Chapter 19 – Peter
Chapter Nineteen
Peter
Ipark outside of Aricia’s house with a pounding chest. Is there another man in there?
There’s a car parked next to hers that looks nowhere near as luxurious as Aricia’s.
If she does have some man in there, I’m sure he’s nothing but some thug after her money driving a car with no back light and all those bumper stickers.
Is that why she’s ignoring my calls?
Insecurities that I never knew I had surge in my chest. I don’t know when Aricia developed this strong pull over me, but I feel utterly weakened by the idea of another man having her.
I feel utterly prepared to act on my darkest urges and to justify my desire to maim and kill whoever she has by my certainty that Aricia carries my child.
I never thought I would feel this strong biological pull towards breeding, but the moment I awakened near Aricia’s full-figure, breeding became all I could think about. I won’t let another man near a woman carrying my child… ever.
Spurred by my concerns and my increasingly disturbing thoughts about whoever might have their hands on Aricia, I fling my car door open and with one hand on my pistol, I storm up to Aricia’s front door and pound on it…
intensely. I don’t mean to sound angry, but I feel as if I truly pounded on her door.
I take a step back from the door, trying to cool my emotions.
This isn’t like me. My feelings for Aricia put me in this deeply vulnerable state that I can neither escape nor explain.
She takes too long to get to the door. I knock on the door again, and a woman throws it open after my third knock.
She yelps and I swear I recognize her but…
I don’t know where I’ve seen her before.
“Are you Peter?”
“Is Aricia home?”
I don’t answer her question, mostly out of instinct rather than wanting to intimidate this young woman, who seems very comfortable here.
“Yes, she’s home. I’m here working on a case with her but… I’m about to leave.”
“Are you?” I hear her crystal voice before the shadow behind the girl in the doorway reveals the person I’m here looking for.
Aricia materializes behind the short girl with the prominent nose. She’s much taller and more Amazonian than her employee and my dick jumps in my pants the second I catch the slightest detail of Aricia’s physique.
That hot woman is pregnant and built exactly how I like my women.
She’s tall, sturdy, and thick in all the right places, which only pales in comparison to Aricia’s dynamic mind.
Her financial independence is totally uncommon in my world.
Half the reason Angela, Cosima, and the other failure-to-launch daughters in my family have the problems they do is because they lack ambition for anything worthwhile.
I blame our fathers, but the results are staggering regardless of who you blame. Aricia lacks that air-headed weakness I’ve naturally come to despise and associate with the worst parts of my family’s traditional culture.
“Hello, Aricia.”
“Hi, Peter.”
Her voice only adds to her attractiveness.
I can’t help but let my eyes scan her from head to toe, soaking in the visual details of her work-from-home outfit and her alluring curves.
She’s so thick it hurts. Aricia gives me motivation to hit the gym because I always want to have the strength to throw her thick thighs over my head and split her pussy lips open with my tongue.
“I’m going to leave,” Rana says. “I’ll just reorder for myself, okay?”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Please, Aricia. I think I should.”
Why doesn’t she want to talk to me? I feel disturbed that I might have done something horribly wrong the last time I saw her. There’s no way she hated the way my palm felt against her ass when she came so hard from that encounter. It must be something else.
Aricia says her goodbyes to the girl I learn is called Rana. I feel like an idiot for nearly causing a scene over the car.
“What are you doing here, Peter?” Aricia asks as soon as we’re alone together. “How did you know where I live?”
She bought a new house and moved from the house she shared with her late husband, but that didn’t mean she was hard to track down.
Most of the realtors in the area have some connection to our family.
Vicari Properties out in Syracuse gave me the contact I needed to narrow down my options and I drove around to four different houses before finding the right one.
“You didn’t answer my calls and I was worried about you,” I answer casually, taking in all the details about Aricia that I can since she hasn’t pushed me away.
“I work at a law firm. That means working until late sometimes.”
This isn’t about working late. This is about the unanswered questions between us and the shit I saw in Pittsburgh.
The dead kid. How do I even tell her what the hell happened over there?
Good news, I found out who drugged us. Bad news, the guy is dead and his pipsqueak girlfriend is now working as my Aunt Viviana’s live-in maid until she gets on her feet.
I wouldn’t mention to Aricia that the pipsqueak is also spying for us…
“I know but… I told you, I was worried.”
I want her to unwrap those arms from around her waist and let me hold her, but Aricia only gives me some of what I want. She sighs and makes room for me to enter her house.
“I’m going to ignore your stalker tendencies and let you in because you do seem worried…” She pauses to close the door behind me. “And we do have something serious to talk about.”
Worry surges in my chest again.
“Did something go wrong today?”
Aricia settles on her couch and I boldly sit next to her, even if I’m sure at this point she would prefer some space.
I’m exhausted from the drive and desperate to know what the hell is going on with her since I tried calling her all day to no avail.
She was working from home the entire time, which doesn’t exactly calm my bruised ego.
She gives me an uncomfortable look. I want her to open up to me so badly, and even if I’ve been brash and rude before, everything in Pittsburgh makes me want to cling tightly to Aricia.
