Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
S hae
“You good?” Boon grunted, his hands on my hips.
The hips that had so much extra padding he was breathing hard these days moving me around.
My elbows sank into the quilt as I bent over, my belly resting on the bed.
Boon was behind me, my dress flipped up and my panties around my ankles.
Third trimester horniness was a real thing.
Sadly, there weren’t many positions I could get into any longer with this belly.
He slid inside me and we both groaned. “Goddamn, why is this so fuckin’ good?” he growled.
“Don’t know. Keep moving,” I panted, chasing that release.
Orgasms were magic. For a short period of time, they distracted me from the Braxton-Hicks contractions and the general uncomfortableness of being pregnant.
We were supposed to be in here getting lunch while his mom got hers next door, not fucking like horny rabbits, but here we were.
Boon pulled back and slid back in, not as rough as he’d been with me in the past, but enough to scratch my itch.
His rhythm picked up pace and soon the room was filled with the sounds of flesh slapping together.
I got there first, going up on my toes to get that perfect angle that sent me flying over the edge.
My elbows gave out and the mattress swallowed my cries of pleasure.
Boon followed right after, his grunt music to my ears.
He pulled out quickly and crouched to right my panties, taking time to shove his release back inside me before helping me up.
I yelped. “Hey! I can’t get more pregnant.”
His dimpled smirk was legendary.
I pulled my sundress back down and pushed my hair off my face. Even with the air conditioner fully cranking, I was sweating. I wondered if Gigi would be able to tell what we’d been doing. Probably. That woman had eyes like a hawk.
Experiencing a Blueball summer while fully pregnant had to be the seventh circle of hell.
I spent all of June in the backyard under a shade umbrella with my feet in a kiddy pool full of water and ice.
Boon kept the electrolytes coming and my friends came by almost every day to sit and sweat with me.
Braxton-Hicks contractions made a run for what was most annoying: the heat or the pain.
Boon kept smirking like the asshole he was for knocking me up and then acting like he’d done some grand thing. I was doing all the work here!
We stepped outside into the backyard again and Boon got me settled on a padded lawn chair before going inside and getting a bag of ice.
Gigi was already coming across our two properties with her lunch in hand.
She’d taken her promise to watch over me seriously, visiting me every day and doing things around the house to help me out.
Between her and her son, I didn’t lift a finger these days.
“That ought to keep you for the afternoon,” Gigi said as she handed me a battery-operated fan and watched Boon pour more ice in the pool.
She sat in the lawn chair next to me, nose streaked with white zinc sunblock.
She had a pair of readers on her head and a pair of sunglasses on her face.
“I put some ice packs in the freezer to tide you over for the fireworks show tonight.”
“Bless you,” I murmured, shivering with delight as the ice swirled around my swollen feet. Today was July Fourth, and I was officially one day past my due date. There wasn’t a word strong enough in the English dictionary to depict how uncomfortable I was. “How did you do this three times?”
Gigi snorted. “It was more accidental than on purpose. Me and Willy couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” She angled a knowing eyebrow at me and my cheeks reddened, which had nothing to do with the heat this afternoon.
“Hey!” Boon looked affronted at being called an accident. Or maybe it was thinking about his parents doing the deed.
He stripped his shirt off and faced the sun, muscles rippling. He’d somehow gotten better-looking the longer he stayed in Blueball. He’d grown out a short beard that was streaked with silver and he kept in shape with daily runs while I got heavier and puffier by the minute. It was patently unfair.
A contraction hit me out of the blue. I bent over and rubbed my belly, grimacing.
“Leonidas being a little asshole again?” Boon asked, always tuned in to how I was feeling. Lately, he’d been hovering. It was both adorable and annoying. Then again, literally everything was annoying.
“His name…is not…Leonidas,” I panted, breathing through the pain like the birthing class taught me.
We’d only gone the one time. After the young female instructor spent most of her time working one-on-one with Boon on his breathing like he was the one birthing a baby, I’d called it quits.
Women had been doing this since the dawn of time.
I didn’t need Nurse Flirts-a-lot to tell me how to breathe.
Besides, I had every intention of getting that epidural the second we walked through the hospital doors.
“Willy Nelson Junior?” he asked hopefully, his hand covering mine on my belly.
“How about Gerald?” I snapped back, referring to my father’s name. Gigi and Boon grimaced in unison. That made me laugh. “I’m kidding. I love my dad but I’m not naming this baby Gerald.”
Another contraction hit and I bent over again. Boon instantly started rubbing my lower back like he’d learned to do when these fake contractions hit. God bless his strong hands.
“Are you sure these are Braxton-Hicks?” Gigi asked once I’d straightened again. She looked at her cell phone. “I’ve been timing them since this morning and they’re at regular intervals.”
Boon and I both froze. “How far apart?” Boon asked quickly. I could sense his focus honing in. The man was laser-focused when it came to me, Kinsley, or this baby.
“They’re only three minutes apart now.”
My heart rate hammered in my chest. “Help me up!” I waved my hands in the air and Boon stepped in front of me to hoist me out of the lawn chair. The second I got to my feet I felt a pop. And then warmth down my legs.
“Whoa. Babe. You need the bathroom?” Boon asked, grimacing.
Gigi laughed as she also stood. “You better get her in the car, son. I’ll get Shae’s bag. Looks like you’re having a Fourth of July baby.”
