Bait

I don’t hesitate, spreading my legs as far as they’ll go and splaying my pussy wide with my fingers. My clit is swollen, it sparks as he stares.

He drops to his knees and edges closer, pulling me forward until my ass hangs over the edge of the bed. Perfect height.

He wraps a hand around the back of my neck and holds me up. “I want you to see this,” he says, and I do too.

I cry out at the glorious moment the head of him plunges inside me. It’s divine to watch him shunting it in, inch by inch.

I watch every thrust. Grunting like a dirty little slut as he fucks me deep.

I keep my fingers splayed wide, my thumb brushing my clit enough to drive me fucking crazy.

I come way before he does, and again before he’s even broken a sweat.

I lose my shit as he circles his hips and his ridges press deep. I’m begging him for more even as it hurts.

His forehead is tight to mine as he curses and comes.

He stays deep as he comes inside me, his eyes right on mine as he catches his breath.

And I wish…

I shouldn’t, but I do…

I wish that the baby had been his.

The revelation is enough to take my breath. My belly pains at the memory of losing half of me that night.

“What is it?” he asks, and I shake my head. He’s not deterred. “What’s wrong?”

I take a breath as he pulls out of me. My lips are on his as he shunts me further up the bed and climbs up to join me.

“It’s nothing,” I lie as he breaks the kiss and comes to lie by my side.

His hand is on my belly, his chin on my shoulder, and his seed is deep inside me.

But it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter how many times he comes inside me.

How many times I get a flutter at the memory of having a new life growing inside me. Of talking to a little person who’ll never be born. Of promising them we’ll be just fine on our own, Stephen be damned.

It’ll never happen.

Because my scars are deep.

Raw even though they are unseen.

Leo’s heart is so strong against my ribs. His breath is steady.

“Are you thinking about him?” he asks, without even a hint of jealousy.

I shake my head. “Not him, no. He’s a stupid prick. I wouldn’t care if I never saw him again.”

He takes a breath. “Tonight is a night for secrets, Abigail. Yours as well as mine.”

I smile, but it’s a sad smile. “I lost a baby,” I tell him, even though he already knows.

His arms wrap me up and hold me tight. “You were ready to be a mum?”

“No,” I say, wishing my laugh would sound more convincing. “I mean, yes, but no. I don’t know if it works like that, if one day you wake up and know you’re ready. The test was positive and I knew I wanted it. That’s as ready as I felt.”

“And what about him? Was he a class-A cocksucker from the word go?”

I sigh. “Pretty much.”

“He was a fucking idiot,” he says, and my heart thumps. “I’d never have left you.”

And I know he wouldn’t.

Not even if staying burnt him alive.

Stephen wouldn’t risk his flat screen TV, let alone his personal safety.

Wouldn’t risk a stable pay check to make sure I was still alive.

“Being a father is the greatest gift on earth,” he continues. “He’ll regret his mistakes every day of his life, even if you never know it. Even if he doesn’t know it himself.”

But he won’t. I know he won’t.

He doesn’t need to.

Which makes it even more fucking painful.

My own secrets are right there, begging for confession.

Ones I’ve buried. Ones I’ve run from.

Ones that won’t stay quiet now I’ve seen the beautiful strength in someone else’s scars.

I just hope Leo can love my scars just as much as I love his.

Because he’s right – being a father, a parent, is the greatest gift on earth.

One I may never know.

And loving me might well take it away from him.

Just as the universe took it away from me.

And handed it back to Stephen on a silver platter.

“Do you mean that?” I ask him, even as my words choke. “That being a father is the greatest gift on earth? You want kids?”

He smiles. Oh, how he smiles. “Yes, Abigail, I want kids.”

I feel so exposed as he kisses my forehead.

“The miscarriage was bad. Bad enough that I nearly died,” I tell him, then opt to spill the rest before I change my mind. “Stephen told me he didn’t want to beg me to get rid of our baby, but he did. He didn’t want the baby and he didn’t want me. He told me his wife was estranged, that they were strangers in the same house, that he wasn’t in love with her and had no idea how he’d ended up with a mortgage and a whole host of entwined families. He said she’d hurt herself if he left, that she was fragile, depressed, that she wouldn’t handle it. He said that’s why he stayed.”