Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
EASTON
I’m still not used to the silence of my own space. No metal doors clanging shut, no guards shouting count, no stale air pumping through vents that never seem to work. Just peace and quiet.
I sit on the edge of the bed, fingers curling in the sheets like they might disappear if I let go.
I spent way too many nights lying awake on a thin mattress dreaming of this bed, this room.
Harley. And now that I’m here, I can’t shake the fear that I’ll wake up back in a cell if I close my eyes for too long. I’ll blink, and it’ll all be gone.
Harley enters the room, as if hearing my thoughts, and crosses the distance between us. Her steps are slow, steady, and at thirty-four weeks, her belly is leading the way. My chest tightens at the sight of her, all swollen and beautiful, carrying the proof of our love while I’ve been chained away.
“This is real,” she whispers, resting her hand on my shoulder. She always knows what to say to calm the monsters raging in my mind.
I turn into her touch, close my eyes, and breathe her in. “I’ve dreamed about this … about you … for so long.” My voice comes out rough, almost broken.
She climbs onto the bed beside me, and instinct has me reaching out to steady her like she’s the most precious thing I’ve ever held. My palm slips over the curve of her stomach, and right then the baby kicks, strong and sure. My throat burns.
Luckily for us, Kennedy was gracious enough to stay at her parents’ house tonight and let us have privacy.
Not that she would’ve heard anything, the apartment is big enough that she wouldn’t even hear the baby crying at night, but it’s different knowing it’s just us here.
No extra footsteps in the hall, no doors creaking, no one waiting for us to leave the bedroom.
Just me and Harley, the quiet of the night, and the steady rhythm of our baby moving beneath my hand.
After months of living under eyes that never look away, that kind of privacy feels like a miracle.
I kiss her, soft at first, like I have to remind myself what her lips taste like. It deepens fast, too fast; months of wanting, of missing her, pouring out in one breath. My hands roam slowly, reverent, memorizing the new lines of her body. The stretch of her skin.
Every time I hesitate, she murmurs against my mouth, “It’s okay. I want you. I’ve missed you.”
Still, fear grips me. “Are you sure?”
She cuts me off with another kiss. “I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure.”
“You’re so beautiful, Harley. God, you’re more beautiful than I ever knew.” The words come out rough, almost breathless. I press my lips to the curve of her stomach, my hands spreading wide to cradle the swell that holds our future.
A fierce, dizzy pride rushes through me knowing she’s carrying something we created together, that every kick and flutter inside of her belongs to us.
I never expected this to undo me in the way it has, to make me ache and burn with the need to hold her, to protect her, to love her in every way possible.
“I can’t believe this is real,” I whisper against her skin. “That you’re mine. That this baby is ours.”
Her fingers thread into my hair, guiding me closer. And in that moment, every part of me, heart, body, and soul want nothing more than to worship her, to make sure she never doubts how wanted she is.
“I’m yours, Easton. All yours,” she whispers, her eyes shining with tears as they lock on mine.
For a second, I forget how to breathe. After months of steel bars, cold benches, and strangers defining me by the worst moments of my life, those words break through everything.
She isn’t just saying them about tonight, about the way we’re touching now, she is handing me her heart all over again, telling me she hasn’t wavered, even when I gave her every reason to.
I cup her face, my thumb brushing away a tear before it can fall. “And I’m yours, Little Bird. Always.”
“I need you. I need you inside me now.”
Fighting the grin that tugs at my lips, I look up at her as I slowly pull her panties down her legs and push her dress up, exposing her belly and breasts.
“Tell me again.”
“I’ve been going crazy. Some nights all I think about is how it feels when you first slide inside me.
And then I feel like a sex crazed maniac because sometimes it’s all I can think about at all,” she admits, her cheeks turning dark red in embarrassment.
She has no idea how much that little admission just turned me on.
“Tell me more, what have you wanted the most?” I carefully pull her dress over her head and kiss her cheeks, and then her lips, slowly trailing down her body.
My hands trace every inch, new and old, worshipping the parts I know she hates, and taking extra time to kiss the stretch marks.
I tell her with my hands and my mouth how beautiful she is, how proud I am of what her body is doing.
“Close your eyes and tell me what got you off every night.”
“I didn’t?—”
I cut her off. “Don’t lie to me, I know you touched yourself, I know you came to the thought of my cock. Now tell me how so I can make it reality.”
