Marriage (Red, White &) Blues (Unexpectedly Married #2)

Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

I was a terrible mother—There, I said it. A temporary fix and for good reason, but my Georgie Boy and Princess Miranda would learn to forgive me in time. Pen and Ant agreed to keep my fur-babies longer without an issue. But Ant went apoplectic when he found out the why.

“You can’t tell me Blake is fine with this,” he yelled at me and I’d never heard the man raise his voice in the entirety of our friendship.

“Blake would prefer I not travel but we don’t always get what we want.” When Ant tried to counterpoint, I held my hand up. “We have to figure out who set me up.”

“I’m aware.”

“Yeah, well, to do that, everyone paying attention has to think we’re broken up. There’s no way Candice didn’t shout that shit from the rooftops. Now we wait for them to reveal themselves.”

“It’s devious, I’ll give you that,” Pen said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Absolutely. It was meant as one.”

“And that’s why I love you, Penelope von Dutton-McCain.”

“Really?” he asked and pointed to himself. “What about me? Don’t I get some of that action?”

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Of course, I love you but she gets me.”

Pen patted my arm. “If you need me, I’ll be on a plane within the hour. Promise.”

“ We’ll be,” Ant corrected her, and I had to laugh at the man. It was no wonder that Ant and Blake got on so well. I gave Pen a one-armed hug, then gave Ant his too. Georgie and Miranda got a million scratches and head kisses before I had to go.

I turned the handle, yanked the door open but turned one last time to say, “Thank you both,” before getting the heck out of there. My nose burned, the first sign of imminent tearage.

Despite the grand exit, I still had no idea where to go. My big plan involved staring at the departure board for the international flights that left the soonest and checking for tickets. That was how I ended up on a flight to Guam.

Guam . I know. Water and warm weather? Who could say no to that? I left Blake a voicemail before takeoff.

This time, I flew first class. It. Was. Everything. But I still had work to do.

Make Them Think I’ve Left Blake checklis t:

#1 Find a nice room . Check.

#2 Rent a Car . Check.

#3 Research Obstetricians . Check.

Rather than renting a room at one of the resorts, I rented a Verbo house. It had a pool and fit my needs. And because I was trying not to draw attention to myself, I rented a metallic red Toyota Corolla. As for my obstetrician, Dr. Cruz was happy to fit me in as I waited out my time in paradise.

After I’d landed, I found out the results of the election. Congratulations President-elect Brockton Parker— not . I’d never congratulate that man and I didn’t have to. He lost. The big L for Loser . I shimmied with happiness, doing a little dance right there in the airport. Did I get looks? Yes. Did I care? Not one bit.

Blake and I talked every night but even between two of the richest families in America, they still weren’t getting the answers they needed.

“Maybe you should just come home,” Blake said one night while we lay in our respective beds mostly naked. His words helped to get me off, but nothing compared to having the man moving inside me.

“What if it starts again. We have the baby to think about. I can’t bring a child into that toxic world.”

“I miss you, Glory. You good with missing Christmas?”

“No. What do you want me to do?”

“We got about a month and a half. My fucking mother keeps pushing ‘eligible’ women my way and Jupiter is pissed at me.”

“Come here for Christmas. We’ll spend it together. You don’t have to tell anyone you’re coming to see me.” Sometimes I had the best ideas.

Our first married Christmas together— wow . I missed Thanksgiving with my mom and friends, but for Christmas, Pen, Ant and Sierra showed first. Blake and I flew my mother, Carl and Lola in, putting them up in a nice hotel. We ate way too much good food, exchanged gifts, and generally enjoyed family time.

The holiday went too fast and they all had to go back to reality. Seeing the people I loved most in the world leave hurt way more than I thought it would, and I knew it would suck.

Finally, February rolled around. Mr. Groundhog saw his shadow. Six more weeks of winter didn’t really mean much in Guam, but I felt for my peeps back home. I now had a noticeable baby bump given I was squarely into my second trimester. During the day, I volunteered at local charity centers. At night, I watched television while researching baby names on my computer and I solved a lot of crossword puzzles.

