Provocative (Tempting Book 3) (4 page)

A
dele stopped laughing pretty quickly
, as soon as I cleared the doorway of the master bedroom. She was slightly out of breath from running up the stairs, and it brought a flush to her cheeks that made her look exactly like she did after an orgasm. I ripped at the buttons of my dress shirt, jerking my chin at her to do the same.

With frantic movements, she yanked her black t-shirt off to reveal the simple white bra underneath. Her breasts, already bigger in the few short weeks of pregnancy, pushed at the edges of the cotton, making my mouth fucking water.

“I should have faked being sick months ago,” she whispered when I pulled off the plain white t-shirt I wore under my oxford. “I like middle of the day sex. Almost as much as I like morning sex.”

I lifted an eyebrow, knowing she was only slightly joking. My long hours and heightened responsibilities had more than taken a toll on the amount of time we spent together. But she laughed at my expression, tucking her thumbs into the top of her yoga pants and shucking them down her toned legs. They were long and lean, and I loved them so much more when they were up over my shoulders. Her bra came off with two quick movements, and only her simple red underwear that was cut high on her legs was left.

“Glad to see you’re feeling well enough to give me shit again.”

“Oh,” she shook her head and took slow steps toward me, “I’m going to give you more than that.”

God. This woman.

Adele lifted up on her tiptoes and dug her fingers into my hair, licking along my jawline. The sharp points of her teeth grabbed at the skin of my neck and I slid my hands underneath her underwear, grabbing as much of her ass as I could manage.

“You know what happens when you tease me,” I whispered into her ear, ready to fucking explode at the feel of her tits against my chest. “I’ll make you wait. You’ll be ready to weep before I let you come.”

The tight points of her nipples felt like they were cutting my skin, and I pulled a hand off her ass to rub light circles over the hardened bud with my palm. Adele dropped her head back on a relieved exhale.

“Do you know how much I hated saying no to you the other night? Sometimes I think I’ll die if I go too long without your hands on my body, Nathan.”

“You would die,” I said simply, rocking my hips forward to gain some sort of friction of my cock against her stomach. “Just like I would. Some people need air and food to survive. Not us, Adele. We need this. We need each other, just like this.”

She met me halfway, slanting her mouth against mine in a hard, raw kiss. Her hands clutched at me like she was trying to claw under the top layer of my skin. I’d let her live there if I could. I’d embed her into my veins and muscles and bones, letting her flow through every breath I took, for the rest of my life.

We stumbled to the bed, our hands fumbling together on my belt. While I whipped my pants off, Adele lay back on our bed, kicking off her underwear as she did. She stretched her arms above her head and arched her tits up like an offering. The languid, feline movements of her fucking perfect body slayed me, stabbed me through my thumping heart. She was mine. This flawless, ferocious woman was
mine
.

When I stood naked in front of her, my cock jutting straight up, I stopped and laid a hand across her stomach, stretching my fingers wide so that I spanned the entire width. Hot sweeps of love and awe filled me. There was a momentary softening in her eyes while I laid my hand there, and she covered it with her own.

“I love you,” I said with a fierceness that clearly took her by surprise, because she smiled up at me. Then she wrapped hand around my wrist and dragged it up to cover one breast. The firm flesh filled my palm.

“I love you too. Now show me, Nathan.
Please
. This feels amazing.”

Spurred by the raw desperation in her voice, I went about doing just that. Bracing a knee in between her legs on the mattress, I leaned over Adele and placed a kiss on the soft skin above her heart. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me down fully on top of her. We kissed again, long licks of my tongue against hers while she dragged her hands along my back. The edges of her fingernails bit into my skin and I started rolling my hips against her.

The length of my cock dragged along the lips of her pussy. Her slick heat, so wet and perfect, made me want to shove and thrust and take, take, take. But I didn’t. I kept my movements slow and steady, only adding pressure when the base of my cock would hit her clit.

“Fuck,” she groaned into my neck. “It’s so good, Nathan.”

“Do you want to come like this the first time? Just me on you?”

Adele whimpered and I used one hand under her ass to tilt her up at a different angle. Her breathing changed and she arched her back, her tits pressed up against me while we just rocked against each other at a maddeningly slow pace.

I let out a hiss when she dug her nails onto my back, so hard that she might have drawn blood.

