She wrapped her arms around him and accepted his kisses. There was no way to worry about the future when she had the love of her life in her arms, his hard body pressed against her own. It was late now, but neither of them was sleepy. They kissed until their lips were swollen, and his erection was a hot brand against her belly again.
He dipped his head and caught her breast in his mouth. As he sucked, she felt her body calling to him again. He released her breast with a wet pop and went to work on the other side. “If you get pregnant,” he said between kisses, “these will get all firm and heavy.” Then he ran a hand down her belly. “You’ll get round right here. I’ll have to lay you on your side and do you from behind.”
She moaned and squeezed her legs together against the slickness she felt there.
“Yeah. Like this,” he said.
She let herself be arranged on her hip, both legs bent. Mike lifted her top knee and maneuvered his hips into place. He filled her again, and they both moaned.
“Can’t wait to give you babies,” he said as he began to move. “One might not be enough.” His arm came around her waist, and he took hold of her breast in his hand, rolling the nipple until she whimpered. “You like that?”
She did.
He nudged her again, rolling her farther until she was propped onto elbows and knees. “We’ll have to practice a lot,” he rasped into her ear. “Stay agile . . .” As he picked up the pace, she pressed her forehead into the pillow and just took it. Every stroke made her feel happier than the last.
In the two years since they were a couple she’d had a couple of flings just to prove she could. Every one of them had been entirely forgettable. Nobody else had ever . . . how did Mike put it? Turned her into a needy puddle of a girl.
“Take it, sweetheart,” he rasped behind her. “Take it all. It’s all for you.”
His words had her hovering on the edge. And then when he slid a hand under her body and fingered their connection, she couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Oh yeah,” he said as she began to gasp. Then he moaned and shuddered against her back.
A moment later they were pancaked onto the bed, and Mike began to laugh, shaking her beneath him. “I don’t think I can move,” he said. “Hang on.” With a groan, he rolled to the side.
Lauren lay facedown a moment longer, not quite ready to look him in the eye. She’d really missed this. It wasn’t just the energetic sex—and they used to have plenty—but also the intimacy. All week long at work she wore suits and wrote the persuasive missives that helped power Nate’s global empire. She maintained her own apartment and made all her own decisions.
But sometimes a girl just needed to be spread out on the bed and properly fucked. He’d always been just the man for the job.
“You okay?” he asked eventually.
“Top shelf,” she slurred, too happy and spent to elaborate.
Chuckling, he curled his body around hers and sighed. “I’ll set my alarm for five. You don’t have to wake up when you hear it.”
“Okay,” she whispered, snuggling closer. She fell asleep to the sound of his breaths evening out beside her.
TWENTY-TWO
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
MAY 2016
All the way home from Florida, Lauren felt pregnant with a secret, if not necessarily with a baby. She sat with Mike and his teammates in the airport’s charter terminal on Saturday morning, sipping coffee and listening to the players’ smack talk. They all looked a little bleary from partying.
Except for Mike, who just looked happy. He gave her a secretive smile every time their gazes met. She felt those smiles like a soft breeze against her skin.
She stared out the window on the way home, thinking optimistic, sexy thoughts.
On Sunday evening, Lauren received an unexpected delivery from Eli’s, an upscale gourmet food store on the Upper East Side. It arrived in a small cooler with a shoulder strap, which was completely odd. After she verified that the delivery was actually for her (from one Mike Beacon) and tipped the delivery man, she unzipped her gift.
Pickles and chocolate ice cream.
She groaned, and then laughed. The text she sent him was only a few words long. “Thanks? Awfully sure of yourself, though.”
“My stats are excellent. I bat 1000.”
“We’ll see,” is all she replied. Many couples took a year or more to get pregnant. And when Lauren tried to picture herself a year from now in a relationship with Mike, it wasn’t easy to do. When they were together before, she’d been a planner—she’d allowed herself to picture the future. Then he’d blown up their life together, and for two years every thought of him caused her almost physical pain.
So picturing the future again? It could wait. She did however sample the ice cream he’d sent. It was excellent.
When she woke up on Monday morning, her Katt Phone was glowing red around the edges, indicating an urgent message. Someone is showing us an offer on the router division, Nate had texted. Need you in Manhattan today.
The text gave her an honest-to-god shiver of excitement. Forty minutes later she was skidding toward the security turnstiles in the lobby of the office building. She passed her ID over the laser eye and heard the satisfying beep which indicated she was still employed by one the coolest companies on the planet.
Given her month-long absence, her desk on the thirty-seventh floor wasn’t as big a disaster as she’d expected. Her little team had done a good job keeping the place running smoothly while she was pinch-hitting in Brooklyn. At eight A.M. a phalanx of investment bankers arrived to brief Nate on the offer they were receiving.
“Lauren,” Nate said, breezing in just before the meeting began. “I want you to sit in today.”
“All right?” she said, a little surprised by this demand. She usually ran his office from outside the closed-door meetings.
“I know we haven’t gotten around to talking about what jobs you might pursue after graduation. But I have some ideas. And sitting in today fits with one of them.”
She grabbed a notepad and stood immediately and followed him into the conference room.
“Everyone signs a nondisclosure agreement,” a banker said at first, handing over a form for her to sign.
Since Lauren was part of Nate’s inner circle, she’d signed dozens of these already, promising not to reveal the terms of various potential transactions.
The meeting lasted two hours as the bankers described the terms by which a company called iBits desired to acquire Nate’s router business. It wasn’t an ordinary purchase though. iBits wanted contracts for a ten-year relationship between the division and Kattenberger Technologies whereby Nate would continue to license his software to the company.
Lauren tried to guess which of his tech executives he’d need to meet with later today, and she scribbled pages of notes while the bankers delivered their specs.