9. Alison #6
I grab his hair and kiss him while I ride him — fast, messy, using his lap like the only place today gets to end. His praise stays rough, not soft.
“That’s it. Fuck. Look at you. My brave, stubborn girl. You don’t run. You come in here and take me apart. Good. Do it. I can take it. I want it.”
“Ryan—“
His hands flex but he still doesn’t flip us, doesn’t take over. “You wanted control. Have it. I’m yours. Come on. Show me you still want the real one. Not the asshole from lunch. Me.”
I sink down and stay there a second, full, shaking.
“I want you,” I say against his mouth. “I hated you. I want you. Both. At the same time.”
“Then take me.” His voice is wrecked. “Take all of it. I’m not going anywhere.”
I keep going. Faster. Sloppier. His name in my mouth like an argument I can’t win. The anger and the love and the dining hall and the heartbeat all stack until there’s nowhere left for them to go except through me.
“Ryan—“
I break with a sob. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t quiet.
I come hard around him, shaking in his lap, and the orgasm drags the day out of me with it — tears spilling hot down my face before I can stop them.
I clutch his shoulders and cry into his neck while my body keeps pulsing, and I hate that I’m crying during this, and I can’t stop.
“Hey.” His voice changes instantly. He flips us in one careful motion — my back to the mattress, him over me, still inside me, weight braced so nothing lands on my stomach.
He wipes my face with his thumb. Kisses the tears.
One. Then another. “You did so good. You took what you needed. You don’t have to be sharp right now. ”
I hiccup a breath. “I’m still mad.”
“I know.” A kiss to my cheek. Soft. Slow. “Be mad. Cry. Do both. I’m not leaving.”
He starts to move again, but it’s different now. Slow. Deep. Sweet in a way that makes the tears worse. He kisses my mouth like he’s putting me back together one inch at a time.
“I love you,” he murmurs. “I love you so much it makes me stupid. So much I went too far today. So much I can’t watch you treat yourself like the acceptable loss.”
“Please—“
“Listen.” Another slow thrust. Another kiss to wet skin. “You are not the price. You are the girl I love, and you are carrying our baby, and Tobias is ours too whether a court has said it yet or not.”
I cry harder. He kisses the tears anyway.
“I’m still angry,” he says against my mouth, honest, not cruel.
“I’m angry you let him put hands on you.
I’m angry you will walk into anything if it keeps him safe.
I’m angry the world taught you that you come last.” His forehead rests on mine.
“But I love you more than I’m angry. And I will keep choosing you.
I will keep protecting you. I will keep protecting this baby.
” His hand slides between us, gentle over the small swell.
“And I will keep fighting for Tobias. All three. I meant it.”
I nod, wrecked, still full of him, still crying.
“Breathe, baby,” he whispers. “Stay with me.”
He keeps that slow, deep rhythm, kissing my face clean, praising me through the leftover shakes, holding the line he drew in the fight without turning it into another order. Not fixed. Held.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Taking me so well. Still shaking. Still mine. Look at you. Fresh off crying on my cock and still letting me have you.”
A kiss. Softer than the words. “You’re so pretty like this. All wrecked and stubborn and full of me. Best thing I’ve ever seen. Best thing I’ve ever had.”
He slides a hand under my head, the other braced beside me so his weight never lands where it shouldn’t. Every thrust is deliberate now. Not frantic. Claiming.
“This is mine,” he says, low. “This mouth. This body. This baby. The girl who yelled at me until I heard her. The girl who still opened for me after I fucked up. God, Ally. You feel perfect. Tight. Warm. Like you were built to ruin me.”
I gasp when he changes the angle.
He groans like he felt it too. “There. That’s the spot. Let me have it. Let me fuck you like I love you, because I do.”
“Please, Ry—“
His rhythm stutters. “Fuck. I’m close. You want it?”
“Yes. Come. I want it.”
He kisses me hard and breaks. He comes with a low, wrecked sound into my mouth, buried deep, hips jerking through it, one hand covering my stomach like even now that’s the thing he has to hold.
I feel the heat of him, the way he shakes, the way he says my name like a promise he can’t afford to miss.
“Ally—“ He stays there until his breathing evens out. Kisses my temple. My wet cheek. My mouth. Then he eases out of me carefully and drops his forehead to my shoulder.
For a minute neither of us talks. Nothing is magically fixed. I’d be pissed if an orgasm somehow solved international conspiracy and family trauma.
I’m sitting on the edge of the guest house bed pulling my clothes back into place while Ryan finds my other shoe. It somehow ended up near the door. I don’t ask. He brings it to me.
I take it. “I’m still mad.”
“I know.” My head snaps up. He catches himself. “Fuck.”
I almost smile. Almost. “You’re learning.”
“Slowly.” I put on the shoe. Ryan sits beside me. Not touching. For a minute, neither of us says anything. Then he reaches into his pocket. The ultrasound picture.
He looks at it. All the fight leaves his face. “Our baby has a huge fucking head.”
I stare at him. Then I laugh. I can’t help it. “Tobias said the same thing.”
“He was right.”
Ryan runs his thumb over the edge of the picture. Then his expression sobers. “I meant what I said.”
“Which part? You yelled a lot.”
“That I’m not choosing.”
I look at him. “Ryan—“
“No. I’m not saying I can control everything.”
“Growth.”
“Don’t ruin it.” I shut my mouth. “For once, I’m admitting there might be shit I can’t fix.”
“That physically hurt you, didn’t it?”
“Little bit. But you don’t become disposable because somebody younger needs you.” I look away. Ryan doesn’t force me to look back. “You keep counting everybody except yourself, Ally.”
My throat burns. “Tobias needs me.”
“So does our baby.” That one hurts. “And so do I.”
I close my eyes. Ryan’s hand finds mine.
“We get Tobias out,” I whisper. We keep the baby safe and we stop my dad and Victor.”
I look at him. His fingers tighten around mine.
“All three,” he says. I know exactly what he means. Tobias. The baby. Me.
My eyes sting. “All three.”
From the main house, Tobias’s voice carries faintly through the yard. “I SAID EDGEWOOD NEEDS MORE TRUCKS.”
Ryan closes his eyes. I start laughing. A second later, Cassandra yells something we can’t make out.
Then Walter: “LET THE MAN SPEAK.”
Ryan looks at me. “Think the interview’s going well.”
“Pulitzer incoming.”
He stands and holds out his hand. I take it.
Before he opens the door, I stop him. “Ryan.” He looks back. “If you ever throw my notebook on the floor again, I will kill you.”
His expression is completely serious. “Fair.”
“And the writing?”
“It’s fucking good.”
“Correct.”
“And I’m still sorry.” I hold his gaze. This time, I believe him without needing anything else.
“Good.”
We walk back toward the house together. But tucked safely inside Ryan’s pocket is the first picture of our baby.
Inside Cassandra’s office is another one waiting for Tobias.
And for the first time since I saw the word Switzerland, the countdown in my head isn’t the only thing I can hear. Now there’s something louder.
Fast-fast-fast-fast-fast.
A heartbeat. Proof that in the middle of all this fucked-up shit, something is still growing.
So am I.