Chapter 12 #2
The heat creeps up my neck, and I set my croissant down. I look at my hands instead of him. “Actually no. I can’t get pregnant for a different reason,” I say, and the words hit the table with a thud.
He’s quiet for a moment. “Why not?”
I trace a circle on the countertop, my pinky smearing a bit of stray jam.
“It’s stupid. I have fibroids. In my uterus.
Basically it’s a jungle in there—doctors said it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to keep a pregnancy.
” I try for a joke: “It’s like trying to park a car in a garage that’s full of pool floats and Christmas decorations.
” My voice catches and I hate myself for it.
Liam is completely still, the way he gets when he’s reading a student’s confessional essay and doesn’t want to tip off how much it matters. His fork is suspended midair. “Are you okay? Does it hurt?” he asks, voice gentle.
I laugh, brittle. “Sometimes. Not so much lately. I get cramps, and every now and then the cramps get so bad that I go for an ultrasound. But I’m okay.” I touch my lower belly, a reflex I can’t control. “I’m fine, really. Just defective, I guess.”
He sets his fork down with a clink, then turns to face me fully. “Don’t call yourself that,” he says, low and fierce.
I shrug, fighting the urge to look away. “It’s not a big deal. Most guys don’t care because honestly, we always use protection. But we didn’t last night, so I thought you should know.”
He surprises me by reaching out and placing his hand gently over mine, thumb stroking the back of my knuckles. “Thank you for telling me,” he says. “And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up so suddenly like that.”
I want to make a joke, but I can’t. Instead, I stare at the juice in my glass and try to make the room stop spinning.
He gives my hand a final squeeze before letting go. “Do you want kids?” he asks.
The question lands like a stone in a pond, sending out a hundred tiny ripples. I think of the foster homes, the years of feeling like I was a burden someone else had to tolerate, the way I never learned to imagine a future that included anyone but myself.
I say, “I haven’t decided,” and it’s the closest thing to the truth I’ve ever said out loud.
Liam nods, slow, like he’s reading between lines that haven’t been written yet.
We sit in silence, just the sound of the fridge and the fork clinking against the plate. I feel exposed, vulnerable in a way I didn’t expect. I wonder if he’ll take it back, decide I’m not worth the trouble.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches for my glass and tops it off, careful not to spill.
We eat in silence for a while, the mood changed but not ruined. I watch the way the sunlight moves across the countertop, the tiny particles floating in the air, the way Liam’s shoulders tense and relax as he chews.
At one point he asks, “Are you in pain right now?”
I shake my head. “Not at the moment.”
He seems to file the information away, then finishes the rest of his croissant, not making a big deal out of it.
I let my gaze drift to the windows, the world outside glimmering with October blue. I wonder what it would be like to be the kind of girl who never had to explain herself, who could just be soft and pretty and uncomplicated.
But then Liam says, “You’re not defective, Simone,” and the words hang in the air, solid and warm. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
I don’t answer, because if I do, I’ll cry.
We finish our food. The sun keeps moving, and the house settles into a different quiet. I start to clear the plates, but he stops me, saying, “Leave it. I’ll get it later.”
Instead, he leads me to the living room, where we collapse together on the couch. He pulls me close, one arm around my shoulders, and I let myself relax into the weight of him.
We watch nothing on TV, just the muted color bars, but it feels like the safest place in the world.
I rest my head on his chest and close my eyes, letting the sound of his heartbeat drown out the rest of my doubts.
For once, I don’t feel broken.
For once, I just feel loved.
We spend the next hour on the couch, drifting in and out of conversation, occasionally dozing in the hush of the house.
When Liam’s stomach growls again, he laughs and says, “I should feed you real food. Or at least more food.” We migrate to the kitchen, where the countertop is still scattered with the debris of breakfast—jam jars, knives, a mostly-eaten croissant.
He offers to make a frittata. I say I’m fine with toast, but he shakes his head. “No sweetheart. I wore you out last night, and you need the calories.”
I flush, weirdly pleased, and watch as he whips eggs with one hand, his apron tied around his waist, the PICKLE LOVER logo now streaked with a bit of flour.
The light is getting whiter, more ordinary, but the kitchen feels like it belongs to some other world—a world where everything is simple and every worry can be cooked away.
He slides the frittata into the oven and leans on the counter opposite me. His face is unreadable for a moment. Then he asks, “Are you happy here, Simone?”
It’s the sort of question I could have fun with, but instead I tell the truth: “I’m happy everywhere with you.”
He stares, just long enough that I wonder if I’ve gone too far. But then he nods, like he expected the answer all along.
“I get restless,” he says. “This place, my job, sometimes I want to burn it all down and start over.”
I slide onto the barstool, careful to keep the shirt pulled over my lap. “Why don’t you?”
He snorts, half amused. “I have tenure. And a mortgage.” He flicks his eyes toward the window. “Sometimes I think about quitting. Taking a year off. Going somewhere nobody cares who I am. Writing the way I used to before I had to publish or perish.”
He sounds almost shy, which is wild coming from a man who just last night was fucking me so hard I almost passed out.
“But I thought you were tenured already. They’re not going to fire you.”
He shoots me a sideways grin.
“Yeah, that’s true, but there’s my professional reputation to keep up. Plus, I want to write. It’s who I am, and I want to find somewhere isolated to do it so I can concentrate.”
I nod slowly.
“Where would you go?” I ask, letting my chin fall into my palm, giving him the full dream-girl gaze.