“In me, Nathan. I want you in me.” But she didn’t move back, simply swiveled her hips when I made another slow roll against her. “Holy
shit
.”

Everything in me screamed raw at the need to push in her, but this felt so perfect that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I kissed her again, upping my speed only slightly and denting my fingers against her flesh while I did it.

“So good,” I whispered in between kisses, only slowing again when I could tell by her face that she was close.

“Oh, you dick,” she groaned in response. I chuckled against her lips. But apparently, she’d had enough, because with a fierce push, Adele shoved at my shoulder and rolled me to my back. My hands slid up her thighs when she straddled me in a smooth movement. One of her hands braced the headboard behind us and the other fisted my cock, notching the head into her slit.

Our eyes met in the heartbeat before she slammed herself down on me. I clenched my teeth at the immediate, relentless wave of hot pleasure.

“Oh, fuck yes, God, that’s it,” she moaned as she swiveled her hips above me, smooth undulations that made her breasts sway above my head. I leaned my head up and caught one tit in my mouth, tugging lightly with my teeth in a way that made her body start to shake. She was so close; I could feel it in the slow squeeze of her pussy around my cock. While my tongue flicked against her nipple, I slid my thumb around to press down on her clit when she made her next slow roll against me.

Her whole body seized, and she cried out. The walls of her pussy fisted me so tightly that I lost my breath. I kept the pressure of my thumb in tight circles and she kept going, a long, drawn out wave of pleasure. Adele’s breath stuttered and she slumped down. I wrapped my arms around her and let her come down, even though my whole body vibrated from the need to keep going, keep moving, keep chasing until I had the same explosion.

She pulled her head back and I smiled at the drowsy, satisfied look on her face.

“Feel better?”

“A little.” She kissed me, tugging on my bottom lip with her teeth. My cock twitched inside of her and she grinned. “Now you.”

Fuck. Yes.

I went to flip her onto her back, but she shook her head. Her other hand moved up the headboard so that she was holding it with both and she lifted up slightly. Firmly with the program, I pulled my knees up so that my feet were braced on the mattress. My hands gripped her hips, my fingers digging into the flesh of her ass. I pulled the cheeks apart and she moaned.

“Fuck me, Nathan. Use me. Take what you need.”

I hammered up, my hips slapping against hers in a sharp snap. Her tits bounced from the force of my thrust, and I cursed. So good. So hot. So wet.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

My pace was punishing, slamming into her again and again and again until my whole body was a flame of pleasure that covered every inch of my skin. She whimpered while I fucked her from underneath.

“Yes, fuck, Adele. Come on me again.”

One hand left the headboard so that she could cup one of her breasts. The sight of her fingers pinching her nipples pushed me up and up. I cracked a hand against her ass and she screamed, fisting me again in a vicious orgasm. I roared her name when the ball of fire exploded at the base of my spine, and I poured into her. Her sweat-covered body fell against me while I slowly milked my orgasm with a few lazy thrusts.

I panted against her shoulder, dropping kisses along the slope of skin.

“I…” she started and then dropped off with a soft laugh.

“Yeah. I concur.”

My hands tangled in her hair and I sighed with so much contentedness that it felt cliché.

“That was pretty damn spectacular, Professor.”

I growled. “You call me that again, and we’ll have to start all over.”

Adele lifted her head and smiled at me. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

I kissed her and rolled us to the side, perversely enjoying the slick pull of my cock out of her and the feel of my cum spilling out of her when I did. “Both, my little sex fiend. It’s always both.”

N
athan was anxious
. I wasn’t sure if he was preoccupied with his job or worries about me and the baby, but watching the way his knee bounced beside mine and the way he held his fist to his mouth as he stared at the baby on the floor in the waiting room made me feel a little twitchy.

Leaning over, I whispered, “Are you having a seizure?”

Abruptly, he stopped moving like there was a jackhammer in his femur. “What?”

“You can’t sit still.”

He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“Well, stop looking at that kid like you’re about to reenact
Raising Arizona.
”

He looked at me and then at the roly-poly baby turning the pages of a board book with his fat little hands. “They couldn’t get pregnant in that movie, right? That’s why they stole the baby.”

“Right. But you’re giving off some creepy vibes with bouncing your knee and staring at the baby like you’re plotting how to sneak it out of here with it under your shirt.”

He bristled a little beside me. “
It
looks to be a boy. And I don’t need to steal any babies, I have ours.” He reached a hand over and held mine, squeezing.

