Crushed (18 page)

         
Seeing my daughter for the first time was hard. She was so tiny, she had a
small tube in her nose, but she looked better from what Ryan had said.

I
knew I missed a few weeks.

I
hated that.

Ryan
had made choices for her, and clearly they had been the right ones. He was able
to hold her, I was not.

The
doctor said where I had just woken up, my muscles could spasm randomly and that
it wouldn’t be ideal for me to have a very fragile premature baby in my arms if
that were to occur.

Still
I loved to sit in the room and watch Ryan bond with her.

I
myself tired quickly, and although I tried to stay in the room with our
daughter for as long as possible. I just couldn’t. I had a nurse wheel me back
and asked Ryan to stay with our baby.

She
didn’t have a name.

I
forgot all about that. It wasn’t something I thought too much on when I was
pregnant with her. I had so much going on With Ryan, with Alex, I just didn’t
have the time. It felt weird choosing one without the opinion of the person who
helped to create her.

As
I laid in bed I sat there thinking of a name that could fit the beautiful
little girl.

Josslyn
I thought. It had always been a favorite of mine.

When
Ryan came in later that night to sleep, he and I talked for a while. We talked
about our marriage and I told him that I did still love him, but that we would
have to take things slowly. I don’t know that it was the answer he was looking
for, but I think he knew we were not going to be able to jump right back in
where we were before everything happened. I still needed answers. He still
needed to tell me that it would never happen again, but I getting better and
getting our daughter well enough to come home meant more.

Plus
there was Alex.

What
was I going to do about Alex?

He
hadn’t come by to see me. I thought that was odd. I had been awake for 3 days
and he hadn’t even bothered to call.

Part
of me didn’t want to lose him. I loved him too. I wanted to be with him, but I
was married to Ryan. This was a mess. But him not coming to see me. That wasn’t
okay.

I
pushed the thoughts of Alex away for a moment to talk to Ryan about the name I
had chosen for our daughter.

“What
do you think about the name Josslyn?” I asked

His
eyes lit up “I love it Em!” He exclaimed

“I
hoped you would I want you to choose her middle name.”

“Really?”
He asked, excitement lighting his face once more

I
nodded

“Okay
then.” He replied. Pausing and thinking.

A
few moments later he looked up and said “I’ve got it. Elizabeth, it’s my mom’s
middle name. Josslyn Elizabeth Alexander.”

I
loved it. A strong name for a strong girl.

We
filled out the paper work to get her birth certificate and I felt like for the
first time in weeks everything was going to be okay.

I
was wrong.

My
world caved in slightly

Holly,
Alex’s sister who was also the entire reason my daughter was lying in the NICU
was pinned for the accident. The police found a partial print on the steering
wheel as well as a hair in the driver’s seat. When the club came and took her
away, the tried to wipe up, but with only minutes to spare, it wasn’t good
enough.

Of
course they were not pinned for her disappearance. No one was. It was believed
that Holly got up and ran away. So she was a fugitive.

Of
course, I knew that she would never be caught.

Alex
and the club made the choice and she was killed that night. Not just for what
she had done to me and Josslyn, but what she had been doing to Ryan, the drugs
the club found out she was stealing when she would visit Alex at the club and
the men she had told a bit too much information. I knew though that between
Alex and his dad what had happened to me and the baby was the nail in the
coffin.

I
wasn’t sad about her though.

The
police came to warn me that she was out and on the loose and asked if I wished
to have a police guard at my door. I declined because of course I knew that she
wasn’t going to be an issue.

Dr.
Bailey’s report on Josslyn 3 weeks later had me the most upset.

I
had been allowed to hold her. Ryan and I living in a hotel just down the street
from the hospital. We were spending every waking moment with our daughter.

At
first it was hard to be even 3 floors away from her. The first few nights I
couldn’t sleep, but I knew she was in good hands. The staff in the NICU were
amazing.

It
was the parent who decided to take pictures and post the to a tabloid site that
shook me up the first time.

The
staff had to remove the parent and ban them from the NICU. I felt badly at
first, but when I realized that Katie was using it as a publicity stunt, saying
how much she loved Ryan and that she was praying for him and his daughter.

Leaving
me out of that equation of course.

Ryan
was pissed and had to have Lacey issue a statement for us.

That
wasn’t the worst of it.

It
was when Doctor Bailey came in and told us that he expected that Josslyn who
was starting to gain weight and would be able to go home at the end of the
following month if she continued to put on weight. That was what got me worked
up.

