Chapter 31

THIRTY-ONE

“Danae’s here to take you to girls’ night,” he says, placing a kiss on my neck.

“Mmm,” I hum, pleasure coursing through me. The best thing about living with Ty is unfettered access to his body that I can’t seem to get enough of—at least right now since my hormones are raging. I’ve never been hornier in my entire life than I have been during this pregnancy. We’re having sex every day, sometimes multiple times a day because I can’t stop. He doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, his hunger has been rising to match mine. He’s always finding small ways to touch me, kiss me, caress me. It’s enough to drive me crazy with need, especially now when I have to leave, and I can already feel my clit throbbing for him again.

“Ty,” I whine, causing him to chuckle.

“Sorry not sorry. I’m addicted.”

“But I have to go and now I’m horny.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” He spins me around, lifting me up until my ass is sitting on the edge of our bathroom counter. He’s down on his knees before I can even question him, his hands lifting up my skirt and pulling my underwear off.

His gaze locks on mine as he licks up the seam of my soaked pussy lips to my achy, needy clit. The second his lips wrap around that pulsing nub, my hands are in his hair, holding his head to me. “Oh God,” I moan, rocking against his mouth. God, I wish we had more time so he could make this last forever, but I know Danae is waiting downstairs.

“Ty…” The word is barely out of my mouth when he thrusts two fingers inside me, curling them to hit that spot that always makes me see stars. He thrusts once, twice, then sucks on my clit hard as he thrusts a third time and I shatter, my orgasm ripping through me as if I haven’t had one in weeks instead of this morning in the shower.

He eases away as the last of my orgasm washes through me. “Damn, I love this. I might have to get you pregnant a lot if this is how it’s going to be, because I can’t get enough of your needy little moans.”

I choke out a laugh, and then he’s helping me put my clothes back to rights. He holds my hand as we walk downstairs and find Danae relaxing on the couch with her phone in hand. My cheeks flush for making her wait so long, but she just looks up at us with a knowing grin and asks, “Ready to go?”

“Yeah.” I kiss Ty, not acknowledging his wolfish grin when my eyes flare at my taste still on his tongue, and then walk out the door.

“Bye, Ty,” Danae says, tossing back a wave and following me.

“Drive safe, Danae. You’ve got precious cargo in that car,” he calls out, leaning against the doorframe looking all casual and relaxed in his faded jeans and T-shirt. The guys are meeting at Romel’s house while the girls are hanging out at Dom and Alayna’s. Once the guys got wind that Alayna wanted to have a girls’ night with me and Danae, they were planning their own.

“Do you know what the guys are doing tonight?” I ask Danae as she drives us to Alayna’s.

“Didn’t Ty tell you?”

My cheeks heat. “He probably would’ve if I’d asked, but we were a little preoccupied.”

She laughs, the sound light and airy. “Oh girl, I’ve been there. Most days I’m still there. It’s a wonderful place to be,” she says with wistfulness.

I can’t help smiling. “Yeah, it is.”

She shakes her head as if shaking away a memory probably similar to the one going around in my mind of what Ty and I were doing ten minutes ago. “The guys are probably going to play board games.”

“Board games? Really? I would’ve imagined they’d have poker nights or something.”

She arches a brow. “Have you not seen Ty’s collection? He’s got a whole closet full of board games. They rotate through some of their favorites, and sometimes he’ll bring one that they’ve never heard of. They do this once a month typically.”

I lean back in the chair. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I never put it together before. The boxes that Ty put in one of the spare rooms. I thought it was sports memorabilia or something.”

“I can’t believe he hasn’t told you about his collection. He’s known for it.”

I can’t either. Especially when I think about how many boxes were in that room. I wonder why he’s never pulled out a board game when we were having a date night in.

A prickle of worry filters through my happy bubble, wondering why he hasn’t shared something that is such a part of him that all his friends know about it—that saboteur looking to remind me nothing good ever lasts in my life.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, hold it for four seconds, then let it go. I’m not going to let those thoughts win. Things are going just fine, better than fine. I’m sure there’s a good reason he didn’t tell me about his love of board games.

