Authors: Michelle Love
JUDE
Laying in my hospital bed, I look at Mercy as everyone leaves after I told them all the great news I got today. Her blue eyes are all sparkling and her smile is radiant. “I wish you could stay the night and cuddle with me,” I say as I pull her to sit down on the bed with me.
A nurse comes in with a clipboard and a stack of papers are on it. “Here are the forms you need to read and sign for the surgery by Doctor Padron. Just leave them on the table when you get through and I’ll pick them up when I come back later.” She looks at Mercy and smiles. “And stay as late as you want. I won’t tell on you.”
Mercy smiles at me as the nice nurse leaves us alone. Setting the clipboard aside, I say, “Can you do me a favor and hand me the little black box on the table over there?”
She hesitates then nods and gets up to get it. Her hand is shaking a little when she puts the box in mine. “Her you go.”
I pull her to sit back down, facing me and open the box. “I bought this for you and had planned on giving it to you that day when my world turned upside down. You stayed right by my side even when I told you not to. You proved to me that everything I thought about you before was right. You’re the strongest, smartest, most loyal person in my life. I was a fool for the way I’ve been treating you.”
“No, it’s really normal, Jude,” she says with a smile on her beautiful face.
“Well, normal or not, I’m sorry. And I’d like to know if you’d like to marry my mean old, fucked up, ass. You can say no if you want to. I’d completely understand.”
She laughs and holds out her hand, wiggling her ring finger. “If it fits, I’m yours.”
Taking it out of the box, I act as if I’m nervous it might not fit, even though I know it will. “If it doesn’t then what?” I ask as I hesitate at the tip of her finger.
She winks. “Let’s see what happens.”
I laugh and slide the ring onto her finger and she holds it up and looks at it. “That’s one very big diamond, Jude.”
“I picked it out to show you how big my love for you is,” I say as I take her hand and pull it to my mouth. I kiss her finger and look into her eyes. “So your answer is, yes, I know that. But can I hear you say it?”
“Yes,” she says then she leans in and kisses me gently. “Yes, Jude. I would be more than honored to become your wife.”
For the first time since that terrible day, I pull her into my arms and kiss her like we used to kiss. Our tongues flow around the others and we both moan with the sensation it seems we’ve both missed more than either of us even realized.
My hands move up her neck and I pull that damn rubber band out of her hair, releasing the ponytail so I can run my fingers through the soft waves. Our breathing gets heavy as our hands move all over each other. Then she ends the kiss with little kisses. “We can’t get you too excited, baby.”
“Not yet, but soon we can get me as excited as you want,” I tell her as I hold her tight. Now that we have that settled, let’s read this mountain of paperwork and get this all signed.”
She moves to sit on the bed beside me and picks up the clipboard. “Okay, these are a list of all the things that can go wrong. Great! They’ve left nothing out. Paralysis, hives, fever, and even death. So here, you go. Sign at the bottom of the page.”
I take the pen from the top of the clipboard and sign the bottom then look at her. “Hey, how about you and I get married before I get this surgery. That Pastor said he could do it. My father is good friends with a judge who would gladly backdate a marriage license for us. We could do it tomorrow. What do you say?”
“Do you really think we could get that all pulled together that quickly?” she asks as her eyes dance.
She’s excited and I think I have another, yes!
“I bet we can,” I say. “So, what do you say to becoming Mrs. Jude Hurst tomorrow?”
Her smile makes my heart fill with love and joy. “I say, yes. Yes, Jude Hurst! I’d love to become your wife tomorrow!”
She turns and I take her into my arms again and we seal the deal with another kiss. Our hearts are both pounding in our chests. I can feel hers as I hold her tight to my body.
I’ve been an idiot. I’ve had the perfect woman for me right here and waited to ask her to be with me forever. I was a fool but this fool is through feeling sorry for himself and I am taking things into my own hands.
Running my hand under her shirt, I place it over her heart then pull my mouth away from hers. “Mercy, I promise you that I’ll always guard your heart with everything I have in me. I’ll do my best not to hurt you. I’ll do my best to be here for you even if I’m not one hundred percent of the man I used to be.”
