30. Elena
ELENA
T hree days after I caved to Adrik in his office, I woke up in bed with the urgency to run to the bathroom. Most people had to obey the call of nature. That wasn’t anything weird.
But it was the strange nausea that prompted me to pause near the toilet after I’d gone.
What the heck?
I frowned as I washed my hands at the sink. Glancing at my sleepy expression, I tried to wake up more fully and think straight.
I woke up yesterday feeling queasy.
And the day before that.
Actually…
I furrowed my brow as I wiped my hands dry.
I’ve been feeling like this for a while.
Certain foods didn’t appeal. Some smells seemed too intense.
I smirked, shaking my head as I headed back to bed, the wave of nausea already over.
Maybe it was just my imagination, that was all.
I climbed back into bed carefully, smiling as I watched Adrik sleeping like the dead. It was still such a huge thing to get over. To believe that this was real life.
Since we’d crashed into each other and mutually caved in his office the other night, we’d been inseparable. At the main house, I tried to be as professional as possible. And he was too busy to sneak away with me, always on calls or going to meetings.
Now, though, when he walked me to the guest house, he stayed over.
I wasn’t sure what the others knew. Cameras were anchored all over the property. Guards patrolled. If we were supposed to be keeping it a secret that we were sleeping together, we were already failing at that.
But he’s the boss. He can do what he wants… including me.
I smiled slyly as I snuggled back under the covers. Then he rolled toward me, still not awake but subconsciously seeking out my warmth. His muscled arm draped over me as he pulled me close to spoon me.
I bit my lip to keep from grinning like an idiot.
He couldn’t see me, my back to his chest.
He was asleep while I was wide awake.
But it was just such a huge deal. We’d “made up”, or at the very least, we’d fallen back to obeying this chemistry between us.
For three nights, he’d been with me, sleeping over and then leaving early in the morning when I’d usually fall back asleep after hitting snooze again. He kept me up so late, having sex over and over and in all the rooms we’d reach. On the floor. In the shower. Everywhere and anyplace we could.
I sighed, so content, but as the deep breath left me, that nausea returned.
Okay, this isn’t in my mind.
I frowned, staring at the lines of ink on his arms and tracing it visually. Yesterday when I traced it with my fingertip, I’d woken him up and that led to a quickie before he left. With how funky my stomach was, I wasn’t sure I could even be up for that right now.
I definitely feel off.
It could be that I was overdoing it. Adrik couldn’t get enough of me at night, and I supposed that there were many core muscles that I wasn’t using that were now overwhelmed and strained.
Yeah, but pulled muscles don’t make you want to puke.
Lying there and relishing the warmth from his hard body, I thought back to when it started. If it could be a bug.
Well, I felt off after he killed him…
Thoughts about my father’s death weren’t so hard to manage now.
They’d pop up, more like reminders that he was gone and could never bother me anymore.
I didn’t entertain thoughts about Adrik’s role in causing his death.
That dismissal came naturally because when I reminded myself that my father had made the choices that warranted his death, it wasn’t as horrendous to accept as a fact.
A necessity, no matter how cruel that might seem.
I couldn’t forget, though, how upset I’d been after that day when Adrik went to kill him.
I’d been more disillusioned than anything else. Those days after his death, I fell into a vacant state of being bothered by how my father had treated me when he was a part of my life.
It had been a difficult time, and I hadn’t held on to much of an appetite. Stress did that to a person. Loss of appetite wasn’t worrisome by itself.
Oh, no.
Another urge to run to the bathroom had me wincing.
Adrik tightened his arm around me and nuzzled his face against my neck.
Dammit.
What is this?
I cringed, dreading the one thing I didn’t want to think of as a valid possibility.
I can’t be.
Adrik and I had only had sex twice within the right timeframe for me to be pregnant, but even I knew that it only took once.
But I can’t be!
I thought back to the nosy and noisy Linda-Lisa at the office when I was still at the firm.
She’d just had a baby. And she was expecting another so soon after giving birth.
Perhaps she was one of those super-fertile women or something, but I tried to recall what she had acted like when she was early in her pregnancy.
Other than annoying, which I hated to admit.
