Thirty-Nine

Anap and a shower later, I emerge from the bathroom and I'm thrilled to find Valeria staring out the window overlooking the backyard. Her head is tilted to the left, pensive and observant, and she's fiddling with the oversize cuffs of a sweatshirt she took from my suitcase.

I wrap my arms around her, expecting her to lean back against me as usual, but she doesn't. Instead, she winces at the contact—a reaction she's never had when I've touched her. I back off immediately.

When she turns around, her eyes are red and rimmed with flowering tears. The sick part is, I know exactly why. I recognize that look: the same one from the elevator all those weeks ago.

Dalton and Everett would never even joke about this. That leaves Frank.

"I'm going to kill him," I announce, my voice scratchy from alcohol and debauchery—and rage. "I'm going to tear his throat."

Valeria's sigh is weighty. It's not just a sigh for this moment, but rather hundreds if not thousands of moments pressed together into a single low breath she releases over the course of several seconds. Her eyes slip away, lingering on the sprawling backyard. A line of goldenrod paints the sky where the sun is setting and leaves a glow against her skin.

"We both know you won't," she finally replies, her tone even. "On gut reaction, sure." She raises a shoulder. "Killing Frank could be the right move. Fun, even. But let's think logically, Lander. It's what you do best."

I blink, unsure how to react at first. I'm not even sure what I'm witnessing. "Sorry, but how the fuck are you so calm right now?"

"Because I'm twenty-two and I'm a sex worker," she explains with a flat undercurrent of acceptance. "And before I was a twenty-two-year-old sex worker, I was a woman. Of course I've seen some shit. So, like I said, I'd like you to think logically and not with your primitive, testosterone brain. It's why I fell for you."

"I don't know what logic exists here," I admit. "There's nothing logical about a man who raised me like a son trying to ruin the only real happiness I've ever found."

"Sure there is," she says, nodding. "After he touched me, he said, ‘No wonder he wants to fuck up his life for you.' I thought it was a bit extreme at first, but now that I've reflected on it, it tracks. Frank's career is his life, so he assumes yours is as well. If I fuck up your career, I'm going to fuck up your life."

"That's not true."

"Maybe," she continues, keeping up this stone-cold chilliness I've never witnessed from her before. "To be fair, I probably can't fuck up your career. You're far too good at what you do."

"But…"

"But Frank can. Easily. That means what happens next is going to be very, very important, Lander." She takes a step forward, puts her hand on the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, and stares into my eyes. "You need to let this go."

"For fuck's sake, Valeria," I grit, finally unable to hold back. "Are you serious? You don't want me to confront him because he's going to mess with my job? If that's the case, I can't wait to show you how few fucks I give about my career when it comes to you."

"But you give a fuck about your father," she replies. "This job is your last connection to him."

My jaw lowers. I don't know what to say, but she's right. She's right. If I lose my job at the firm, I will have surrendered a legacy that has defined every part of my life since I was a child.

I wish it could be simple. I would give up anything for her. Everything. It would hurt, but it would be worth it.

The problem is Valeria. She could never live with herself. She'd fixate on it, dwell on it—would think about her own dream of being a lawyer and how someone stole it from her.

We'd never make it. Never.

"Fuck," I murmur, turning away. I collapse onto the bed, head in hands. "I hate this. I fucking hate this. I did everything right. The one time I decided to do something for myself…I want to destroy him."

"You can't. We have no leverage." She sits next to me, rubbing her hand along my back. "Men like him win all the time. You've always been too close to the inner circle to see it, but it's true."

"But I have to do something. I can't sit back and let a man touch you without doing something about it."

"Then fuck my brains out."

Surprised—and ridiculously confused—I freeze and train my eyes on Valeria. Her expression is firm, borderline determined.

She nods emphatically. And with a placid tone no different than that of a person musing about an interesting article they read recently, she says, "Leave a fat load in me, one so big I'll have to clench my legs together to keep it in me while we sit next to him at dinner."

I blink fast, trying to ignore how my body heats at the prospect, but it's impossible. "Baby, what?"

"Do it," she goes on, giving my shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "Come on. The door is unlocked. Maybe he'll walk right in." Scooting closer on the bed, she lets her fingertips dance down the line of my spine. "Breed me," she murmurs, testing me, seeing if I'll play into my kink. "I know you want to. I want it too."

Heart racing, I study her, looking for signs of doubt. "This is going to solve our problems?"

