Chapter 16
Sixteen
We ate without speaking.
Kane sat cross-legged on the floor, taking bites in between putting the crib together. I sat in the glider, book untouched. The food would’ve been too, if Kane hadn’t looked up within five minutes of the food arriving.
He didn’t look exactly in my eyes, just at the plate in my lap, the fork.
“Eat,” he ordered, the single word puncturing the silence.
I could’ve added to it, torn away at the thick wedge between us with words of my own. Could’ve argued against such an order, informing him that I would eat when and if I wished.
Yet I didn’t.
I picked up the fork and put the food in my mouth. I couldn’t say what it tasted like. Heartache. Regret. Pain.
Kane watched me for a few more mouthfuls, and when he was satisfied that I was heeding his command, he resumed his project.
We didn’t speak again until the crib was put together, the food was consumed, and nothing was fixed between us.
I got up from the chair, with my plate, intending on grabbing Kane’s in order to take them downstairs, to clean and get some much-needed respite from his presence. Even though a large part of me didn’t want him out of my sight, another part, a weaker, more vulnerable part, couldn’t stand sitting in that room feeling his disdain coating me like oil.
“Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” he commanded in a clipped tone as I stood.
I froze at the break in the deafening silence, so brutal, so harsh.
“What?” I asked. I was so angry at myself for the meekness of my voice.
Where was the Avery who spoke with confidence, with power?
She had been left in the kitchen at Inferno, in cinders.
“No way are you taking these dishes,” he continued, not looking up from the crib. He was fiddling with a detail that I couldn’t see.
“It’s late, go and get ready for bed,” he said, still not looking up. “I’ll finish this, take care of the dishes then meet you in bed.”
My heart faltered then beat what seemed like a million times faster than before.
He’ll meet me. In bed. In my bedroom.
Even though he’d shown nothing but disdain for me. Even though I could feel in my bones that he hated me.
I was frozen in place.
“You need anything?” he asked. “From downstairs? Water. Tea. More to eat. Vitamins?”
“Vitamins?” I parroted.
“Prenatal vitamins. You need to be taking them.”
My hackles went up. “I am taking them.”
He’d said a lot of painful, hurtful things tonight. Most of it I deserved. But the insinuation that I somehow wasn’t taking care of my baby… that I couldn’t take.
His chin tilted as he regarded me.
“Okay,” he said after a beat. “Water? Saltines or whatever the fuck to have by your bed in case you get nauseous?”
The tenderness of the offers were in complete juxtaposition of his overall demeanor, yet I felt softened by them, nonetheless.
“I don’t get nauseous anymore,” I told him. “First trimester, yes. I could only stomach mashed potatoes, on a good day. Second trimester I was able to add in some other things. I occasionally have an off day here and there, but now it’s just radiating heartburn, restless leg syndrome, insomnia and migraines,” I joked.
Kane didn’t smile, though I didn’t entirely expect him to.
“That shit isn’t normal.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Suffering like that.”
I laughed, surprising myself. “I’m no expert, but I think that yes, suffering is a normal part of pregnancy and a preparation for motherhood.”
Kane studied me for a long moment, too long. Looking at me without rage for the first time since he arrived.
“Water, tea,” he eventually stated. “Go get ready for bed.”
I pursed my lips, part of me wanting to argue just to get back on steady ground, just to even out the power balance.
But I kept my mouth shut. I imprinted Kane standing in the middle of my nursery in my memory, just in case he disappeared, then I turned and went to get ready for bed.
KANE
There were many places I imagined I’d be the night I got out of prison.
None of them, fucking none would’ve been in a nursery in a small house in coastal Maine.
Avery’s nursery.
Thunder boomed throughout the night.
I focused on my breathing, willing my heart to beat evenly.
I glanced at the open door. There was no lock. I wasn’t trapped. The air was cool. No officers, no yelling inmates, no stench of body odor and metal. I didn’t have to be on guard, ready, waiting to see if Knox’s protection detail had expired.
Most importantly, Avery was in the next room. I could hear her getting ready for bed. I wasn’t wondering where she was, if she’d moved on to another man, if she was safe. She was there. With me. Pregnant with my baby.
