Stoned (The Stone Series) (74 page)

“K”

“I hope this vacation has been everything you wished for as a little girl. I wanted to give you back a little piece of what I took away from you.”

“What my mother decided to do when I was growing up wasn’t your fault. It’s not your responsibility to make it up to me now either.”

“You are my responsibility; your happiness is my responsibility.”

I just nod my head knowing this is an argument I will never win.

We arrive at this amazing house in the woods just as night is starting to darken the sky making me feel like I am in an enchanted forest with a magical prince by my side. The sky is glowing from the moonlight and sprinkled with stars as Damian takes my hand and leads me up to the house.

The house is a modern style cabin with a wraparound porch that runs the entire front of the house and continues to the lower back deck. It is quaint and cozy even with its glass and chrome from top to bottom. There are two rocking chairs on the front porch, a small table and a porch swing. We enter into a large open space that includes the living room and kitchen. There is a huge flat screen television on one wall and a floor to ceiling stone fireplace on the other. There is a loft space above, opening the upper floor to the lower. The upper floor houses a master suite and three other smaller suites complete with their own bathrooms. The kitchen leads to the lower deck in the back and includes a Jacuzzi hot tub, hammock and outdoor kitchen.  The upper deck is accessible from the upper level bedrooms, each section offering chairs and a small table so one can enjoy their morning coffee on the deck.

I fall in love with this house instantly and when I grab Damian’s hand he smiles and says, “So I should offer them whatever they want?”

“I…” I am unable to finish my thought as tears overtake me.

“What?” he asks.

“I just keep seeing us here with kids running around. On that hammock, the porch swing. That tree over there can have a swing on it and that one would be perfect for a tree house.”

Damian wraps his arms around me from behind and splays his hands over my belly. He nuzzles into my neck and whispers into my ear, “I see it all too, baby. We can and will have all of that and more. We’ll have anything you want. I will give you everything you need, you’ll never want for anything.”

“All I need is you” I say as I turn into his embrace and kiss him as my tears run down my face. He kisses them all away.

Chapter
24

We arrive back in the city on a Tuesday night and by midweek we resume our normal lives. Each morning Damian and I awake and shower together, soaping each other’s bodies, this quickly turns to a session of hot and urgent love making, most of the time standing up with me pressed against the shower wall, sometimes with one of us on our knees in the shower followed by the other in that same position. I dress each day in a new outfit from one of many new fall lines that Damian has provided for me and he wears one of his many shirt, tie and suit combinations. Each day when we leave the penthouse we look like the classic sophisticated urban couple as we head to the Escalade. Mac drives us each day, dropping me at S&S then taking Damian to his office or a meeting only to return at the end of the day to retrieve me and take us to the gym where we work out for an hour or two. We spend most of our nights with Alex and Parker, Mac and Drea cuddled up in the theater room watching movies. Some nights we go to the movies, the theater or out to dinner, some we spend at benefit dinners and work related events for Damian. I’m getting used to being photographed and in the tabloids. In the evenings Damian and I undress and get ready for bed, we make love slow and sweet sometimes and others we find ourselves getting naughty together in our playroom.

I wait for my period to arrive but when I’m three days late I call my doctor and set up an appointment for the following week. Before I have a chance to get there I find myself in the hospital. Two days after I call the doctor I collapse while working out.

It starts off like every other typical day, well a typical day for me. Damian wakes me by nuzzling into my neck and inhaling my hair. I feel him press his erection into me and he pulls me tighter to his body for a quick squeeze before he releases me and heads into the bathroom. I follow a few minutes behind him, walking in just as he’s finishing using the toilet. He turns on the shower heads to allow the water to warm while I sit and pee. I marvel at how comfortable I have grown with him. If someone had told me six months ago that I’d be in a penthouse suite with an obscenely wealthy and controlling Dominant as my boyfriend whom I would do all kinds of sexual activities with and pee in front of I would have said they were out of their ever loving minds…but here I am. 

Damian goes under the water and I watch him for a minute. I love the way the water glistens over his hard body, the way it runs down over his rippling muscles, over his manhood and down his legs. He catches me looking at him and asks, “So, you still think it’s a splendid sight, huh baby? Am I still Mr. Perfection to you?”