I’d seen Boon do a lot of athletic things over the years, but watching him sprint for his truck keys, then back for me, half carrying me to his truck, then having to stop for another contraction, was a thing of beauty.
Sadly, I was too busy panting and breathing through the painful contractions to take much notice.
Gigi climbed in the back and called Kinsley while Boon drove like a bat out of hell to the hospital.
For some reason, I remained a level of calm that didn’t make sense.
I was about to push a human out of my body, and yet I wasn’t scared.
I was too darn excited to see this little one to worry about how it would happen.
Plus, Boon was by my side and I could pretty much do anything with him there.
He raced around the entrance of the emergency room and came back with a wheelchair.
His dash through the halls to the labor and delivery floor was comical.
As we planned, Gigi was right there with us in the birthing room, holding my hand, talking me through the epidural while Boon paced, asking the doctors and nurses all kinds of questions before he’d let them touch me.
When my feet went up in stirrups and my doctor checked my progress, he informed me that I’d come in right on time. It was time to push.
“You want to see, Dad?” my doctor asked Boon.
He looked to me for permission. I nodded my head.
There wasn’t much point trying to shield him from my body.
The man knew every inch of me anyway. He stepped closer to the doctor and watched as they had me start to push.
Gigi stayed by my head and coached me through the hardest physical workout I’d ever had.
“I see his head, lovebug!” Boon had tears streaming down his cheeks and settling in his dimples but he was all smiles. He came back over to kiss my forehead and whisper, “You’re incredible.”
That gave me the second wind I needed, and on the next push, baby’s head came out.
The doctor gave me exactly three seconds to rest up and then I was pushing again.
In a whoosh, I pushed him all the way out and suddenly his wet warm body was lying across my chest. The nurse’s hands rubbed his back and his arms went out in the air, clearly startled about being earth side.
His adorable face scrunched and he let out a loud cry that had us all laughing.
I couldn’t look away from him. My son. Our son. Boon kissed me, his tattooed hand coming down to touch our son’s bald head. Tears rolled down both of our faces. I didn’t notice, but Gigi had stepped back to give us privacy, taking pictures and video on her phone.
I was exhausted but so happy I thought I might burst.
“Thank you, lovebug. Thank you for giving me everything,” Boon whispered, kissing me again.
Hours later, our son was washed and dressed in his first onesie.
Gigi was downstairs to greet the family and friends that were arriving to see the baby before the town’s fireworks show.
Boon was lying on the bed with me, both of us staring down at this precious lump in our arms. He was sleeping, his little eyebrows twitching like he was dreaming.
“I’ve never seen a miracle like that,” Boon whispered. When he looked at me, there was something different in his eyes. “You’re so much stronger than I’ll ever be, Shae Fletcher.”
I grinned, thinking about how smug he’d been about getting me pregnant in the first place. “Don’t you forget it, bat boy.”
His lips tilted up on the side, teasing back in his tone. “I know I won’t forget that my dick broke your water. I mean, I knew it was long and powerful, but that’s next level.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved him with my elbow, trying not to disturb our son. Though Boon might have been right…
He leaned in and kissed me, the two of us now three. Four, once Kinsley got here. For all those years that I’d felt alone after Mom and Dad died, I’d somehow been given a family of my own again, and for that I would always be grateful.
“Now what are we going to name him?” Boon asked, his gaze constantly dropping to our son and then back up to me, like he didn’t know how to take in both of us at the same time.
I knew what he was feeling. The emotions were running high, like I couldn’t contain all of this love in the same heart that had walked into this hospital just a few hours ago.
“I was thinking Bray William Wolfe. Your father is the one who brought you back to Blueball, so it only seems fitting to name our son after him. And Bray was one of the names we both had on our lists.”
Boon’s eyes filled with tears, but he didn’t brush them away or hide them. He just cupped my face and kissed me tenderly. “Bray William Wolfe it is.”
All three of us snoozed on the bed until the door banged open and Kinsley walked in. She honed in on her brother, and even though he let out a cry at the disruption, she transferred him carefully to her arms and danced him around the room until he settled again.
“I love him already,” she said in a daze, gazing at him like she’d never stop.
My friends and Boon’s brothers and wives came into the room next, admiring the baby, handing me flowers, and hugging everyone like the celebration this was.
The volume in the room got a little rowdy, but none of the nurses poked their heads in to shush us.
A loud boom outside had all our heads swiveling to the window.
There, like it had been perfectly positioned just for us, was the fireworks show coming from the park downtown.
Everyone sat around and watched the fireworks, each taking a turn holding Bray until he started to cry and needed his mama.
I wasn’t adept at breastfeeding yet, but Boon was right there, helping me position him while also keeping me covered.
With my fiancé on the bed right next to me, family all around, and my son suckling like a champ, I laid my head on Boon’s shoulder.
“I’ve never been so happy,” I said dreamily. And just a little bit delusionally due to exhaustion.
Boon kissed the top of my head. “This is just the beginning, my love.”
And he was right. The summer flew by with Kinsley helping me with Bray. She was a master at diaper changes, even the really gnarly ones. She and Boon had officially moved into my house by then, all three of us living together as a blended family.
It was the day before she went off to college that we saw it for the first time. It was probably just gas, but Bray smiled, showing off identical dimples on each side of his mouth.
We had a future heartbreaker on our hands.
His daddy’s chest puffed out like he’d grown this baby for nine months himself.
Lord help me with these Wolfe boys…