My fucking baby .
Lightning illuminated the room. The crib I’d put together. The chair that Avery had sat in, watching me. There were rolls of wallpaper in the corner. Clothes with tags still on them sitting on top of the dresser. Impossibly tiny clothes.
I’d insinuated that the baby might not have been mine.
She’d recoiled as if I’d hit her. I felt pain, agony shredding at my insides seeing her flinch like that. Seeing her shrink before me. She didn’t battle me. She didn’t keep her trademark calm. There was none of that. None of my Chef. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, she spoke timidly, froze like a scared rabbit.
I wanted to hold her. Fuck, I wanted to gather her in my arms and forget it all.
Maybe that was the right thing to do.
I couldn’t, though.
I was too fucking angry.
But I loved her too much to leave. Ever.
I would never leave her. Never leave my baby.
But I didn’t know how to forgive her either.
AVERY
I was in bed. I’d rushed my normally militant nighttime routine. Since I’d moved here, I’d been given something I hadn’t had in years: free time. Endless amounts of it. Enough to make me insane. Nowhere to go in the morning. Nothing to prepare. No menus to design. No food to buy.
Only sorrow to digest, only a baby to grow.
Hence the dog. Hence me becoming addicted to reality TV and detective novels.
And the routines. Morning routine. Nighttime routine.
My en suite was overflowing with all sorts of body and face products courtesy of Kiera, who was sent endless amounts of things in PR. In my prior life, I sometimes indulged in a skincare routine, but most of the time I did nothing more than wash off whatever makeup I’d remembered to apply, brush my teeth and maybe slather on moisturizer.
Now I exfoliated. Used serums. Oils.
All pregnancy safe, thanks to Kiera’s research. I hadn’t even realized there were things you couldn’t use while pregnant.
After researching, I realized that pregnancy was more about what you ‘could’ have. And even those things were highly debated.
Though I should’ve put double the amount of time in to make myself look good, smell good, considering I was getting into bed with Kane, I was in fight-or-flight mode. All I managed to do was wash my face, brush my teeth and tie up my hair.
I didn’t want to get caught midway through my routine by Kane. I felt self-conscious, uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to move around him. Didn’t know how to occupy the same space. And soon, he’d be in my bedroom.
Nightwear proved to be a problem. A big problem.
I didn’t take many things with me when I left New York. Yes, I left in a panic, but even if I hadn’t, I didn’t form attachments to material things. I took as many clothes as I needed for the immediate future, keeping in mind my body was going to change, and I’d have to purchase more anyway. I brought basic toiletries and my chef’s knives.
And Kane’s shirts.
He didn’t have a drawer in my apartment, but he’d had things there. He liked me wearing his shirts when I wasn’t naked, so he left worn ones. And I kept every single one of them. I hadn’t washed them. Slept in them every night until they only vaguely smelled of him. I thought that’s all I had left of him, tees with fading scents and painful memories.
Now he was here, and I didn’t want to be caught in one of his shirts. Didn’t want to show my longing for him when I couldn’t be sure he felt the same for me.
But I didn’t have anything else, unless I wanted to wear sweats—which I now owned copious amounts of. The other option was underwear. I’d been naked around Kane many times, but the thought of sharing a bed with him in my underwear, especially while exposing this new body … I couldn’t stomach that.
His shirt it was.
I’d dive into bed, yank the covers up and hope that he only wanted to share a bed because of practicality’s sake, and he hadn’t slept on a decent mattress in months.
The thought stabbed me.
In the midst of this, it was somehow easy to forget that Kane had been locked away. Sleeping in a cage. Controlled. In an environment that I couldn’t imagine.
Though I’d just told Kane my nausea had subsided, my stomach lurched, and I barely made it to the toilet before I emptied my stomach.
I brushed my teeth a second time then climbed into bed just as I heard Kane ascending the stairs.
The covers were shoved up under my armpits. Aside from lightning sporadically brightening the room, the only lights were the ones filtering in from the hall and the one I’d left on in the bathroom so he didn’t bang into anything. Usually, I read, with the television on because I couldn’t stand the stifling silence in the house. But I couldn’t have both my bedside lamp and the TV on—too much light.