“Yes, you are” I admit as he reaches out for me and pulls me under the shower head with him. He rubs his soapy hands over my body and I reciprocate the favor. When I get to his penis I add a little more soap for lubrication and Damian leans back against the wall and braces himself with one hand while his other hand begins to rub my hard clit. “Yeah, Sydney. That’s it baby, jerk me off until I come for you” he orders.

I stoke him with a twist of my hand each time I reach the top. I let my thumb brush over his hole and use his pre-come to add even more lubrication. Damian matches my speed as he strokes my clit in mind numbing circles. Just as my hand starts to ache from the more than ten minutes of tight fast stroking, Damian moans his release and allows me mine, “Come for me.”

We finish our shower, get dressed and sit together at the kitchen island to enjoy our breakfast but I’m still not feeling up to food in the mornings, honestly, I don’t feel up to food ever anymore. I can barely bring myself to eat more than three bites of food a day. I hide this fact from Damian as best as I can.

We leave the penthouse with Mac and he and Damian drop me off at S&S. I work all day and by five I’m ready to head to the gym for a work out. Once at the gym Damian and Mac go to lift heavy weights while I take a cardio class. We meet up on the treadmills an hour later and Damian and I get on side by side machines. After about ten minutes of running I am sweating more than usual and I begin to feel faint and lightheaded. Before I can turn the machine off and call out to Damian everything goes black, I faint hearing him call my name, then I feel pain, then nothing.

I awake to find myself in a hospital bed with Damian sitting on my bed holding my hand. I open my eyes and notice the tears in his. He’s clearly been crying. His face is red and blotchy, his eyes are red rimmed and swollen. I realize we’re not alone, a strange woman, a doctor maybe or a nurse is checking my chart. “What happened?” I ask in a raspy voice I don’t recognize.

“You collapsed next to me on the treadmill. I tried to grab the emergency stop but I wasn’t fast enough. You hit the treadmill then you were flung to the floor. Right in front of my fucking eyes and I couldn’t do anything to help you.”

“Am I okay? I mean I’m sore but it doesn’t feel like anything’s broken.”

“You’re fine, nothing’s broken” he says in a voice not his usual.

“What’s wrong then?”

“I can’t stand myself. I failed you. I promised to always keep you safe and I failed you tonight, how am I going to be a…” he trails off. “How are you going to be a what, Day?”

He looks at me and tries his best to smile but I can tell it’s hard for him; he’s working through his irrational guilt for not being able to save me from falling. “A father, Sydney. How am I supposed to be a father and keep our child safe if I can’t keep you safe when you’re only inches away from me?”

“Day, first of all we don’t know that I’m pregnant. I don’t have my appointment until next week and secondly, you keep me safe every second of every day. This was an accident; you can’t save me from everything.”

“I should be able to save you from everything, that’s my job.”

“No, your job is at the Stone Empire, not taking care of me” I say with anger as I pull my hand out of his grip.

“I didn’t mean it that way, baby. You know that. Stop. There’s something I have to tell you.” Damian takes my hand again and kisses my knuckles then my nose, forehead and lips before he continues, “I told them you might be pregnant when they brought you in so they took blood to run a few tests. You fainted because you were dehydrated that I somehow didn’t realize and they say it seems you haven’t eaten enough in days which again I should have known” he reports. 

“And?” I prompt.

“And you are pregnant, we’re having a baby” he says as his hand travels to cover and protect my still flat stomach.

“I’m pregnant?” I ask.

“Yes, baby, you are. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I thought I was but then I thought maybe I was just late. Oh God, Day what are we going to do?”

“We’re going to have a baby that’s what we’re going to do” he says with confidence.

“You want this? I mean you don’t have to…” he cuts me off with venom in his voice, “Don’t you dare fucking finish that sentence, pregnant or not, hospital bed or not if you finish that sentence I will have you over my knee and red in no time flat” he warns.

He takes a few deep cleansing breathes and lays beside me, pulling me into his arms and holding me. “I love you. You are all I have ever wanted and needed I just didn’t know it until I met you. I could not live a second without you. We will work, you are my future, you and our baby are my future.”

