21. Millie
MILLIE
As soon as Cole steps through the door, I sink into his arms, clinging to him for what feels like dear life.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurt out. “If I had known that he was going to go to you and make a scene, I would never have—”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he replies gruffly, squeezing me tight as he stands there in the doorway. For a moment, I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the reality of everything that has happened, but I know, sure as hell, that it doesn’t work like that these days.
I got the call an hour or so ago, when Cole rang me up to let me know that Matt had turned up at the clinic. Drunk, he had berated all of them, revealed that I had told him who Lewis’s fathers were, and now it seems like I’ve shattered what little trust might have still existed between them.
“Yes, I do,” I breathe, as I pull back, closing the door behind him, thanking God that Lewis is at school for another couple of hours. “I just…I shouldn’t have spoken to him about that, not without running it by all of you first.”
“You couldn’t have known that was how he was going to react.”
“Yeah, but I should have been able to guess that he wouldn’t exactly take it well,” I point out.
“I just thought…when he asked me about it outright, I didn’t have it in me to lie to him.
I felt like, if I kept this from him and he found out sometime down the line, I would never be able to forgive myself. ”
“You don’t have to explain,” Cole murmurs, rubbing the small of my back and leading me through to the kitchen to get me a glass of water. “You’re okay, Millie. He made the choice to come there and do that, not you.”
“Were there any patients there?”
He pauses for a moment as he fills up the glass. “A couple.”
I groan. “Oh God, that’s awful…”
“Shit happens. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
I appreciate how intent he seems on convincing me that I have nothing to apologize for, but I know it’s not true.
I can only imagine the gossip that’s flying after my brother turned up at the clinic like that, berating them about God knows what.
I burst into tears the second Cole told me, the thought of all of them fighting enough to bring my emotions to a boiling point, and he had insisted on coming to the apartment to check on me.
Didn’t seem to matter that I told him I would be fine on my own, he’s not the type to leave me with no support in the face of something like that.
He hands me the water and I take a sip, still shaking slightly as I try to wrap my head around all of it. It’s not just the fact that Matt laid all our business out in public, or even the fact that the guys had to have something like that sprung on them at work. It’s that…
It’s that I have never known Matt to be this angry in his life before. And I don’t know if this is the kind of thing that we can come back from.
Matt is the only family I have left, aside from Lewis.
When our parents died, it brought the two of us together in a way neither of us could ever have expected.
We had always been close, sure, but with Lewis and the loss coming almost on top of each other, we bonded so deeply that I had been sure nothing could pull us apart.
If you had told me a few months ago that something would come in between my brother and me, I would have told you that you were crazy, because the two of us were forged in iron, the kind of bond between us that you couldn’t break no matter how hard you tried.
But then, I had to go and do something like this. Something that, even when I first heard about it, I knew he would hate.
And I hid the truth about Lewis from him for so long.
Would things be different if I had just come clean with him back when all this started?
Probably. It’s hard not to wonder what our lives might have looked like if I had taken Matt aside and told him the truth when I first got pregnant.
No doubt there would have been some issues then, sure, but at least it would have been over.
Instead, I left it ticking beneath the table like a time bomb, waiting to go off at any given moment, and I know I only have myself to blame for it.
“Do you think Matt will ever forgive us?” I ask Cole softly. He doesn’t have the answer any more than I do, but I’m just searching for whatever reassurance I can get right now.
Cole reaches for my other hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss against it. “Yeah, I think he will,” he assures me, but even I can hear the doubt in his voice.
I cock an eyebrow slightly. “You really believe that?”
“I don’t know.”
I manage a small smile. “I appreciate the effort,” I murmur, and I rest my head against his, closing my eyes.
I just don’t know where all of this leaves me.
I know I have to see the contract through, and I have no intention of failing when it comes to that.
But what will this do to my relationship with Matt?
I mean, he’s going to have to see my belly growing bigger and bigger, a constant reminder of what I agreed to, of everything that I’ve done behind his back.
“How are you feeling?” Cole asks, as I hop up onto the counter, sipping on the water and trying to bring myself back down to earth.
“I don’t know,” I confess. “I want to call him, but…”
“Trust me, he doesn’t want to hear from any of us right now,” he warns me. “We need to give him time to cool off. Besides, he’s probably still drunk. You should have seen him when he turned up at the clinic, he could barely stand upright.”
“He’s not normally a big drinker.”
“Yeah, but this is a pretty extreme situation,” he points out. “If anyone was going to start drinking, it would be over something like this.”
“God, I could use a drink right now,” I groan, running a hand through my hair. “You think you could get another couple of bottles of that nonalcoholic stuff? Maybe I could get a placebo effect or something, take the edge off.”
He smiles slightly, chuckling. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I gaze at him for a moment, chewing my lip.
“Thanks for coming, by the way,” I remark. “I know you probably have work to take care of—”
“We shut down the clinic for the rest of the day,” he replies, bringing his hands to my waist and stilling them there.
There’s something grounding about his touch, something that soothes me in a way I desperately need right now. I put the glass down beside me, cupping his face in my hands and just looking at him for a moment.
“Was it all worth it?” I ask him.
