Nine Months to Bear By Nicole Fox - 59
59 I want to crawl under the table and die. Or maybe just rewind the last sixty seconds and duct-tape my mouth shut before I can vomit all my feelings onto Stefan’s expensive dining room table. “I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “That was… God, just forget I said anything. Pregnancy hormones, you know? They ...
59
I want to crawl under the table and die. Or maybe just rewind the last sixty seconds and duct-tape my mouth shut before I can vomit all my feelings onto Stefan’s expensive dining room table.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “That was… God, just forget I said anything. Pregnancy hormones, you know? They make you say crazy—”
“Okay.”
I blink. “What?”
“Okay.” He’s still holding my face, thumbs wiping away tears I didn’t realize were still falling. “Let’s do it.”
“Do… what?”
“This. Us. Whatever you want to call it.”
I pull back, searching his face for the punchline. “You’re mocking me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. You have to be. Because Stefan Safonov doesn’t do relationships. You told me that yourself. Multiple times. You don’t believe in love or monogamy or any of that shit.”
He nods. “I didn’t.”
“And now, suddenly you do?”
“No.” He shifts closer, knees bracketing mine. “But I believe in you.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Nothing about this makes sense, Olivia.” His hands drop from my face to my shoulders, then down my arms until he’s holding both my hands. “You think I planned this? You think I wanted to feel like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like I can’t fucking breathe when you’re not around. I’d burn down half of Boston if someone hurt you—do you know that? Olivia, the mere thought of you with anyone else makes me want to commit multiple felonies, worse than my usual ones.”
My heart stutters. “Stefan—”
“I told myself for a long time that it was just business,” he continues. “Then I told myself it was just sex. Even earlier tonight, I told myself it was about the baby.” He shakes his head. “But none of that’s true. Hasn’t been true for weeks.”
“Then what is true?”
“The only truth I can find words for is that you fucking happened to me, Olivia. And I’ve been fighting it since day one because I know what this leads to. I watched it destroy my father. I swore I’d never…” He stops, jaw working.
“You swore you’d never what?” I prod.
Dragging his eyes up to meet mine, he finishes, “Let someone have that kind of power over me.”
“And now?”
“Now?” He lets out a crazed laugh. “Now, I’m sitting here listening to you say you want me—all of me—and instead of running like I should, all I can think about is how to keep you. How to make sure you never change your mind.”
“I won’t—”
“You might,” he warns. “When you see who I really am. What I really do.”
“I already know who you are.”
“You know pieces. The parts I let you see.”
“Then show me the rest.”
He studies me for a long moment. “You say that now, but…”
“I’ll say it tomorrow, too. And the day after that.” I squeeze his hands. “I’m not going anywhere, Stefan. Not unless you make me.”
“I won’t.” It comes out fierce, almost angry. “I’m done trying not to want this.”
The kiss starts before I even realize it’s happening. One second, Stefan’s looking at me with those impossible eyes, and the next, his mouth is on mine.
My whole body sighs into it. Into him.
This is uncharted territory for us. Something else entirely. His hands frame my face and his body is warm and solid where it’s pressed flush against mine.
I feel invincible. Like I just discovered the fountain of youth and whaddayaknow, it tastes like Stefan Safonov. Joy floods through me, bright and bubbling, making me dizzy. Or maybe that’s just the pregnancy. Or him. Probably him.
He pulls back just enough to breathe. “Olivia… I need you to know.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “This isn’t just sex or convenience or the baby. This is…” He struggles with the words.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “You don’t have to—”
“Love.” He clears his throat and tries again. “I’m willing to try… love. With you.”
My heart stops. Actually stops. “Stefan…”
“This feeling—whatever you want to call it—it doesn’t happen for me. Ever. I don’t let people in. I don’t care , ever, about anyone except Babushka.”
“And now?”
“Now, I care so much it terrifies me.”
“It terrifies me, too,” I admit. “Because what if we screw this up? What if we can’t figure out how to be us?”
“Then we’ll be a really bad example for our kid.”
That startles a laugh out of me. “Oh, God, we will, won’t we?”
“Terrible.” But he’s smiling now, that rare, real smile that transforms his whole face. “Poor kid’s gonna need so much therapy.”
“Or…” I kiss the line of his jaw. “Maybe we can be a good example. The kind of example that neither of us ever got.”
“How?”
“By trying.”
He catches my hand, presses it flat against his chest where his heart beats steady and strong.
Love. The nastiest of all the four-letter words. I’ve spent my whole life trying to earn it. But here Stefan is, just… giving it to me. Before I even asked, he loved me.
I wish I could tell him how much that means.
“Stefan, I—”
“No more talking.” Something shifts in him. Gears revving up, an engine roaring to life. “I’m done with words.”
He lifts me from the chair like I weigh nothing. My legs lock around his waist as he carries me up the stairs. Every step jolts through me. His grip is hard. Possessive.
He kicks open his bedroom door, and suddenly, I’m pressed against the wall, his body caging me in. The cool plaster bites into my back through the thin fabric of my dress.
“What do you want?” he demands to know. His mouth hovers inches from mine. “Not what you think I want to hear. What you actually want.”
“I want you to stop being gentle with me,” I whisper. “I want you to stop treating me like I might break.”