A tear falls down her face. “Jude, you’re one hell of a lot of man even when you aren’t one hundred percent. In my eyes, you’ll always be the complete package that you’ve always been. Nothing can take that away from you.”
“Mercy, I’m never going to let you go. Not ever. I love you so much, you have no idea.” I pull her in and kiss her again.
It’s odd the way I’m feeling. I have no sensation in my nether regions at all but my heart is aching with the love I feel for her. Aching with the need to hold her tight and kiss her sweet mouth.
Then I stop the kiss and push her back a little. “Do you think that door locks?”
“Huh?” she asks as she looks worried. “You can’t do anything, Jude.”
“My mouth works, doesn’t it?” I say with a smile. “And this bed lays back, doesn’t it? And if that door locks, I can kiss you somewhere else so I can show you how happy you’ve made me by accepting my proposal.”
Her eyes glow as she shakes her head. “Jude that’s not fair to you.”
“I want to. Let me. Go lock that door, lose those panties and come back over here so I can show you and myself that I’m still a man who can please a woman.”
She hesitates but only for a moment then she’s flying off the bed and hurrying to the door. “Ha! There is a lock! Watch out baby. Here I come!”
MERCY
I lose more than my panties as I go back across the small hospital room to Jude.
My fiancé!
His eyes go dark as I reach up under my dress and pull the pink panties off and drop the on the floor. Then I pull the dress off and finally my bra as I make my way to him. “I want to feel your strong hands all over me, Jude.”
“Damn, baby!” he groans. “You’re so fucking hot!”
As I get to him, I untie the back of his hospital gown and pull it off of him. “I want to feel your skin against mine.”
“You have me on fire, Mercy,” he says as his hands move over my bare breasts. “Your tits look more plump, I swear.” His mouth is hot as it takes one into it and his hand squeezes the other.
I climb over him, straddling him, careful to hover just above him. My sex is growing wet with excitement for his mouth to do to me what I know it can. It’s been too long since I’ve felt his mouth on my body and it’s craving to feel it.
Long, hard tugs he makes, making my stomach clench with each one. He trails his free hand down to my personal pleasure zone and finds my aching pearl and goes to work on it.
My breathing is so loud I can hear it echoing off the walls so I quiet myself. I have to be quiet or this will get interrupted and I do not want that!
When his finger goes inside me, I have to bite my lip not to scream with the feeling. I’ve wanted to feel him inside of me so badly. “Jude, yes,” I hiss as I move up and down, riding it as I hold his shoulders.
His mouth leaves my breast as he trails kisses up to my mouth then he takes my mouth with a hot kiss and runs his tongue along mine, stroking it the same way his finger is stroking me.
I move faster and faster until my body is erupting with an orgasm and he’s holding the back of my head with his free hand to keep our mouths together as I moan with the feeling.
When he pulls his finger out of me, he runs it up my body and into his mouth. “Mmm,” he moans as he looks into my eyes. “Now let me have a real taste of that sweet thing.”
My body goes hot with the way he’s looking at me. “Lie back, almost, hubby.”
I push the button to lay the bed all the way down and he smiles at me as his body goes back with it and mine stays in position over him. “You’re so damn hot, Mercy. And tomorrow you’ll be all mine. No one else can ever have you.”
I smile and nod. “I am only for you.”
His hands move up my thighs as I’m on my knees, straddling him. “Bring that sweet thing up here so I can show you why you want to be all mine.”
Moving slowly toward him, I watch him as his eyes grow dark and wanting as he looks at my sex. “Are you doing okay, baby?” I ask to be sure.
“More than okay, hurry up,” he says as he looks up at me. “My mouth is watering for you.”
I moan as his words send a new heat through me. “Damn, Jude! You’re making me super horny!”
“Good,” he says with a hiss. “I want you that way. I want you to come like crazy all over my face.”
