Chapter 19 #2
Barry’s cheeks darkened at me saying the words “jerk off,” which was funny seeing that he literally got me pregnant. It made me want to say worse, hornier things just to see how red I could make him.
“Sometimes I am,” he agreed. “Not a problem, though.”
“Not a problem for you,” I said. “Feels increasingly like a problem for me. I’m not supposed to lie on my back anymore, and also my stomach is huge as hell, and then there’s you walking around being all caring and nice and looking”—I waved my hand in a circle as if that could encompass all that was him—“like you do.”
“Was that a compliment, Harvey?” Barry whispered, and it did get me to laugh.
“I told you, living together is like living in a pressure cooker.”
Barry bobbed his head, the ruddy pink of his cheeks and the lifting and falling of his chest tipping me off he was as affected by the conversation as I was. His hand remained on my thigh.
“I feel it too,” he muttered.
I shut my eyes, debating if I was really going to do this. “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to release some of the…pressure.”
Barry’s lips parted with an inhale, shocked that I did indeed go there.
Was it a horrible idea? The worst. Would it probably end in nothing good for my no-complications, platonic co-parent plans? Almost definitely. Was I beyond caring? Also definitely.
“I mean, it would be a help for both of us, so maybe we should.”
Barry’s eyes went wider still, like he never in a century thought I would actually agree. I decided to be crystal clear.
“We could have…casual sex. With each other. That is if pregnant women don’t repulse you.”
He squeezed my thigh.
“Hannah.”
“Which, like, whatever, lots of guys feel that way; I don’t get it, but—”
“Hannah,” he said again, firmer. I stopped talking and met his gaze, so stern he almost looked pained.
“I told you. You are so beautiful it makes me mad sometimes, literally angry. Like I have to go on a walk to cool off before I angrily jack off in the dungeon’s bathroom so you won’t hear me moan your name. ”
I would accuse him of lying if he wasn’t gripping my leg so hard while looking moderately furious.
I have not felt especially beautiful these last couple months.
People keep telling me I have that pregnancy glow, but I swear they’re full of shit.
My mom always thinks I’m glowing, and even if I looked like trash, my dad and Ron would still tell me I’m pretty.
“Your teammates are married to models.”
“Yeah, and you’re hotter than them,” he said. “Being pregnant has made it worse somehow. Like when you walk around and half of your belly is out, I have a physical reaction. I think it’s an ancient urge. I should talk to my therapist about it.”
I was speechless, lips parted while he monologued about his baser instincts regarding my body round with his baby.
“There is nothing even remotely repulsive about you,” he concluded.
“So, it wouldn’t be a great pain to have sex with me,” I said, less of a question and more of a confirmation. He stared hard at my face for a long minute, then shook his head slowly. “Say something.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a thick swallow. The weight of his hand on my leg felt like a promise, like potential.
“I’m trying not to scare you.”
My chest rose and fell like he really was scaring me, but it wasn’t fear. I was excited, and one specific part of me was overeager, clenching around nothing.
Barry licked his lips, then lightened his grip on my leg like he’d just noticed.
“I would like nothing more than to relieve pressure with you,” he said finally. “As often as you ask.”
“And if I asked now?”
Barry took a long breath that shuddered out of him, and then it was like a dam cracked, his resolve fading as he closed the distance between us and crashed his mouth into mine.
It was the first time we’d kissed since May—his lips reminded me of summer, the taste of ice cream, the excitement of kissing a stranger.
Only now, he wasn’t a stranger, he was Barry.
Father of my unborn child, too-helpful roommate, hockey star, the single nicest man I’d ever known.
He kissed me like I might pull away at any moment, like I was a flight risk and it was his sole job to keep me grounded by kissing me senseless. It worked. I scrabbled toward him on the bed, and his arms wrapped around my back, pulling my front against his and kissing me.
He pushed me backward, then lowered me to my mountains of pillows as he kneeled over me. Last time I made out with him I didn’t have a big pregnant belly between us, but he didn’t seem to mind, touching me all over, pressing his tongue into my mouth and groaning when I did likewise.
“Should we come up with rules?” I asked, breathless as he lowered his head to lick the side of my neck. “We should probably have rules.”
“What kind of rules? A little late to not get pregnant.”
“Maybe not rules as much as expectations?” I moaned when he reached under my shirt and pinched my nipple. Pregnancy had made them way too sensitive. “You know, so neither of us get the wrong idea.”
