Chapter 21
Freya’s eyes are still wet when she looks up at me. She’s undone in a way I’ve never seen from her. One tear slips down, leaving her looking raw and exposed. What the hell have I done?
I cup the base of her skull and sweep my thumb along her jaw.
“Freya,” I say. “What I did… I didn’t know it would hit you like this.”
She blinks, and the depth of her gaze cracks something wide open in my chest. She’s so goddamn beautiful.
“I never thought you couldn’t handle it,” I murmur. “That never once crossed my mind.”
Her fingers catch lightly in my shirt and, Christ, I want her to hold on. I want her to stay right here. Words barely scratch the surface of what it does to me.
“All I wanted was to make your life easier,” I murmur. “I should’ve asked. I should’ve paid better attention to what it meant to you. I was trying to fix something without understanding what was broken.”
I rest my forehead against hers. Her breath grazes my chin, and the urge to kiss her hits like a punch.
“You have nothing to prove.” A confession makes its way to the surface. “You’re the most perfect woman I’ve ever met.”
The truth of the statement is so deep, it almost swallows me whole.
I trail my thumb along the column of her throat, feeling her swallow beneath my touch.
I fucked this up. God, I had her trust. I was building something here, and I wrecked it.
“Please don’t leave.” The words come out unintended, meant to be a silent plea in my mind.
Freya goes still. Her fingers unhook from my shirt. She lifts her head just enough that her breath warms my lips.
“Anton…” she whispers, soulful, doe eyes searching mine.
There’s confusion there.
She studies my face like she’s trying to see past the apology and the comfort I’m giving into the part I didn’t mean to show her—the part that slipped out before I could tie it down. The part that’s terrified of fucking this up.
Turns out that being just friends never protected me from the fear of losing her. How could it? She’s not just one person I love but two.
Her finger drags unconsciously along my sternum. “Why would you think I’d leave?” she asks, voice barely above a breath.
And just like that, the moment tilts.
Not away from her pain, not fully because it’s there on her still-glossy eyelashes, but it’s like there’s some sort of mirror between us. Bearing her wound revealed mine.
Her question hangs between us like a lit fuse, but I can’t answer it.
“I’m mad at you…” She parts her lips. “But I want you.”
She’s looking at me like she wants to set fire to every version of us that came before.
So I kiss her.
My lips crash against hers, a rough, guttural sound tearing out of me as I pull her in with both hands. Her chest hits mine, soft breasts and heat. Her fingers fist in my shirt, dragging me closer, and the sound she makes against my mouth is pure devastation.
She parts her full lips for me, and I swirl my tongue around hers. It’s a kiss so goddamn raw, it shreds whatever’s left of wanting to be friends and all my self-control. I slide my hand down her spine and cup her voluptuous ass.
God, she tastes like everything I’ve been denying myself.
Everything I’ve ever wanted.
Freya answers my hungry kiss with a soft, broken noise that goes straight to my knees. Her hands slide up my chest, fisting in the fabric of my Henley.
She smells like vanilla and want, and fuck, it hits me harder than it should.
I break from her lips only long enough to growl against them, “You want me,” my voice gritty. “I’ll give it all to you.”
“I want it,” she groans.
My hands guide her down to the couch with greed.
I ease down over her, braced on one arm. I push her legs open and press my body between them, cock eager and pressing hard against my zipper with a painful desperation and she matches my need by pressing her hips into me.
My fingers can’t get through the damn buttons of her uniform shirt fast enough, but when her breasts fall out to the sides, I yank down her bra.
“Christ…” my deep voice rumbles.
Her breasts are even bigger now than months ago in that hotel.
Fuck me.
I clamp my mouth down over her nipple, and she gasps as I suck the mound into my mouth.
Her body arches up, and I can feel the heat between her legs right through those uniform pants of hers. I rub my fingers over the fabric at her center, where I swear she’s already wet. “Fuck, are you already soaked for me, honey?”
She drags my shirt up and off. “Why don’t you find out?”
I kiss her hard, messy, and deep while I undo her belt, and she helps me with the button, the zipper…
“Your body,” I mutter against her lips, then her neck. “It’s my undoing.”
I tug the rest of her shirt over her head, and somehow, she’s already pushing her pants down, kicking them away until she’s there in front of me—bare, flushed, breathtaking on my sofa.
Every instinct in me surges forward. But then my gaze drops.
Her belly.
I’ve seen it beneath fabric, beneath layers meant to keep me steady. This is different. This is undeniable.
That’s our baby.
I place my hand there. We both still. I’m hard as hell, blood pounding, but through my hand is impossible awe. Responsibility. The weight of what we made together.
Her skin is warm beneath my palm, deep bronze and real and alive. She’s not some fantasy. She’s here. In my hands. And beneath it all is our child.
She watches me take it in, then smiles like she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. Her hand covers mine, then guides it lower, between her legs, breaking my spell.
I slide my hand inside her panties, spreading her pussy lips and finding her swollen bud. I circle it until she widens her thighs and arches toward my touch.
“Fuck,” she breathes, teeth catching her lip. “This feels even better pregnant.”
I brace one hand on the couch because I’m dangerously close to losing it from the feel of her slick folds on my fingertips.
I circle her slowly, then take brief pauses to slide two fingers inside her, letting her feel every inch of my control.
She’s hot and tight and already so ready, and as much as my aching cock wants to be inside her, I want to make her come apart first.