A shiver went through me, at the way he said
ours.
I was still getting used to the idea of having this … human … growing inside of me. I’d noticed how Nathan had subtly changed his expression whenever I acted as if I was detached from the pregnancy. Trust me, I was very much attached. It was sucking the life from me, and it was quite literally attached to my uterine wall.

A few years before, I would’ve lost my fucking shit knowing I was pregnant. And while I wasn’t losing my shit now, I was still very, seriously afraid.

As we’d checked in for my first OB/GYN appointment, the receptionist had inquired about health insurance. I had a basic plan, but nothing that would cover the majority of a pregnancy—it was designed for college students who, by all accounts, should be out getting drunk and making bad decisions—just not ones that necessarily ended up with a fetus. But Nathan had stepped forward, handing over his credit card. I’d stilled a moment then, feeling like a child being cared for by an actual adult, someone who had his shit together and could realistically provide for a newborn.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the baby, but I was even less sure of how I felt about Nathan and me raising a child together. Sure, things were good now. But he held all the cards—I lived in his house and he purchased the groceries. I paid for the things that I’d insisted upon, like my schooling expenses and my car insurance and health insurance. But this baby would come late spring and where would I be then?

“Adele?”

My head snapped up and my gaze fell upon the nurse standing in the doorway to the back of the building. I stood and Nathan held my hand tighter as he joined me on the walk to the exam room.

The nurse stopped at a scale and indicated that I should stand on it. I gave a look to Nathan who shook his head, indicating to me that he wouldn’t be turning around. I narrowed my eyes, but stepped on the scale anyway. As the nurse slide the black balances across the bar, I began cringing. When she announced my weight—up seven pounds from my usual—I winced.

“How the hell can I gain weight when I can’t even keep food down?”

The nurse looked taken aback and I glanced at Nathan, whose eyes dipped down to my chest before they slid back up to meet mine. The corners of his lips lifted and I was suddenly aware of how awkward the silence was between Nathan, the nurse, and me.

“You’ll need to give us a urine sample in this cup next,” she said, her cheeks pink as she avoided eye contact with me and with Nathan. “Make sure you wipe first.” She placed two sealed wet wipes in my hand and turned to the bathroom. “Just leave it on the counter when you’re done and we’ll meet you in room ten.”

Nathan let go of my hand and gave me a reassuring smile as he stepped into room ten and I stepped into the bathroom.

After I finished, I joined him in the exam room where he was already talking animatedly with the doctor.

“Oh, you must be Adele. I’m Dr. Parker,” the doctor said, his blue eyes warm and his mouth in a friendly smile. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the exam table and slid glasses up his nose as he read his chart. “It says here you don’t know for sure when your last menstrual cycle was?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” I said, a little uncomfortable.

“I’m not judging you, Adele,” the doctor said gently. “But we measure pregnancy based on the first day of your last menstrual period. If you don’t know the date, we’ll do a transvaginal ultrasound.”

The
vaginal
part of that sentence made me twitchy. I’d casually read a few things online, about how often my lady business would be looked at throughout the course of my pregnancy. What was even more alarming was how often I should expect it to be … touched.

“Is that safe?” Nathan asked when I said nothing.

“Oh, yes. It’s quite common too—especially because a lot of women have irregular periods.”

I gestured a hand around my belly. “But don’t you normally do ultrasounds over the stomach?”

Dr. Parker nodded. “I don’t have transvaginal ultrasounds performed in my office after twenty weeks. We could do a pelvic ultrasound, but we’ll get a clearer picture with the transvaginal one. And the pelvic ultrasound is best if you have a full bladder.”

I thought of the cup of urine next door.

“Is there radiation?” Nathan asked. I glanced at him, surprised he was asking more questions than I was.

“Not at all—it uses sound waves to obtain images of the pelvic organs. Completely safe. You won’t see much, but the technician should be able to determine the estimated due date based on what they see.”

Nathan looked relieved and smiled reassuringly at me.

“Before we get to that, let’s go through your health history a little bit.” I nodded and answered everything as well as I could. The entire time, Nathan sat calmly and didn’t seem to be the least bit bored, which was a shock because I was already ready to get the fuck out of there.

“Let’s listen to the heartbeat, shall we?” The doctor asked, his eyes glittery as if he was excited.

