Chapter 18 – Skylar
SKYLAR
“How long have you two been married?” the waiter at La Bella Mia asks us.
“It’s our wedding night,” Braelyn tells him. “That’s why we’re celebrating.”
The waiter gives her a happy, indulgent smile. “That’s fabulous. Congrats. This cake is on the house. Thank you for celebrating with us.”
“No, thank you. That pasta was delicious.”
He leaves us with our cake and the glowing candle in it. I cock an eyebrow at my friend, but she unrepentantly shrugs.
“What? It’s free cake.”
“Our wedding night?”
She beams a smile at me. “Is it not, sugar plum?”
“If only. Then I wouldn’t be pregnant or married to Aston.”
“You mean the man who kissed you sideways until all you saw were spinning lights?”
“Ha! So funny.”
“Make a wish before this candle drips wax all over my chocolate frosting.”
I close my eyes and make a wish because right now I need all the wishes I can get. With one exaggerated blow, I knock that candle out, and Braelyn cheers for me like she did when I turned six.
“Nice.” She goes straight for her fork. “You do know this won’t stop me from going down the street for the pastries I was promised, right?”
“Girl, I’m pregnant. We’re getting the big box.”
She holds her fork up to clink it with mine. “This is why I love you. But you have to try this. It’s orgasmically good.” She gulps, crumbs of chocolate cake sticking to her lips. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’ll have a real orgasm one day.”
“Do you remember when we were little and thought boys had cooties?”
I nod. “Simpler days.” I fork a bite of cake into my mouth, and though it’s not the wedding cake of my dreams—that’s champagne cake with strawberry cream filling and buttercream frosting—this is damn close.
“When are you going to tell everyone else about the pregnancy?”
“If I can avoid it, after I have the ultrasound in three weeks.”
“You can tell them before that.”
“I know. I might have to if it spreads around the hospital.”
“They’ll be on your side. Even Aston’s.”
I don’t reply, just continue to shovel more chocolate into my mouth.
“Are we going to talk about the kiss? Or the vows? Or the ring?”
I shake my head. “It’s not real.”
She hooks her brown curls behind her ears like she’s about to get down to business with me, her brown eyes telling me I’m not fooling her for a second. “He kissed you. And bought you an epic ring.”
“So it would look real.”
“Do you really believe that?” She’s genuinely asking. “Because, and I’m not trying to stir drama, I’m really not, but… he looked at you like… and then he kissed you like…” She glances up as if searching for the right words. “Like he meant it.”
“He didn’t,” I say reflexively, though that kiss certainly had my toes curling in my heels and my stupid pussy getting wet. Pregnancy hormones are bitches like that, or so I’ve been told. They make sluts out of the most pious chicks. Not me, of course.
“Fine. Tell me one dirty thing you want done to you that you’d never admit to.”
I belt out a laugh. “What?”
“I mean it. It’s our wedding night. This is sacred trust ground. You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”
I lean back in my seat, taking my fork loaded with chocolate cake with me.
It’s milk chocolate and therefore inferior, but I’ll manage it.
I nibble on it as I think. “I just want to feel beautiful under someone’s touch.
I want them to be so crazy with desire that they can’t hold back.
I know that’s not dirty or slutty or sexy.
I’m not going to ask him to tie me up—though I do think that’s hot—and I’m not going to ask him to put me over his knee and spank me—though I wouldn’t say no to that either.
But for starters, I want a guy I feel comfortable enough with that I have a real orgasm. ”
Her elbow digs into the table, and she rests the side of her head against her hand. “I love that for you, and I know you’ll get it. You will. For me, I want a guy who can handle my spirit without breaking it. But I also want to be pushed to my limits to see how far I can go. You know?”
“Is that not Adam?”
She considers this for a moment. “Sometimes I think it is. Sometimes I can get him past his comfort zone, and he’ll dominate me a bit. Sometimes I’m not sure he knows what to do with me and finds me more amusing and cute than anything else. ”
“Maybe Adam has a hidden dominant in him?”
She glances down at her ring. “I don’t think so. But it’s okay. It’s a fantasy, right? Not reality. Maybe we don’t get all the things. Maybe we get most of them and learn to live without the rest.”
“Maybe. No one is perfect. No situation is either. But that doesn’t mean I’ll settle for less than I deserve again.”
