Chapter Twenty
Liam
A week has passed, but the memory isn’t any less scary.
I’m man enough to admit that seeing Ellis’s flare-up worried me. It wasn’t just seeing her in pain, but seeing how scared Jack was, and how hard she was trying to pretend to be okay shook me.
On top of it all, I went from being this fun guy in Jack’s life, a cool ice hockey player, to a man he came to for support, looking at me to help his mom. That was when I realised that I might be the first real man in Jack’s life.
I may be getting a daughter in a few months’ time, but that isn’t the only new thing in my life. I have a son now as well. And I think Jack might be accepting me as somewhat of a dad. Surprisingly, it feels good. Better than good. It feels… fulfilling.
Ellis was a little bit slower to come around to letting me support her, but that wasn’t a surprise. Still, seeing her tear-stained cheeks and ashen skin scared me. It’s all I see every time I close my eyes. She looked so helpless and gaunt and I couldn’t make it better. It brought back suppressed memories of similar incidents in college – ones I had perhaps pushed to the back of my mind. I remembered her as that sunshine girl, my sunshine. I had almost forgotten how bad it can truly get. The guilt of not knowing what to do, how to help, was and still is eating me alive.
I’m a protector; at least I believe I am. I am supposed to keep her out of harm’s way. But there was no magic wand I could wave, there was nothing I could throw my money at to make it go away. All I could do was offer her water, food and a hot compress. It wasn’t enough.
One good part of the day, if anything, was my alone time with Jack. Though we’ve had some brief time alone together, it was never to that extent. I loved every second. He is smart and thoughtful, just so much like his mom. He might look like his dad – with dark hair and blue eyes – but every time he speaks, he is his mother’s son through and through.
By the end of the day, I got to read him a bedtime story. For a moment in time, I actually felt like a father. I couldn’t help but feel giddy with excitement about what I have to come.
But then comes the bad part – the part where I had to leave. I thought about camping out on the sofa but it felt like an imposition to stay over without asking Ellis’s permission. I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable waking up with me in her space especially knowing she is going to be drained from her flare.
I left Jack and Ellis sleeping in their rooms when I let myself out and drove silently home. But every part of me wanted to crawl into bed with her. To stay close to the family we had created. To pretend, even for one night, that the fake relationship we were allowing the world to believe could be real. Every second I’m not with them, Ellis and I are texting. Little updates on the baby and whatever vegetable they are this week (turnip apparently), or what Jack did at school and if there were any fun customers at Bloom and Blossom that day. Those small, mostly insignificant details of our daily lives keep me attached to my phone.
As though she knows she’s on my mind again, my phone pings in my pocket when I walk through my front door coming back from the gym.
I know I’ve said it a million times but thank you for last week.
3
Spending time with you both is never a chore.
Still, it isn’t your job.
Why isn’t it?
Because you didn’t sign up for looking after me.
I know what I signed up for El, I want to be the person who helps
you.
I want to be a person who doesn’t need help.
Everyone needs help.
My heart sinks at her messages. Ellis isn’t wrong, she has thanked me a million times. And I have responded a million times in the same way.
I plop my phone on my couch, knowing Ellis probably won’t reply to my final message for a while with her busy schedule. I need a distraction from thinking about how little I can really do to help. I notice one of the many parenting books I have read is open on my coffee table, waiting for me to dive back in. Even though I’ve read so many, I have yet to be comforted by the words. I have found a trend; every single one of them says that there is no way to fully prepare. I can summarise all of these books in barely one page:
Babies cry.
Babies shit.
Babies eat.
Have patience.
Good luck.
So far these books have been unhelpful, and Ellis is going to have to lead the blind. I can’t think too hard about that, because it reminds me how Ellis had nobody to help her with Jack, and my heart hurts for her all over again.
It’s become a new pattern of mine to keep concealing my emotions for Ellis. My worries for her, my caregiving, my attachment. But over the past few weeks, I have been trying to find the confidence to tell Ellis that I want us to truly be an us .
Spending the day looking after her and Jack just solidified to me that they are my family. Leaving them to come back to my own empty home felt exactly like that: empty. The problem is finding a second alone. I think Ellis has been holding Jack a lot closer this week because of guilt about how her flare-up affected him. But I need Ellis alone with nothing to hide behind. No Spears team, no Cassie, no major responsibilities or distractions. I need a chance to prove that I’m in this for the long haul. Plus, if there is already speculation based on our appearances together and online posts that we are likely together, then why not actually be together.