She was annoying before she was pregnant, too, though. That’s nothing but stating a fact.
I rolled my eyes and concentrated.
She had whined about nausea.
Check.
She suffered from being sleepy and sluggish, needing a nap in the middle of the afternoon.
Oh, my God. Check. I had struggled to keep my eyes open lately, and it wasn’t just because I had been up all night with this Mafia man. It was one of those bone-deep exhaustions, like my body was demanding I slow down.
She made a new “policy” that no one could have overly sweet creamers because the smell of coffee and the special creamers made her want to gag.
Check. I grimaced and realized I’d been going on days without coffee now for the same reason. It just stunk.
And she commented to another woman in the bathroom one time about her nipples being sensitive.
Oh, no. Check.
I knew part of my sensitivity there was from Adrik’s stubble and the whisker burn from it. Plus his habit of sucking hard and nipping at me there, which made me come so much harder.
I could be pregnant! We hadn’t used any protection, and?—
“What could you possibly be thinking about so hard over there?” he asked, his voice so sexy and raspy with sleep.
I forced a quick smile, masking my panic. Instantly nervous about what this could mean, I kept it to myself. I’d hold on to this worry until I knew it even was something to worry about.
A baby?
Me, a mother?
Here?
The mother of his child?
Getting knocked up had to be a shocking discovery, no matter what. But in my current situation?
Oh, God.
“Just… waking up,” I replied to him as he rolled me onto my back. He leaned over me, kissing me deeply and almost making me forget about my concern.
“You sure?” he asked, watching me closely. He was too perceptive, too sharp, to ever try to lie to, but I couldn’t share what was on my mind until I knew for sure if I was right about this.
More than the fear of what my pregnancy could mean, I had to hold back because of how he’d been acting too.
Something had shifted in him since he’d told me to go on my knees in his office and suck him off.
We’d reunited—but it was still only a physical connection. We hadn’t really talked about what we were doing, so I was loosely assuming this was a continuation of just sex. No strings.
Well, so much for that philosophy. A baby would be strings!
The only reason I couldn’t fully convince myself that this was only something physical, to scratch an itch, was because of how differently he acted around me.
He wasn’t announcing that we were together.
We hadn’t discussed what we were doing, if we were a couple or what.
Yet, he had changed. Something about his attitude toward me was more open, somehow.
Like he was concerned about me and wanted to care about me.
“You look like something’s bothering you,” he said after he kissed me again. He stroked his hand over my stomach, going lower as he hovered over me. “And if something’s bothering you, I need to know so I can help you with it.”
Oh, dammit.
I couldn’t handle him being tender and attentive like this.
Do you mean it?
Do you care?
What am I to you, really?
Those questions and the answers to them mattered if I was pregnant with his child.
I tensed as he rubbed his finger over my pussy. I smiled shyly and he grinned like the wicked devil he was.
“Oh…” He lowered more, kissing me as he went. “I see what the problem is. You’re sensitive?”
He kissed my breasts, proving that I definitely was there.
I bit my lip.
“Are you sore from how hard I fucked this sweet little cunt?” he taunted as he crawled lower yet.
I smiled widely, putting my hands on his head and threading my fingers through the thick brown hair that was so sexily mussed from sleep. “I love how rough you are with me.”
Before he lowered his mouth to me, he gave me such a filthy, smug expression that I sighed in anticipation of what he’d do to me. “I can be soft, too, just for you…”
He showed how well he could. Licking me reverently and slowly, building up the pressure to come. Sucking at me gently, taunting me to hump his face.
As I careened toward a powerful orgasm as he ate me out patiently, tormenting me by not going faster, I grew more confused, more alarmed at what this meant. His sweet side was a part of his behavior that was still new to me.
Don’t read too much into it, El.
I came, breathing hard and pressing his face down to me as he licked and moaned, swallowing all my arousal and cream.
Don’t assume this has to mean anything.
I couldn’t start acting overly clingy and thinking he wanted me for anything more than sex.
Stop thinking about being pregnant until you know it’s real or not.
Because this , this glorious time with him, still didn’t feel real. It felt like a dream, and I knew how few of those ever came true.