16. Isaac #3
“Yes.” Flat. Certain. “I did the math on the way over. I did it at every light. I’m done letting Cedrick decide one more thing about my life, and that includes which house I sleep in.”
I stand aside.
She walks into my house and stops in the middle of my kitchen and looks around it like she’s memorizing evidence, and I watch her see it: the two coffee mugs by the sink because I bought a second one months ago and never examined why.
The hardware store receipts on the counter.
The stack of pregnancy books I’d have died before letting her find.
She picks one up. What to Expect. Sticky notes bristling out of it like a war map.
“Isaac.”
“Don’t.”
“You’ve annotated it.”
“I’ve been eliminating,” I say, which is her line, and she laughs - wet, startled, breaking in half.
Then she sets the book down and looks at me across my own kitchen, and the laughing stops.
“I didn’t drive here to talk,” she says.
I kiss her.
I don’t mean to. One second I’m a responsible adult standing in his kitchen, and the next my hands are cupping her face and my mouth is on hers and I’m pouring days of restraint into a kiss that should not be happening.
She freezes - half a heartbeat, maybe less - and then she makes a sound against my lips. Surprise first. Then something hungrier, something that vibrates through my chest like a current.
Her fingers twist in my shirt. The coat hits my floor. I press her back against my counter - carefully, gently, mindful of the belly between us - my hands sliding into her hair while she arches into me like she’s been waiting for this too.
“Isaac-” She gasps against my mouth.
I pull back just far enough to see her face. Her lips are swollen. Her eyes are wide and dark and wanting. She’s breathing hard, and so am I, and the air between us feels like a live wire.
“Tell me to stop,” I manage. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “If you don’t want this - tell me to stop, and I’ll drive you home, and we’ll never talk about it again.”
She stares at me. One heartbeat. Two.
Then she grabs my collar and pulls me back down.
“Bedroom,” she whispers against my lips. “Now.”
I blink. “What?”
“You heard me.” She takes my hand. “Are you coming or not?”
“Are you sure? Because if we do this, I can’t pretend it didn’t mean anything. I’m not built for that. There’s no casual version of me when it comes to you.”
She stops. Turns. Takes my hand and presses it flat against her belly, right over the spot where the baby’s been kicking all night.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Her lawyer said to be careful. Caroline is watching her house. Her car is in my driveway right now, under a streetlight, for anybody who drives past.
Walk away. Be the responsible one. Protect her from this.
But she’s looking up at me with my hand pressed over her daughter’s kicking feet, and every reason I have for leaving turns to smoke.
I was never going to walk away. I know that now.
I think I’ve known it for five years.
***
The bedroom is bathed in gold lamplight.
She turns to face me, and for a moment we just stand there - close enough to touch, not quite touching. The air between us feels electric.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she admits, and her voice goes small in a way I’ve never heard from her. “I feel - I’m huge, Isaac. I’m eight months pregnant. I don’t know if I’m-”
“Stop.”
I step closer. Close enough to feel the warmth coming off her skin.
“Stop what?”
“Stop doubting yourself.” I take her face in my hands and tilt it up.
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
You’ve been the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen since a work party you don’t remember, three months before he ever said your name to me.
The fact that you’re carrying a child doesn’t change that. It makes you more.”
Her eyes go bright. “More what?”
“More beautiful. More powerful. More you.” I brush my thumb across her cheekbone. “I’ve wanted you for five years, Chantal. Trust me - I know exactly how attracted I am to you right now. I’ve been leaving rooms about it.”
A wet laugh escapes her. “The Victorian widow thing in the backyard.”
“You saw that?”
“Earl saw that. Earl told the hardware store. The hardware store told my mother’s book club.” She’s still laughing. “I see everything, Isaac. I just get it late.”
“Then see this.” I hold her gaze and let every wall I own come down. “There is nothing about you I don’t want.”
Her breath catches. “Prove it.”
Oh, you sweet, gorgeous fool. You have no idea what you just asked for.
I kiss her.
Not gentle. Not questioning. I kiss her like I’ve been starving for five years and she’s the first real meal I’ve had. She gasps into my mouth, and I swallow the sound, my hands sliding down her back to her hips, pulling her flush against me.
Her skin is warm through the thin cotton. Her heartbeat is racing - or maybe that’s mine. Maybe it’s both of us, pounding together in a frantic, desperate rhythm.
“Bed,” she breathes.
I walk her backward until her knees hit the mattress, then ease her down - carefully, slowly. The baby matters, and she matters, and I am not going to rush the thing I’ve waited half a decade for. I kneel beside the bed and look at her. Really look.
The curve of her belly is a masterpiece, the skin taut and glowing. The flush spreading down her throat makes my cock throb painfully against my zipper. The way she’s watching me watch her - with that raw, hungry look - makes my blood boil.
“You keep looking at me,” she whispers.
“I’m savoring.” I run my hand up her calf, her thigh, watching goosebumps rise in its wake. “I’ve imagined this more times than I can count. Reality is better.”
“You’ve imagined this?”
“Every night for five years.” I hook my fingers in the hem of her nightgown. “Every single night.”
“What did you imagine?”
“Taking this off, for starters.”
She lifts her hips, and I slide the nightgown up, over her belly, over her breasts, over her head.
Holy shit.
She’s not wearing anything underneath. Eight months pregnant with my best friend’s baby, and she drove across town at one in the morning with nothing under that cotton but a coat she didn’t bother to button. She planned this. God help me, she planned this.
“You’re-” My voice cracks. I clear my throat, my eyes roaming over every inch of her. “You’re going to be the death of me, and I’m going to thank you.”
“That’s the idea.”
I laugh, rough and breathless, and then I stop laughing because my mouth is on her throat. I suck the sensitive skin there, marking her, claiming her, while she arches into me, making sounds that rewire my brain.
I kiss my way down her body. Her collarbone.
The swell of her breasts. I stop at one nipple, already peaked and dark, and take it into my mouth.
I suckle hard, my tongue swirling around the tip, listening to her moan.
I move to the other, teasing the bud with my teeth before swallowing it whole. She tastes like heaven and heat.
I worship her belly - the stretched skin, the curve of it, the way it shifts when the baby moves. I press my face against her, inhaling her scent, kissing the underside of the bump.
“She’s probably scandalized,” Chantal manages.
“She’ll get over it. We’re going to be very good friends, she and I.”
“Isaac-”
“Shh.” I press a kiss below her navel, my breath hot against her skin. “Let me take care of you.”
I slide down further, my hands parting her thighs. I gasp. She’s already soaking, her pussy glistening and plump, smelling of musk and desire. I don’t hesitate. I bury my face in her, my tongue finding her clit in one swift motion.
She screams, her fingers digging into my hair, pulling me closer. I lap at her, long, slow strokes of my tongue that drink her in. I suck the small, hard nub of her clit, swirling around it, then flicking it rapidly. I can feel her pulsing against my lips, the walls of her pussy twitching.
“Oh god, Isaac… right there… please…”
I slide two fingers inside her. She’s so tight, so hot, clutching at me. I pump them in and out, feeling the wetness splash against my knuckles while my thumb continues to grind against her clit. I want to devour her. I want to eat every single drop of her.
When she finally comes apart, it’s with my name breaking in half on her lips and her whole body shaking like she’s flying apart at the seams. I don’t stop; I keep sucking and fingering her through the peak, making sure she feels every single vibration of her orgasm.
I work her through it. Then through another. Then a third.
“Isaac.” Her voice is wrecked. “Please. I need - I need you inside me.”
Five years. Five years of wanting and waiting and watching her belong to someone who never once looked at her like this. She’s asking for me.