“We can hear the heartbeat?” I asked, feeling a rock of dread in my belly. The heartbeat would make it more real. While my stomach was still mostly flat and my breasts were a bit larger, I didn’t have any other indication besides the constant puking that there was someone alien inside of me. A heartbeat—as innocuous as it seemed—was fucking terrifying.

“We can try. Why don’t you lie back?”

I shot a look to Nathan who quickly stood and walked next to me. He was the picture of calm, which was the exact opposite of how he’d appeared in the waiting room.

“It’s okay,” he soothed me as the doctor tucked a paper towel over the waist band of my yoga pants and pulled them down an inch.

“I’m going to put a little bit of gel on your stomach. It might be cold.”

It was. I flinched but Nathan squeezed my hand and smiled. He was totally calm, excited even—judging by the shine in his eyes.

Before I even knew it, a fast whoosh-whoosh-whoosh poured from the speaker attached to the wand. I felt breathless, anxious, and my heart was racing a mile a minute in my chest. “Is that it?” I asked, but my voice came out like a squeak.

“That’s your baby.”

The rock in my stomach floated up and I stared at Nathan, whose face was a portrait of awe. His mouth was curved and his eyes were shiny.

“Holy shit,” I mouthed to Nathan, not wanting to offend another medical professional.

“Holy shit,” he echoed, mouthing it back to me. His thumb ran over the back of my hand as we stayed completely still.

“Heartbeat sounds great—one-hundred and seventy beats per minute.”

“That’s fast,” Nathan remarked, his other hand coming up and gently touching the exposed skin of my belly.

“It’s normal, depending on how far along in the pregnancy you are. I’m guessing you’re close to ten weeks along.”

“Ten weeks,” Nathan whispered, his voice a little different. He grinned at me and again mouthed, “Holy shit.”

* * *

T
he ultrasound technician’s
name was Emily and she didn’t look any older than me when she handed me a paper sheet and told me—in her bubbly, melodic voice—to take off my pants. After she left the room for me to undress, I told Nathan, “I usually get dinner and a movie before people ask me to take off my pants.”

“Well, how about I buy you dinner and a movie to celebrate after?” He looked so unbelievably calm, like nothing about this was even the littlest bit scary. If anything, the hearing the heartbeat had only made him that much more excited.

As for me, I felt even more troubled. It wasn’t just the idea of a baby—it was the fact that this baby would change our relationship. It felt selfish to think that way, but considering the last few months with Nathan hadn’t been smooth sailing, I worried how a baby would change him, me, us.

When the technician returned, I watched her put a giant plastic wrapper—like a condom—over the wand. “You could use some of those,” I said to Nathan.

“I don’t need them now,” he returned, smiling.

The technician stilled for a moment and then poured a ton of lube over the condom. She seemed a little flustered, but I had to make light of the fact that this giant probe was about to be thrust up my business.

When it was pushed up inside of me, I winced—even though she was pretty gentle about it.

“I know this is uncomfortable,” she said.

“I expect I better get used to being uncomfortable,” I said with another wince.

“Yes!” she replied, her bubbly demeanor returning. “You’ll have several months to get used to it.” She winked like we were best buddies, except one of us had their hand precariously close to the other’s vagina.

She flipped on the monitor and angled it so we could see as she maneuvered the wand around inside of me.

“Ah!” she said. “Want to see your baby?”

All I could see was a black mass that looked like a kidney bean, with a blob in the center of it.

She pointed to the rounder part as she gently rotated the wand. The image on the screen changed and the blob’s shape changed with it. “Can you see that blinking spot?”

I squinted as Nathan leaned over me to get closer to the screen. Indeed, there was a blinking spot near the center of the blob. “That’s your baby’s heart beating.”

“Wow,” Nathan said on a rush.

“That’s the baby?” It looked like a round blob with a small body attached.

“Yep.” She pushed gently on my belly. “Let’s wake him or her up a little, see if we can get them to move.” Sure enough, after a couple times wiggling my belly around, the blob started squirming, twisting and turning and my breath came out in a gasp.

For the first time since I realized I was pregnant, it all felt real. The fact that there was a human growing inside of me—someone I was responsible for. The fact that I was going to be a mom—to Nathan’s child. The roar of knowing this compressed my chest, and I felt tears prick the back of my eyes.

“Holy shit,” I said aloud.