Justice Falling (Falling #3)(37)
Finally, I felt her muscles slacken, and I pushed up. My hand caught something sharp as I balanced above her. Flitting around in the blanket my fingers grasped the offending item. I held it up focusing on the diabolical little square.
All air left my lungs as I stared at the unopened foil packet. Sliding out of her body, I watched with a sick fascination as my seed trickled out and coated her thighs. For a brief couple seconds, I enjoyed seeing my mark spilling out from between her legs. The Alpha male in me wanted to howl at the moon that I’d staked my claim, laid my mark, filled her full. The intelligent thirty-year-old brain took over and scowled.
“Fuck!” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Camille popped to a seated position.
“What’s the matter?” Her eyebrows knit together and I hated to see the tension back on her brow. A scant few minutes ago she was languid, relaxed and coated in post-coital happiness.
“Tell me you’re on the pill?”
Her eyes went as wide as saucers. She bit her lip and shook her head. All sound left the room. I think we were both afraid to breathe for fear it would tip the scales of fate negatively. We both just stared at the unopened condom packet. Tears built in her eyes and one fell down the side of her cheek.
“Camille, don’t…” I pulled her to me and tucked her head under my chin. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No it’s not. It will never be the same again.”
“Precious, don’t say that. Hey, hey, look at me.” I pulled her chin around so that I could look into her eyes. “It will be okay.”
Another tear slipped down each cheek. I wiped each one away quickly, hating them and the fact that I put them there. With a strength I wasn’t sure I owned, I held her gaze and made sure not to flinch. “Whatever happens…we’ll handle it together? Okay?” In that moment, I knew I needed to take the responsibility for our actions.
Finally, she nodded, and I snuggled her against my chest and laid back. We laid clutching one another until I felt her body relax, her breath soften. She slipped into sleep. Visions of baby boys and girls entered my thoughts. I tossed them aside like yesterday’s rubbish. I could not go down that road now. Then, just as I started to fall asleep, the unearthly vision of Camille’s lean body rounded, glowing and fertile with my child growing inside her was quite possibly the most splendid incantation of life’s beauty I had ever seen.
Hours later, I awoke rested, ready to take on the day and handle our potential problem together. I rolled over and felt the space next to me. It was ice cold. There was no warmth from the body I had held, made love to, fallen asleep next to. She was gone. At some point in the wee hours of the morning Camille had left me alone, naked in a bed that should have been for two.
Chapter 10
It was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it. Been beating myself up over it for the past several hours. The problem is that I’m not sorry I did it. Slipping out of that devastatingly handsome man’s bed, his arms curled around my naked form was the hardest thing I’d done in a long while. Yet, it still had to be done.
Getting attached to Nathaniel Walker was not smart, even after having spent the most glorious time with him. Our date was the stuff they made romantic movies about. A day filled with a lot of laughs, light playful touches, great food, good wine, and smiles a plenty. Then…there was the evening. God, the evening will provide me with a year of fulfilled fantasies…save for one; the one where prince charming sweeps the princess off her feet and they live happily ever after in his kingdom forever. But I needed to get real. I wasn’t a princess, and New York City certainly was not a faraway kingdom.
Nate, though, he was a prince. A dirty talking, smart dressing, sexy as hell, renegade modern day prince. He was too good for the likes of me, especially after our slip up. If the world was against me, and so far it had seemed that way, I would likely be having Nate’s child nine months from now. The mere thought soured and churned heavily in my gut. Not that I didn’t love children, Tanner was my world. It’s the thought of repeating history, starting all over alone…again, just when things were finally making sense. It was a living nightmare. I slammed my head onto the solid oak desk wishing I had made better choices. I was almost twenty-four and potentially a single mother of two from two different fathers.
The theme song to the Jerry Springer show tinkled across my thoughts. I was a crummy statistic. Once Nate realized who I was, what my real life was like, he’d tuck tail and run. Oh, he definitely seemed like a responsible guy. He’d want to help. Pay child support. Maybe even want to see the child. Then again, he could turn out just like his best friend Tyler. The man who screwed me over all those years ago when almost the exact same thing had happened. I’d gotten pregnant immediately, and here I was living a sick, twisted version of déjà vu.
“Dammit all to hell in a hand basket!” Hank roared, entering the office, one hand on his disheveled, clearly irate wife, and the other tugging on a leash. Butch, Hank and Aspen’s huge golden retriever bounced happily inside, yanking free of his master’s hold and bounding over to me.
“Hey Butchey, Butch, Butch. How’s the big guy?” I shook the scruff around the dog’s neck. A cloud of loose hair flew into the air and floated onto my black skirt. It didn’t bother me. That’s what lint brushes and sticky tape were for. “What are you doing here, huh fella?” I looked at Butch but expected Hank to answer.