“When
children are born this early, we never really know what delays they will have
in the future. I have some babies who are perfectly fine. I have other babies
who end up with a slight case of asthma that they grow out of. Some babies grow
up with learning disabilities, some will never walk. I don’t tell you all of
this to scare you, to have you live a life where you worry every day that she
might not be perfect, but know that just because we clear her to go home,
doesn’t mean the complications of her early birth end.”

“Right
now she is doing well. But I have looked at her chart and I see no reason to
worry, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t tell you that there is always
room for concern. We cannot predict the future so I need you to be prepared.
She might take longer to learn to crawl, she might not be good at math, but you
are good parents and you will figure that out I just need to tell you the risk
factors of all of these things.”

I
nodded, looking at my baby girl through the plastic of her incubator. The
breathing machine was only used during certain times of the day. She was
getting stronger, I knew that. She would look at Ryan and me, and try to move
her head when one of us was standing away from her and talking. She would be
fine. I needed to believe that.

I
heard from Alex a month after I woke up.

He
came by to see me. I guess his excuse was it was too painful to see me and Ryan
back together, and the club was planning to take care of his dad, which was a
huge deal. He needed to make sure that no one found out who I was, that could
target Ryan or me.

He
didn’t say anything about us not being together, but he looked really sad. He
didn’t stay for long.

Lacey
came by later and told me that he was a mess. Outside of all the club shit
going on, having to kill his sister and not knowing what was happening with the
baby or me, he was a wreck knowing that he had lost me.

I
knew he blamed himself for what happened, if we hadn’t been fighting he felt
like I wouldn’t have been in my car. I texted him a few times and told him that
she would have found a way to get to me at one point or another. But still.
Alex liked to protect people, and he wanted to be the one to keep me safe.
Which was why now letting me go back to Ryan was so hard for him

But
that’s how things needed to be. No I wasn’t ready to move back home with Ryan
as romantic husband and wife. But when our daughter was ready, I would move
back home with Ryan as parents. The rest would have to be dealt with later and
Alex would have to accept that.

I
just hated hurting him.

         
Ryan and I spent every moment with our daughter for the next month and a half.
She was doing amazing, still gaining weight and feeding and breathing on her
own. The doctor’s gave us the go ahead to take her home at the end of the week
and we couldn’t be more excited.

         
Ryan and Alex had been talking a lot. They were on civil terms, I am not sure
you could say that they were friends again, I don’t think they could ever be
friends again and I took the blame for that. Ryan constantly told me it wasn’t
my fault, but I knew it was because they both loved me. I wished that I could
change that. They had been best friends their whole life and then I came to
town and blew it all out of the water.

         
The club was planning on a way to take down Seth. I knew it wasn’t going to be
easy, and I knew that Ryan needed to be a part of it. He and Alex were doing
this for me and Josslyn, but the rest of the club from what Alex had mentioned
hated Seth and had for years and now that Seth knew that Alex’s dad was the one
who got the ball rolling on him being locked up the first time, he was after
the club too.

         
The hard part was knowing how many supporters Seth had gained. It was true that
most of his “helpers” left his side the moment Seth was locked up, but that
didn’t mean that the snake of a man didn’t create new ones when he was
released. Ryan refused to give him a dime, which was half of the reason Seth
sent Holly after me. We found out a few weeks later when Alex finally showed
up, that before Holly was killed she said that Seth had approached her at one
of her dealer’s homes. He offered her a huge sum of money and Ryan if she was
willing to do this “small favor” for him. Of course he had her at the promise
of Ryan.

         
Ryan told Alex that he wanted to help take his father down. They didn’t really
give me too many details, and to be honest I was kind of thankful for that. I
knew just enough. They planned to trap him and hand him over to the FBI. It’s
not how the club would normally handle someone they didn’t like, but from what
Alex mentioned the FBI had enough on him to keep him in prison for good. Ryan
was going to help by pretending to be on his dad’s side, offer to bring him the
money, getting Seth in a certain place and leave the rest for the authorities.
But Ryan said he needed to be there, he needed to see his father’s face when he
was arrested. He needed to tell his father he hated him and he was done with
him once and for all. I knew that feeling, I had had that moment with my mom
needing her to know that I wouldn’t be wishing for her as a mom any more.

         
When Ryan and Alex were not planning, we were working on the nursery. We
repainted the room and put all the baby’s furniture together, which was a huge
feat because Ryan decided to order everything top of the line of course, which
meant that it came in a million pieces. The company had a service where they
could come and build everything, but Ryan wanted to do it on his own. Whatever
his reason behind that was, I wasn’t going to question it.

