Chapter 18

"You look tired, are you getting enough sleep?" I peered over Marley"s desk at her.

"Probably not." She cracked the seal on a bottle of water and took a sip. "Between going to games, the pub, dates and everything in between, I haven"t had time to breathe for the last month."

I pulled over another chair and sat down near her. Close enough that I could almost touch her, but not so close that if anyone walked through the door they"d ask questions.

Sneaking around was beyond frustrating at this point. Cat was due to have her baby in another month. Then all of this could end, once and for all. I could start a life with the woman I loved, and her other boyfriends.

"I feel as though I should give you more time off," I said. "I could get someone in if you need a break." I watched her carefully. I was almost certain she wasn"t just busy or overworked. I pushed down the small bubble of hope, for now. The time to think about that would come.

She screwed the lid back onto the bottle and set it aside beside her computer.

"I"m okay, really. Just a bit tired today. Maybe I"ll have an early night tonight." She glanced over at me and sighed.

"I know." I placed a hand over one of hers. "We shouldn"t still be dancing this dance. It"s only for a little while longer."

"Is it?" She cocked her head at me. "Sometimes I worry you"ll find another excuse not to tell everyone we"re together."

"Marley—" I started.

She shook her head. "I"m sorry, I shouldn"t snap at you." She massaged her temples with her thumb and middle finger. "I just feel like it"s never going to happen."

"It will." I squeezed her hand. "I promise I am not, in any way, looking for any further reasons to keep our relationship a secret. Quite the opposite. If I had one of those devices to make time go faster, I"d use it. Short of inducing Cat against her will, there"s nothing I can do."

I won"t lie, I"d considered doing that, but there was no way I could do it without potentially endangering her, her baby and our relationship. Some things were better left alone. I knew plenty of other doctors who would have played God, but I wasn"t doing that, not with my daughter. Not even if it meant being with Marley sooner. The wait was almost killing me. Especially now, when I suspected Toby, Cole and I had done what I hoped for.

"Please don"t do anything like that," Marley said. She turned her hand around under mine and laced our fingers together. "I know you wouldn"t. You adore her." She looked like she was going to add something, but glanced down at our entwined fingers instead.

"What is it?" I pressed gently.

She shook her head slightly. "It"s silly."

"Marley-Jane, there"s nothing you could say that I wouldn"t take seriously," I said. "I love you. You"re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Whatever you"re thinking, it"s important to me. Even if you"re only deciding between vanilla latte and caramel latte." Of which, she probably shouldn"t be drinking either, but I couldn"t mention that right now.

She blinked a couple of times, eyes glazed. "You love me?"

I smiled softly. "Of course I love you. I"ve loved you for a long time. Now, tell me, what"s on your mind?"

"I love you too," she said. She swallowed visibly. "I was thinking about what happens after. When we can finally be together in public."

"We live happily ever after," I said. "You and me, Toby, Cole, Lucifer the cat and Stanley the goldfish. And whatever other pets you want."

"What if I don"t want any more pets?" she asked.

"You don"t have to have pets," I said. "Pets are definitely optional."

"What about children?" she blurted. "Would you ever want more of those, or is it enough to have the two you already have?"

I contained a smile and looked at her through my lowered brows. "Do you want children?"

Her tongue darted tantalisingly over her full lower lip. I"d like her to do that to my cock, but this conversation was more important right now.

"I want children someday," she said finally. "When everything has settled down. I was just worried you might not. You still haven"t answered."

"I haven"t, have I?" I rubbed my chin. "Nothing would make me happier than to give you everything you want, including kids. You"d look absolutely beautiful with a big baby bump." Preferably sooner than ‘someday.'

"You wouldn"t mind being a father again?" she asked tentatively.

I"d love nothing more than to be a father to her children, but I"d settle for her being pregnant, regardless of the paternity.

"I wouldn"t mind if you had Toby's or Cole"s baby, or mine," I said. "Whoever the father was, I"d love any baby of yours as much as I love you. I"d think of them as mine, no matter what."