“I’ll drink to that.” We lift our glasses and clink them together. “He kissed you,” she says, changing the subject.
I stare down at the plate. “He did.”
“Was it good? Like the first time?”
“It was good. Different from the first time.”
“Can you not have more of that?”
“Braelyn, I’m pregnant with another man’s child and only married to Aston because he wants me to help him with his kid.
Yes, he kissed me. But I’m not sure that made me special.
He kissed me much harder than that when I was a stranger in a dark room.
That kiss was for the cameras. I remember Micha talking about all the women he used to go around kissing.
All the women they’d hook up with. I don’t have time or space to be another man’s doormat, something they can use to wipe their feet on but don’t bother to bring inside. ”
“Then here’s to us. Brilliant, bold, guileless, and masters of our own universes. May the men come to us and may fortune follow the routes we pick for ourselves.”
“Cheers.”
An hour later, I’m walking through the door with a giant box of pastries.
I bought extras for Zoey and Aston. My attempt at a peace offering for the latter.
He’s not a bad man. Actually, I think he’s a good man.
And now he’s my husband, and I don’t want to fight with him anymore.
I want this to be peaceful and amicable.
Not more than that. That’s a big fat no for me. But I want this arrangement to work.
Especially if I decide I’m not going to tell Josh the baby is his.
The lights are out downstairs, and the house feels empty. My rings hit a random beam of light coming from somewhere, causing the diamonds to sparkle and dazzle, drawing my focus there.
He bought me so many diamonds. Such beautiful rings.
I moved my engagement ring to my wedding band finger, and the two are just…
god, they’re stunning. I’m married. It’s real and legal.
And my family doesn’t know. My parents are going to be crushed.
My friends too. It’s not the first time I’ve kept secrets from them, but this is different.
I’m pregnant with one man’s child and married to another, and will I ever get my life on the track I want it to be on?
I thought I was getting there. Until this happened, I really thought I was getting there. My chest feels tight, making it difficult to take in a breath.
“I spoke to Micha,” comes from the family room. My head snaps up, and I squint against the dark to find Aston sitting on the sofa alone with not even the fire to keep him company.
My heart picks up an extra few beats. “Did you tell him about the baby?”
“No. That’s for you to tell him. I started to tell him we were married, and he cut me off because he had to go.”
I laugh. “Sounds like typical Micha.”
Aston rises from the sofa and comes into the kitchen. He spots the box and slides it across the stone toward him, untying the red-and-white ribbon wrapped around it so he can open it up.
“I can’t decide if he’ll be pissed at me or not when I tell him.”
“I honestly have no clue,” I admit. “He’s hard to read like that. Just when you think you know what he’s thinking and how he’ll react to something, he surprises you.”
Aston picks up a crème puff with a chocolate glaze and takes a bite.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“But these are my favorites.” He stares down at the half-eaten crème puff in his hand, and I roll my eyes.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant we could have called him together.”
“I had to. He’s my best friend, and I married his baby sister. A baby sister he’s very protective of.”
“Right.” So his loyalties are forever to him and not me. Which explains everything. The marriage and the extra-level kiss for the cameras. “How will you appease him?”
“I’ll tell him I wouldn’t have done it unless it was necessary and to help you.”
I swallow and nod, pushing myself up onto the counter so I don’t have to look at him so directly. I don’t know why that bothers me, but it does, and it’s stupid. Aston isn’t my hero. I’m my hero. He’s simply the guy I’m using as my shield while I fight my own battles.
“I need to tell my family. My parents. Micha. Jesus, I need to tell my grandmother.”
“Can I not be in the room when you tell Octavia?”
My lips twist into a wry smile. “My grandmother is cooler than you think. Think of all the things my family has put her through over the years. All the scandals.”
“Octavia scares me. She’s not someone I’d ever want to upset or disappoint.”
I snort. “Take a number. She scares and charms everyone. That’s her superpower.” I pause. Hesitate. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he replies, finishing off the crème puff and closing the lid on the pastries.
“I need you to be very honest.”
His eyes meet mine. “Skylar, I feel like that’s something we both have to be with each other, so that’s how I’ll always be with you.”
Warmth rolls over me and makes me brave. “I don’t think I want to tell Josh the baby is his.”
He stands up to his full height and walks around the island until he’s pressed against the opposite counter from me. His hands clasp the stone, and he hoists himself up, the same way I did, but now there’s no escaping him. His eyes are directly on mine, and we’re face-to-face.
