21. Cat #2
“Can I?” His fingers hover at the gown’s hem where it bunches above my thighs.
“Yes. Touch me. Slowly.”
He eases the paper up. I’m half-naked already underneath, exam-room practicality, no lace, just skin and the soft swell of twenty-two weeks.
He makes a sound that never belongs in any boardroom: raw, almost awed.
Both hands frame my belly, thumbs stroking the tight stretch of skin, and then he bends and presses a kiss just above my navel like a vow he doesn’t deserve to make yet.
“You’re exquisite,” he says into my skin. “All of you. The way you look at me. The way you feel. Fuck, Cat.”
“Gentleman later. Touch me now.”
His hand slides lower, between my thighs, and finds me already slick.
He groans. Two fingers stroke through my folds, spreading wetness up to my clit, circling with a patience that makes my hips twitch on the thin mattress.
The cot creaks. The door is closed. Beyond it, the farmhouse is quiet; here, the only rhythm is his breathing and mine.
“Lie back,” he whispers. “Let me take care of you. Please.”
I ease onto my elbows, then my back, paper gown crumpled under me like shed skin.
He adjusts a pillow under my hips before I can ask, angle, belly comfort, the logistics of wanting a pregnant woman on a medical cot, and the care of it nearly undoes me more than the touch. Nearly. Wanting still isn’t forgiving.
“Max-”
“You’re safe with me. Say stop and I stop. Say slower and I slow.” His mouth drops to the inside of my knee. “Say more and I’ll give you more.”
“More.”
He settles between my thighs as best the narrow cot allows, one foot still on the floor for balance, and licks into me with a reverence that borders on apology.
Soft at first, learning the new sensitivity pregnancy gifted me, then surer when I fist the sheet and push against his mouth.
One hand steadies my hip while the other follows the rhythm of his mouth.
When I shift, he pauses until I find a comfortable angle.
“Oh, god, right there-”
He seals his lips around my clit and sucks gently, two fingers easing inside, curling upward.
The stretch is perfect. The care is infuriating.
I wanted anger-sex and he’s giving me devotion, and somehow that cracks me open faster.
My orgasm builds like a tide against a poorly built wall, inevitable, messy, and when it breaks I clap a hand over my own mouth against the cry that threatens to escape. The sound still fills the little room.
He kisses my trembling thighs. Climbs up carefully, mindful of elbows and belly, and kisses me deep, and I get myself and antiseptic and him all at once.
“You still with me?” he asks.
“Annoyingly yes.” My hands find his belt. “Your turn. Pants off. Don’t make me do paperwork.”
He huffs a laugh and shoves his pants down past his hips. He’s hard, flushed, leaking at the tip. I curl my fingers around him and pump slow, watching his jaw go tight, watching him check my face every two seconds like consent might expire mid-stroke.
“How do you want me?” he asks. “I can lie back. You can ride. I don’t want to put weight on-”
“Sideways.” I scoot toward the edge of the cot. “Behind me. Spoon. Your arm around me. If you go remote and heroic I’m kicking you onto the linoleum.”
“Understood.”
We arrange ourselves with awkward choreography on the narrow cot, my top knee hooked forward over a pillow, his chest warm against my back when I lean into him. He notches himself against my entrance from behind and waits, again, the bastard saint.
“Yes,” I say. “In. Now.”
He pushes into me in one long, careful slide.
The fullness wrings a moan out of my chest. His hand rests lightly at my waist, while his other arm slides under my neck so I can rest my head on his bicep.
He starts to thrust in shallow, rocking motions that keep pressure off my abdomen and still manage to drag against every sensitive place inside me.
“Feel okay?” he checks, voice strained.
“Feels like I might forgive you in five to seven business years. Keep going.”
“I’ll take the timeline.” He kisses the back of my shoulder. “You feel unreal. Hot. Perfect. I’ve dreamed about this, about you round with my baby, and the dream was cheap compared to-”
“Less poetry. More cock.”
He laughs against my neck and gives me more, still careful, still measured, but deeper, a grind that makes my toes curl against the scratchy sheet.
His thumb drags back to my clit, grinding rough circles into me in time with every thrust. The cot frame complains.
My paper gown is a crumpled rumor somewhere near our feet.
I push back onto him greedily, chasing friction, chasing the particular insanity of wanting a man I haven’t finished being furious at.
“Cat, I’m close-”
“Don’t you dare finish before I do again.”
“Not a chance. Tell me what you need.”
I tighten around him on purpose, and the sound he makes is worth every second of the wait.
“Harder on my clit. Stay deep. Talk.”
“Talk?”
“Tell me what you thought about when you were gone. Filthy version. Earn it.”
He groans. His fingers speed up. “I thought about spreading you out on every surface I own. Thought about your thighs around my ears. About making you feel good again. About fucking you slow like this until you couldn’t remember what you were going to say.
” His hips snap a fraction harder. “Thought about the sounds you make when you’re past words. Like that. Fuck. Like that exactly.”
The second orgasm takes me sideways, literally, shuddering in his arms, gripping him so hard he groans, while his arm holds me close without pressing against my stomach.
I bite the pillow. He follows a stroke later, muffling his groan in my hair, pulsing heat into me in long helpless spurts while his whole body shakes with the effort of staying gentle.
We go still. Sweat cools on my neck. His palm flexes on my stomach when the baby rolls, a slow oceanic push, and he makes a soft punched sound that isn’t sexual at all.
“Hi, little one,” he breathes to the movement. Then, to me: “Thank you. For right now. I know it isn’t everything.”
“It isn’t.” My voice is wrecked. “But it was good. Don’t get smug.”
“I’ll save smug for the grovel checklist.”
He eases out of me with ridiculous care, finds tissues from the bedside tray, and cleans us both up like the gentleman he keeps insisting on being about the belly.
I tug the paper gown back into something resembling coverage.
He rights his pants. The room still smells like sex under the antiseptic, a secret the monitors can’t chart.
I settle against his chest on the narrow cot because the alternative is sitting in the wreckage of my own wanting alone, and I’ve done enough alone for one lifetime.
His hand returns to my belly as if magnetized.
The baby kicks him squarely in the palm, and for a moment, even unforgiven, even unfinished, I let myself close my eyes and feel held.
A little later, still on the cot, I trace the edge of the gauze while the baby rolls under his palm.
We’re dressed again, decent, technically, but the room still holds the charge of what happened. The way he learned the new curves of my body. The way he kept checking in, kept asking if I was comfortable.
He never pushed. And somehow that made me want him more.
“So,” I say. “That happened.”
“It did.”
“Any regrets?”
“None. You?”
“Ask me in the morning.”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, the gesture softening my attempt to sound ominous.
“That’s ominous.”
“I’m an ominous person. It’s part of my charm.”
He laughs, and I feel it rumble through his chest.
“I missed this,” he says quietly. “Talking to you. Holding you. Being with you without walls between us.”
“I missed you too. Even when I was furious. Even when I thought you wanted me dead. Some stupid part of me still missed you.”
“Not stupid. Human.”
His arm tightens around me.
“We’re a mess, Cat.”
“We really are.”
“But we’re a mess together. That counts for something.”
“It counts for something,” I agree. “I’m just not sure what yet.”
“We have time to figure it out.”
“Do we? There’s still a coup happening. Still people who want us dead.”
“I know. But right now, there’s just us.” His hand stills on my belly. “Can we have this for a little while? Before everything crashes back?”
I look up at him, this man I married for politics, fell for by accident, and am slowly learning to trust again.
“Yeah. We can have this.”
He kisses me, soft and sweet.
Just for now.