I take her in— body arched, the curve of her belly, full with my child. Her legs spread wide for me. Her nipples are tight, peaked, impossible to ignore. I grit my teeth, forcing the animal in me to slow the hell down.
She presses her core into my hand; every time my fingers move inside her, she thrusts up into them, desperate, urging me faster, closer. Her breathing turns wild, broken. Everything between her legs is swollen and gushing until finally her body tightens, her rhythm chasing mine.
“Uh…” she gasps, the sound torn from her as she shudders around my fingers.
I ease in and out of her, measured, controlled, until she finally opens her eyes and fumbles for my jeans, fingers curling like she can’t wait another second.
“Lose the pants…” she moans. “Get in me…now.” She seems partially out of her mind, and I can’t say I’m not there with her. She shoves at my waistband, breath ragged. ‘Now, Anton.”
I push my jeans and boxer briefs off, and they hit the floor. Her hands are on my chest, then my back, then in my hair. She grabs me everywhere, dragging, clutching, pulling like she can’t decide where she needs me most.
I line my dick up to her entrance and run it through her wetness.
My cock glistens, and I nearly lose it right there with just the tip sliding along her seam.
I’ve never wanted anyone like this. Never needed to be inside someone the way I need this.
“Fuck, you feel fucking tight. And so fucking hot.”
I drive into her, but not as hard as the last time. I don’t want to hurt the baby, though the books said that’s impossible. I’ve never done this before.
“This what you wanted?” I ask, more harshly than I intend.
She nods, eyes wide, lips parted. “Don’t hold back. It feels so fucking good.”
I thrust in and grab her ankles, pushing her legs up and apart. She looks like a dream. Full breasts, soft curves, smooth deep amber skin… This isn’t just sex. This is undoing. She’s unraveling me one moan at a time.
I’m fucking ruined.
The rhythm builds, rougher. My hips meet her thighs, and I’m driving in deep.
She meets every movement like it’s both a challenge and a plea. Everything in me belongs here, to her. I move with more relentlessness now, and the small, broken sounds she makes push me closer to the edge.
Being this close to her—like this—has my vision flashing, my grip tightening, my whole world narrowing down to the woman beneath me.
Riding her bare like this has me seeing fucking stars. I lose whatever restraint I had left, driving into her faster, harder, unable to stop myself now. She shatters first, coming apart beneath me with a broken cry that yanks me straight over the edge with her.
“That’s it,” I grit out. “Come for me, honey…” I move harder, deeper, everything in me stretched to the breaking point, control slipping through my fingers.
She pants, nails digging in. “Give it to me…”
And I do. I let go completely, spilling into her, the hot, breathless rush of us colliding, combining, becoming something singular.
We collapse together, tangled and spent, slick with heat and breath and tremors still rolling through us. I stay right there, forehead pressed to hers, her name lodged in my throat.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, wrapped around each other in the quiet aftermath, her body soft and heavy beneath mine, our breathing slowly finding its rhythm again.
When she finally shivers, I kiss her temple, reverent, then reach for the blanket draped over the back of the couch and pull it around her, keeping her warm, keeping her close.
She sits up, and I curl myself around her to keep her warm.
For a while, neither of us talks.
But finally, she says, “I didn’t know I was carrying all of that.”
“Neither did I.” I laugh roughly. “Maybe I did… But it’s different now that someone else knows.”
“Yeah,” she murmurs.
We go still again because the silence says more than words ever could.
Her head rests on my shoulder, fingers laced with mine. And for the first time in a long damn time, I feel…settled.
Maybe this is the moment I start to believe I can keep it all.
I brush the hair from her cheek. “Let me feed you,” I say quietly.
“Then show me what GhostEye turned up.”
Unsurprisingly, she never forgot about the red truck. But it’s also a solid segue to not talk about what just happened.
I kiss her forehead and grab my jeans from the ground. “You’re insatiable.”
She smiles slyly. “Isn’t that your favorite thing about me?”
I cup the back of her skull and brush her jaw with my thumb. “I’d never be able to pick one thing.”
Shit, I feel like a round two now. But she’s been working all day. She and the baby need to eat. I slide my pants back on and throw my shirt over my head.
She sits up slowly, pulling the blanket tighter around her bare shoulders. “So we have a name?”
I head to the kitchen. “Yeah. And address.”
“Note to self. I need to get in good with GhostEye.”
“You already are.” I lean into the fridge, taking stock of what I can throw together.
Her voice comes from behind me. “I’m going to clean up before dinner if that’s okay?”
I turn, and she’s adorable, all bundled up. “Course. Take your time.”
She shuffles inside her blanket cocoon to the staircase and disappears up to her room.
Her room. Not mine. Not ours.
I stare down at the ground meat I pulled from the fridge, my thoughts threatening to spiral anyway.
What if this was just a moment?
Like before. Something intense and real and gone as fast as it came. A surge we rode out instead of a bridge we’re actually going to cross.
Enough of that, Easton.
It’s going to take a minute to believe this won’t disappear on me. I know that. I’m not stupid. Old instincts don’t die quietly.
But fear doesn’t get to make this call.
I don’t just want this woman; every cell in my body is screaming that she belongs to me. I can’t walk away from that because it scares me.
Because this—she—is what I want. And I don’t let go of things I mean to keep.
Even with a dozen unanswered questions still waiting for us.