Total pages in book: 217
Estimated words: 207224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1036(@200wpm)___ 829(@250wpm)___ 691(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1036(@200wpm)___ 829(@250wpm)___ 691(@300wpm)
“So you’ll teach me?” I ask, my eyes unable to avoid the fact that even though he’s naked, he’s not naked. His bandages.
“Yes,” he breathes. “Is Madam satisfied?”
I push away my guilt and crawl up his body, showing my appreciation—and sorrow—with a long, slow kiss that he accepts and contributes to, but his hands remain useless on the bed. “I need to pee.” I get up, smiling at his moan of annoyance. “Back in a m—” A horrific pain bolts through my stomach, and I bend over, grabbing my belly. “Shit,” I hiss, immediately short of breath.
“Rose?”
Pain. It radiates through me, making every muscle constrict tightly, an instinctive attempt to curb the unbearable agony. I cry out, dropping to my knees by the bed.
“Rose!” He appears before me, a blur of a man, and I feel his frantic hands grabbing at my arms, my shoulders, my face. “Rose, baby, talk to me, please.”
I blink rapidly, trying to turn the blob in front of me into my husband, needing to see his face. “I—” I retch, the pain so intense, it’s making my stomach turn.
“Fuck,” Danny hisses, and I’m moving, feeling my body being shifted. I recognize the warmth of his body pushed into my back, his hands wrapped around my upper chest, his face in my neck. I sit between his bent legs as he leans back against the side of the bed, and I swallow, struggling to clear my foggy vision, my tummy tight, but . . . the pain subsides a little. It lifts, and I hold my breath in anticipation for its return. Scared. I’m so fucking scared. “Rose, baby, I beg you, please talk to me.”
I can’t even find the breath I need to speak and tell him I’m okay. Perhaps because I don’t know if I am. Am I okay? Is the baby okay? “Danny.” I exhale, beginning to panic, the pain still there but nowhere near as excruciating. “Danny, the baby.” My eyes dart frantically as I claw at his forearms wrapped around me, like I might find the reassurance I need somewhere in the room.
“Fuck, Rose, I can’t leave you.” The agony, the conflict in his voice is real. “Can you stand? Do you think you can stand?”
“No.” I feel utterly wiped out.
“Fuck it.” He maneuvers, and my back is quickly propped up against the bed. He appears before me, still a little blurred, so I fight furiously to win back some clarity. I find his face. The torture. The agony. His scar is wicked and jagged and deep. His eyes haunted. “Are you in labor?” he asks. “Fuck, no, what the hell am I saying? What’s happening, Rose?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I have no idea what the fuck is happening. I’m certainly not in labor at sixteen weeks.
“I need to get my phone.” He gets up. Comes back down. Up. Down. “Fuck!”
“Go,” I tell him, starting to take deep, controlled breaths. “I’m okay.”
“Fuck’s sake.” He runs out of the room and is back moments later, his phone at his ear. “She’s conscious,” he says, falling to his knees before me, feeling my thigh, stroking and squeezing. “In the bedroom. Come straight through.” He hangs up and makes another call, and I fear I know to who.
“No,” I demand. “Do not call Beau.” I can’t inflict this on her. It’ll bring everything she’s trying to forget back. It’ll renew her pain, her hurt, her grief.
“You need to come,” he says when she answers, standing and grabbing his boxers, pulling them on. “Now.”
He doesn’t give her a chance to ask why, hanging up and dropping his phone, falling to his ass and shifting in, caging me in with his bent legs. “Does it still hurt?”
“Not as bad.” I shift, dropping my head back, trying to concentrate on my breathing. He just came inside of me. Always does, so it’s not surprising I can feel the warmth of his cum in between my thighs. But . . . “Danny?”
“What, baby? What do you need?”
“I need you to check.” I can hardly get the words out. And I don’t need to elaborate. He knows. This is the only red I ever want to see on you. I drop my legs out wider, my throat tight, clenching my eyes shut, as Danny lifts my dress to my knees and looks between my legs. I hold my breath, waiting. Praying. Begging.
“There’s nothing,” he eventually says, his voice thick. “There’s no blood.”
I exhale and open my eyes. “Okay.” I nod, starting to breathe a little easier. “Okay,” I whisper, blinking back my tears, trying to keep it together.
No blood.
No more red.
I look down at the ring he’s put on my finger, wishing for it in all the ways.
No more blood.
7
JAMES
“What’s going on?” I ask from the bed as Beau throws on one of my shirts and yanks some denim shorts up her legs. My naked body is sprawled, my palm resting over my dick, the one that was buried inside her seconds ago ready to detonate. I’m still in pain. I don’t know what made her take Danny’s call. In fact, I’m quite pissed off she found the strength to answer over the orgasm we were both about to have.