“Jude, damn,” I moan as I get up closer and his hands grip my ass. His fingers dig into my soft flesh and he moans.
“Damn, your ass feels amazing. God damn it, girl!”
My pussy is all the way up to his face and I look down at him. “You ready?”
He licks his lips. “Are you?”
“So ready,” I whisper.
“Good, because I’m about to make your night. Don’t even think about climbing off my face with the first orgasm. I’m going to keep going until you can’t come anymore.”
“Jude, don’t over-exert yourself,” I say as I look into his lust-filled eyes.
“Mercy, shut up and sit on my face,” he says.
Well, what else can I do?
I try to go slowly down to make sure I don’t really sit on his face but he pulls me down hard. I have to put my hands on the head of the bed to hold myself up to be sure the man can breathe.
His tongue goes crazy on my clit and his mouth is ravenous on my pussy. He lifts me up and down as he sucks my clit. I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming.
“Jude, damn, that feels amazing,” I whisper. “Damn it, your mouth is insane.”
His hands squeeze my ass, sending shocks of electricity through me. I can’t take it anymore and come. My body shakes with the release that’s so much better than the orgasm his finger gave me. “Jude, God!” I whisper.
I move up a little and his tongue goes inside me. I lift my body up to stroke myself with his tongue so he doesn’t have to do all the work himself. I am feeling kind of guilty that he’s not getting anything out of this.
Up and down I go as the orgasm ebbs a little then he moves his tongue really fast back and forth as I’m moving up and down and I fall apart again. Gasping for air as my body is in Heaven.
I move down so he can breathe as I can feel him breathing hard. “What are you doing?” he says as he looks at me with a sweaty face. “I can go longer.”
“I’m sure you can. But I can’t,” I say as I move down his body.
When I get down to where our faces are close, he grabs a handful of my hair and pulls me to kiss him. As our tongues mingle again and I taste myself on him my body reignites with passion and I find my hand running between us as I have my body lifted off his so I don’t put any of my weight on him.
Over his stomach, I go to touch him. Then I feel the top of the adult diaper and he yanks me back by my hair. His eyes are dark and he looks mad. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I was going to just touch you a little. On the top where there are no stitches. Don’t worry, I’d never hurt you,” I say to try to relax him.
“No!” he says. “No, you can’t stick your hand in there. No!”
“Jude, it’ll be fine. I just want to see if it got hard or not. The doctor said you didn’t have to feel it for it to happen.”
His eyes go wide and he says, “Get off!”
I move to one side of him and he presses the button to lift the top of the bed up. We sit perfectly still as he pushes the blanket back and then he takes the top of the adult underwear and pulls it up so we can see what’s going on inside.
We look at each other and the smile on his face makes me cry.
Miracles can happen!
JUDE
With the knowledge that I can get an erection, Mercy is looking at me with some worry in her expression. “Jude, should you go through with that surgery if you can manage to do this without it?”
“Fuck yes!” I say as I pull the blanket back to cover that nasty diaper. “Mercy, I want to walk again.
I want to feel!
You have no idea how terrible it feels to have men moving your body around because you can’t. So I am having that surgery.”
Mercy looks at me for a long time then she takes my hand and places it on her stomach. “Jude, I was going to wait to tell you this. But in light of what we know now, I want you to know everything.”
Her hand on mine, covering her stomach, has my wheels spinning. I’m completely aware that we haven’t used and type of birth control since I brought her home with me the night of the tornado. But she took a test that said she wasn’t ovulating or something like that and she said we were safe for a while.
She better not be pulling some shit on me!
“Jude, I felt sick today. It’s not the first time, either. So I decided that it would be smart to take a test. It came back positive. Now, I have no idea how far along I am or anything like that. I don’t know for a fact that the test was accurate. But we might be pregnant.” She looks at our hands covering her stomach and then I look at her to find her eyes very misty.
I’m numb. I can’t think. I really don’t know how to feel.
I may be paralyzed forever, or die on an operating table in the near future and I may have a kid coming. “How?” I ask.