By the time I have showered and changed out of my sweaty clothes, my phone pings again. I smile before I even pick up the phone.
I have something else to thank you for.
Okay I’ll bite, what are you thankful for?
Shoving me out of my comfort zone, Jack is having his first sleepover
at a friend’s place tonight.
Wow. Ellis that’s huge.
Yeah, don’t remind me, I might freak out.
An idea strikes me like lightning in that moment.
How about this: I’ll pick up some food and come over tonight to help
your anxiety?
It takes an excruciating amount of time for Ellis to reply. I watch the three little dots bob up and down on my screen as she types.
Yes. I can’t stop pacing. I know I need to let him be a kid but it’s
so scary.
Don’t worry, me and Chinese food are inbound.
I’m so grateful for you Liam Ruinsky.
Despite the circumstances, the thought of us eating alone makes me excited. I don’t want to blindside her; she’s twenty-two weeks pregnant and I don’t want to add any stress to her life. But in my heart, it feels like something more could come. I know I could be blowing this out of proportion, but Ellis might be all in on us, too.
She was in enough to sleep with me in December and I know she doesn’t regret it, so I just need to show her that I don’t have one foot out the door. Trusting isn’t Ellis’s virtue, and I know it’s because she hasn’t had anyone earn it. But I have been there every step of the way since January, she trusts me with Jack, and she was willing to break her routine just to come to a game for me. I just need to focus on those positives.
Pulling up outside Ellis’s apartment a few hours later, I take a second to breathe before I gather all the food I ordered. I know she is going to say I ordered too much, but this way she can have second servings later when she wakes up hungry again.
I’ve gotten probably fifty texts in the middle of the night over the past two months from Ellis telling me how hungry she is, but not letting me buy her anything. I supposed she just wanted to tell someone about her midnight cravings. Tonight, I have the perfect remedy: Chinese leftovers. I always get this adrenaline rush whenever I knock on her door. When she opens it, it’s like sunshine pouring through an open window.
Ellis is wearing a pair of baby blue leggings and a sweatshirt covering her bump. Still my hand falls to the fabric pulled tight over her stomach.
“Hi, baby girl,” I whisper to the bump before leaning down to kiss it gently. “Hi, Sunshine,” I say to Ellis. When I go to stroll past her, she comes up on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek, shocking us both.
My skin heats at the contact, but Ellis just walks back into her kitchen as if she didn’t just initiate physical contact between us. It might not have been romantic – it could have just been friendly – but with the way I feel about her, about what we could be, the kiss lingers on my cheek like a stain.
Once I’ve pulled myself together, I follow her into the kitchen and start to plate up the food for us, Ellis watching over my shoulder making sure I give her extra noodles (as if I don’t already know they are her favourite). I can feel the heat of her body behind me before she drops her head to rest between my shoulder blades. I swear she might be trying to kill me.
The last time we were this close was the near kiss at the barbecue that we never discussed, and once again when I pecked her forehead a week ago. Now she is wrapping her arms around my body like it is usual between us. I feel like a teenager, my heart is thumping in my chest because of the blatant openness of her affection.
“I’ve missed you,” Ellis admits resting her forehead against the centre of my back for a few seconds before she pulls away, picks up her plate and walks over to the table to eat.
“We’ve been texting every day.” I pull myself a seat up facing her in time to watch her roll her eyes.
“It’s not the same and you know it.” She points at me with her fork.
“I know Sunshine, I missed you too.” I wonder what she means when she says she missed me – in the way you miss having someone around to help you? Just for company? For friendship? Or does she miss me the way I miss her? Clearly satisfied with my answer, Ellis does a happy little food dance in her chair while she eats her first mouthful of noodles and chicken.
I take a moment to watch her and I feel nostalgic. For as long as I’ve known her, Ellis has done this wiggly little dance when she is enjoying her food and seeing it again now calms me. A lot has changed since then, but some things never do. In her core she is the girl she has always been. The woman I’ve always loved. Then she moans.
