Chapter 40
Ari
I’m showing. It’s a small curve right at my bikini line, soft and round, like my body’s telling the world a secret I haven’t said out loud yet.
Vincent dotes on me. Every morning before he gets up, he kisses the baby. Every night before he falls asleep, he kisses the baby. And in between, he waits on me hand and foot.
I can’t lift anything. Not a bucket, a shell, or even the mat we lay on when we sleep out on the beach. He acts like I’m carrying the next heir to a royal family.
He’s catching lunch and dinner for us right now. I watch him, marveling at the way his muscles ripple as he concentrates on the water below him.
If I close my eyes, I can pretend we’re at home. I do that sometimes, envision us together on a bed, atop a floor made of wood, not sand. I pretend he takes me to a Michelin-starred restaurant for dinner, and we watch a movie instead of the trees.
Then I open my eyes and come back to reality.
But I’m not sure I even know where home is anymore.
Luther Vandross said a house is only a home when you’re there, the you being the love of your life. And I kinda think…if I went back to my condo tonight…it wouldn’t feel like home anymore.
That scares the shit out of me.
In other news, I pee a lot more now. Vincent says that’s normal.
The sex is a lot more intense. He says that’s normal, too.
We’ve started swimming. He says I need to stay active so that labor goes smoother. And that’s important. I’m already gonna have to push this baby out without drugs. I don’t need to be out of shape and winded while I do it.
Vincent says we’ll be rescued by then. But that’s just to keep me calm.
I realize my hand is on my stomach. That happens all the time now, me absentmindedly resting my hand there. I catch myself smiling for no reason, too. Not that I’m happy. I think I’m just…happy with the way things are right now.
Then I feel it.
“Vincent!” I call to him. “I just felt it move!”
“The baby?”
He damn near falls off the raft. I laugh as he paddles at warp speed, practically falling in the sand after he jumps off the raft and hits the ground hard.
His hand goes straight to my stomach. I watch his eyes, smiling big when they widen at the feel of the baby kicking against his palm.
“This is wild,” he says. “You ever trip off the fact that you’re carrying my child?”
“All the time.”
He sweeps me up in his arms, kissing my lips over and over until I squeal for him to stop.
“I can’t help myself,” he says against my mouth. “You so sexy, especially now with you growing my baby inside you.”
And then, like he does almost every other night, Vincent lays me down on the mat and makes love to me.
After, we walk along the shoreline, my hand tucked in his, our footprints side by side until the waves erase them. In my mind, I see a pair of tiny prints alongside ours, smiling at the thought of our little one walking along the beach between us.
It feels ridiculous to look forward to the day we bring a baby into this situation, but when I think of the alternative, it doesn’t seem so crazy.
We’re…relatively safe here. No guns on this island. No natural disasters so far. No rat race. No racism. Just us.
Things could definitely be worse.
“All I’m sayin’ is I’m good with it how it is.”
I roll my eyes. “And all I’m saying is that it’s not about you. It’s what I prefer.”
Vincent stares up at me from between my thighs. “I don’t know. This is a lot, even for me.”
“Baby, you took out my sew-in! What’s the difference?”
“The difference was that I wasn’t staring directly into your wet, juicy pussy while I did it.”
I make a face. “I’m not wet.”
“I hate to break it to you, but you wet as fuck,” he says. “You always wet these days.”
“Whatever.”
He laughs. “I ain’t complainin’.”
“Of course not.”
He blows out a sigh which, coincidentally, lands on my pussy. Feels kinda good, actually.
We’ve been going back and forth ever since I asked him to trim my pubic hair. I don’t see the big deal, but he has reservations.
“You don’t have to get close to the skin,” I say. “It’s just a trim. Making it shorter. That’s it.”
“I don’t know.” He runs a finger down my clit, making me shiver. “You’re pregnant now. I ain’t tryna do nothin’ dangerous with you.”
“It’s not dangerous.” I hold up the scissors I found in the first aid kit. “Look how little these are! They’re not butcher knives, Vincent.”
He looks at them, then me. “If that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want.”
He takes the scissors from me and gets to work.
I shift on the log, my back slightly uncomfortable. It always hurts slightly no matter what I’m doing, but especially when I’m sitting up.
“Quit moving,” he admonishes.
“Sorry.” I stare out at the sea and sigh happily. This is life, now. Pregnant and sitting half-naked on a log while my man grooms me. The waves crash, the birds sing, the clouds drift idly by, and I feel good.
“Why this shit got my dick hard?” Vincent mutters, making me laugh.
“Concentrate,” I tease. “This is a very important job.”
He’s concentrating, alright. Brows knitted. Lip pulled between his teeth. Eyes narrow. Hands steady. I stare at him lovingly, saying a silent prayer of thanks that he’s mine. And I’m his. And that the baby inside of me is ours. We’ll be forever connected by something that was created out of love.
Well, mostly lust. But the love came soon after.
"Dick still hard," he announces. "This shit gotta be a kink, right? Trimming pussy hair. I bet there's a club somewhere out there. Pussy Barbers Anonymous or some shit."
"Vincent." I don't even have the words. All I can do is laugh.
“Alright, I think I’m done,” he says. “See if that’s how you want it.”
I stare down and smile. “Perfect.”
He nods. “Do me a favor. Go out there in the water and rinse off so I can eat you out.”
“It’ll be salty.”
“It’s all good,” he shrugs. “I like my food seasoned.”
I shake my head. “First things first. Stand up for me.”
I pull his dick out of his shorts and stare up at him, turned on by his sly smile. I hold his gaze while I tease the tip of him with my tongue, loving the way he throbs in my hand.
Vincent really has the perfect dick. I’m honestly surprised he only has one baby mama. This is the kind of dick you show love to. The kind that makes you tell him don’t pull out. The kind you fight other bitches over. The kind that makes you lose your fucking mind.
I know, because I think I’ve lost mine.
“So you just gon’ deep throat my shit?” he demands as he grabs my hair in his fist. “Fuck. Where you want this nut?”
I point to my chest and commence to slurping and gagging on him. He thrusts himself into my mouth a few times, then pulls out and busts on my titties. I stand, staring him down as I lift them to my mouth and, one-by-one, lick his cum off.
I love the look in his eyes right now. It’s almost scary how intense it is. Like he fucking hates me. What it actually is, though, is that he loves me and hates that he’s not inside me right now.
He grabs my hand almost too roughly. “Bring yo ass on,” he says as he pulls me toward the water. He stops at the shore to strip me out of my skirt and step out of his shorts. Then we wade right in.
After he rinses me off, he goes to his knees and eats both my pussy and my ass until I cum. I don’t even get the chance to recover before he has me in the air scrambling to wrap my legs around his waist as he lowers me onto him.
There’s just something about the way this man handles me. My God. Tossing me up and down, bouncing me on his dick, holding me steady with one hand and grabbing my neck with the other. He makes me cum again before he finally finishes, and then we go back home and sleep for several blissful hours.