Ripped Page 23

  “I’ll help,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Don’t be crazy. Pregnant women shouldn’t be around bleach fumes.”

  * * *

  Shell

  Pregnant women shouldn’t have lunch meat, either, apparently, as I found out when I wanted to stop at Subway, and Cade said that was a terrible idea. He was an encyclopedia of this stuff. Apparently, he’d read up on it. I couldn’t have soft cheeses. I couldn’t eat sushi. And worst of all, I couldn’t get in the hot tub. Apparently, the temperature was too hot, and it could upset the delicate balance in my womb.

  Cade took me back to his house, which was already completely repaired when we got back, since he’d called contractors to work on it while we were in Florida. But I couldn’t get in the hot tub, which was annoying.

  Cade said he’d make it up to me and he took me in to his bedroom where he began slowly removing every shred of my clothing and kissing me wherever he bared my skin.

  I let myself get lost in that for a little bit. His hands were clever, and I was happy to have him do what he wanted with me.

  I closed my eyes, sighing as he kissed the inside of my knee.

  “Better?” he said.

  “Much.”

  “See? Being pregnant isn’t that terrible.”

  I opened my eyes and propped myself up on my elbows. “Are you kidding? It already sucks, and I’ve still got nine months to go.”

  “It won’t suck.” He kissed the top of my knee. “I’m going to wait on you hand and foot, and go get you whatever disgusting food you’re craving at two in the morning and worship the ground you walk on.”

  I snickered. “Ooh, well the tables are turning, aren’t they? I’m ordering you around?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Within reason. As long as you admit that I’m in control and come whenever I tell you to.”

  I flopped back on the bed. “In a few months, I’ll be too huge for sex anyway.”

  His hands snaked over my panties and under my shirt to brush my belly. “No such thing.”

  “You say that now, but when I am lumbering and disgusting and the size of a planet—”

  “No way, it’ll be sexy as hell.”

  I propped myself back up again. “You’re insane.”

  He hooked his thumbs under my panties and began to drag them down my body. He kissed my left hip bone, and then my right hip bone. “I might be insane. That might be true. I still think you’re going to be hot when you’ve got a big belly.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  He kissed me right below my belly button and then planted a kiss on my mound. “I can’t wait, honestly. I promise to help you rub cocoa butter on it every night, and then I’ll rub you lower and lower and lower…” He chuckled wickedly.

  “Really? You’re really going to do that?”

  He kissed the outside of my labia, just over my clit. “I want to see you like that.” His voice had gotten husky.

  There was a little thrill in my sex. I sighed, and I opened my legs to him.

  He kissed my clit. Licked it. “Just thinking about it is getting me kind of aroused.”

  I would have probably burst out with some kind of denial, but the way he was licking me felt too good for me to do anything other than moan.

  He slid his hands under my shirt. “It’ll be hot watching your body change, watching you grow, watching what I did to you.”

  I gasped. My sex clenched. “I get it,” I managed. “It’s just a macho thing. You ejaculated, and now I’m your science project.”

  He laughed, his hands closing over my breasts. “You’ll be all glowing and round and curvy. And your tits will get huge, and I am going to love every second of it.” He put his mouth on my clit again, licking it as he squeezed my breasts, then teased my nipples stiff.

  I moaned.

  He went at me for several minutes, mouth on my clit, fingers brushing my nipples, pinching them gently, making me flood with pleasure. I let myself get caught up in it, surrendering to his hands and his tongue.

  “And,” he whispered against my skin, “no matter how big your belly is, I’ll always be able to lick your pussy.”

  I gasped.

  “You feel good, don’t you, Shell?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I make you feel good.”

  “You make me feel amazing.”

  “And I’ll keep making you feel good, while you grow my baby, which is the sexiest thing on earth.”

  “Mmm,” I said.

  He brushed my clit with his thumb and then made little circles around it. “How’s that, love?”

  “Good,” I said. “Very good.”

  “Ready to come for me?”

  “Oh, I am, Cade. I want to come. Can I?”

  “Soon, sweet one.” His finger circled my clit faster and faster. “Soon, soon.”

  “Please?” I said, breathless. “Please let me come.”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely…” He kissed me. “Come for me, Shell,” he whispered. “Come now.”

  And I did, bursting and squirming and thrashing out my rapture and delight.

