Текст книги "Every Second With You"

Автор книги: Lauren Blakely

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

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.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Trey

The flight is packed, and we’re in the second to last row. I peer at my boarding pass once more, then at Harley’s, as we wait for the family ahead of us to stow their luggage. The flight attendant helps them find room in the cramped compartments.

“Crap. You’re in 34E. I’m in 35E,” I say over Harley’s shoulder when I notice the seat assignments.

She pushes out her bottom lip. “Bummer. I’ll have to write you notes and slip them into your seat like in high school.”

“Make mine dirty.” I place our bags in the overhead.

“Have a good flight,” she says, as she takes 34E.

“You too.”

As I buckle my seatbelt, the woman next to me clears her throat. She’s knitting something silvery, maybe a sparkly scarf or something, and her dark blond hair is pulled into a clip. “If your wife doesn’t mind a middle seat, I’d be happy to switch,” she offers.

“Oh, she’s not my wife,” I say, then quickly realize the semantics aren’t important. “But thank you. I think she would like that.”

I lean forward to tap Harley. “This awesome lady is offering to switch. Want to sit with me?”

She raises an eyebrow. “I believe the offer was for your wife,” she teases.

“Then you should just be my wife,” I say, and once the words have been said, I realize how absolutely fucking perfect they sound. And how I might not have a ring, and I haven’t planned this, but hell, if this isn’t what our life together is all about, then I don’t know what is, because I can’t think of a better moment. That’s what she’s been teaching me, in her own quiet way. To live each day, to embrace it, to seize the moment, because that’s all we ever have.

Moments. With each other. Without regret.

I unbuckle my seat belt, stand up, and then bend down on one knee in the aisle as the flight attendant adjusts more bags for the passengers across from us. I take Harley’s hands in mine. “Marry me,” I say. “Be my wife.”

Her eyes are as round as saucers, and they shine brightly with happiness. I don’t doubt for a second what she’ll say, and it’s an amazing feeling to have this kind of certainty in another person. Still, I want to hear her yes.

“You’re proposing to me on an airplane?”

“Why the hell not?”

The noises quiet down, and everyone is watching us. The flight attendant’s hands are poised on a suitcase, the gray-haired dude in the seat in front of Harley has stopped texting and is staring, and the woman next to me has popped up to watch, goggle-eyed.

“Like there’s any other answer but yes,” Harley says as she cups my cheeks and presses her lips against mine.

Then there is clapping and cheering all around, and a few rows ahead, I hear a guy shout, “Where’s the ring, man?”

“No ring,” I say to everyone, but as I pull up Harley from her seat and into the aisle, I point to her belly. “But we’ve got this to seal the deal.”

“That’s a commitment right there,” the guy calls out.

“Yeah, it is,” I say, and then I kiss her once more.

“When’s the wedding?”

It’s the same guy again, and this time I look over to him. He’s a few years older than me, but not by much. He wears hipster glasses and a hoodie.

“I don’t know. She just said yes.”

“How about now?”

I don’t say anything at first. I’m not sure what to say. But Harley pipes up, shouting to the guy. “Why? Are you a minister or something?”

He nods. “Got ordained online to perform my brother’s wedding. If you want a wedding in the sky, let me know.”

Then he disappears into his seat, and Harley joins me, while the blond woman takes my wife-to-be’s seat.

“I can’t believe you just proposed to me on a plane,” she says, with a smile that can’t be erased.

“Sometimes, you just have to live each day. That’s what someone I love madly once told me,” I say, nuzzling her nose.

“Excuse me, sir.”

I turn to the flight attendant.

“You need to get buckled in,” she says. “Oh, and congratulations. Now I have a good story to tell my friends on my layover in New York tonight.”

The flight attendant starts to leave, but Harley reaches for her arm. “It could be a better story possibly . . .”

* * *

Harley wears jeans, combat boots and a T-shirt. I know she’d look gorgeous in a wedding dress, but this is even better than white. I stand in the middle of the aisle, next to Andrew, the newly ordained minister, who also runs an Internet startup, and whose brother is a bio-tech engineer.

The bride carries a bouquet of pretzels and peanuts, tied together with silver yarn, courtesy of her former seat inhabitant. The flight attendant holds up my iPhone, playing Arcade Fire’s “Tunnels” as our wedding song.

The band sings about digging a tunnel from my window to yours and that feels fitting for Harley and me.

“It’s on airplane mode,” the flight attendant says, so the other passengers know she’s not breaking the rules.

We are flying high, ten thousand feet over Arizona, and my pregnant girlfriend is about to become my wife. Fine, I know we will need to get a marriage license and make it official before the state of New York, but this is our kind of wedding.

When Harley reaches me, she turns and hands the bouquet to the blond-haired knitter who’s become her impromptu maid of honor.

Andrew clears his throat. “Dear passengers of Flight 305 from San Diego to New York City, we are gathered here by chance, circumstance, and Expedia, in many cases, for the unplanned and unexpected wedding of Trey Westin to Harley Coleman. But then, as the groom has told me, other things between them were a bit unexpected, too,” he says, staring pointedly at Harley’s bump, and punctuating his comment like a stand-up comedian. “So, before we get in too much trouble with the captain, let me move onto the details quickly.” He looks to me. “Do you, Trey, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love her and cherish her, in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” I say, and you’d need some serious cleaner to wipe the industrial-strength grin off my face right now. I can’t believe I’m almost twenty-two years old, I have a scar on my face from how I used to debase the marriage vows of others, and now I’m getting hitched to a girl I inked one night, went with her to sex and love addiction therapy, then knocked her up, and now we’re going to move across the country to raise our kid.

“And do you, Harley Coleman, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love him and cherish him, in sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” she says, and then bounces once on her toes and sneaks in a quick kiss.

Andrew gives her a chiding look. “Now, now,” he says playfully. “Rings, please.”

The blond knitter opens her palm and holds out two paper rings that I drew a few minutes ago. On each piece of paper is a heart with an arrow in it, and the rings are held together with Band-Aids, since that’s all the flight attendant had.

I slide a paper ring onto Harley’s ring finger, and she does the same to me.

“And now by the power vested in me by the awesomeness of the Internet and my $35 license to become an ordained minister, I now pronounce you man and wife, and you may kiss the bride. Or the bride may kiss you again.”

Harley threads her hands in my hair, and whispers against my lips. “I love you so damn much,” she says, before she silences any reply with a kiss.

Four hours later, she’s asleep on my shoulder when the captain announces that we’re about to make our descent into New York. Other passengers stand up to make final bathroom trips, and a short, chubby bald guy walks down the aisle to the restroom. Something about him seems familiar, but I can’t place him. Maybe he’s a customer, but in his button-down shirt and dress slacks he hardly seems the tat type. He could be a friend of my dad’s, though my dad doesn’t have many friends. I tense briefly, hoping he’s not the husband of some woman I used to screw. That would be just my luck. I’ll land another scar, a matching one on the other cheek.

I close my eyes briefly, but after I hear the door unlock to the bathroom I can sense someone standing close to me. I open my eyes, and he’s there, in the aisle, staring at Harley.

At my wife.

And holy fucking shit, I know why I recognize him.

It’s Mr. Stewart from the gala last summer, where I stole Harley away from him. My heart clenches, and my veins run with ice.

He smiles, but it’s not a happy look. More like a cold sneer, as his gray eyes meet mine. “Congratulations, Mr. Trey Westin,” he says slowly, making sure to enunciate each word, “on your wedding to Layla.”