But this time of day, that small window of time between day and night, I spent it on the beach watching the water. I befriended a local woman named Cheryl. She and her husband, Duane, ran a boat tour. They took me out on the ocean several times. We saw moray eels, stingrays, and sharks. We also got to witness dolphins and these mammals called pilot whales, basically the short-finned cousin of dolphins, swimming and playing off the coast. Pilots were dark gray with white anchors on their bellies. You could never confuse them for dolphins because of their bulbous heads and lack of a beak.

Yes, I missed my friends and I FaceTimed Georgie Boy and Princess Miranda just about every night. Our furry kids no longer lived with the Von Dutton-McCains. Blake missed us all too much. Knowing he couldn’t bring me home yet, he packed them up and now they were Vermonters too.

Once the sun set, I walked back up to my place. The whole house smelled of the kaddon pika that I’d kept simmering in the Crock-Pot all day. Cheryl shared the recipe with me. A spicy chicken stew made with vinegar, garlic, onions, and other stuff that made magic in your mouth. Pure, unadulterated magic. I heated the red rice—another Guam staple—in the microwave with a piece of dampened paper towel over the top of the opened container to steam it. After dinner, I lay down on the bed to watch some television and then drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, I showered and dressed for the day, then I walked down to the local library, where I helped children with reading issues. I tutored children three days a week and my schedule filled up fast. My first student of the day, a little girl named Gabby, walked in holding her mother’s hand. She was of indigenous ancestry and had that gorgeous golden skin and dark hair combination. Her mother worked at the library and after our tutoring session, her grandmother came to pick her up. I spent two hours with Gabby. Then I saw Theo, Nathaniel, Danica, and my last student of the day, Wally, who entered without a parent. He usually did because he got dropped off by the school. Wally was a little older and needed just a little more help. So instead of heading home when his school day ended, he came to me. I adored Wally, too. He carved me decorations for my room out of driftwood. The kid had serious talent.

“When are you going to buy a house?” he asked me while we picked out a book to read.

“I’m not.”

“Gloria, you have to be running out of wall space. Plus, how will you and the baby live in a rental?”

“I’ve told you this is temporary.”

“Why? You should move here.”

“I should do a lot of things,” I said to shut down this topic that he always seemed to start up, but he simply smirked in a way that let me know he’d stop now, but that this discussion was far from finished.

Wally was just one more person to add to my growing list of friends here on the island.

At the end of the day, I took the bus home rather than walk. If my day didn’t start too early, I liked to get my steps in. Healthy mama, healthy baby. I was kind of tired though, and wanted to rest before heading out to the beach. I walked up the private sidewalk to my door, using the key to open it, then stopped short when Georgie Boy leapt up onto me, almost hugging me with his front paws.

“Georgie Boy?” I cried. “In my living room?”

I gently nudged him off me, then bent down to give him snuggles and kisses. “I missed you, buddy.” Yes, I should’ve been asking, “How the hell did you get here?” but that had to wait. He needed his mommy kisses. Then I saw Princess Miranda. Quickly, I closed the door and knelt to scratch her ears. She rubbed her head against my hand and purred.

“Missed you, too, sweet girl.”

“How about me?” Oh, shit . Blake. My head whipped up fast enough to cause momentary dizziness and I ran lunging for the man, leaping up into his arms.

“Oh my God, I’m going to cry,” I cried and peppered his face with a million kisses.

“Fuck, baby,” he said, holding my face, he kissed me back. “Your nipples are rock hard. They’re poking into my chest.”

“Sorry, that’s kind of a permanent state. Pregnancy side effect. You want me to get down?”

“No. I want to suck them into my mouth.” He moved his hand from my face to adjust his cock in his jeans.

“Okay,” I agreed because I hadn’t felt him inside me since the new year started. My sex pulsated just from the thought of him moving inside it. My sex was a Blake slut. “Sofa?” I asked, hopeful to get this going.