A huge question, and I know it well, but I need to hear it from him. Need to know that all of this, for the mess that it has become, has at least made sense to him.
“Was what worth it?”
“All of this,” I reply, glancing around. “Having me here again, I mean. Back in your lives.”
He stares at me for a moment, like he truly can’t make sense of what I’m saying.
“With all the drama that’s come of it,” I explain, prompting him as best I can. “I know it hasn’t exactly been easy—”
“Millie,” he murmurs, drawing me a little closer, moving between my legs right there where I sit on the counter. “I would do every moment of this again if it meant I got to see you.”
And before I can reply, he kisses me, planting his lips against mine in the kind of soft embrace that makes my heart flutter in my chest. All the emotion of the day has left me feeling vulnerable and open in a way I haven’t for a long time, and the second he kisses me, it’s like all of that comes welling up to the surface, impossible to ignore, impossible to deny.
I pull back—but he kisses me again, harder this time, and I find myself drawn flush into his arms as I move my hands into his hair.
I know this isn’t the time to be doing something like this, but I just need to lose myself in any way that I can, to forget about everything that’s happening around me and let the desire take hold.
His hands grasp for my hips, and I can already feel him starting to stir to life beneath his jeans.
“Millie,” he murmurs. “You know I would do anything for you, don’t you?”
I can hardly find the words to reply, deepening our kiss by way of response and hoping that will pass for what he’s looking for.
I love the way he feels against me, the scent of him as it swirls around the two of us—like a cocoon keeping us from the rest of the world, somewhere we can just lose ourselves to each other entirely.
He reaches to my skirt, pushing it up over my hips and slipping his hand between my legs so he can brush his fingers over the outside of my panties.
It’s only the barest bit of pressure, but it’s enough to bring a whimper to my lips, and I feel him grinning against me, clearly enjoying every one of my reactions.
“You want me to fuck you?” he asks, and I nod. I need to feel him inside of me, that sensation of being spread open, being filled.
He took me on the couch the other night while we were with the guys, but I’ve never been with him and him alone before. Suddenly, it seems like the most important thing in the universe, and I reach down to slip my panties off, letting them pool on the kitchen floor below us.
My fingers graze pointedly at the outside of his pants, and he wastes no time in unzipping them and pulling his cock into his hand.
I steal a glance at him, and I can see pre-cum glistening on his tip—it’s the last thing I catch sight of before he moves beneath my skirt and brings himself to my entrance, drawing me right to the edge of the counter so he can fuck me in exactly the way he wants to.
Both of us moan as he enters me for the first time, my arms winding around him as my ankles hook behind his back.
He gazes at me, his eyes so passionate that it feels as though they might set me on fire.
I do my best to stare back at him, making sure he knows that I want this just as badly as he does.
He slides himself in to the hilt and holds himself there for a moment, letting me feel him, every inch of him, as he parts my folds and takes me.
He brushes his nose against mine, his breath warm on my skin, and lets me linger in that sensation for just a second longer.
And then, finally, he begins to move.
His body flexes into mine, drawing back and then plunging inside me.
I cry out, the sound echoing around the kitchen, the quiet apartment broken only by the noise of our bodies coming together.
I squeeze my thighs on either side of him, drawing him in deep, needing to close whatever distance there might still be between us once and for all.
“Mmm,” he moans, dragging his lips across my cheek as he breathes in the scent of me. I can feel how hard he is inside of me, how much he needs me right now, and I turn my head and press it into his chest, squeezing my eyes shut again so I can focus on just how damn good it feels.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, as he fucks me on the counter, slowing his pace slightly as though he’s savoring every second of my body wrapped around his.
The angle he’s taking me at, it allows him to grind against my clit with every thrust, adding a delicious new layer of pleasure that’s already starting to send me tipping toward my release.
He takes his time guiding me there, clearly sensing that I’m responding to everything he’s giving me right now.
I pull back to catch my breath and he kisses me, driving himself to the hilt inside of me, and I draw in a sharp breath against his lips; and then, my body gives out, my pussy clenching around his length as I come on his cock.
He just keeps himself there, our hips pressed flush together, his muscles tense as he wraps his arms around me and holds me close.
It’s like he doesn’t want to let go, like he can’t even imagine it.
Like he knows as well as I do that, as soon as he pulls back, we’re going to have to deal with the reality that waits on the other side for us.
But I don’t have to think about that right now. All I have to think about is the cresting pleasure flooding from between my legs to consume every inch of my body. My nails stroke across the nape of his neck and his shoulders, communicating to him in every way I can just how damn good this feels.
And it seems to be my pleasure that takes him to his release, as he groans against me, his cock finally twitching deep within me as he fills me with his warmth.
My thighs are still twitching against him, my body tugging on him as if reluctant to give him up.
For a little while, the two of us just hold each other there, breathing hard, trying to come down to earth in any way that we can.
I know this is only going to make things a million times more complicated than they already are. And I know that I should be smarter than to let something like this happen. But when I’m with him, when I’m with any of them, it’s not like I’m thinking about the most sensible option.
No, I’m just thinking about how much I want them—and how there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do if it meant that I could show them how much I care.