1 - A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT #3
Brock’s eyes traveled the length of her body, lingering on the blonde curls between her legs, and she didn’t feel self-conscious. She felt seen.
“Come here,” he said.
She came.
Straddling him again, this time with nothing between them.
She could feel the head of his cock against her entrance, could feel how wet she was, how ready.
The hormones had done something to her libido—amped it up, made her constantly aware of her own body—and now all that pent-up desire was focused on the man beneath her.
She reached down. Positioned him. And sank down.
The stretch was exquisite. Her body adjusted around him, the fullness of it blotting out everything else—the failed transfer, the empty nursery that existed only in her mind, the husband sleeping upstairs who couldn’t give her this.
She rose and fell, finding a rhythm, and Brock’s hands gripped her hips so hard she knew there’d be bruises.
“You feel—” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
Victoria braced her hands on his shoulders.
Rode him harder. The angle hit something deep inside her, made her gasp, made her chase that sensation with every roll of her hips.
Her breasts bounced with the motion. Brock’s mouth found one, tongue laving her nipple, and she cried out—too loud, probably too loud—and didn’t care.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, yes—”
His hand wedged between them. His thumb found her clit, pressed circles into the swollen nub, and the world went white.
Her orgasm hit without warning, ripping through her like a sheet tearing down the middle.
She bucked against him, her inner walls clenching around his cock, and she heard herself moan but couldn’t control it, couldn’t control anything.
Brock’s pace stuttered. His breath came in short bursts. “Where—should I—”
“Inside me.” The words were out before she could think about them. “Cum inside me.”
His eyes met hers. Something passed between them—an understanding, a question she was answering with her body—and then he was driving up into her, three more thrusts before he buried himself deep and emptied with a groan that sounded like it had been torn from his chest.
Victoria felt the heat of him spread inside her. Felt her own body milk him, drawing every drop deeper. She stayed there, impaled on him, her forehead pressed to his, their breath mingling in the darkness.
—
The baseball game had ended. The television showed a blank blue screen.
“Oh god,” Brock finally said. His voice was hoarse. “Oh god, what did we do?”
Victoria climbed off him. His seed trickled down her thigh. She reached for her sweatpants, pulled them on, her movements mechanical now that the heat had passed. Her body still hummed with the aftermath of her orgasm, but reality was already creeping back in at the edges.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t regret it. Not yet.”
Brock pulled his sweatpants up. His t-shirt was still on the floor, and he didn’t reach for it. In the blue glow of the television, he looked older. Looked like a man who’d just stepped off a cliff and was only now realizing how far the drop was.
“He’s my son.”
“I know.”
“If he finds out—”
“He won’t.”
She said it with a certainty she didn’t feel. But the alternative—telling Joey, confessing what she’d just done in his father’s living room while he slept off his grief upstairs—was unthinkable.
Brock ran a hand over his face. “You should go to bed.”
“I know.”
“Victoria.” He caught her wrist as she turned to go. His grip was gentle. “Are you—was that—?”
She knew what he was asking. Knew it from the way his eyes dropped to her belly, the way his voice caught. The thing they hadn’t talked about, the thing that had pulsed beneath every moment of their coupling like a second heartbeat.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I’ll find out in two weeks.”
“And if it—if you’re—”
“Then we’ll figure it out.”
She pulled her wrist free. Walked up the stairs on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else.
In the guest bathroom, she cleaned herself up with a washcloth, wiping away the evidence of what she’d done.
Her reflection in the mirror looked the same.
Blonde hair mussed. Blue eyes tired. The same Victoria who’d woken up that morning hoping the embryo inside her had taken root.
But that embryo was dead. And something new had begun.
She slipped into the bedroom. Joey hadn’t moved.
He lay on his back, mouth open, one arm thrown over the space where she should have been.
The smell of beer hung in the air around him.
She climbed into bed beside him, pulled the sheet up to her chin, and stared at the ceiling fan while Brock’s semen dried inside her.
Please, she thought. To God, to fate, to whatever force had decided she didn’t deserve to be a mother. Please let it work this time.
Joey shifted in his sleep. Mumbled something that might have been her name.
Victoria closed her eyes. The guilt was there, a stone in her chest, but beneath it was something else. Something that felt terrifyingly like hope.
She pressed her hand to her belly. Flat. Always flat.
But maybe not for long.