Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Autumn
The ladies and I are at the nail salon for our last Mommy and Me mani/pedis before I give birth. We have a standing reservation every month, and we’ve never missed an appointment—Josephine wouldn’t let me except when I was dog-sick after picking up a cold or stomach bug from one of the kids.
Though her father and I have opted for a long engagement and are planning a destination wedding for next summer, whenever a new tech asks Josephine if we’re related, she grabs my hand and enthusiastically shouts, “She’s my mom!
” Then she’ll point to the girls. “They’re my cousins and my best friends!
” Pointing next to the women, she’ll say, “And they’re my aunts and grandma!
” Even if Forest and I opt to never get married, Josephine will always be my daughter through and through.
One day, Daphne and Amelia might finally want to come with us, and Bailey will be able to join us with her triplets, Mali, Nina, and Talia.
So will the little girl I’m carrying. The salon will continue to make a fortune off us, which goes a long way, I think, in making up for all the noise we create.
The tech doesn’t do nearly as good a job as my fiancé does massaging my feet—of which Forest has become an expert, to both our immense enjoyment—but it helps me relax a bit more as my stomach cramps with another contraction.
They’re not regular enough to make me think I’ve started early labor yet, but that will surely come any time now.
“I never thought I’d miss that after having Clara, but I do,” Shayla says, smiling dreamily across from me as I rub my belly, holding my breath through a slightly longer contraction.
“That’s because you’re nuts,” I tell her, rolling my eyes. “If I never have to do this again, it’ll be all too soon.”
“That’ll change once you give birth and forget the pain. One day—bam—the baby fever will grab you by the ovaries and not let go.” Shayla laughs when she says, “Ask me how I know.”
“She’s right,” Eden says. “I miss it too.”
Shayla made all five of her pregnancies look so easy, as did Eden when she was carrying twins, while Bailey spent the whole nine months nauseous and lamenting her choice of procreating with a six-foot-five man.
I’m somewhere in the middle, and it’s still hard enough that I insist, “Seriously, I’m one and done. Got my tubal already scheduled.”
After all the time I spent with Dr. Bautista, I wasn’t surprised by her neutral reaction when I told her I wanted to have a tubal ligation after giving birth.
She counseled me, of course, discussing at length all available birth control options, but she didn’t try to talk me out of the procedure—or flat out refuse like some doctors would, due to my age and the fact that this is my first pregnancy. She really is the best.
“You sure you don’t want to give it a little more time to think it over?” Shayla asks.
“Nope. We already have our plates full with three, so I can only imagine what it’ll be like with a fourth,” I answer.
After moving in with Forest a few days following his proposal and sharing full-time parental duties, I wholeheartedly understand Forest’s previous hesitation about having more kids.
He had to do it all on his own, at least until I came around to help with bedtime, and that was only for an hour or so.
All late-night and early-morning wake-ups that disrupted his sleep were solely his responsibility.
And getting the kids fed and ready for school was no picnic, I’m sure, even if he did manage to get a magical, mystical eight-hours of sleep.
Then came the weekends and holidays and…
I feel bad enough about my stubborn storm-off at the hotel that I often apologize…
on my knees…at work when the rest of the staff are out to lunch. So sue me.
Shayla’s eyes crinkle when she says, “If you think that’s hard, imagine what birth will be like if your epidural fails like all mine did.”
“Don’t you dare jinx me, or I’ll cut you,” I grumble before another contraction hits, which makes Mom tsk, and Eden laugh.
After the kids are asleep, I slump on the end of my bed, rubbing my aching joints. How the hell Bailey managed to carry three babies at once is a mystery since I’m swollen and miserable with just the one.
Forest closes our bedroom door and comes to stand before me, rubbing his hands with growing excitement. “You up for it tonight? Might be our last chance.”
I lean back on my hands and raise my right foot. “Only if you promise to stop getting rid of my slippers again.”
“Damn,” he says with a sigh, though his smile doesn’t slip when he opens his nightstand drawer to retrieve a jar of coconut oil. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”
I almost hadn’t since I run as hot as a furnace, and I was unlucky enough to get pregnant just in time to get the full experience of the Texas summer heat and humidity during my last trimester.