He thinks for a moment. “Maine, maybe. A tiny house on the coast. Or a cabin up north, just far enough from the city to matter.” He glances at me. “Would you visit?”
I laugh. “You think I’d let you hide from me? I’d be on your doorstep every morning demanding coffee.”
His jaw ticks, and the look he gives me is almost predatory. “You’d be welcome. If you agreed to cook, clean, and keep me warm at night.”
“Is this your way of asking if I’d be your trad wife?”
He shakes his head, then steps around the counter, standing over me. “No. It’s my way of asking if you’d be my sex slave.”
My cheeks go hot. The words punch a bolt of need through my chest, straight to the spot between my legs.
“You’re not serious,” I say, but my voice betrays me.
He doesn’t laugh. He bends, cups my face, and kisses me hard, tongue sweeping deep until I’m clutching the counter for balance.
He pulls away just far enough to whisper, “I’m completely serious.”
There’s no warning before he yanks the stool closer to the counter, spreading my thighs with his knee.
He tears open the last two buttons on the shirt so it falls away from my body, leaving me bare in the light, nipples already hard.
I want to protest—he never even asked, and there are windows everywhere—but the way he looks at me shuts down my whole nervous system except for the part that wants to be ruined.
He doesn’t wait. He bends, sucking one nipple into his mouth, teeth grazing just enough to make me arch into him. His hands are everywhere—palming my ass, squeezing my thighs, sliding up my back. The scent of coffee and eggs and my own sweat makes my head swim.
He lifts me onto the counter, cold marble against my ass, and drops to his knees. He looks up, meeting my eyes, and says, “Open.”
I do, of course I do.
His tongue is even hotter than last night, more insistent, like he’s been too long without a taste of my pussy.
I grip the edge of the counter as he sucks my clit, fingers spreading me wide.
I’m soaked, embarrassment never even crossing my mind.
The idea that anyone could see—any neighbor, any passing dog-walker—only makes it hotter.
I come so fast I almost don’t realize it’s happening. My vision goes white, and I let out a sound that would get me evicted in most apartment complexes.
“Oooh!” I scream, tossing my head back. “Unnnh, yes!”
Liam looks up for a moment, his chin slick and shiny and grins.
“That’s my cock-hungry fuckslut,” he rasps. “You’ve been flashing this pink pussy at me all morning, wearing nothing but my shirt with your vag bare underneath. I could hardly focus.”
I scream again as another orgasm hits, but Liam doesn’t stop. He keeps eating me through the aftershocks, like he’s addicted, before standing and wiping his mouth on a napkin.
But my man needs relief too. He doesn’t say a word. He just slides his sweats down, cock springing out, already hard and shining at the tip. He lines up and thrusts inside me in one motion, making me gasp and clamp around him.
“Oh my god,” I pant. “You’re so big—unnnnnh!”
He grins like a beast, flashing white teeth.
“That’s right,” he rasps. “Daddy needs to bury every single inch of his cock in you to be satisfied. Your dirty pussy needs to learn to take my cock at any time while you’re in my house, sweetheart. You hear that?”
I can’t answer because the pleasure’s building again. He fucks me hard, bracing me with both hands so I’m pinned to the cold, slick countertop, legs splayed open, the world reduced to the heat of him inside me and the way his chest hammers against mine.
“Unnh,” I moan again, my big breasts jiggling in time with the pistoning of his hips. “Ohhhh god.”
He fucks like he’s staking a claim. Every thrust drives me higher, and I claw his shoulders, digging in just to hold on.
“Liam,” I pant, barely able to breathe.
He looks at me, eyes wild, and says, “Mine.”
I nod, desperate. “Yes, Daddy,” I whine. “I’m yours.”
Something lights in his eyes, and he fucks me harder, the sound of skin on skin slapping obscenely.
I’m close again, so close it hurts, and when he reaches between us to thumb my clit I shatter again, spasming so violently I almost slip off the counter.
He holds me up, lets me ride it out, then drives into me with one final, punishing thrust.
“Fuck!” he roars, a conqueror claiming his territory. “Shit shit shit!”
Liam grunts, face twisted in pure pleasure, and I feel the warmth flood inside me, pulse after pulse of raw, perfect heat. His abs flex, the expression on his face raw desire as his cock shoot ripples.
“Fuck!” he shouts again, his cock like a firehose as it fills me with virile jizz. “Holy shit!”
He doesn’t pull out. He collapses over me, face in my neck, breath hot and ragged as an overflow of sticky sperm trails out from between our bodies. We cling together, a messy tangle of sweat and fluids and desire and need.
For a long time neither of us moves. Then, very quietly, he says into my ear, “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
It’s so raw, so unguarded, that I want to cry.
Instead, I pull his face up to mine and kiss him, soft and deep, like we have all the time in the world.
Eventually he helps me down, hands gentle now. My legs wobble, and I almost fall. He laughs, catches me, and says, “You’re a disaster.”
“So are you,” I reply, and we laugh together.
We clean up the mess in the kitchen, neither of us mentioning the sex or the jam on my ass or the way the countertop is probably going to smell like me for a week.
When I finally get dressed to leave, he walks me to the door, arm around my waist like he’s afraid I’ll vanish. He kisses me once, then again, then says, “Be good.”
I promise nothing.
I drive back to my dorm, sore and still leaking his come, every step a reminder of what happened. But I’m smiling, like I have a secret, the world brighter and sharper than it’s ever been.
I know I’m falling for him.
I know it’s dangerous.
But right now, I don’t care.
Right now, I’m the happiest girl in the world.