  “God, you make me so crazy,” he said. “Feel how hard I am for you.” He put my hand on his cock. He was thick and long and firm against my palm. I started to stroke him.

  He grunted. “That’s good, love. That’s nice.”

  “I want you to fuck me with this,” I said. “I want you deep in me, filling me up.”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  And he did.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Cade

  two months later…

  I pondered the plans for the nursery and addition, which I had spread out over a table in what would be the addition to my house. Currently, it was only framed-out bare wood with plastic over the top. This was the kind of thing that I would usually hire out, at least in my old life.

  But I needed something to do. I knew enough about myself to know that I wasn’t the kind of man who could live an idle lifestyle. I needed something to fill my days with, something to accomplish. Truthfully, I was happier now, doing this massive project on my own, working hard outside, than I ever had been killing, which I had been so sure that I needed to do.

  It was with trepidation that I had stepped into a purely administrative role with my business. The most hands-on thing I’d done was to give Sable the keys to the safe house in Iowa. With Rafael Gallo dead, her problems with the Gallo family were nearly over anyway. I was confident she’d be back home in a few months. But I’d had no physical contact with anyone else.

  Before, when I’d been doing too much administration, I had started to get stir crazy, fantasizing about killing, needing the outlet. I was frightened that would happen again.

  But I was also hopeful it might not. It was something that Shell said to me, that time when I felt like I fucked her so hard I fucked all the darkness out of myself. Something about never being able to control what had happened to my mother, no matter how hard I tried. At the time, I had told her that had nothing to do with my desire to kill. But her words stuck with me, and I began to wonder if maybe she wasn’t right. If this killing part of me wasn’t something innate, but something that I had adopted because of what had happened to me. I wondered if maybe I could stop.

  So, I decided to try it. And two months later, I hadn’t felt one urge. Maybe it was because I spent my days working on building this addition and doing whatever I could to keep Shell happy and comfortable. Currently, we were working on finding solutions to her nausea, and the only thing that seemed to be working was mint tea. So, I was brewing it by the gallon. I wanted her to feel better. Anything I could do, I would.

  That was really the difference, I thought. What had changed me was knowing that I meant something to someone. I had spent so long certain that I would always be alone, and now I had her company, and a baby on the way. A life full of motion and laughter. Something to look forward to. A reason to be a better man.

  Even if the
urges came back, I was sure that I could fight them.

  For Shell.

  For the baby.

  For the future.

  And so, for the time being, I worked on building this addition. It wasn’t that my house hadn’t been large enough for a child before, but it hadn’t been designed for one. Most of the walls were glass, and I couldn’t imagine that was a good idea for a kid. No, all of my research told me that we wanted a nursery that we could make cheery and sunny, but that we could also make dark like midnight when we needed to. That wasn’t easy to do with glass walls.

  It was a challenge. Construction was not something that had previously been in my skill set. But I studied everything I needed to do and double-checked it before I tried it. If it didn’t work, I tore it down and started over. I promised Shell that if I really fell flat on my face with it, I would hire it out, but she said that she was sure I’d do it.

  She looked at me with adoration in her eyes, and I could see that she thought I hung the moon.

  And that… that was more than I’d ever hoped for, and more than I deserved. But damn if it didn’t make me feel so good I thought I might burst.

  I loved her.

  So much it hurt.

  * * *

  Shell

  I opened the door to Starling, and she hugged me tight. “You were right, Shell,” she said into my shoulder. “He was a total asshole. They were both assholes.”

  I patted her back. “It’s okay, sweetie. I know you thought he was a good guy.”

  She pulled back, wiping her eyes. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t keep crying about it. I just can’t believe I was such an idiot, you know? I started to believe my own hype. I was just a well-paid call girl, and I thought I really meant something to him. Even though he was having sex with other girls. Even though he only saw me as some sort of consolation prize since his brother died. He tried to pass me off to a completely different man, Shell. He tried to send me away, to go have sex with this fat businessman, and he didn’t even think about my feelings. He thought of me like a possession. Like a rug or something that he could give away as a house-warming present. Jackass.”

