and my dick’s about to burst in my underwear.

“Harley,” I tell her, as I pull apart. “It’s our last night here, and we need to go christen the beach.”

“We do?”

“Well, yeah. Don’t you think?”

“Isn’t beach sex overrated?”

“Have you ever had beach sex?”

She swats me with a pillow. “You know the answer to that.”

“Well, I haven’t either. So why don’t we go find out?” I suggest as I slide a hand between her legs, and grin wildly as I touch her. “Because I’m pretty sure you want to.”

“Grab a blanket and let’s go.”

It’s past three in the morning and the beach is quiet, the moon and the ocean our only companions. But you never know, so we find a spot near the rocks, shielded on one side. The glow of the full moon spreads across the water, lighting up a path along the ocean as I spread out a blanket. I tug her down next to me, and wrap a second blanket over her shoulders. “For privacy,” I whisper, as I sit and pat my thighs. “Climb up on me.”

She follows my directions, wrapping her sexy legs around me. She’s wearing a long T-shirt and underwear, and I’m still in my briefs. I push against her once, feeling her heat through the cotton layers. She sighs happily.

“I have a question for you,” I say. “Before we were together, for real, back when we were friends, did you ever masturbate to me?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “No.”

I pretend to pout. “Not once?”

“It’s never really been my thing.”

“You didn’t even think about me?”

“I thought about you a lot, but I never masturbated. Why? Did you?”

I nod, and wiggle my eyebrows. “All the fucking time.”

Her brown eyes widen with surprise. “Are you serious?”

“Does this shock you? Yeah, of course I jerked off to you. I was fucking crazy about you and I wanted you, and I had to deny how much I wanted you, so I had no choice but to jack off.”

“What did you think about when you masturbated?”

“You want to know?”

“You say that like I don’t.”

I bend my head to her neck, lick a path from her throat to her earlobe, and flick my tongue against her ear. A whimper escapes her lips. “Almost always, I thought about going down on you.”

“You did?”

I kiss her jawline now, and she stretches her neck, giving me more room to burn a trail of hot, wet kisses along her delicious skin. “I love tasting you. It’s my favorite thing in the world. I went down on you so many times in my fantasies, Harley.”

She starts moving her hips against me, rubbing her damp panties against my erection. “Tell me more,” she whispers in a ragged voice.

I roll my hips against her. “I pictured eating you out in a million positions. Sometimes you were on my bed with your legs spread wide open, like the first time. Sometimes, you were against the wall and I was down on my knees, licking you while you grabbed by my hair. Other times, I’d lie down on the bed, and you’d crawl up on me, and sit on my face, like you did the first night here. Sometimes I’d picture you on all fours and me going down on you from behind, licking you that way.”

She gasps, and starts to gyrate against me. “Did you like that?”

“Feel how hard I am. You tell me,” I say, thrusting against her.

She closes her eyes momentarily as she feels me, rock hard. “I can’t believe you love going down on me as much as I love it when you do it.”

“It’s like the perfect symbiotic relationship,” I joke.

“Do you want to go down on me right now?” she asks, as she rocks against me, her panties growing damper by the second.

“I always do. Will you let me?”

She pulls back, shakes her head. “Not outside. But I think I’m going to come pretty soon, so I’d really like to have sex here on the beach,” she says, scooting off me momentarily to remove her panties. She glances from side to side, and then cranes her neck to make sure no one is walking nearby. The coast is clear; our only company is the dark of night that blankets us. I take off my underwear, and pull her back onto me, but she stops before I can enter her.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Show me,” she says, her eyes all wild with lust. “Show me how you touched yourself when you got off to me.”

“Gladly,” I say, and I slide my fingers between her legs, coating them with her. I take my cock in my hand, slide her wetness over me, and stroke myself up and down. “So much better when I have you on me,” I say, watching her eyes as her gaze lowers. She stares, gape-jawed, at me touching myself. “This is what I did thinking of you, so many fucking times. Always you. Only you. I wanted you so much. I wanted to touch you again, and taste you, and make you come over and over,” I say, and my breaths come faster as I stroke harder.

“Oh god,” she says, leaning her head back. “Please.”

There’s only one answer to that, so I grip her hips, lift her up, and bring her down on me. She cries out, and then silences her moans by biting down on my shoulder. I fucking love that she’s so turned on, she has to muffle herself.

“You feel so good,” I tell her as I guide her up and down.

“So do you,” she murmurs. Then she brings her lips to my ear. “I love that you used to masturbate to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I love that you thought about me.”

“All the fucking time. I always wanted you. I will always want you,” I tell her, as I roll my hips up against her.

“I want to watch you sometime,” she says.

“You would?”

“Yes. But the thing is, I love fucking you so much, I’d probably make you stop so you could be inside me every time.”

“It’s my favorite place to be,” I tell her, and she starts to move faster. Her breathing becomes labored, and I know she’s not far now, and I’m on the brink, too. “Harley? Can I fuck you hard right now?”

“Yes,” she says, and I grab her hips and thrust into her. Long, hard, deep strokes, and she moans with each one, her cries all I need to keep up the pace, and soon her mouth is on my shoulder again, and she’s biting down, and I feel her clench around me, and draw in a deep, endless breath. And I do the same, coming hard and fast inside her.

“I love California,” I say.