I was, after all, the one engineering all of this. If I hadn"t changed her birth control pills for sugar tablets, making her pregnant would be much more difficult, if not impossible. My tampering made way for us to put a baby in her belly. I was as much a part of this as they were. Maybe more so, because I allowed them to be with her and fuck her. To fill her beautiful pussy with their cum.

"How did I get so lucky?" Marley asked. "You"ve always been so sweet and supportive. You"ll make an incredible father again, when the time comes."

She sighed out her nose. "Cat is going to lose her mind, isn"t she? Us getting together is going to be difficult enough for her to accept without the thought of me giving birth to her sibling. And being grandmother to her baby."

"Cat will deal with it," I said. She"d have no choice. This was about Marley, me, Toby and Cole.

"What if she can"t?" Marley asked. "What if she insists you choose between me and her?" She looked genuinely scared.

"Then I"ll have to work harder to convince her," I said easily. "I"m not giving you up, Marley-Jane. Not now. Not ever. You belong to me. We have a future to live together."

I scooted the chair over closer. I looked her in the eye, then placed a hand on her still flat belly.

"One day, this will swell with our baby. I intend to be there for every moment of that, regardless of what Cat thinks or believes. Her baby and any baby of ours will grow up together. They won"t care if they"re aunts or uncles or whatever the hell. All they"ll know is they"ll have a friend who is also family."

She glanced down at my hand. "They"ll probably be too far apart in age to want to play together, but I hope they get along. Honestly, I"m not sure I"ll be ready for at least a couple more years. Everything is still so new and fragile. I want to make sure I have even, solid ground under my feet before a baby comes along."

"If you wait until the right moment, it will never come," I said. "Babies come along when they want to."

Especially when their mother is no longer on birth control. It was fortunate she never would have thought to question me when I gave her the box of sugar pills. She would have just taken them like the sweet, trusting woman she was. Her innocence was one of the things that endeared her to me the most. She wasn"t jaded like me and most people my age. If I had my way, she never would be. I"d love to put her in a box and keep her safe and sound from the world.

There was no way she"d let me, she was too independent for that, but I"d still do my best to protect her as much as I could.

"Any baby can wait a little bit longer," she said. "Don"t worry, I"m careful with my birth control. You know me, I"ve never been a big fan of surprises."

"I love surprises," I said. "I don"t know what I love more, being on the receiving end or the giving one." I rubbed my chin again. "I think I love giving them the most. I"ve always preferred to give presents than receive them. Especially orgasms."

She smiled. "You don"t seem to mind when I give those to you."

"I don"t mind at all," I said. "But I love to see you writhe and moan when I fuck you with my hand, mouth, or my cock. Watching you come is one of my favourite things in the world."

Her little breathy groans were the most beautiful music I ever heard. If I had my way, I"d give her a hundred orgasms a day, just to hear that sound.

"You"re going to make me ruin my panties." She glanced towards the door.

I smiled. "Good. They should be permanently ruined. Although, it would be better if you wore none at all."

She arched an eyebrow at me. "Oh, really?"

I leaned in closer. "Really."

No longer caring who might walk through the door, I placed my hands on her knees and turned her to face me. Eyes on hers, I slid the tips of my fingers under the hem of her skirt. Moving with torturous slowness, I slipped my hands up further until I could hook my fingers around the waistband of her panties. I gripped them tight and pulled them down.

She lifted her ass off the chair, high enough for me to pull her panties off and down her thighs.

I pulled them past her knees and over her calves to drop to the floor. I raised one foot, then the other and pulled the scrap of black lace free.

Triumphantly, I pushed her panties into my pocket.

"We should have more patients coming soon. While I"m seeing them, I"ll be thinking of you spending the rest of your day sitting out here with a bare pussy." My cock was going to throb like a bitch before the day was over.

"Yes, Doctor," she said sweetly. "I"m going to be as wet as hell by the time the last patient leaves."

I bit back a groan. This woman was going to be the end of me in the best possible way.

"Good," I said. "Because I"m going to fill that pretty little pussy with my cock and fuck you hard right there on your desk after that door is locked behind them."

"Yes please," she whispered. "I"ll be looking forward to it."

I sat back just as the door opened and the first of the afternoon patients stepped inside.

It was going to be a long, hard afternoon.