“I love you too but I’m scared. I’m not even twenty two yet and we’ve only known each other for five months, we’re not even married. How can I be pregnant?”

“Well, baby there’s no age requirement for becoming pregnant, or a specific amount of time a couple is together, or even a marriage license needed. We made a baby and now we’re going to be the best parents in the world to this child. I promise. We’re in this together. It’s going to be okay. Trust me, right?”

That’s all I needed to hear to remember that I do trust him. If he’s certain this is all going to be okay then so am I. I smile at him and nod in acceptance. Our lips meet and Damian pulls me closer, tighter into his embrace and deepens the kiss. The woman in the room with us clears her throat and we break apart. The strange woman looks at Damian and sneers, “Remember what the doctor said, she needs her rest. She only allowed you to stay because you gave her no choice. Now behave or out you go. Good looks or not, any more funny business and I’ll toss you out myself.” Wow, a woman who is immune to his charms and good looks.

“Why did the doctor let you stay? What did she mean you gave her no choice?”

“Okay, don’t fucking flip out on me, this isn’t my fault and I have no control over this. Your doctor, you know, your OB? We um, we kind of know each other.”

“Oh, are you freaking kidding me?” I ask as the nurse smiles at me, shrugs her shoulders and leaves the room.

“You fucked her? She was one of them, wasn’t she?”

He admits that Dr. Baxter was one of his submissives and even though I should be mad, I’m not. I actually find it kind of funny and can’t help myself, I start to laugh and Damian follows suit. “So are you okay with all this?’ he finally asks when we stop laughing.

“I think I am, not about my doctor fucking you. I can’t deal with that. I’ll get a referral from her, she’ll understand I’m sure but the rest, yeah I think I am okay with it.”

“Good and just so you know, she was way more surprised with this situation than you were.

“Yeah, I bet she was.”

Chapter
25

Sydney is instructed to take it easy over the next few days so I cancel all my meetings and have
Veronica clear my schedule. I also tell Alex that Sydney will be home on leave until further notice. I tell him she’s fine but suffered some bumps and bruises from the fall and that the doctor recommended a few days at home, he doesn’t fight me on the issue. Cindy; Doctor Baxter, refers Sydney to another doctor and secures an appointment for her in two weeks. We decide to keep our news to ourselves until we can tell everyone together.

At her doctor’s appointment we learn that she is eight weeks pregnant so we figure she must have conceived our baby in mid-September after we had spent that week apart. I tease her that maybe it happened that day in the car when her mother caught us.

We get to see our baby with her webbed fingers and toes poking out from her hands and feet, her eyelids still covering her eyes. She is no larger than a kidney bean and I nickname her “Pebbles”. We won’t know the true sex of our child for weeks yet but I am sure she’s a girl.

“Pebbles? I love that.” Sydney says, “Not as her real name but it’s very cute for a nickname. Pebbles Stone. Oh wait. Will she have your name or mine?”

“She’ll have both our names.”

Sydney and I spend Thanksgiving alone together at our new house in the woods to avoid our friends and family. We’ve decided to tell them at the penthouse on Christmas Day.

Christmas Day arrives faster than we thought it would and Sydney is already into her fourth month but not yet showing when dressed. She’s able to keep food down finally but she still struggles with queasiness making it difficult for her to gain weight. Her body has begun subtle changes that only she and I can notice. Her once tight flat belly is just starting to grow a small bump, Pebbles being the size of a lemon now. Her breasts are larger, her nipples a little bigger maybe even a shade darker pink than they usually are. Sydney doesn’t realize but she has started to place her hands protectively on her belly and she sways soothingly back and forth when standing idle, it’s very cute.

On Christmas Day our guests arrive at noon and we enjoy their company at our dining table over an endless feast created by my head chef at Stones. After dessert we invite everyone into the living space to gather around our tree for our announcement.

I begin, “We are thankful that we were able to spend Christmas with each of you, thank you all for coming to celebrate with us today. It means a great deal to us to have you all here so you can share in our good news. Sydney, would you like to do the honors please?” I say as I pull her into my body at the hip.

“Damian and I are having a baby. I’m due in June. It was a surprise to us both, it was not something either of us planned but we are both happy and we hope you will all be happy for us and be there to welcome our baby.”