We pull up to Alayna’s house, and she opens the door with a pitcher of lemonade in her hand. “I just kicked Dom out to go play with the boys. Come on in, ladies.”

We walk in and follow her back to the patio, and my jaw drops because this has to be the nicest patio I’ve ever seen. It’s like something out of a magazine. A huge deep-green lawn spreads out with a great view of Los Angeles. There’s a pool on the right, while on the left is a covered patio with thick wooden beams and Edison string lights serving as a canopy under the wooden roof. A plush-looking, cream, L-shaped couch faces a large square firepit. There’s a big-screen TV on the wall, and on the other side is a bar and grill.

“Holy shit,” I whisper, although apparently not quietly enough because Danae laughs.

“That’s what I said the first time I came over too. I’m still getting used to the luxury these guys live in.”

“You didn’t grow up like this?” I ask as we take a seat and Alayna serves us tall glasses of cold lemonade.

“Oh, God no! I was barely making ends meet before I met Gabe. In fact, I’d just been fired from my job when Gabe offered for me to work with him and live in his pool house.”

“You mean the job he was partially responsible for getting you fired from,” Alayna adds with a smile.

Danae shakes her head. “I’ve told him a million times that was not his fault. But it all worked out for the best regardless.” She looks at Alayna. “Same for you and Dom. It’s so good to see you two finally settled down together.”

Alayna looks down at her wedding ring, a serene smile on her face. “Yeah. Kind of funny how just when you’ve given up hope, things start to fall in place exactly as they were supposed to.”

Her words strike a chord in my heart, and before I even realize what I’m doing, the words are tumbling out of my mouth. “That’s how I felt before I met Ty.”

They both turn to me, their attention riveted. I don’t normally open up so easily to other people, but after bonding with them over the past month or two, it almost feels easy to peel back my layers and let them see a little more. Blaire and Ty are the only other people who’ve made me this comfortable, but maybe it’s time to let more people into my circle.

“I was pretty set in my routine and had convinced myself I was fine living a mostly solitary life, and then I met Ty when I was out with my friend Blaire, and…” I’m thrown back to the memory, the way he made me feel, my desperation to leave before he could ruin how perfect the night was. “It was the best night of my life.”

Alayna nibbles her lip and then leans forward as if telling a secret. “You know, from what Dom told me, Ty was wrecked when you were gone the next morning. He said Ty spent every spare moment trying to search for you online. The guys were worried he was one desperate attempt away from hiring a private investigator.”

My mouth drops open. “No way.”

Both women nod. “Gabe told me the same thing,” Danae confirms.

I take a sip of my lemonade, processing this information. It offers me some comfort and helps quiet the saboteur in my mind. And for the rest of the night, it serves as a reminder that he truly did want to find me. He’s not just with me because of our daughter—another lie the saboteur has planted, despite repeated evidence he wanted me before he knew about the baby.

“How are things going at work?” Danae asks. They both know about the initial response my principal gave me and the statement I had to get preapproved before I told my students.Ty was insistent on coming in with me that day, but considering the press hasn’t gotten involved in our situation yet, I didn’t want to give my principal anymore fuel, so I made him stay home.

“They’re actually going pretty well. I’m mostly ignoring the people who give me weird looks, and my students have all been so excited. A few parents even sent in baby gifts as a congratulations for me. It was super sweet.”

“I love that,” Alayna says. “I’m so glad they’ve been supportive. Proves your principal is an idiot.”

I take a sip of my lemonade. “Yeah, I can’t say our working relationship has improved since her reaction to my pregnancy. Blaire thinks we should find new jobs next year, but I’d hate to leave my students behind. They love coming back and saying hi—even after they’ve moved on to the high school—so it still feels like I’m severing all those ties, ya know?”

They both nod. “At the end of the day though, you have to do what’s best for you,” Danae says, placing her hand on my arm and giving it a quick squeeze like she understands it’s a tough decision to make.

The conversation shifts, and I spend the rest of the night laughing and talking, getting to know these two incredible women more and hearing about their own love stories. But even better than that, I open up more. I let them in.

And it feels really good.