She laughs then says, “Okay, Jude. When a man and woman really love each other they show that in a way that can create human life.”
“Mercy, damn it!” I can’t believe I’m yelling at her but I am.
She looks at me and frowns. “I know. This is a big deal. All of it is. I know that. It’s part of the reason I didn’t come up here doing a dance and jumping for joy that you and I might have made a little human out of our love. I know this can be looked at as a blessing or another tragedy.”
“Don’t ever say that,” I tell her. “The baby is no tragedy. So don’t ever say that. Okay?” I look at her with a stern expression. “It’s not a mistake or anything like that. But it has come at a difficult time in my life. And yours.”
I run my arm around her shoulders and pull her back to lie with me on the hospital bed. “I know this isn’t how you wanted things to happen, Jude. I really do. Things have never really happened the way I wanted them to either. I never wanted to become a mother the way I did. By losing my family. I never wanted to do something to cause the man I love to become so broken. And I certainly never wanted an unplanned pregnancy. This cycle seems to be following me. I am the key at the center of this cluster-fuck tornado that is my life.”
“Don’t, Mercy,” I say as I lean my head against hers. “Don’t act like this is anything that’s your fault. It’s life and things like this happen.”
“But in my life, they happen a lot more often than in other people’s lives. I’m a jinx. I have a dark star following me or something. Maybe I should do everyone a favor and disappear.” She looks spaced out. Like she’s so far away right now.
She doesn’t look like Mercy at all!
“Never say that stupid shit again.” I kiss her cheek. “Okay, so here we have it. Tomorrow we get married here in the hospital. You need a gorgeous white dress and if you could find one of my black tux jackets and a white shirt to go under it, that will suffice for me. A nice black blanket would look good to cover me for our photos, I think.”
She looks at me and I see it in her eyes. She’s thinking about the surgery and what might go wrong. “Please consider not doing the surgery. I will marry you tomorrow, anyway. But think about it long and hard before you agree to the surgery. You are alive right now and obviously more than capable of being a man.”
“But I can’t walk, Mercy. I’d like to do that and the surgery sounds like it could do that for me. Come on, baby. Be in my corner. Show me some of that faith you have. You told me that you prayed for me to make it through that crash and I did. Believe, baby.” I touch her warm cheek and graze my lips over it.
She sighs. “But maybe you were in that wreck because of my bad luck or whatever you call this. A curse is really what it is. A horrible curse.”
“You’re being crazy. I’ll be fine. I have to do it, Mercy. You know I do.” I pull her into my arms again and hold her tight. “You’re pregnant! I want to walk the floor with my little man.”
She laughs a little. “Or little girl.”
“Yeah, maybe that. Whatever that baby is, I want that kid to know they have a daddy who has the courage to do what he had to in order to be all he could be for them.”
Mercy climbs out of my arms and off the bed as she gathers her clothes. “Jude, do me a favor. Read every word on those forms. Make your own decision without me. Because I’m telling you that I can’t, in good conscience, tell you the safest or best thing is for you to go through with that surgery. I love you. I want you around to help me raise this kid. I just want you around, period.”
I watch her pick her clothes up and put them back on then she comes to me and puts the hospital gown back on me and ties it up behind my back.
I take her face and hold it in front of mine and say, “Do you want to push me in a wheelchair while poor Carter pushes our baby in a stroller? Do you want to change both mine and our baby’s diapers every few hours? Tell me how great that sounds to you, Mercy.”
Her eyes cloud over as she says, “If this was my first bout with tragedy, I’d say go for it, Jude. I would! But this isn’t my first or even second. This is our life. This is me and you and a baby and my niece and nephew we’re talking about. I can do it all on my own. I know I can. I have. But I want you there with me. I want you there every step of the way.”
“You said it yourself, Mercy. Every step of the way. So I’m getting the surgery and you will just have to pray and have faith and that’s that.”
I wish like hell she could wipe that unbelieving face away and show me that face she had when I first came to this hospital with hardly any hope at all. I need her to have faith!
To be continued…