Barry seemed distracted by getting his mouth on my boobs immediately. I understood; they’d grown like two sizes in the last months, they were epic. He pulled my shirt up over my bare breast and took a nipple into his mouth. I tugged his hair, but he only groaned.
It felt insane. Like I could’ve come maybe from just that when my vibrator was barely cutting it. I made an embarrassingly loud noise at the feel of his mouth on one tender bud and his fingers on the other.
“What’s the wrong idea, Hannah?” he prompted, mouth full. I blinked, trying to focus.
“This—ah—if we do this, it has to be casual. This doesn’t mean anything.”
Barry paused and met my gaze, his all hot and hooded.
“I mean it,” I said. “Just sex. Nothing romantic.”
Barry squinted, his mouth dropping my boob with a wet pop before putting his hands on either side of my hips, crowding me.
“No hooking up with anyone else,” he said without preamble.
“Hm?”
“My rule. If you want to have sex with someone else, you can’t also be having sex with me.”
“And you?”
“What about me?” Barry’s eyes skipped down to my lips, which still tingled from the ferocity of his kiss.
“You won’t have sex with anyone else either? Even on your road trips?”
Barry tipped his head back and laughed, a breathy sound.
I thumped his shoulder. “You said the guys are always hooking up on the road. There are people in every city who I’m sure would be thrilled to spend a night with the Barry Wright.”
Barry’s eyes lit with mischief. “Sweetheart, don’t talk about me like that. It’s not good for my ego.”
He dropped his mouth back to mine, but I pulled back to maintain a few inches between us. No conversations were going to happen if he kept kissing me like that.
“Focus, Barry.”
“No. So long as you let me, I will not have sex with anyone but you. Not here, not on the road, not if I get propositioned a hundred times.”
“I won’t either,” I squeaked. Damn, just how often was he getting propositioned? I didn’t feel like I was as likely to find even one person I knew who wanted to have sex with me, almost seven months pregnant or not, let alone a hundred. “But after the baby comes, we have to stop.”
“You’ll have just had a baby. So, yeah, we’re not having sex then.”
“No, I mean even after I’m healed. After the baby is born we stop.”
Barry pressed his lips tightly together and didn’t agree. I raised my eyebrows and a moment later he sighed.
“Barry.”
“You said we shouldn’t try anything romantic before the baby comes. Fine. You didn’t say anything about after. There’s a whole lot of after ahead of us.”
“You want to try navigating dating each other while also trying to learn how to be parents?”
“Only because you won’t let me date you before,” he said. “I’d date you so good, starting immediately.”
I groaned. “Barry.”
“Hannah,” he mimicked in the same tone, then lowered his lips back to my neck for little seducing kisses. “Would it be so bad? I promise I’m not a fuck boy. I’ve met so many fuck boys, and I’m not one of them.”
I knew he wasn’t. Anyone could tell this about him, and the same could not be said for most of his teammates. Barry wasn’t even in the realm of fuck boy—he’d learned I was pregnant and was ready to immediately change his life to become a father. A boyfriend, too, if I’d have let him.
I’d marry you, even. If you wanted. Isn’t that what he’d said?
The thought of trying and failing with him when there was already so much at stake—a baby, a literal human—terrified me.
It hardened my resolve that I should not investigate something romantic until we had our feet somewhat beneath us as new parents.
Even sleeping with him was a bad idea, but the problem was this: I really, really wanted to.
“No dating. We can revisit the conversation after the baby’s here. You might get three weeks into co-parenting and realize that I am really not the romantic partner of your dreams.”
Barry bit my shoulder, not hard, and let out a groan that made me laugh.
“I’m serious! The baby might make me a worse roommate than I already am.”
“I like having you as a roommate,” he muttered, kissing the spot he just put his teeth. I pushed his chest lightly until his head was level with mine again. He looked exasperated though amused. “Fine. We revisit the boyfriend question after the baby. Until then, sex is on the table.”
“But it doesn’t mean anything,” I reminded him. “Just sex.”
“And we vow to only have sex with each other.”
I didn’t point out that he didn’t agree to the sex meaning nothing. “Consider it vowed.”
Barry brought one of his hands between us for me to shake. I did, secretly giddy about the way his encompassed mine. Not letting his hand go, I pulled it down between my legs without breaking eye contact.
His gaze went molten, shaking his head with a low laugh. He needed absolutely no coaching before he was back on me.