Chapter 15
The following morning, Gage got me in to see the best obstetrician that money could buy.
We sat side-by-side in the waiting room, hands clasped together.
He seemed as nervous as I was. The wait to see the doctor wasn’t long, but it seemed to span forever.
By the time they called me back, I was sure my blood pressure would rocket through the roof.
After the nurse took my vitals and asked a dozen or so questions, she left Gage and me alone with the assurance the doctor would be in shortly.
I hopped onto the table, my ass sliding over the paper, and eyed Gage. He’d unfolded into a chair near the door of the exam room. Between the glaring lights overhead and my lack of sleep the previous night, this whole situation seemed…surreal.
What bothered me most was all the things we hadn’t said. After I’d finally gotten the words out about the pregnancy, Gage had flipped through a plethora of reactions, from shocked to elated to disbelieving to…worried.
And that last one set me on edge the most, possibly because it reflected my own fears.
Everything was changing so quickly—within my body and in my marriage.
I needed his rock solid presence right now.
Hell, I even needed his stringent disciplinary measures.
They kept me grounded, and I needed that more than ever.
I’d grown accustomed to bowing to his decisions, to depending on him to keep me in line. But a pregnancy…maybe we’d both underestimated the realities that would come with such a life-changing event.
Deep down, I hadn’t worried about it much because after those first few months, when it became obvious I wasn’t getting pregnant, I hadn’t thought it would be an issue we’d have to face.
Turned out I was wrong.
I glanced up and found him staring at me. “What do you need from me, Kayla?”
That was the last thing I’d expected him to say. “I…I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You tried talking to me last night about what you’d need, should you become pregnant. I could have handled that conversation a lot better. Instead, I jumped to conclusions, and for that I’m truly sorry. So now I’m asking. Tell me what you need.”
I parted my lips, but nothing came out. The best I could do was shrug my shoulders. Problem was, I had no idea what I wanted or needed. My head was still spinning from seeing those two lines yesterday, and the fact that Gage was sitting in that chair, looking so damn lost, just about unhinged me.
“I need you to be you,” I whispered, my throat constricting. Why was I so upset? Having a baby was a dream come true for us. But neither of us could deny the risks—not with the type of lifestyle we lived and my previous track record with pregnancies.
He rose and crossed to where I sat, legs dangling over the edge of the table. As I drew in a lungful of air, he slid his palms along my cheeks, and it amazed me how gentle he managed to be at times. The tender way he cradled my face was incongruent with his basest self.
“Baby, I’m still the same bastard I was yesterday before you told me. Trust me, there will be times when you wish for more leniency. But damn,” he said, caressing my temples with his thumbs. “This is fucking real. It’s happening, and I want to do right by you, so tell me what you need.”
A breath shuddered from my lips. “I don’t know. I thought I’d want things to change between us, but I…I just want you the way you are.” A large part of me needed to kneel at his feet to feel loved. He cherished me best while on my knees, and I craved that connection with him.
Out of nowhere, tears erupted, and I swiped them away, angry at myself for crying. “I need you to take care of me like you always do. I need the security of being yours.”
“That’s a given, so why am I sensing a ‘but’ in there somewhere?”
Was I clinging to a caveat? I searched within myself and found the perpetual need to be owned by him, but also to have a piece of me that I could call my own.
The strikes of his implements wouldn’t quiet it, nor the penetration of my ass—it would fester until I took my last breath because as surely as Gage was a sadist, I was a reluctant slave with a nagging need to be my own damn person at least part of the time.
“I want to go back to the negotiation table.”
“We’re talking about your needs, not your wants.”
I met his gaze with the glare of firm resolve. “I need to go back to the negotiation table.”
His fingers slid into my hair, and he tugged my lips to his. “You had it right the first time, but for the duration of your pregnancy, we’ll compromise. I don’t expect things to stay the same while we navigate this.”
“Thank you.”
“But this habit you have of withholding shit? It ends now. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, blinking in quick succession to fight back the tears. “Yes, Master.”
“My job is to help you carry these burdens, but I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s bothering you.”
I reached for his cheeks, and as we stood there, face-to-face, holding on to each other while we waited for the doctor to tell us everything would be okay, I finally found the words I needed to relay what my heart had been telling me for a year and a half.
“I need your permission to be imperfect. What if I’m too sick to take your cock in my mouth? What if I’m not in the mood for sex? And anal,” I said with a gulp. “I don’t want you to be disappointed if I…if I say no.”
Dropping his hand to my chin, he ran his fingers along my jawline. “You’re not allowed to say no to me, which makes your job simple. Trust me. I’ll be careful with you, baby. Why can’t you see that?”
“Because you hurt me.”
“I’ve always hurt you, long before we married.
Part of you even gets off on it, so this preoccupation of yours lately leaves me with one conclusion.
You don’t trust me enough to submit fully.
You’ve given so much of yourself, but you’re still holding on to the doubt in the back of your mind.
It’s an ugly voice in your head, and it’ll do nothing but pick apart our relationship. ”
“I’ll try harder, Master,” I said, lowering my eyes.
A knock sounded, shattering our moment.
“We’ll talk about this more later,” Gage said as he moved away from me. The door opened slowly, revealing a petite woman in scrubs. The doctor introduced herself as Dr. Keenan, and her warm smile put me at ease instantly.
The appointment went as expected; first we went over our concerns about another tubal pregnancy, talked about our alternative lifestyle—Gage had found Dr. Keenan for a reason, as she wasn’t quick to judge when it came to kink.
Then came the degrading part. After changing into a gown, the doctor helped me fit my feet into stirrups and performed the exam.
I kept my eyes on Gage the whole time, counting the seconds until she finished.
“I’d like to do an ultrasound,” she said. “I believe you’re further along than you thought.”
“By how long? A few days?”
“More like a few weeks.”
I pushed myself up on my elbows, and she held out a hand to help me into a sitting position. “But I had a period about…five weeks ago, I think.”
She asked me a few more questions and mentioned something about implantation bleeding before readying the ultrasound machine. I reclined once more, and as Dr. Keenan squirted a jelly-like substance onto my flat belly, Gage moved to my side and took my hand, squeezing my fingers.
I kept my gaze glued to the monitor, but terror fisted my throat. What would we do if that machine trampled our dreams?
“Everything’s going to be okay, baby,” he said, his voice low yet full of certainty.
I grabbed onto his words and wrapped myself in them. I had to trust that he was right. Besides, if I were further along than I thought, then didn’t that mean the truly nail-biting stage of my pregnancy had passed?
The doctor pressed the hand-held device to my belly and moved it around until she found the right spot. “There’s your baby,” she said with a smile. “My, hear that strong heartbeat.”
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…
“You’re about ten weeks.”
“Oh my God.” Through my tears, I stared at the image of our tiny baby in awe. Tearing my gaze away long enough to meet Gage’s eyes was so damn hard, but I wanted to see his reaction as much as I wanted to take in the black and white picture of the child growing inside me.
Gage brought the back of my hand to his lips, his blue eyes bright with wonder, and that small gesture was nearly my undoing.