Romance: JADEN: An MMA Fighter Romance (Bad Boy Tattoo Romance) (New Adult Pregnancy Short Stories) (22 page)

When he slipped my panties off, I reached forward and caressed his face with my hand once before trailing it down his body, feeling my knuckles bump across the hard expanse of his abs—damn, was that hot—to his boxers. I hesitated, and he made a noise of impatience, sliding my hand further down his body so that my fingers caught in the soft material. I quickly slid the boxers down his legs, and he kicked them off.

I opened myself to him, no inhibitions standing in our way in this dark, starlit moment. I would have issues later, but in this very moment, there were none. I felt as if I was free for the first time in my life as he entered me. He leaned down and kissed me once more.

He moved quickly, driving and thrusting in a way that was completely foreign to me. I was used to my men being sweet and tender, and this display of dominance and power was completely new. I found it exhilarating. It was as if I could let go and give into my deepest desires without having to worry about what he would think. He was an animal in this moment, like me, and we were equally wild, equally non-judgmental.

As the passion built in my abdomen, I closed my eyes and gave myself completely into the feelings. I had never felt anything quite so intense in all of my life, and it was completely foreign to me. I had to bite down on my tongue hard as I came to stop any noises from escaping.

Soon afterwards, Lucas was joining me. I felt him strain against his own skin, trembling and twisting, but for an entirely different reason than it had been when I had come into his room.

He collapsed next to me, folding me into his arms. After our lovemaking, I had expected his heart to be pounding even faster, but to my surprise, it was now steady and sure of itself. I smiled against his chest.

My asshole stepbrother was actually quite amazing at this.

###

Over the next few weeks, our relationship greatly improved. Linda came home to find us not quarreling and declared it a miracle. We were civil to each other, even loving at times. I came into his room each night, and while we did not make love again, we slept in the same bed. Lucas’ nightmares went away as if they had never been there, and the hollows in his cheeks that had looked almost unhealthy when I had first seen him began filling once again. He ate more and laughed more, and the haunted look faded from his eyes.

The first time I threw up, I suppose I should have known. I thought that I was coming down with something awful, as I threw up every morning for a week. Linda hadn’t taken me to the doctor, as she was getting ready to go on a huge business trip to Europe, and Dad was still gathering evidence for the case that was coming up within the next month.

I was mostly able to keep it to myself, as not many people noticed, but I wondered for a long while what it could be. One morning, when I was drifting between the place of sleep and waking, I suddenly jolted awake and opened my eyes.

“Good God,” I whispered to the ceiling. “We didn’t use protection.”

I looked up the signs of pregnancy soon afterward on my phone, and that was enough to make me sick again. It was quite possible that I was pregnant.

Shit.

The worry that immediately followed the startled news made it hard for me to go down to breakfast that morning. What would I tell Dad and Linda? That I was carrying my stepbrother’s child? That simple statement made me realize what had happened, and I wondered what I should do.

“Should I tell Lucas?” I asked my reflection in the mirror. I looked sallow and pale as if I hadn’t been out in the sun or eaten the right nutrients for days or weeks.

“Tell Lucas what?” Dad asked, coming in as he folded a pair of jeans. “I found these in my laundry.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, my heart in my throat. Shit, what should I tell him? “Um, nothing,” I said eventually. “It’s something stupid.” The excuse sounded weak to my own ears, and Dad looked at me closely, his hawk-sharp eyes missing nothing. That was the bad thing about having a father who was a lawyer. He always knew things that he shouldn’t.

“Okay, honey.” He said after a few moments. “Come down to breakfast soon, Linda made pancakes and I know that you love pancakes.”

“Dad,” I groaned. “They’re simple carbs. If you’re going to eat carbs, eat the complex ones. Like fruit and whole grains.” For a moment, all was well, and he grinned at me. I felt myself relaxing, but the moment he left, I felt the crashing weight fall back onto me.

I needed to know for sure.  That was suddenly the only thing in my head. I nodded to my reflection in the mirror and quickly finished dressing and brushed my teeth.

“I have an emergency errand to run,” I called to Linda, Dad and Lucas, who were all digging into their heavenly-smelling pancakes. “I’m going to go get some stomach flu medicine,” I added after a moment when they all looked at me as if I was insane.

Dad got up. “Can’t it wait until after breakfast?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I want to be able to eat pancakes, but if I don’t go get this medicine, I’ll probably just throw up again.”

“Isn’t it odd that she’s only throwing up in the morning?” Linda asked Lucas. Lucas’ eyes widened slightly, and he looked over at me, panic in his eyes. I looked away, unable to give him the kind of reassurance he wanted. Dammit, this wasn’t going to go over well. I would lost any connection I had to Lucas, and we would have to find some way of getting rid of the baby before he freaked out about his mother finding out. She was an upstanding Christian, and what they had done would be considered incest. She could disown him—or worse.

An abortion was out of the question, I thought the entire way to the store. I wouldn’t end an innocent life. Maybe we could give it up for adoption.

Despair filled me suddenly. I didn’t want to give away something that spoke of the deep connection between me and my stepbrother. We had only just found that connection and seeing this baby every day would be a reaffirmation of that.

I felt tears well in my eyes and blinked them rapidly away as I pulled into the parking lot of our nearby store.

“Hi,” I said to the first sales lady I found. “Could you point me in the direction of pregnancy tests?”

She looked me up and down for a few moments, judgment pouring off of her like heat waves and then directed me to aisle nine. I rolled my eyes at her back. She must have been an upstanding Christian as well.

I bought the little box fairly quickly and tucked it in the pocket of my jacket. Then I went back when I realized that it would look weird if I came home with no flu medicine.

