Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(53)
“Easy.”
She sat back abruptly, panting. “I—I’m sorry. Shit. I don’t—shit.”
When she tried to move off of him, to toss the covers back and get out of bed, he was ready, and he caught her in his arms and flipped over, putting her under him.
“Don’t be sorry. That was just a little rougher than even I like.” He settled between her legs, pressing his halfway-there cock against her * with a groan and a shudder. “Let me in, Willa. Let me make it good. Let me make it all better.”
She hooked her legs around his hips, and he took that as an answer and slid deep, claiming her kiss as he did.
When they came, it was together, pleasure and need coiling around them both.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Willa knocked on the door and opened it. “Knock, knock. How’re we doing? Still feeling okay?”
The woman in the bed smiled. “I’m still great. Whoever invented the epidural should be sainted.”
Willa laughed and checked the fetal monitor. The tape showed steady peaks, coming less than two minutes apart for the past twenty minutes. “You’re having a lot of contractions, Betsy. Are you feeling them?”
“A little. It just feels like my belly is getting hard. But they don’t hurt at all. The last couple, there’s been maybe some pressure.”
“Pressure? Like you have to push?” The last couple of contractions on the tape had peaked for more than a minute.
“Maybe?”
“Is that bad?” Betsy’s husband gaped at Willa, his complexion losing its color. Willa had him pegged for a fainter, once things got interesting—which might be soon.
“Nope.” She plucked a pair of gloves from the container on the wall and pulled them on. “Everything’s been normal. The epidural takes the pain away, and sometimes it takes the urge to push, too, but if you’re feeling pressure, that’s good. Let’s check and see where we are.”
She helped Betsy arrange her legs so that she could get between them. Flushing deep red now—oh, yeah, that guy was going to drop like a felled tree before this was over—Mr. Betsy stood up. “I’ll—I’ll go out and tell our folks.”
Betsy frowned as her husband left the room—she knew what was up. “I don’t think Mark’s ready for this. He was happy when I first got pregnant, but lately…oh—I think I’m having one.”
A check of the monitor showed that she was. Willa watched it, saw it spike as high as the one before and the plateau stretch another few seconds longer. Betsy was completely comfortable, but she said, “It feels like I have to poop.”
This labor was well along. An hour ago, Betsy was five centimeters and deeply uncomfortable, writhing and weeping through her contractions at five minutes apart.
When the contraction was over, Willa lubed her gloved hand, losing no time. “Okay, some cold and pressure. You know the drill by now.” She slid her fingers in and kept talking as she checked Betsy’s progress. “He’ll be ready. Once your little boy is in his arms, he’ll be ready. It’s scary, even when it’s not the first time.”
“Do you have kids?”
“No, I don’t.” The day she’d started her most recent period had been a happy one—on the day of the bombing and the day after it, she and Rad hadn’t bothered with a condom four consecutive times. At the time, she’d known it was stupid and reckless, even at that point in her cycle, but she hadn’t cared. It had been the strangest thing—like she’d wanted to get pregnant without actually wanting to get pregnant. She’d chalked it up to the surreal stress of those days.
Rad hadn’t been any more cautious than she. They’d just f*cked without protection for those days and then gone back to safer sex without ever talking about what the hell they’d been thinking or whether they were worried about what might result.
She wasn’t sure she wanted children at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t love kids. She spent all her work days surrounded by happy new families and sweet, squishy new life. She loved those first moments of wonder between a mother and the child she’d nurtured, and between a father and the child who’d been such an abstract concept until that moment.
But her life had been ruled in one way or another by Jesse—by his control when he was part of her life and by his menace since then—and she couldn’t picture having a life where she didn’t have to worry that he would pop up and do her more harm. If there were a child, that child would be another target.
After Oklahoma City last month, she was even more ambivalent. The threat was bigger than one crazy man. The thought of bringing a child into a world where such things could happen, where strangers could mean you harm—it made her sad and ill.
But Betsy here glowed with excitement, now that her pain had been managed. “I’ve never been scared. I just want him here in my arms. I’ve never been more ready for anything ever.”
She was fully dilated and fully effaced. Willa’s finger gently grazed the top of a little head. She pulled her hand back and set Betsy’s legs down.
“Okay. Betsy, you are ready to go. I’m going to get Dr. Diller up here STAT. In the meantime, I want you to keep ignoring the pressure. Don’t push, even if the urge gets strong, not until we’re as ready as you are, okay?” She dropped the gloves in the waste.