I was just frozen in my spot in bed, far too wired to sleep, too eager to know what this dynamic looked like beyond him being mad at me. Or maybe that’s all this ever would be.
His footfalls were heavy on my hardwood floor as he rounded the bed to place a mug and a glass of water on the cluttered bedside table.
I did not do clutter before. Before, I had a scant amount of possessions, and everything had its place. Since moving to Jupiter, I was constantly buying books, baby things, trying to fill up the house, trying to fill up my mind.
I blinked as Kane leaned forward and somehow found the switch on the lamp on the first go, light flooding through the space.
He was there, right there beside me, face close to mine. His expression was still hard, guarded, but it wasn’t entirely hostile. He held my gaze for ten seconds—I counted—before his eyes went downward to where I was still clutching the covers.
His head tilted, eyes softening.
His fingers clasped mine, gently taking the covers from my death grip. I released because he wasn’t yelling at me, wasn’t staring at me like he hated me, and he was touching me.
The gentle brush of our fingers was the first time he’d touched me since that kiss in the courtroom. My entire body responded. My entire body awakened. Like it had been wilting, hibernating all this time, and it needed him to bloom.
The cool air in the room kissed my skin as he took the covers completely off, exposing me in his tee, my large belly making it so it barely covered my panties, let alone any part of my upper thighs.
I was rigid underneath his gaze, my bones seeming to fill with lead.
He still held his shoulders tight, his entire form tense, but something in him relaxed. Defrosted. The turn of his mouth no longer formed a grimace, the crease between his brows smoothed as he ran his eyes along his shirt, gluing on to my belly a moment before trailing down my legs.
My heart slammed against my rib cage as his hand moved to the hem of my shirt—his shirt—pausing to glance up at me as if he were asking for permission.
I barely moved my head in a nodding gesture, pulse thrashing in my ears.
Kane’s fingers grasped the hem then pulled it up, exposing the tight skin of my stomach.
I was religious about lathering it in oil and moisturizer morning and night. I hadn’t thought I was vain enough to worry about whether or not I got stretch marks, but it was a humbling and terrifying experience to watch my body change without my control, so I was holding on to the small amount of control I could clutch with bleeding fingertips.
Though technically, stretch marks were largely dependent on genetics, not products. Whether it was my genes or the oils, the skin was taut, smooth, my belly button a definite outie now.
Kane let out a hiss of breath as his palms covered the swell of my stomach. He was staring at it in shock, in wonder. He kept the fabric of the tee underneath my breasts, not exposing them.
This touch wasn’t sexual, not exactly. Though there was an undertone there. But that might’ve just been me and my crazy hormones.
Kane tore his eyes from my stomach, peering back up to me. They were watering.
I had to sink my teeth into my lip so I didn’t start sobbing at that expression.
He didn’t say anything, not one word, he just slowly, purposefully moved his face down then laid a gentle kiss on the skin of my stomach.
Then he placed his cheek there, barely putting any weight against me.
“This is your dad,” he whispered to my stomach in a tone I didn’t recognize. Soft. Full of tenderness. Love. “I know I haven’t been around, but I promise, I’m not going anywhere again. Ever.”
It was an oath.
Not just to the baby in my womb but to me. It didn’t feel like forgiveness, though. Not a threat either, but maybe a challenge. I couldn’t be sure. I was overwhelmed by the emotions of the evening. From the emotions of the past nine months. Since I’d met Kane, if I wanted to get technical. Then there was the third trimester exhaustion that was nothing like being in a kitchen for twelve hours.
It was worse.
Luckily, Kane didn’t have anything more to say. He just stayed there with his cheek on my stomach.
Not knowing what came over me—beyond the overwhelming need to make sure he was real—I risked lifting my hand and running it through his hair. The stakes were high, as were the chances of rejection. The way he was touching me right now was not about me, not about my body; it was about the baby inside of me. Our baby inside of me.
Instead of stiffening at my touch, Kane relaxed entirely. I continued running my hands through the strands, letting my heart rate even, letting myself lapse into a tense version of peace.