When I got home, everyone had already left the table Linda was humming as she did dishes in the kitchen, and Lucas and Dad were arguing over the baseball game they were watching in the den. I crept past them all, hugging my jacket close to me as if it held the secrets to the world.

I had never taken a pregnancy test before and was completely unsure of whether or not I was doing it right. I waited anxiously by the stick, leaving only to lock the bathroom door in case Dad or someone else suddenly decided to come into my room again.

After a few minutes, I was nearly frantic. Maybe I really do have the stomach flu, I thought after a while when there was no change. Maybe I was freaking out over nothing. I felt nearly sick with anticipation, in the way that makes you feel as if you want to know the answers now, but want to hold it off as long as humanly possible at the exact same time. I swallowed hard, wondering if it was possible to actually die of waiting.

The results showed positive.

I collapsed onto the floor, shaking. No, no, no this can’t be right, I thought. I remembered something my mother had told me before she divorced my father.

“I didn’t mean to have you, you know. It was something that came as a total surprise. That’s why you always want to use protection. I don’t regret having you, Katy, but there are such simple slip-ups that can happen, and then you’re tethered to a baby and a father who doesn’t feel ready yet to have the responsibility.”

This had been after she had caught me making out with the football quarterback behind the bleachers. I had sighed dramatically and leaned my head against the window. “Mom, it was a kiss. It’s not like I’m going to be bringing the entire football team to bed,” I had said.

Tears slipped down my face. “You were right,” I said numbly, even though Mom was light years away, doing an extended safari with her new husband in Australia. “I should have listened.”

“Kitty-cat?” A light knock on the door startled me out of my trance. I shivered and tried to ignore Lucas on the other side. “Why is the door locked?”

“Go away,” I said, hating how tear-stained my voice sounded.

“Katy?” I put my head in my hands and tried to ignore Lucas. There was a moment of silence in which I thought he had gone away, but then he spoke again. “I know.”

I glanced up. How could he possibly know? “No, you don’t.”

“The test you went to the store to get, it came out positive, didn’t it? And you’ve been getting sick in the mornings,” he added.

Well, fuck, he really did know. I let out a sob unintentionally and bit the rest of them back.

“Katy, please, let me in so that we can talk about this.”

“What is there to talk about?” I asked acidly. “I fucked up, you’re now saddled with a child that you never wanted.”

“Katy,” he said again, and this time it was frustrated. “I’m going to break down this door if you don’t let me in.”

That would be fun to explain to Dad and Linda. “Okay, okay,” I said, standing on shaky legs. “I’m letting you in, Jesus.”

Lucas was just as beautiful as ever as he came into the bathroom, and I envied him for that. I looked like a mess, all wet eyes and tangled hair, and probably a completely lost look all over me. I expected Lucas to go over to the pregnancy test, but he just wrapped me up in his arms.

“It’s okay,” he said, and I felt myself shuddering against him. I was cold, suddenly; I hadn’t realized that I was that cold. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Aren’t you angry at me?” I asked, my voice muffled against his chest.

“How could I be?” he asked, drawing back slightly to look at me. “If this is an accident—which I don’t believe it is, first of all—then it is equally my fault for not thinking of protecting us.”

“What do you mean, you don’t think it’s an accident?”

Lucas reached forward and touched my face. “What can come from you that is an accident?” he asked softly. “You’re so perfect.”

A fresh wave of tears coursed down my cheeks. I had expected yelling, fighting, hatred. That I could handle. This? I wasn’t prepared for soft, gentle words. “Don’t say that,” I said softly.

“Why not? Because it’s true?”

I was struck again, suddenly, with how much Lucas had changed over the past three years. I felt a wave of love wash through me like a calming drug. “You are amazing, you know that?” I asked softly, burying my face into his shirt and inhaling the sharp, clean scent that was purely Lucas. He gripped me tightly, wrapping me in his arms completely. It was the safest place I had ever known, and probably the safest place I would ever know.

“I know,” he said, and I rolled my eyes, drawing back.

He reached out and caressed my face softly, fingers sliding through my hair and touching my cheekbone. He leaned forward and kissed me softly, so unlike the night we had created this child inside of me. I placed a hand on my stomach. I wasn’t showing yet, but I knew that soon I would.

“Okay,” I said, drawing myself up and wiping my eyes. “What do we do about Linda and Dad? I know that your mother won’t really understand it the way we do, and I’m not sure that I want to tell Dad about this either. I don’t judge us, but I think that they will, and I can’t deal with being thrown out of this family right now. I’m just getting my footing and need a few more months before I’ll be able to be completely independent.” I bit my lip. I didn’t want him to think that I was shunning this and us, but I badly needed the support from Dad before I went off on my own and being able to pay for my own college.

“I understand,” Lucas said softly. “I have some connections who would be willing to play father for a while if that is what you are looking for.”

I closed my eyes. It sounded so deceitful and I didn’t like that. “What if we just don’t say who the father is? I think that Dad would be fine with that.”

“And if the baby inherits my gorgeous eyes, what will we say then?”

“I hope to have a plan figured out by then,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Thank you for being so amazing about this.” I squeezed his hand and looked over at the pregnancy test. For a few minutes after taking that, I had been so sure that everything had been over.

I had been wrong. Lucas was truly a changed man. The man who existed before the army would have shunned me and probably disowned me and refused to claim the child.

“What is it that you’re thinking about?” Lucas asked, picking me up and setting me down on the counter.

“I’m thinking how much you’ve changed,” I said, shrugging. Lucas leaned forward and grinned, capturing my lips once again.

“I would take you right here and now,” he said, running his hand up my side and cupping my breast, “but I don’t want to hurt the baby.”

“I know,” I said, simply to be infuriating. Lucas frowned at me and drew back just a bit. He reached over and took the pregnancy test and threw it in the trash.