His eyes raged between love and lust as he slowly shook his head. “Bed.”

“You brought the kids.”

He glanced briefly down at them then back up at me. “They missed you, too.”

My husband, the multitasker, carried me to the bedroom while devouring my lips with his kisses. Stealing my breath and wetting my panties. “You’re here,” I said. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Bringing you home.”

“You found—” I started, but he shook his head cutting that idea right off.

“It’s taking too long. I can’t stay away from you. It’s done, babe. Maisie and Dee miss you. The house isn’t the same without you.”

My heart melted. Positively melted. And in the next breath, Blake put a knee to the bed, laying me back and—okay, so we’d established there were different levels of kisses. Regular kisses. Romance novel kisses. Erotic romance kisses. Erotica kisses. And straight-up porn.

All I could say was that Blake skipped right over any of the romance level kisses to porn kiss me in a way that I’d never experienced before. I couldn’t even describe it, aside from saying it was hard and punishing and turned me on—like a light switch. He smelled like sweat and cologne. The smell drove me wild or wild er .

“You my good girl, Glory?”

Slowly, I agreed with a head nod.

“Good. I want you to suck me off.”

My mouth went dry. That tone. Kind but commanding.

“Glory?” he prompted and I licked my lips. “On your knees.”

I scrambled onto my knees. His words shot a trail of heat down to rest in my belly. Then he moved to stand in front of me. His knees hit the side of the mattress. I unbutton his jeans, ripping the zipper open. No boxer briefs. I pushed the jeans down around his hips allowing his erection to spring free. It slapped me on my chin.

“Now, Glory,” he ordered. My husband. The man who changed my life wanted my mouth. Who was I to deny him any longer. I gripped him at the base to get a good hold. He was so big that I usually had trouble getting my mouth around it. Don’t laugh, but I sniffed it first. His cock smelled of body heat and arousal. A heady combination, indeed. Then I darted my tongue out to lick the tip. It tasted salty with a hint of sweet. I looked up at him and he snickered. “I snacked on pineapple the whole way here.”

Pineapple? God, I loved this man. I darted my tongue out again, tightening my grip and rimming the head. Blake hissed and I opened my mouth wide to take more of him in. He stared down at me, watching my every move. Then I shoved my hands inside his jeans, running my fingernails up the soft hair on the backs of his thighs to cup his ass. He clenched, shivering, shoving his cock to the back of my throat and I gag. He tried to pull out but I kept him right where he was, collapsing my cheeks I sucked so hard, bobbing my head. He thrust forward to meet me, but as I drew back, he gripped the back of my hair, keeping me exactly where he wanted me and this turned from a blowjob to him—well, there was no delicate way to say this, he fucked my face.

So turned on, he used zero finesse, and I felt like I was choking on every down glide.

“Been dreaming of this,” he admitted, squeezing his eyes closed and grunting, yet he ripped his erection from my mouth. I looked up at him confused. “Not cuming in your mouth. I want you naked.”

I heard his words but continued to sit on my knees, too turned on to function, sex drunk—absofreakinglutely sex drunk. He got tired of waiting and grabbed the hem of my sundress, ripping it up over my head. My nipples poked out from my bra like little gun barrels. My pink cotton panties were soaked. He used his teeth to pull them down my legs.

“Tug your nipples and spread for me.”

Reaching behind my back, I unclasped my bra, tossing it to the other side of the bed and lay back, spreading my legs wide. At the first tug of pinky flesh, I hissed. Blake sucked my—yes, I was about to say it again—he sucked my clit into his mouth, sucking hard and my bottom shot up off the bed.

“Sensitive,” he mumbled. Yes. Wacky pregnancy hormones did that. Instead of going back in, he moved unhurried and with soft caresses up my body, until reaching my bump. He cupped it in his large hands, kissing it right above my belly button. “My baby’s in here. Growing. You’re a miracle, Glory.”