She gasps at my words; eyes wild, lips swollen from my kisses, and chest flushed with desire.
“I wanted you on top, but I don’t think?—”
I press my lips to hers, ending that ridiculous sentence. “I’ll make it work, I want to make your fantasy a reality, no matter how uncomfortable or weird.”
She blushes again, and I’m not sure how she can possibly get anymore red, but she does.
“I wanted you on top,” she repeats. “Your lips were everywhere—my neck, my lips, my ears … you would whisper dirty things into my ear and then slide into me, one inch at a time, making me beg for it.”
My cock throbs at her words. I want nothing more than to be buried deep inside her, but I have to wait. She deserved more. I trail my lips across her collarbone and up her neck, her body squirming beneath mine as moans fall from her lips.
“You want me to talk dirty to you, baby? You want to hear how all I’ve been thinking about is cuming in your tight pussy and hearing you scream my name?”
“Easton,” she moans as I lower my attention to her large breasts. Reaching behind her, I unlatched her bra, letting her beautiful tits loose. Her pebbled pink nipples are just waiting for my mouth.
“What next, Little Bird?”
She lets out a deep low moan as my lips latch onto a nipple, sucking, biting, tasting.
I missed her noises, the way her body would arch into mine, and how perfectly my name sounds on her lips when she comes.
“Inside. I need you inside.”
I switch nipples and she moans again.
“Nope tell me what happens next in your fantasy.”
“I, uh, I don’t remember,” she mumbles her hands sliding into my long hair and tugging as I suck harder on her nipple.
“I didn’t get to taste your pussy?”
“Stop playing with me and fuck me,” she demands, her eyes dark with frustration and desire.
“As you wish, baby, this is your fantasy after all.” I pull my boxers down and don’t give her a chance to think as I press the head of my throbbing cock to the lips of her wet pussy. “You said inch by inch?” I tease, sliding just the tip into her tight entrance.
“Easton!”
I hover back, trying to figure out how to make this perfect for her with her giant belly in the way. I can’t lean on her, but I can hover.
“Ready for more?” I’m not only teasing her, at this point, this is fucking torture for me.
“God, yes!” Her hands latch onto my forearm’s, nails biting into my skin.
I slide in slower, giving her just a little bit more. “Are you sure you can handle it all?”
She whimpers and her eyes flutter, but she doesn’t offer a response. So I slide in even further, her warmth and wetness wrapping around me perfectly.
“Beg for it.”
“Easton I’m going to kill you.”
“Doesn’t sound like begging to me, maybe I should pull out?” I tease and start to inch back out, even though everything inside me is screaming to just sink all the way and bottom out in her.
“Please, Easton, please I need more. I need all of you.” She weeps in desperation.
“What do you need more of?”
“You,” she whispers breathlessly.
“But what exactly do you need?”
“Your cock!” she screams, and I slide all the way in, both of us moaning in unison.
“Good girl, Harley. Good fucking girl.”
“Fuck me, please, I’ve missed you so much,” she begs again, and it turns me on even further. I hover over her and press a kiss to her swollen lips.
“I missed everything about you,” I whisper, finally giving into her pleas.
When we finally give in, it’s not perfect. Her belly presses between us, my nerves make me fumble, and we have to shift many times to find what works. But once we do, it’s everything.
She clings to me, whispering I love you like a prayer, and I swear I feel whole for the first time since the cuffs closed around my wrists.
Then, after, she curls into my side, her head on my chest as my hand spreads wide over the curve of her stomach. The baby kicks beneath my palm, a strong reminder of what waits for us in only a few weeks.
“I thought I’d lost this,” I whisper into her hair. “Lost us.”
She takes my hand and presses it more firmly against her stomach. “We’re right here. All three of us. And we’re not going anywhere.”
The first thing I notice when I wake isn’t the light, or the silence, or even the sheets I spent months dreaming about. It’s Harley.
She’s curled against me, her face soft in sleep.
Her lips part just enough that every little breath warms my chest. My hand found her belly sometime in the night, and I leave it there now, spread wide over the curve of her, like my body already knows its place.
The baby shifts under my palm, a small push, and my throat tightens.
I missed so much … but I’m here now. I’m home.
I lean down and kiss her hair, careful not to wake her. For once, there is no clanging, no voices, no schedule that belongs to anyone but us. Just Harley, me, and the little life inside of her.