Her noise breaks my chain of thought. I feel heat rushing to my crotch as she throws her head back and moans around a mouthful of chicken satay. At first I assume it is an innocent, involuntary noise – but when she brings her head forward she locks her eyes with mine before her lips tilt into a smirk.
“Ellis?” I ask it like a question but I mean it like a warning.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, trying to bite back her smile but I see it all over her face.
“Stop moaning.” I don’t sound convincing even to my ears, but I have to try.
“I thought you liked my moans.” The innocent act might kill me, her eyes are wide and she is pouting slightly. A perfectly practised face that she knows brings me to my knees.
“Ellis,” I growl. But she stands up and walks to my side of the table before nudging my legs apart to stand between them. She rests her hands around my neck, playing with my hair.
“Come on, Liam.” She leans down until our faces are only a few inches apart.
“I’ve told you, I don’t want to be the person you use to scratch an itch,” I tell her. Even though I mean it, I find myself resting my hands on her hips gripping onto her with all of my strength.
“What if I want more than that?” She scratches lightly at my scalp and if my cock wasn’t hard before, the pinch of her nails against my head makes it want to burst through the zipper of my jeans.
“That’s your second trimester horniness talking.” I am trying to put space between us and I see a flicker of something cross her face before she unloops her hands from my neck.
“If you don’t want this, tell me.” She sighs, and even though two seconds ago I wanted her to stop, I grip her hips tighter so she can’t walk away.
“That’s not fair, you know I want you Ellis,” I tell her.
“So you want me, and I want you.” Her hands come back up but settle on my jaw this time, scratching against my five o’clock shadow.
“I want more than just sex Ellis. I want us.” This is not how I pictured doing this, I wanted her to be mine at the end of tonight but in all of my wildest dreams I didn’t think Ellis would be offering herself on a silver platter, nor did I think I would be trying to deny her.
“Show me what I’m missing.” My brain is telling me this is a trap but my other brain is excited to be buried inside her.
“What?” I ask with all of my remaining brain power.
“Show me how good we could be Liam. Prove it to me.”
She knows she has me. I can see it in her eyes but maybe she has a point. That night in December we had been drinking. I know I can make her happy, but she needs that reassurance. Needs me to show her with my body how explosive and right we are for each other.
“You know I love a challenge. But you need to know, if we do this, you’re mine. I let you put space between us after what happened with Michael at the game, but I won’t be able to step back from this again.” I’ll give her what she needs, I’ll pull out all of my best moves, but I need her to know this is not going to be one and done. I’m going to claim her and she is going to thank me for it.
“I’m already yours,” she whispers. And I snap.
Gripping the back of her neck, I pull Ellis’s face down to meet mine. I waste no time parting her lips with my tongue and devour her. A moan comes from deep in her throat as I pull her down over my legs to straddle me, my cock resting at the juncture of her thighs. Ellis grinds down on me without embarrassment and I suddenly find it hard to breathe.
Pulling my lips from hers, Ellis lets out a whine that turns to a moan when my lips travel down her jaw and over the soft skin of her throat until I find the pulse point where I nibble and lick at her flushed skin. With every shift of Ellis on my thighs my cock aches. It has been nearly six months since I last had sex and every time I have masturbated since then has been to an image just like this one: Ellis warm and pliable in my arms, moaning my name.
Wrapping a hand under her thighs I stand with Ellis in my arms, she squeals lightly at the change of position but quickly fixes her legs around my waist. I’ve been in this apartment enough to find her bedroom without having to break our kiss, which is a good thing because Ellis seems like she would be content to kiss me like this forever.
The fire burning in me wants to throw her down onto the bed and ravish her, but this isn’t just someone I want to fuck. This is Ellis Ainsley. The mother of my child. I am going to worship her until she begs for more.
Instead of throwing her down, I rest a knee on the end of her queen-sized bed and tip forward until she is settled among the pillows. Her golden hair is fanned over the baby pink bedding like a halo, a deity I am going to pray to for the rest of my days. When I try to pull away she claws at my shoulders, so I take her wrists and pin them beside her head with a tut.
“Leave ’em there.” I tell her and wait for her nod before I release them.
Once my hands are free, I run them over her arms, down to the bottom of her sweatshirt and pull it up over her head until she is bare to me. My breath hitches when I find no bra hiding her stiff pink nipples from me.