Valeria nods once more. "I like the idea of you fucking me pregnant, Lander. It isn't just about cum and what happens in forty weeks after you leave it in me. It's about trust. It's about choosing each other." She kisses me, her lips gentle as they press against the seam of my mouth. "It's about how you'd pick me and I'd pick you to create a life. Intimacy. Family." She kisses me again, slipping me her tongue this time, pulling me from my fury and into a state of want. "If the last two days have taught us anything, it's that we don't have families, do we? Not like we thought. These men have let us down. So fuck it. We don't need them." Another kiss. "You're my family."

Those three words do it. You're my family. Everything clicks for me in that moment: the sense of satisfaction, the fantasy, the reason why I want this so damn much.

Fucking family.

All my life, I've wanted this. Problem was, I'd never wanted or trusted anyone like I want and trust Valeria: the woman I was willing to die with.

"Breed me," she encourages again. "Show me how much you want me. Show me how much you trust me. I'll do the same." She kisses me. "I want you. I trust you." Another kiss.

Cautiously, my hand slides under her clothes, feeling her body. She's sumptuous and so curvy as usual, but I pause when I realize what's waiting for me underneath. Oh god yes. There could be fireballs falling from the sky right now, but nothing—literally nothing—could strip the excitement from my face. Roughly, I tug the sweatshirt—my sweatshirt—over her arms and throw it to the side.

Valeria is wearing a sports bra. Not just any sports bra, but a thin, gray sports bra that shoves her breasts high up on her chest. The first and last time I saw this bra was that day in the gym—the day I saw her glistening with sweat, the day I knew I was done for. I mentioned it in passing while I was fucking her ass, and she actually remembered.

"Baby, look at what you're doing to that bra," I murmur, running my hand over her, caressing the thin nylon. "You should be careful. You're going to bust the elastic on that thing."

"It's old," she explains, glancing down. "But I can't bear to part with it."

"You're the fucking best," I mutter before I yank down the neck, positioning it underneath her breasts and pushing them together.

Her skin looks rich and flushed with rose. Carefully, I trace the edge of her brown nipple with my fingertip, inciting goosebumps on her delicate skin.

"You have the best areolas. They're fucking delicious." I kiss one and then the other, wetting them. "I'm going to make them even bigger when I get you pregnant," I promise, testing her response—seeing if she meant what she said about sharing my kink. "Huge. They're going to be amazing."

Her eyes travel over my face, a tenderness now detectible in her gaze. "You promise?"

Correction: our kink.

"Promise. I'll have you full up in no time," I whisper before wrapping my lips around her nipple and sucking hard. She lets out a moan that tickles the deepest part of my sick brain, and I picture the swell of her stomach. The heaviness of her milky breasts. Her curves growing thicker, rounder everywhere. The thought of her nestled into the couch, a baby in her arms, is the most natural vision in the world to me. I can practically see her: tired as fuck, hair in a haphazard bun on the top of her head, and one tank top strap dangling off her upper arm as she nurses the baby. Our baby.

How the hell did I not figure this out sooner?

"I'll give you as many as you want," I go on. "I'll do it right now."

"You mean it," she groans more than speaks while she shifts her body, encouraging me to work her other breast with my mouth.

"I'm a lawyer, Valeria. I don't say shit I don't mean. If you told me right here, right now, that you wanted to have my babies, I'd be inside you so fast, you'd get whiplash."

She raises an eyebrow. A challenge.

"I think about it," I confess, abandoning any shame and trepidation. "Leaving a load of my cum in your ripe pussy. Putting a part of me inside of you for months. Watching you get so round, swelling up more every day." I brush a wispy kiss over her parted lips, loving how her chest has started to heave with deep breaths. "Do you want that?"

"Lander…." My name sounds thick and syrupy on her lips, like the weight of lust is dragging the letters down.

"You'll look so good," I continue, kissing my way down her bare stomach to her underwear—tiny, lacy, and meant to be seen. "So good. You know it too, Valeria. You know your body is fuckable. Breedable." I kiss her scantily-covered mound, feeling traces of her arousal already on her lips. "Tell me you want me to fill that pussy and I'll do it. I promise."

"It'd be so reckless," she warns, playing along perfectly.

"I don't give a fuck how reckless it would be. You think I can't afford it? That I couldn't breed your cunt and coat you in diamonds for the rest of our fucking lives? I'd spoil you like a princess."

"I'd rather you fuck me like a whore," she replies before a smile drifts up to her lips because Valeria has never wanted to be a princess or an angel. Ever. The fact that I'm the first guy to get that is a damn travesty.

I move up to kiss her, drawing her small body against mine. She's pliant and loose—ready.

I caress her, worshipping her skin before I slide my hand down and rest it on her stomach. Her eyes lock on mine, before she says, "I want it. I trust you."