A dark, hungry heat flares up in his eyes. “You sure about that, little fox? Because once I stop holding back, there’s no going back.”
“Good.” I dig my nails into his shoulders. “I don’t want you to hold back anymore.”
He growls and melds his mouth to mine. His teeth nip at my lip and I moan against him.
“That’s it,” he croons. “Let me hear you scream.”
His hands tear at my dress. The fabric gives way with a sound of ripping silk. Cool air hits my skin, then his hands set me on fire.
“You’re mine,” he says, and it’s not a question or a plea. It’s a statement of fact. “Say it back.”
“I’m yours.”
“Again.”
“I’m yours, Stefan.”
His fingers find me, and I twitch with a broken cry.
I can’t form whole words, can only cling to him as he works me higher and higher. The pressure builds until I’m shaking, desperate, on the edge of falling apart. “P-pl-please—”
“Please what?”
“Please don’t stop.”
“I’m never stopping.” His thumb finds my clit and pushes me over the edge. “You’re carrying my child. You’re mine now. Forever.”
I come apart in his arms, my vision going white as pleasure tears through me.
If he left me now, that would be enough. I’d be limp and satisfied for many dazed hours to come. But he doesn’t leave.
He doesn’t give me time to recover, either. He carries me to the bed and drops me onto the dark sheets. “Strip,” he orders.
My hands shake as I peel away what’s left of my ruined dress, then my bra and panties. He watches every second, scarcely breathing, never blinking.
When I’m completely bare, he starts on his own clothes. Each button of his shirt reveals more tattooed skin, more scars.
“You have no idea what you do to me,” he says, stepping out of his pants. “How long I’ve wanted to own you completely.”
“Then do it. Own me.”
His eyes flash again, more molten and mischievous than ever before. Then he kneels at the foot of the bed. His breath ghosts over my inner thigh. “Spread.”
I obey before the command fully registers. I’m so wet that the air feels frigid. Stefan’s teeth graze the crease of my leg, a fanged promise against the thunder of my pulse.
Then his tongue licks a stripe up my center.
“Oh, God—”
“Quiet.” He pins my hips to the mattress. “Let me taste you.”
He doesn’t ask permission. Doesn’t need to, though if he did, I’d tell him to do anything he wants to do to me forever.
His mouth closes over my center with a growl that vibrates straight to my core. I fist the sheets as he works me like he was born to do it. Broad strokes, then delicate flicks that make my thighs tremble. His stubble scratches sensitive skin. Perfect friction.
“S-Stop teasing—”
He sucks hard.
My back rises off the bed. “Stefan!”
He drinks me like a man starved, fingers digging bruises into my hips. It’s not long before the orgasm slams through me brutally, wringing a choked scream from my throat. He doesn’t let up, licking through the aftershocks until I’m sobbing.
“Good girl. You’re such a good girl when you make those sounds for me.”
He surges up my body, cock heavy against my thigh. But before he can enter me, I push him onto his back.
“Hold on. Your turn. I can give and take at the same time. Can you?”
His eyes flare dark as I straddle his face with a daring wink. “Careful, little fox.”
I trail my wetness over his parted lips. “Quiet,” I say with a sly grin, stealing his words. “Let me taste you .”
His hands lock around my thighs as I lower myself. The first pass of his tongue wrings a moan from us both. I rock against his mouth, dizzy with power. His groan vibrates through me when I bend over and fist his cock.
He tastes like salt and steel. I take him deep, hollowing my cheeks.
“Fuck.” His hips jerk. “Olivia—”
I hum, swallowing him to the root. His curse cracks halfway through.
We move in filthy tandem, a circuit of giving and taking pleasure—my mouth on him, his on me. The room fills with wet sounds and broken gasps. His grip tightens as I quicken my pace.
“Enough.” He drags me off, flipping me onto all fours. “If I’m not inside you in the next five seconds, someone’s going to die.”
The first thrust steals my breath. He fills me completely, one hand fisted in my hair.
“Look.” He yanks my head toward the mirror across the room. “Watch me take what’s mine.”
Our reflection blurs with each punishing stroke—his muscles flexing, my breasts swaying, sweat-slick skin catching the low light. His free hand slides between my legs.
“I need you to come for me again.”
“I—I c-can’t—”
He touches my clit. “Yes, lisichka, you fucking can.”
The third orgasm rips through me with a scream.
He pauses for just long enough to let me catch my breath, then he throws me on my back and crawls on top of me.
“Who do you belong to?” he snarls as he lines up.
“Stefan—”
“Answer the fucking question.”
He’s withholding himself from me, and as spent as I am, I need him inside me right now. The emptiness is killing me.
“You!” I whine. “You!”
“Who’s going to take care of you and our baby?”
“You are.”
“That’s right.” He nods and licks his lips. “Mine. All fucking mine.”
Then he slides home and I feel full again, complete again.
The orgasm builds again, different this time—deeper, more consuming. When it hits, I scream his name, my nails raking down his back hard enough to draw blood.
He follows me over, burying his face in my neck as he empties himself inside me with a broken groan.
We lie there afterward, breathing hard, my head on his chest as he traces patterns on my bare shoulder.
“No going back now,” I murmur into his torso with a hoarse laugh.
“No,” he agrees. “And no knowing what’s to come. But for the first time in my life… I think I’m okay with that.”