  I led her into the house. Cade’s house. Well, my house now too. I’d been staying here with him for the past couple months, and I was fairly settled in. We were domestic and boring, and it was wonderful. “Can I get you something to drink?” I said. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”

  “I feel like it’s all I can talk about.” She shook her head. “It’s like I was completely blinded to all of it. After Raakin tried to give me away, it was like it all started to fall apart. I thought back on things that Larbi did, and I realized that he had been using me too. He might have given me expensive gifts and all of that, but he didn’t mean it. And then I started looking into those terrorist groups that they said he funded? Oh my God, Shell, you would not believe the shit they do. They’re awful. And he was awful. And I…” She brushed at her tears again. “But listen to me going on about this. We should be talking about you. You’re pregnant!” She hugged me again.

  I hugged her too. “You’re sure you’re okay with this?” I said, pulling back. “With seeing Cade? Because I know that you think—”

  “Well, you said he’s retired, right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, he’s out of the business. Said he wouldn’t want to bring that into our lives with a baby around. Said we’d always be in danger if he didn’t cut ties.”

  “Well, it’s like I said. I’ll keep quiet about it if you promise never to tell mom and dad that I was a high-class hooker.”

  I laughed. “I still can’t believe that they somehow missed all of that on the news.”

  “I can. They spend all their time watching old shows on Netflix. I think they miss everything.”

  “Yeah, they’re completely out of it, all right.”

  She smiled at me. “So, it’s all going to be okay.”

  I smiled back. “Yeah. Definitely.”

  We just grinned at each other for a few minutes.

  “About the drink,” I said. “We have wine. I don’t drink it, even though a glass now and then is probably okay, but I’m paranoid, and so I don’t. Or we have mint tea. I drink that all the time, because it calms my stomach.” I had the worst nausea. Ugh. It was terrible. But the mint tea was a gift from God. It made everything better.

  “Tea’s good.”

  I went into the kitchen, and got the tea out of the refrigerator.

  She followed me. “So, this thing you wanted to tell me? What is it? What’s the big secret?”

  I got out a glass and poured. I almost wished she’d taken the wine. I kind of wanted her a little bit tipsy when I told her. I handed her the tea. “It’s just something I think you should now. About when we were in high school. About the sex tape of you that got leaked.”

  “Oh, Shell.” She shook her head. “I’ve always known it was you.”

  I furrowed my brow, and I froze. “You… you have?”

  “Who else could have done it? The only copy was on my laptop,” she said. “It had to be someone in our house, and I know it wasn’t one of our parents. I knew it was you.”

  “But you never said anything. And I’m so sorry that I did it, because I feel like I ruined your whole life.”

  “No.” She laughed, taking a drink of the tea. “No, I never said anything, because you kind of did me a favor. I wanted out of that life that I’d created for myself, where everything was perfect, and I had to do everything right, and there was all this pressure. I made the stupid sex tape in the first place to be brazen and crazy and do something irresponsible. After you put it out there, it shattered that image of me right away. It was what I wanted. I wanted to be free. In some ways, I was grateful.”

  “But you…” I poured myself some tea. “Really?”

  She smiled. “Really.” She sat down on a stool, resting her elbows on the kitchen island. “But now I think I’d like to be a little bit less reckless. I’ll write my memoirs and then maybe I’ll make up a pen name and write erotica for a living. Like that stuff you’re always reading with the bear shifters.”

  “That is not erotica, it is romance,” I said primly.

  She shrugged. “Tomato, tomotto.” She grinned evilly at me. “Not all of us can find ourselves a hitman sugar daddy, you know.”

  “It’s not like that. I am still doing my webcomics, and they’re starting to take off, and I’m making money. I’m helping.” Some crazy person had even donated five thousand dollars a couple months ago. I kept thinking they had accidentally typed in too many zeroes and would be asking for a refund, but Cade said it was cool to go ahead and spend it.

  “Okay,” she said. “You’re helping.”

  “I am.” I folded my arms over my chest. When it came to Starling, we were always going to fight, weren’t we?

  She got up and came over to me, putting an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, let’s not squabble. Where is he, anyway? Is he afraid to see me again?”

  “He’s working on stuff. He’s building this whole addition onto the house for the baby, and he’s very serious about getting it perfect. He’ll be back in later, I assure you.”

  Together, Starling and I started into the living room, both clutching our mint teas.

  “So, that’s it, then, huh?” she said. “You get the fairy tale?”

  “Yeah,” I said, laughing. If the fairytale came with big guns, lots of danger, and a hell of a lot of nausea, then yeah, call me Cinderella.

  * * *

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