"Shock," I agreed.
"I hate that term," she told me, sighing out her air. "It makes it sound like I am too weak to handle what went down."
"It's just your body's response to stress. It's nothing personal."
"The police kept using the term with pity in their eyes."
"Better pity than scrutiny, right?" I asked, knowing few others would be given the luxury of pity in such a situation. Everyone else would have been a suspect. But she was the long-suffering daughter. She had friends in high places, even if she hadn't realized she did. And, let's face it, she was fucking unbelievably beautiful. It was a factor. The police force might have been integrating more women, but it was still a male-dominated profession, with most of those men being middle-aged and sex-starved. A beautiful woman in their office with those big fucking eyes of hers and her wet hair and her fearful shaking? Yeah, their minds were not on cases. They were on bedsheets and making her feel better.
I fought back a smile at realizing that was my place. That after months of getting to know her, easing her into physical things, I finally had her in my room. I'd even had her in my bed, comforting her with my presence because I was too jacked up to make the experience what it needed to be after the wait, the build up.
And for the first time, there was certainty about that inevitability.
Because we were free.
Because we were discussing a future together.
"I'm alright," she told me, shrugging a shoulder, misinterpreting my silence, making me feel guilty for letting my mind wander there when there were other issues at hand. "I think coming to terms with what happened with my father is easy to, um, compartmentalize. It's just..."
"Helga," I supplied, letting the feet of my chair meet the ground so I could reach across the table, snagging her wrist, pulling until she got to her feet, moved around the small table, and lowered down onto my lap. My arms closed around her, smelling of strawberries even after a shower using the complimentary toiletries from the motel room as she nuzzled in under my chin, her fingers curling to bunch up my shirt in her hands. "I'm sorry, baby," I told her, pressing my lips into her hair, breathing in her scent as her air hitched, then evened out. Like she was fighting the grief. "You gotta let it out," I added, giving her a squeeze.
"I'm afraid if I start crying, I'll never stop."
"Eh, so?" I asked, hand running up and down the length of her spine. "We'll just tell the boys that mom is like a leaky faucet."
She snorted at that, turning her head up to catch my eyes.
"You don't know that they'll be boys."
"They'll be boys," I told her with authority.
"You'll be happy with girls too," she told me, voice a little firm.
"Don't see how since they will be boys."
"You're ridiculous," she declared, whacking her hand into the middle of my lower chest, forgetting that I wasn't at one-hundred-percent yet, making my breath hiss out with a curse. "I forgot!" she cried, eyes huge. "I'm so sorry," she said, jumping off my lap to grab the bottle of Ibuprofen, shaking three into her hands, then putting them into mine. I took them, gladly, because while I didn't want to make her feel bad by showing it, my fucking ribs were screaming still.
"It's okay, babe," I told her, trying not to sound like I was gritting my teeth.
"What can I do?" she asked. "Get some ice? Or..." she trailed off, shaking her head helplessly as her eyes studied the bed. When her gaze came back to me, though, her lids were heavy, eyes holding a promise. "I have an idea," she declared, moving forward until her legs brushed against my knees.
Then I watched as she slowly lowered herself down in between my thighs, head lifted to keep eye-contact, to watch as realization crossed my face.
Hell, she didn't even have to do it. The promise of it dulled the ache in my side as my blood rushed to my cock, hardening before she even reached for the button and zip of my jeans, working them down with slow fingers, her movements careful with insecurity.
But there was determination underlying it as she reached inside, pulling my cock out of my boxers, stroking it like she had done many times before, often enough that she had long since learned how I liked it - hard and slow, finger stroking over the head at each pass.
She stroked several times, watching me as my breath got more shallow, as need started to grip my system.
Then and only then did she lean forward, tentatively rolling her tongue across the head, lapping up the first pearls of pre-cum, eyes on mine as she did before her lips closed around me, slowly sucking me into her mouth.