To put it bluntly, I’d had a kid. Not many women were fortunate enough to go through that and walk away from it without hints of the pregnancy being left behind.
Because it’d been so long since then, the stretchmarks had faded to silvery white lines making them easier to bear than when they’d been fresh, but my stomach wasn’t as toned as it’d once been. I swam, I was active, but nothing I did would ever bring it back.
And I was okay with that. I was proud of what my body had created.
I just didn’t feel comfortable with him staring at the area the way he was.
At least I had a nice bra on, so maybe I could distract him with that?
“You know,” he murmured, breezing his thumbs over my sides as he lifted his eyes to look into mine. “I watched you do the bikini trials from my window.”
My eyes widened at this admission, and I couldn’t hold back the cringe as I braced for him to say something negative. We’d ordered bikinis off a cheap site notorious for its bad reviews after followers had asked us to give honest opinions on them.
It’d been one of the most uncomfortable videos I’d ever made, but I was all about supporting body positivity, so I’d done it. The three I’d tried had been a ‘fuck no’ to the footage being posted, just like Sayla, Jacinda, and Heidi—who Sayla had coerced into joining us for it—had with theirs, too.
The reason I knew it was those he’d seen was that we’d made sure he was at work on the day we’d tried ones from Wish on.
“It was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.”
The words were said honestly, but it was hard to believe them. I’d seen my reflection in the mirror and seen what they’d looked like in the video playbacks.
Wanting to make light of it, I snickered, “Have you had your eyes checked for cataracts?”
Ignoring it, he bit down on his lower lip. “The navy one with white polka dots and a bow between these.” He cupped my breasts in both hands and swiped a thumb across my left nipple through the lace. “Do you still have it?”
“Yeah.”
Leaning down and trailing the tip of his tongue over the top of one mound, he asked, “Would you wear it for me one day?”
At this point, I’d wear a spandex bodysuit that was five sizes too small if he asked me to. I didn’t say that out loud, though, because, at that moment, he sucked my nipple through the lace as he hefted the weight of my other breast in his hand.
Releasing it, he kissed across to the neglected breast and repeated the move before lifting his head back up.
“Would you?” When I nodded, he smiled. “What about the black one?”
“I threw it in the garbage. The top was two bubble gum wrappers with a string attached, and the bottom was as big as a small panty liner. We measured it to check,” I panted as he kissed my neck, gently nipping and then laving the sting it caused.
“Shame,” he breathed as he pushed his hands down the back of the cut-offs I’d changed into after my shower. “Maybe we should order another one.”
I was about to tell him he was out of his mind when the world suddenly shifted as he stood up, not even showing a hint that my weight bothered him.
“Wrap your legs around me and hold on,” he instructed, edging carefully past the coffee table and the three dogs.
“Put me down. I can walk wherever we’re going myself.” When he stopped in the middle of the living room, I prepared to put my feet on the ground, but he just stood staring at me. “I’ll break your damn back, Alex. Please, just put me down, and I’ll follow you or walk in front.”
“Baby, if I wanted you to walk there, I’d have asked you to do it. Now, wrap your legs around my waist.”
Any woman who says she’d have gotten pissed off at what he’d just said could go suck the balls of a camel who’d walked two hundred miles across a desert. I was all for women being strong and not taking shit, but a man wanting to carry them somewhere and letting them know it? And that man specifically being Alex?
Sign. Me. The. Fuck. Up!
So, I did as he’d asked and wrapped my legs around his waist.
Then I began praying he didn’t drop me because I was too heavy. That would just be mortifying, and when I shared this part with the girls, I didn’t want to have to say that’s what happened. If Richard Gere had dropped the woman at the end of An Officer And A Gentleman, would we all swoon over the scene as much as we did? Probably not.