And yet after all the images of my girlfriend's changing body and the gallons of cum I plan to leave in her, it's those words that turn me feral. She trusts me. That's fucking huge.

I need to get into her immediately. Her pussy is right there and it's taking everything I have not to set up right between her legs, get myself in that sweet cunt, and fuck the absolute shit out of it until her IUD falls out from the force.

When I climb over her on my hands and knees, her legs practically spread open like a flower. I work my saliva onto my tongue and let my spit drip onto her hole, not because it needs it—she's fucking soaked, actually—but because I like to mingle myself with her arousal. If my cum is going to be inside her, I want my spit on her clit, keeping her slick and ready.

There's no fanfare today. I'm harder than I've ever been, and the moment I press the crown of my cock into her, her relieved exhale tells me she's ready to take all of me. I shove in with an abrupt tilt of my hips, filling her. The groan she releases starts out surprised and melts into pleasure.

Then we're fucking—really fucking. It's carnal and turbulent, the most chaotic sex I've ever had in my life. I'm thrusting into her so forcefully, and she's begging—clawing at my forearms until red trails form. We're panting and straight-up moaning like we're not in a house full of people who might be traumatized by the sounds, and still she wants more.

Valeria's hands drape over the back of my neck and she tugs me down, willing me to suck one of her shaking tits while I rock into her.

"Harder."

"Fuck, baby."

"Harder. Harder, Lander," she moans. "Make it drip out. I want it. I want it more than anything." Her words are broken and labored, rushing out only when she can catch her breath. She throws her head back, accentuating the column of her neck, and I lay my hand on it, squeezing.

Face flushed, Valeria nods with tears in her eyes. She grips my shoulders, scratches my back, grips my ass cheeks—touches me anywhere she wants. Anywhere. When she skims her fingertips over the bud of my asshole, I flinch at first, but I don't stop her.

It's a first for me, but I'll let her be my first anything.

When her fingers graze my asshole again, I exhale, inviting more. I trust her. The sensation is foreign at first, but she presses the pad of her finger against my rim, lighting up the nerve endings. Fuck it gets me going. It tingles and taps into something I've never felt before, something vulnerable and safe all at once. I'd never even considered trying this until she came along, and the revelation makes me desperate to breed the fuck out of her.

With one hand on her neck, the other clutching one of her nice breasts, and my cock pounding into her slick pussy, the gravity of this moment dawns on me. I've had other women below me pulling at my arms in the throes of wild, intense fucks, begging me to tug off the condom and fill them up.

But Valeria is the first and only woman who gets my cum.

She's taken it dozens of times in every warm hole on her body, but I've never given it to her like this. For the first time, our wants, our fantasies, and even our pains and fears have all been laid bare.

For the first time ever, we're making love.

The way we make love looks different than it does for most people, I imagine, because we're frantic and rough and toying with taboo. We're not like most couples though—and more importantly, we don't give a fuck about other couples.

"Do it," she urges. "Fill me up and make me hold it in."

Those perfect words spike my adrenaline. "So hungry for it," I say, groaning. "You want this cum right where it belongs, don't you, baby?"

"Please. Lander, please," she begs. "Pump it in deep. So deep. Until it can't go any deeper."

I'm close, dancing on a razor's edge, but she's right there with me. The tip of her finger delves into my asshole, and I grab her breast like I fucking hate it, lowering my head to suck her nipple. She groans, planting a kiss on my head, and when I think I'm going to royally fuck this up for both of us by coming first, Valeria full-on screams her climax.

She's writhing under me, her perfect body coursing with pleasure, undulating nonstop. Her pussy is a hot, wet vice and there's nothing on Earth that could stop me from coming. My finish is ecstasy, guttural and natural, unlike anything I've felt before. My body is so sated, I'm practically vibrating, and all the while she's babbling below me, This is your pussy, Lander. Fill it up. Put your cum so deep in me like you promised. Please, like you said you would.

Spent and empty, I pull out of her, but quickly replace my cock with my hand. I don't know how I find the wherewithal to shove my fingers into her, but I do, fitting three without resistance. My hand pumps, pushing my cum as high up as I can reach.

I want to stuff her with it, leave it deep. Deep as fuck.

Sweating and spent, Valeria sighs contentedly, nodding while I finger fuck her with my cum.

"I want your cum inside me the entire time we're here," she murmurs before snatching my free hand and bringing it to her lips so she can suck on the tips of my fingers. "If I tell you I'm running out, you better fill me up again, Lander Dawson."

"Anything you want, I'll give you," I promise—like I did the first night we spoke.

Anything.