I can’t remember the last time I could bear wearing socks or slippers without immediately kicking them off.
Doesn’t mean I want them all to end up stuffed in a corner of the closet where I can’t reach or left in a donation bin.
Forest sheds his T-shirt and jeans, leaving him in just his boxers, which are tented with his growing erection, and he kneels.
Turning on a white-noise playlist on his phone and raising the volume so the kids won’t hear us in case they wake up, he sets his phone aside, warms a handful of oil in his palms, then begins massaging my right foot.
“This is my favorite color,” he says of the indigo nail polish I had picked, and he kisses the tip of my big toe.
“I know,” I say with a moan, dropping my head back on my shoulders, letting the tension and uncertainty of how I’ll handle the days ahead of me out with each breath.
“You picked it for me?”
I hum a yes. “Anything for you, baby.”
He brushes his lips back and forth along the tips of my toes with a groan of ecstasy, then darts his tongue out.
The slower he goes, the more sexual tension builds until I’m panting as hard as he is.
When he takes up massaging my left foot, it’s a struggle not to collapse back on the bed.
This far along, I can’t breathe when lying on my back, nor can I lie on my stomach.
It’s the first thing I’m going to do as soon as I’m no longer tender after giving birth.
“So soft,” Forest says with a husky whisper as he rubs the coconut oil into my left arch and licks the length of my big toe.
His eyes flutter shut when he takes it into his mouth and swirls his tongue around it.
My pussy clenches with burning need when he looks up through his lashes and says, “Sweetest, tastiest angel alive.”
I hum and wiggle my toes to tease him, making him groan, and he twists his head to nibble my pinky toe.
Never did I think I would get so turned on by having a man worship my feet.
It’s the nearly fanatical adoration of it all that really does it for me.
Forest adores me inside and out, from the top of my head to the very tips of my toes. We’re a perfect, grumpy, freaky match.
When I slide my root foot up his lean thigh, pushing higher beneath the hem of his boxers, he says with a whimper, “I’m going to cum too soon if you don’t stop, angel.”
I bite my bottom lip and press the ball of my foot against the underside of his thick, hard shaft and begin stroking it up and down. “Are you going to clean me up with your tongue afterward?”
“Fuck, angel,” he pleads, fighting for breath, squeezing my left foot. “Tonight is supposed to be about you.”
I press harder. “Then do it, baby.”
“Oh fuck,” he whines, and cups his hand over my right foot. His mouth drops open as he punches his hips, sliding his velvety shaft up and down the arch of my foot.
“That’s it. Cum for me,” I say breathily as I squirm on the bed with desire. I love teasing him until he has no choice but to give in to my demands. He loves it too.
“Angel!” With one last jerk of his hips, he cums with a deep, rumbling groan, warming my toes with his thick release.
He’s quick to remove my foot and lick me clean, his lids hooded as he maintains intense, intimate eye-contact.
With one last flutter of his lashes, he squeezes my foot, and rises, moving swiftly toward the bathroom.
Returning nude, freshly washed, he wears a self-satisfied smile when he retrieves a pink vibrating toy from the nightstand, then helps me stand from the bed. He strips me of my maternity camisole and shorts, kissing his way up and down my body with a hot expression, still hungry for more.
“Turn around, angel.”
Eager to do what he says, wonderfully distracted from the pain in my lower belly, I turn and brace my elbows on the mattress. I step my feet out and arch my back as much as I’m able to.
“What a gorgeous view,” he says with a whistle and interrupts the white noise when he takes several pictures.
It’s another one of his kinks I didn’t know I shared until I met Forest—the graphic, intimate pictures he takes when he’s had his way with me drive me ‘feral’, as he calls it, as much as they drive him, and I love posing for him.
We’ve had to upgrade his phone's storage to accommodate all the pictures he keeps in his hidden album, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to do so again soon.
Kneeling on the carpet once more, Forest takes a close-up picture. “Love that I can see the bottom of your belly and your wet pussy from this position. You’re so good to me,” he moans, breathing heavily.
“Hurry up,” I whine impatiently, his hot breath fanning the backs of my thighs. I’ve had enough foreplay. It’s my turn for an orgasm.