I couldn’t be sure how long we stayed like that, but I would’ve been content to do it forever. Kane eventually lifted his head, looking toward me. Still, there was a shuttering in his eyes.
“I’m gonna go take a shower, then I’ll be back.” He was rubbing my stomach absently. “Don’t go to sleep.”
The order was spoken in a rasp.
Though there were many things different, unrecognizable about Kane, that tone was not. It sent me hurtling back in time, to my apartment, my bedroom, my sofa, my kitchen counter, dive bar bathrooms.
My libido, a thing that I thought was long dead, awoke with a vengeance.
“Heard, Chef?” he asked.
I sucked in an unsteady breath at the title.
“Heard,” I replied, voice quivering.
He lingered there for a moment, looking at his hand on my belly, then pushed off the bed, walking to the bathroom.
I lay there, trying to calm my galloping heart as I heard the shower run, as he moved about in the room right next to me. He was preparing to come into bed with me.
I tried to catalog the evening so far, tried to process his anger, his hurt, his detachment. Betrayal. That was the biggest one. Not from Brax. Sure, that might’ve hit him, but Kane was smart enough to keep Brax at arm’s length.
Me, though... me, he’d let in. He’d given me all of him, and I’d let someone else take it away and reduce it to nothing.
Then he’d sat in a prison cell for months.
It took significant effort for me not to get up and run to the bathroom down the hall to throw up again. Somehow, I managed.
By the time the bathroom door opened and Kane turned off the light, I had sipped at my tea enough to calm myself down and was not in danger of throwing up again.
Kane didn’t speak when he walked out, but from a glimpse I stole, I saw he was in nothing but his underwear. He’d been muscular before but leaner. In the months he’d been gone—in prison , I corrected—he had packed on weight in pure muscle. He looked more menacing now. More dangerous. My tattoo was still on his left pec. He hadn’t covered it up. My brand. My name. Seeing it burned my throat.
When the bed depressed, I leaned over in order to turn off my lamp. No way could I continue to look at him, feel the ache from all the changes.
A hand at my hip stopped me, a palm moving over my stomach.
“No,” he ordered. “I want to see you.”
He resumed rubbing my stomach, slowly, unhurriedly, impossibly gentle.
I felt the kick at the same time he did, from someone who had been suspiciously quiet this evening. Or maybe I’d been too overwhelmed to notice the movements.
Kane froze as a little foot kicked against his palm. Hard.
And again.
Despite the situation and my overall emotional state, I smiled. It had taken me a while to get used to the movements inside of me. I hadn’t liked them at first. It felt strange and foreign and a far too real reminder that my body was not my own and that I would be a mother soon. A single mother.
But as the baby grew, as I watched her kick in ultrasounds, I felt reassured by my constant company, for a responsibility that forced me to keep going.
Kane still hadn’t spoken, I realized. It had been at least a minute of kicking.
“We’ve got a night owl on our hands,” I said, suddenly desperate to fill the silence. “Which isn’t surprising, considering our nocturnal habits.”
It sounded immensely lame, but I had no idea what else to say. I’d never in a million years thought I’d be lying in bed with Kane again, let alone with his hand on my pregnant belly as our child kicked.
Still, Kane didn’t speak.
I held my breath.
“I had a lot in my life,” he whispered. “Or I thought I had a lot. But after feeling this, I now know I had nothing. ” He tenderly rubbed his hand against my stomach.
I bit my lip so I didn’t cry. I couldn’t respond. I just let us lay there quietly until the baby decided it was time to rest. After, Kane kept his hand there for at least another five minutes. I didn’t dare move.
“Chef,” he rasped, a chill zipping through me at his rough stubble on my ear. Making me shiver despite the scalding warmth of his body.
“Your doctor clear you?” he asked, palm flat on my stomach in a possessive gesture.
“Clear me?” I asked, breathing heavily. He hadn’t touched me anywhere intimate yet … but with Kane, everything was intimate.
“For this.”
His hand dipped down, slipping into my panties where I was soaking for him.
I gasped, but he didn’t go inside. He lingered, hesitant.
I tried to find sense. Reason. He was asking if I was cleared. For this. For him.
