17. Tamara #2
There will be no tomorrow for me and Finn if Leonid or Aiden Kavanagh discovers me in his apartment, and right now, it feels as if tomorrow is all we have.
We don’t find Ivana.
We don’t find her the next day, or the day after that.
The days gather momentum and blur into one endless game of hide-and-seek where we’re the seekers wearing blindfolds, and Ivana is one step ahead of us. But still, Finn refuses to take me back to the docks because it’s the surest way for Leonid to find me.
The sickness is recurring. There is no rhyme or reason to it; some mornings, I feel nauseous before I even get out of bed, and others, I don’t feel sick until I climb off the back of Finn’s motorcycle at the end of the day and weariness consumes me.
I’ve puked in a trashcan in the underground parking lot, in a bush on the side of the highway, in Finn’s guest bathroom, and behind a dumpster.
At times, I feel so exhausted that I have to force myself to get out of bed and get dressed in the clothes that Finn purchased for me, but then an hour later I feel ready to take on the Petrovs with a handful of bullets and a single dagger.
My only consolation is that I’ve managed to hide it from Finn.
Then early one morning, I’m lying on my side in his bed trying to fight the dizziness making the room spin like a carousel, when his hand slips around me from behind, and he pinches my nipple between his thumb and index finger.
It’s still tender from the night before, and I clench my jaw to stop myself from crying out. I lie perfectly still, pain curling my fingers and toes into talons, as his erection swells between my ass cheeks.
“Did I mention how fucking beautiful it is waking up beside you every morning?” Finn leans over me and whispers in my ear, his breath tickling my neck.
“Several times.” I turn my face to look at him and force a smile, the world tilting sideways at the same time.
“Sorry.” He tips my chin towards him and kisses me on the lips.
My pussy tingles, knowing the pleasure that follows a good-morning kiss, but my body has other ideas for how this is going to go.
Nausea crashes through me like a tidal wave. I shove Finn’s hands off me and dash to the bathroom, kneeling in front of the toilet just in time. I retch and vomit until there’s nothing left inside me and my body is shaking violently, my flesh a prickly mass of goose bumps.
Finn gently places his bath robe around my shoulders and pulls me onto his lap the way he did the first time I was sick, and I rest my head against his chest, comforted by the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
“How can I make you feel better, sweetheart?” He holds me loosely as if afraid he’ll make things worse if he squeezes me too tight. “Can I get you a glass of water? Coffee? Marmalade toast?”
“Water. With ice.” My voice is raspy. “Please.”
“Water it is.” He scoops me into his arms to carry me back to the bedroom, but I push him away. Again.
“I think I’ll stay here.”
He dips his head so that we’re on eye level. “Are you sure? You’re shivering.”
On cue, my teeth chatter to prove his point, and I pull the robe around me to cover my nakedness, something I’ve never done when I’m with Finn. “I might need to be sick some more.”
I don’t look at him in case he can see the lie in my eyes.
“I’ll be quick as I can.” He kisses the top of my head and stands up, leaving me huddled on the floor, my cheek pressed up against the cold tile.
I sense his hesitation by the door, but I don’t look around. When he is gone, I haul myself onto my feet, drop the robe onto the floor, and study my naked reflection in the bathroom mirror.
My breasts are swollen, the nipple he pinched a short while ago, pink and erect.
My stomach is still flat, but when I turn to the side, I don’t think I’m imagining the gentle roundness of my abdomen.
And despite the sickness and the tiredness, and my sluggish movements, my pussy is permanently dripping, something I’d blamed on sleeping beside Finn’s semi-permanent erection.
Until now.
I spent a lot of time with Gianna and Cartier when they were pregnant. I know the signs, and I’ve overheard too many pregnancy and childbirth conversations between them to pretend that this isn’t happening. I don’t want to believe it, but I can’t ignore it now.
When Finn returns with a glass of iced water and concern in his eyes, I’m back on the floor where he left me, with his robe draped across my shoulders.
I accept the glass and sip the water slowly, relishing the instant brain freeze. I’ve never touched alcohol, but from what I’ve heard, this welcome fuzziness in my head is almost the same as getting drunk.