I don’t want to let her out of my sight anymore.
I might have Lorena contained and know that her boyfriend is dead, but that didn’t give us more answers about the motive behind this.
“Today was crazy. I don’t want to say it went wrong.”
“The test?”
She looks up at me with wide, dark brown eyes.
I could get lost in them, they’re so deep.
The desire to take her instead of talking with her is strong but…
if I get too obsessed with the physical, I’ll miss out on getting to know Aricia’s soul.
This is the first time in years that I’ve felt this strong spiritual craving to be close to anyone.
I hate that our choice in the matter was taken from us.
There’s no way for me to read Aricia’s mind.
I just have to wait patiently for the answer that has nagged at my mind ever since I had to escape in the middle of the night to handle family business.
I never would have left Aricia’s side otherwise.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“I’m pregnant.”
She waits for my reaction. I let the news sit for only a second before my emotions surge and I have to admit the truth to Aricia.
“Good.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. It’s good. I want to be with you, Aricia.”
She sighs and leans back. “Peter… I can’t.”
What? Instantly, I feel defensive fury in my chest. I would burn the entire world for Aricia.
“Can’t do what?”
“I can’t process being with you when I’m still cleaning up after my last relationship. I’m pregnant. It’s a reality we can’t fight.”
She adjusts her position on the couch to look at me with her wide, serious eyes.
I can see Aricia clearly for who she is – the woman who always had to fix things.
I can see the plan she made for both of us already, and how she doesn’t even realize how burdened she has always been by having to steer the direction of the lives of everyone around her.
“But we’re both adults. We can come up with an agreement and stick to it.”
An agreement? A cold, dispassionate agreement. My eyes blaze with the emotions I’m desperate to restrain. I can tell that I’m utterly transparent to Aricia, which makes it worse.
“It’s nothing you did, Peter. My life is a mess. I have fun with you, but my past is not going to go away.”
“So what? You’re going to handle it all alone?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what your marriage was like?” Her face flickers with anger, and I feel deep satisfaction from having any effect on her emotions.
I want to know that she feels something for me, especially since she just suggested with the calmest look on her face that we could sort out our feelings for each other with a fucking contract.
Would that work for her? Because it wouldn’t work for me in the slightest. There’s too much fire in me for Aricia.
“I don’t need to disclose that information to you, Peter.”
She frustrates me and I don’t want to stay stuck in this frustration. I lean forward and kiss her on the forehead, hoping to snap her out of the moment. Aricia stops pushing me away just long enough for me to kiss the top of her forehead.
“What was that for?” She seems genuinely surprised, as if I’ve kept my feelings from her a secret. Maybe she thought I left because I wanted to be away from her – which of course had nothing to do with it. What I feel for this woman is already so… fierce.
“You’re going to tell me what loose ends from your past need tying up.”
Aricia pulls away from me again, tightening the possessive urge in my chest when it comes to protecting her. She says with a somber, defeated tone, “That’s not going to change anything.”
Is she so used to having nobody protect her? Of having a man who would only cheat on her and hurt her? I can’t bear the thought of Aricia putting me in the same category as a fool who would fumble a successful woman like her.
“Why not?”
“Because trusting you or any man ever again feels… foolish.”
“Have I given you any reason to doubt?”
“We barely know each other, Peter.”
“We have the rest of our lives to know each other. If we can be adults like you said, why can’t we be adults who–”
“Who what?”
“Adults who love each other.”
Aricia’s face falls. “Peter!”
This is not the answer I expected and there’s no chance that I hide my scowl from Aricia either. I didn’t exactly say ‘I love you’, but her reaction is not at all what I expected. That possessive urge inside me surges again. I put my hands on her hips and hold her so she can’t walk away.
Or run away, judging by how she acts.
“Is that too much?”
“Peter, I’m pregnant. And…”
“And?”
She looks up at me as if questioning everything about me and my heart. I want to know the hidden parts of Aricia’s soul. Isn’t that real intimacy? I run my thumbs over her hip bones, my cock getting semi-hard instantly as I touch her hips. “You can trust me, Aricia.”
“Can I?”
“What happened? Tell me what the fuck stands in the way of me loving you and I will remove that obstacle.”
“Remember I’m a lawyer, Peter.”
“I know.”
Aricia sighs. I pull her closer to me and she sinks into my chest. I feel a surge of victory that I can’t explain. Did I really miss her that much? I didn’t expect to miss her this much and now that I have her in my arms, I know that I won’t be letting her go any time soon.
“My ex-husband’s mistress showed up at my office today.”
I did not expect her to tell me that. I pull away from Aricia to get a good look at her face. She’s a lawyer, which she just reminded me of, so it’s hard for me to read the expressions on Aricia’s face when she drops a big detail like that so casually.
“What happened? Did she try to hurt you?” I ask her, putting my thumb on Aricia’s lower lip. Warm. Just like the rest of her. I will do anything to take this woman’s pain away and have her tonight.
“Yes and no. Rana kicked her ass, but she wants more than that. And she’s pregnant.”
Oh?