He kissed up and over my belly, giving attention to each breast, up my neck and then as he reached my mouth, he glided inside my sex. “Touch yourself while I fuck you, sweetheart.”

Blake sat up in an upright position on his knees, draping my legs over his thighs.

“Now,” he ordered. “I want to watch you get yourself off while I’m inside you.”

As Blake’s good girl, I had no choice but to do as he said, gliding my hand down to press the magic spot. He started moving. I pressed and rubbed, and used my other hand to tug my nipple.

“Fuck,” he grumbled, thrusting, moving the whole bed, the joints creaking and the headboard cracking against the wall. I bit my lip, trying desperately to hold back the cry because when the cry came, so would I. Faster. Faster. Hard and rough, just the way I liked it, until we reached the frenzied peak. “You getting close, baby?”

“I—” I lost it, soaking his dick and the bed under me, and so did he. Spilling out. I would never get tired of the feel of him cuming inside me.

“You?” he teased, still on his knees between my thighs. His hands rested on his jeans and his eyes never left me, my body, while flashing me a very pleased-with-himself grin.

“I think we needed that.” I patted the bed next to me to get him to lay down.

And right then, as he moved to my side, I decided that if he wanted porn, I’d porn him the rest of the night. Well, okay, with a few stops for bathroom breaks, for something to drink, to have dinner and take care of our fur-babies—porn took a lot out of a girl—but fortification complete, I rocked his world.

As a matter of fact, we porned it up until we passed out from literal coital exhaustion, and then we porned it up again the next morning. I ended up calling off from my day’s volunteer jobs because as Blake got dressed to get us breakfast, he decreed, “Now that we’ve had our reunion, it’s time for ‘we’re having a baby’ sex.”

My insatiable husband, dear readers.

Believe it or not, he agreed to have us stay through the end of the month to give me a chance to say goodbye to all of my new friends. They were surprised to meet Blake, to say the least, and we had to explain his sudden appearance to a few of them like Cheryl and Duane.

Wally took the news of my leaving about as well as I thought he would, that was to say not at all. I never said a word about Blake or why I’d showed up to the island alone, but the kid was as smart as a whip and very protective of me.

He got right in Blake’s face. “You show up here, force her to leave with you?”

I placed my hand on his vibrating arm. Wally was livid. “Wall, he’s not forcing me. It’s just time.”

“I don’t buy it. He hurt you—I know he did. The kindest woman in the world doesn’t show up here, of all places, from the mainland, pregnant, and not have been hurt in some way.”

“Wally—” I tried again, but he cut me off.

“No, Gloria. He doesn’t get to hurt you again. I won’t let him.”

As my heart grew exponentially with love for this kid, respect shone in my husband’s eyes. “I’m not here to hurt her. I promise. But we live in Vermont. It’s time for her to come home. But, Wally, can I ask you to be one of our baby’s godparents?”

His head jerked back. “ Me ?” he asked.

“You.”

“But I’m only fifteen.”

“That doesn’t matter to me, if it doesn’t matter to you. We want you to teach the baby all the things you’d teach him or her if Glory still lived here. We’ll FaceTime and come for visits.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course. Do you think Glory would leave you forever?”

“I didn’t think you’d?—”

“Let me impart some wisdom, man to man,” Blake said, cutting him off. “Happy wife, happy life. If my wife is happy, then I’m happy. And that advice works whether you end up with a wife, a husband, or a partner. When they’re happy, you’re happy.”

Wally nodded, as if he really understood this logic. “So, you’ll bring her back?”

“If I didn’t, she’d come on her own. We’ve already established that.”

My wonderful friend laughed. “Okay. Then yeah—I’d love to be one of the baby’s godparents. My mom’s going to flip.”

I hugged Wally good and hard with tears running down my cheeks once again, but I also did it laughing. I’d miss him and Cheryl and Duane. I’d miss tutoring Gabby and all the others. I’d miss the ocean and the boat tours. I’d miss everything about the island. But I’d be back.

Time to go home.