         
I was staying in the guest bedroom. Which really bothered Ryan, I knew he had
issues with it. He always got sad each night right before bed. Trying to take
every moment we were together and make it last. We would stay up and watch movies,
sitting together and he would always grab my hand. It felt very high school.
Like the 14 year old boy you have a crush on finally gets the guts to grab your
hand. He was always waiting on me hand and foot, offering to get me a drink, to
brush my hair. To kiss me goodnight.

         
One of these nights I decided to ask him about what had happened with Katie. It
was the night before we brought Josslyn home. He told me about his dad, and I
knew that Seth had shown up in New York. I didn’t know about Seth’s warning
about me though. He told me about the drinks with Katie after and that he knew
he had been drugged, but that he wasn’t attracted to her enough to throw his
whole life with me away for. We already knew from the beginning when he was
filming with her, that he did like her. We had her at our home I don’t know how
many times, he told me she took advantage of him and if he had known what he
was doing, he wouldn’t have slept with her.

         
Being drugged was bad, it took a lot of the guilt off of him, but not all of
it. He still slept with her, and that still hurt me. But I decided that holding
onto it wasn’t going to help anyone. I told him I forgave him, and that I was
willing to make our marriage work. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, I wasn’t ready to
go back to what we were before, but I knew that I could at some point.

         
His eyes met mine “I need you Emmalyn, I can’t not be with you anymore. I am
not saying I need you to be 100% mine again, I know that will take time, but I
can’t not touch you. I lived 3 weeks thinking that I would never be able to
hold you again, that I would never see that smile on your face or hear you say
my name. I am not perfect, I screwed a lot of shit up, but I love you are the
love of my life. You have given me reason to live you have given me the most
amazing baby girl that a man could ask for. I just need you. I never gave up on
you, you are worth every single hoop you need me to jump through, you have my
heart you own my soul I need you”

         
I felt the tears well in my eyes “I need you too” I replied quietly

         
He reached over and brushed the pad of his thumb against my cheek then leaned
in and gently kissed me.

He
had kissed me good night a thousand times since we came back home but it never
felt like this. I could feel the want in him, and the need to show me how much
he loved me.

         
“I have missed you so fucking much.” He whispered.

         
“Me too.” I added

He
reached for me and pulled me onto his lap, deepening our kiss. He leaned back
and lifted the hem of my night gown up and over my head, leaving me in a lacy
bra and no panties.

         
“I missed this.” He groaned kissing me again

         
I sighed

         
He reached forward and released one of my breasts from the cup of my bra slowly
leaning forward, licking my nipple. With his other hand he reached down and
started slowly rubbing circles against my clit

“Ahh”
I moaned

“Still
so responsive” he laughed

I
started to grind my hips back and forth against his erection pressing against
his gym shorts

         
He gripped my hips “tell me you need me to stop baby”

“No”

 He
groaned again and pushed me back by my hips towards his knees

I
reached to his waist band and pulled them down to release his cock. As soon as
I wrapped my hand around him he threw his back and let out a snarl sounding
groan

“Shit”

I
smiled

He
reached behind me and grabbed a condom off the side table, he always kept them
there.

He
handed me the packet and I opened it with my teeth. The glare in his eyes as he
watched me roll the condom down his cock nearly had me ready to explode

As
soon as he entered me, I nearly screamed. It had been a few months but the
pleasure was intense.

“Fuck”
he yelled “are you okay” He knew I was, I could hear how good it felt for him
too

“I’m
fine” I barely whispered

He
grabbed my hips, but I pushed his hands away. Each time I raised up and slipped
back down, he said my name. He would grab my hips and hold me still, kissing my
neck

He
pulled me onto the couch, so he could lean over me and began to pump in and out
of me faster and faster.

I
couldn’t hold back my screams, it felt too good

He
was saying something, at first I couldn’t hear him, between the slapping sounds
of our skin meeting and my own moans, but when I came down from my release a
few moments later I heard him perfectly fine

“I
would give up everything to have you back like this every day. You feel so
fucking good. I love you so much it hurts.”

The
emotion on his face broke my heart. He was enjoying what he was doing, but it
looked like he thought like this might be it.

“I
love you, I’m not going anywhere Ryan

As
soon as I said the words he threw his head back and began pumping in and out faster
than before. “Shit I’m going to come” he yelled

He
reached around my leg that was wrapped around his waist and began rubbing my
clit, still continuing to enter me

I
came hard, and he followed falling down onto my chest moaning my name.

“Shit,
I really REALLY missed that” he laughed.

“Me
too” I smiled