“That’s not a question.”
My head bobs, and I stare down at my hands.
“It’s different. So different. I don’t know everything that happened with you and your ex, and you’re nothing like Josh.
But, for a minute, can you try to imagine you’re him and she’s me?
” I push out a breath and cover my face with my hands.
“No. That isn’t right. I don’t know.” My hands hit my thighs, and I stare over at him.
“I just need to know if that’s wrong or not.
It doesn’t feel wrong. It feels safe and right, not just for me, but for the baby.
But I also want to think that maybe the knowledge that he’s going to be a father will…
snap him out of this and make him… I don’t know. A better man, maybe.”
“I can’t imagine my life without Zoey, and while my ex did a lot to hurt me, she gave me her and never made it so that I couldn’t see her whenever I wanted to.
But I never hurt my ex. Not intentionally or even unintentionally.
And I’d never ever hurt Zoey, which she knew.
I can’t tell you what to do here, Skylar.
This has to be your decision and your decision alone.
But I will tell you that you have to follow your gut because your instincts are usually right. ”
I had a feeling he was going to say that, and I obviously still have a lot of thinking to do on this. I don’t like the idea of keeping a father from his child. But I don’t like the idea of that father being dangerous to my child or using them like a weapon either.
I scrunch my nose at him. “We’re married.”
A lazy sort of smile curls his lips. “I have the band to prove it.” He holds up his left hand.
“Except it’s not real. We’re not even consummating it.”
That smile grows into something dark and sexy. Without a word, he hops off the counter, and suddenly he’s in front of me, his hands on either side of my thighs and his face inches away.
“Would it be real if I made my wife come?”
My breath hitches before I can stop it, but I do my best to brush it off. “Ha, ha. You have a real thing about that.”
“I do, actually. I have a very big thing about that. It’s kept me up at night. It’s given me fantasies. It’s triggered my voracious competitive side.”
I fold my arms, trying to create some distance between us. He doesn’t smell like alcohol. In fact, his breath smells like the crème puff, sweet and enticing and forbidden.
“Why?” I tease. “Because your arrogant ass thinks you could go where no man has ever gone before?”
He doesn’t even smile. There is no teasing to him when he unequivocally says, “Yes.”
I snort, still trying to remain unaffected when, let’s face it, I’m not. I’m an emotional baggage mess. I’m the girl who legit could use a screaming orgasm right now the way no other woman could. But let’s not confuse things. I mean, the man who is offering said orgasm comes at a price.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to do that? Just because you’re a cocky dick and think you’re better at everything than everyone else?”
“Yes,” he says again, but he leans in, his nose gliding along my cheek up toward my ear, where he speaks against it.
“My sweet little swan, I’d be more than happy to show you just what kind of cocky dick I can be.
But I think for this, for tonight, I should simply show you what an orgasm from a man who knows what he’s doing feels like. ”
I’m hot. It must be ten thousand degrees in here because I’m sweating and flushed and I have the insane urge to rip off all of my clothes so I can cool down. Is this a pregnancy thing? Do women get hot flashes when they’re pregnant?
“We can’t.”
He pulls back and meets my eyes. “Why not?”
“Because you’re my fake husband and my brother’s best friend, and we have to live together for two years. Oh, and I don’t like you.”
“All the more reason that I should. You don’t like me, and it’s not as though anything will happen again after this. What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t know what my wife tastes like?”
Wow. That’s a strangely valid point. No! Wait. It’s not. Ah! I cover my face with my hands. “Stop talking. We said we wouldn’t do this. We can’t break that rule on day one.”
“Skylar Fritz Davenport Hughes, I’d like to slide your dress up your thighs, drop to my knees, and eat your cunt until you come all over my face.”
My hands fall and my eyes bulge. Holy motherfuck… “Did you just say that?”
“Consider it my wedding present.”
I tilt my head, already soaking through my panties to the point where these fuckers are ruined. I’ve never been more turned on. But yet.
“I’m broken. You’ll never be able to make me come. Men have tried. Trust me. They’ve all failed.”
A glint of mischief and determination flickers in his eyes. “Challenge accepted. Hands back on the counter, thighs spread wide. I want your heels to stay on and your eyes on mine. And I want you to be a good girl and say yes. Right now.”