The room goes silent for a brief moment while our guests process this information then the women begin screeching and running to Sydney. Drea and Parker reach her first followed by Brook, my mother and Samantha. I get slaps on the back from Mac and Dominick and Tate and Alex tease me about knocking her up as only they can do. My father surprises me when he extends his hand to me and says, “Congratulations, son.” Sydney’s father looks like he might try to rip my head off at first but then he catches a glimpse of her melting into me as I step behind her and wrap my arms around her and even he softens. He also extends his hand in congratulations and unnecessarily offers any assistance we might need, but the gesture is what counts.

I spend the next six days doing my best to pull off the biggest surprise of my life. Sydney’s twenty second birthday is on New Year’s Eve and this one will be one she will not soon forget. I rent a space overlooking Times Square that will offer a perfect obstruction free view of the ball as it drops at midnight. I line up my chef to recreate the first meal Sydney and I shared at Stone’s and I invite all of our friends and family, warning each not to tell Sydney what I truly have up my sleeve. I tell Sydney that we will be spending the night with our guests watching the scene unfold below us in Times Square, I don’t tell her that the real surprise is what will happen on the balcony at midnight as the ball drops.

The women all look stunning in their best evening gowns and the men all cleaned up well and are wearing tuxedos. Sydney, Drea and Parker are the last to arrive after a day of beauty at Smooth as Stone. Drea and Parker are in on the surprise with me and they agreed to keep Sydney busy all day so she wouldn’t suspect anything was amiss. When she walks through the door I lose my breath and I have to brace myself so I don’t fall to the floor. She is wearing a white sheath dress under a white wrap with matching ear muffs, mittens and heels to die for. Even at this moment I can’t help my mind going to thoughts of her legs around my shoulders with those sexy as fuck heels digging into my skin while we fuck. I manage to keep myself only semi-erect with these thoughts and try my best to push them aside until later.

Sydney’s eyes search the room and find mine as a smile spreads across her face. I raise my eyebrows at her and raise my champagne. She saunters over to me and kisses me, holding nothing back.

“Baby, you look amazing. I was just standing here thinking about those heels around my shoulders and the rest of your body naked under me screaming out my name”, I whisper into her ear and she rubs against me slightly to check my arousal level and smirks when she finds me hard.

“I’d stop that if I were you or we’ll never make it to midnight” I warn and she chuckles and tries to back away but I hold her to me.

“Not so fast, you’re not going anywhere until I calm down. Now talk to me about something not sexy” I beg. Sydney knows what does the trick and asks me if I think my parents did it in the limo on their way here. “Okay, we’re good to go” I report with a smirk and a slap to her tight ass.

The evening goes as planned, Sydney is relaxed and having a great time. She doesn’t suspect a thing. Our guests enjoy their meal and the drinks keep flowing freely. We all bundle up and go to the balcony to watch the performances below.

A few moments before midnight I tap my glass and ask for everyone’s attention.

“As you all know I met this amazing woman who turned my life upside down and changed it for the better only seven short months ago when she fell at my feet in my best friend’s office. Alex and I had recently discussed my relationship history and we decided I needed to make some changes. I joked with him and told him I was going to take a break on the lady front unless a beautiful woman happened to fall at my feet. Well, not just any beautiful woman fell at my feet, the most beautiful woman did and my life will never be the same. I have never loved anyone the way I love Sydney. She is my morning, my day and my night. She’s my sun, my moon and my stars. She’s my water, my oxygen, my life. Without her I would not be the man I am today standing before all of you professing my love for her and asking her to be my wife.”

I fall to my knees in front of her and open a box that contains a custom made engagement ring. “Sydney Cooper, like you were the day you fell into my life I am at your feet asking you to be my wife. If you say yes, at the stroke of midnight tonight, in just a few moments you can be mine forever. Please say yes, baby. I love you.”

Sydney grabs my face and lifts me to my feet kissing my lips. I feel her tears run down her face and I taste the salt through our kiss. “Yes, I will marry you, Day. I love you too.”

At the stroke of midnight our guests heard the words, “You may kiss the bride.” And Sydney Cooper became Sydney Stone, my wife.