“Fuck,” I groan, before dropping my head to take her left nipple in my mouth. Her skin is heated and I see her hands twitch wanting to run through my hair, but my perfect girl keeps them where I want them as she squirms below me. I switch to her other breast using my hand to tweak at the one I left until she is panting.
“Liam… Please.” She exhales. I ignore her, kissing back up away from her chest and over her neck where I start to suck and kiss a hickey into her pale flesh. When she wakes up tomorrow she will remember that she is mine. I am going to make her feel me everywhere.
Once I’m satisfied with her bruised skin, I pull myself off her completely to take my own clothes off. I wanted to wait, have her naked and begging below me, but I think my cock is going to have an imprint of my zipper if I leave it in there any longer.
Besides, this gives Ellis a second to breathe and to anticipate what she has coming when I strip for her. Leaving my underwear for now, I hook my fingers into the waistband of her leggings, looking at her for conformation that this is still what she wants.
“Yes, Liam. Yes.” With that, I rip her leggings and panties down in one pull leaving my Sunshine naked and flushed for me. I wrench her thighs apart when she tries to relieve the pressure there, I don’t waste a second before hitching her legs over my shoulders and burying my tongue in her.
I lick from her entrance up to her clit before circling it with the point of my tongue. I planned to tease her, give her little licks until she begged, but once her taste settles on my tongue I go feral.
The last five and a half months has been teasing enough for her because she is drenching my face. Her juices soak my jaw as she wiggles above me, I grip her ass cheeks in my hands and massage them as I eat her.
I can feel her getting closer and closer to coming, her legs shaking by my ears and the walls of her pussy pulsing around my tongue. I know Ellis’s body like the back of my hand so I know she needs more to get her there.
Moving my hands from her ass, I take one and slide two fingers inside of her making sure to curve up and hit her G spot as I suck at her clit. I use my other hand to move back up her body and massage her tits again, I am all over her. Every part of her body is mine and she calls out for god as her body tenses in my arms.
I feel her pussy grip down on me as she goes rigid, feeling the waves of her orgasm wash over her.
“God, Ellis, you’re such a fucking perfect girl for me. I love making you come all over me.” I praise her while pushing my underwear down finally, kicking them off as quick as I can before crawling back over her body settling between her thighs, taking her jaw in my hand.
“You ready to be fucked El?” I ask notching my tip at her soaked entrance.
“Yes, Liam! Yes!” she begs and it’s my favourite sound.
“You can touch me now, Sunshine,” I tell her before I thrust in to the hilt. Her hands latch on to my shoulders and dig into my skin. I can feel the tracks she is scratching as I fuck her, but the pain just heightens the pleasure.
On every thrust I grind as deep as I can, no matter how close I get, it will never be close enough for me. Ellis moans out for me, for more, and I give her everything I have lifting her legs over my elbows to get deeper.
I can feel how warm and wet she is around me, but it feels like so much more than that too. I can feel our connection, it feels like cosmic rightness to be here with her like this. I feel us putting the last decade of wrongness right again just by being back in each other’s arms.
My thrusts slow as our eyes connect through the haze and I know Ellis feels what is happening between us too as tears flood her waterline.
“Liam.”
“I know Sunshine, I know.”
Silence surrounds us apart from the echo of our skin connecting over and over as Ellis starts to tighten around me taking me over the edge with her. We come together; I groan into the skin of Ellis’s shoulder as she wraps her arms and legs tight around my waist pulling my weight down over her.
We float back down from whatever other planet we just reached together. But neither of us talk, too scared to break the energy that we feel in the room. I’m content to just hold her though. We have to talk about what this will mean, I know that, but this isn’t the time. Right now is the time for us to bask in the feelings we have for each other, while I hope she knows how important this is for me, how important she is to me.
I know when my cum starts to leak out of her, Ellis will let me know she is uncomfortable. When that comes, I will run to grab a wash cloth for her, but for now she rests in my arms. Exactly where I hope she stays.
As we lay there, the thoughts come in hot and fast. This might have been a mistake in the long run. Sleeping with Ellis is amazing but this throws every boundary I tried to set out of the window. I gave into temptation and I fear this is going to push me back ten steps. I want this to mean something, but what if it doesn’t?
Her breathing becomes deeper as her eyes are heavy and sleepy. But those thoughts are what keep me from falling into an easy sleep.