Finn crouches in front of me. “I think you should see a doctor.”
“No.” My smile flickers like a faulty firework and dies before it’s ever fully there. “I don’t need to see a doctor. It’s… anxiety… over Ivana. I’ve had it before. It’ll pass when we find her.”
I must be shit at lying because he doesn’t even pretend to believe me.
“I’d feel better if you get some tests done, sweetheart.
Humor me, yeah? When you get the all-clear, I promise to never mention it again.
I’ll hold your hair back while you’re being sick, I’ll bring you iced water and feed you toast until you get sick of me, but at least it’ll stop me worrying about you. ”
“You don’t need to worry about me.” I take his hand and nuzzle his palm with my cold cheek. “I’m fine.”
“Noted. But worrying is in my blood.” He isn’t going to let this drop.
“Sure.” I try to inject some enthusiasm into my tone. “I’ll see a doctor tomorrow if it will make you feel better. I’m too tired today.”
His boyish smile delivers a sharp stab of guilt into my chest, because I have no intention of speaking to a doctor, but I tell myself that he left me no choice. Lying is my safest option until I figure out my next move.
“How about a movie day? We’ll take blankets into the living room and make popcorn and be sloths while we watch True Romance.”
Shit! I can’t even think about being a sloth with all the confusing thoughts hurtling around my brain and the hormones building a bonfire inside my core. And it will be impossible to give his favorite movie the attention it deserves.
“I think I need to sleep.” The lies keep on coming.
I take a deep breath before I say, “You could go down to the docks without me. We’re not going to find Ivana anywhere else.
She won’t leave the docks until she has finished with the Petrovs, and if Leonid sees you alone, he’ll think you’re working for Aiden. ”
I watch indecision dance across his features and settle into resignation, knowing that he won’t refuse because he knows how important this is to me.
Finally, he nods, pulls me closer, and kisses my forehead. “I’m going to leave a burner phone with you. If you feel worse, or you need anything, you call me, okay?”
He holds my gaze until I say, “Okay.”
He insists on carrying me back into his room and covering me with the comforter on his bed. I listen to the shower, and his electric razor, and follow him with my eyes as he gets dressed, my body aching to touch him while my mind is desperately trying not to scream.
When he is ready, he crouches beside the bed and smooths my hair away from my face. “Can I get you something to eat before I go?”
I shake my head and pray that he doesn’t hear my stomach growling with hunger. Now that the nausea has passed, I could eat everything in his kitchen and still find room for gelato from Loopie and Nato’s.
“I’ll make toast later if I’m hungry.”
His gaze devours me like he can’t bear the thought of walking out of here and spending the day apart, while I wish that he would hurry up and leave before I crack and beg him to fuck me.
“Burner phone.” He pulls a cell from the nightstand drawer, unlocks it, and programs his number into the Contacts App. “Anything at all, call me. Even if it’s just to say hello.”
I smile. “I can save hello for when you get back.”
“Okay.” He shrugs. “Call me if your pussy is in need of some loving.”
My smile grows even wider. “Will you come straight back if it does?”
“I’ll move heaven and fucking earth to get back here if you tell me your pussy needs some loving.” He takes my hand and places it over the bulge in his pants. “I should go before I forget you need to sleep.”
He places one last kiss on my lips and then leaves me alone in his room with his robe around my shoulders and his burner phone on the nightstand.
I wait for the front door to close behind him before I get out of bed, shower and dress, mimicking his morning routine perfectly, grab the spare key he gave me the morning after I showed up at his door, and head outside.
I go straight to the nearest pharmacy, find a pregnancy test kit, pay for it at the register and go straight back to Finn’s apartment.
Locked inside his guest bathroom, I pee on the stick and wait two minutes even though the test claims to provide an accurate result within sixty seconds.
I don’t even bother to read the instructions; these things are so advanced now that I don’t even have to figure out what two red lines mean because the word PREGNANT is staring straight back at me like the test morphed into a Magic 8 ball.
I drop the plastic stick and sit back on the floor.
I’m pregnant.
I’m pregnant with Finn’s child.
And this changes fucking everything.