For sex.
My body erupted with need, excitement.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’m clear for … this.” My doctor had indeed said that I was having a healthy pregnancy without complications. Despite being classed as a ‘geriatric’ pregnancy, I didn’t have any restrictions including sex.
Why she specifically mentioned sex when I was so obviously single was anyone’s guess, but the information was welcome now.
“It won’t hurt the baby?” His voice was rough, concern and desire mingling. He rubbed my clit lightly, and my entire body jerked, impossibly sensitive.
“No,” I breathed, already panting heavily. “It definitely won’t hurt the baby.”
My need was all-encompassing. My body was alive again, taut and aching for release. For Kane.
His mouth went to my neck. “Gonna have to get creative with positions,” he murmured, still rubbing.
I gyrated my hips, reflexively moving for him, already seconds away from orgasm. Kane had always gotten me there easily, but this was unheard of even for him. Then again, I hadn’t orgasmed in months. That part of me had felt dead.
Clearly, it was not dead. No, I was alive in a way I hadn’t thought would ever be possible again.
“Kane,” I whimpered. That was all I was able to get out before I broke apart, under nothing but his deft fingers, lips at my neck, body behind mine, warm, safe, hard.
My orgasms with him had been intense, always earth-shattering. But whether it was from the long absence, the intense emotions between us or the sensitivity of my body from pregnancy, I’d never weathered my body’s reaction to this extent. Nerve endings I didn’t know I had exploded in pleasure.
I was still shuddering with aftershocks moments later. Kane’s mouth was still at my neck as I tried to catch my breath.
“Now you’re warmed up,” he murmured, his hands returning to my panties.
Though I was still delirious from the orgasm, I was ready to move to help him take them off. I was desperate for it.
That orgasm had done nothing but taken the edge off. I needed more. Needed him.
Kane was obviously as desperate as I was, because instead of rolling my panties down my legs, he ripped them apart.
Though we’d been plenty desperate for each other in the past, he’d never done that.
“This okay, Chef?” He angled me so I was lying on my side, leg cocked up to accommodate him, his hard length perched against my opening.
His body was pressed into my back.
“Yes,” I hissed, bucking back to try to get him inside.
Though I could feel his need, taste it, he stayed there.
His lips traced my ear. “If it gets to be too much, if it hurts, you tell me right away.”
He was worried. About me. About hurting me.
“I will. Now, please, Kane.” I backed up against him again.
“Like that, Chef,” he let out a low growl. “Hearing you beg for my cock. I’ve got half a mind to make you do it a little longer, but I need you. Need to fuckin’ drown in you.”
And before I could respond, he thrust inside.
I let out a muffled cry of pleasure and relief as he filled me. The angle was perfect, my body so sensitive I could feel every inch of him.
Once he was fully inside, he didn’t move.
“This okay?” he asked, voice strained.
“Yes,” I groaned. “Move. Please.”
At my plea, he began moving. Gently at first.
It was nice, impossibly so, but I didn’t want gentle.
“Harder,” I demanded.
“Chef—”
“Harder,” I commanded. “You won’t hurt me, I promise. I won’t break.”
I didn’t say you couldn’t break what was already broken. I didn’t say he’d be putting pieces of me back together. That was far too introspective at that moment.
I’d anticipated him arguing the point further, but his control broke, thrusting faster, harder.
I could’ve burst into tears at the relief I got from it, my body coming apart at the seams. His hands cupped my breasts, letting out a low hiss once he discovered how much bigger they were.
I made a sound between a moan and muffled scream as he tweaked my nipple through his shirt.
He kept pounding into me, and that, in conjunction with his fingers at my nipple, was enough to send me over the edge again.
He let out a roar as I took his release from him.
I didn’t remember much after that, not him pulling out of me. Because the release had taken it all from me. Everything. It had uncoiled things in me that had been wound tight for months. It was the cure to the sickness invading my body. My eyes were drooping, and I lapsed into unconsciousness while he was still inside me, but not before realizing that though he’d had sex with me, he hadn’t kissed me.
That felt important, somehow.
Before I could process it, I was gone, lost to a dreamless slumber.