So why can’t we? Why can’tI?
Because I meant what I said to Lilly—if I am pregnant, if it’s possible I can bear Malcom’s child, I want to. I want to let myself fall fully in love with him. I want to live at Rosehill. To write and grow roses and raise children on the green hills. I want to wait for him to come home to me every night. I want him to touch me like he is right now, night after night, year after year, for the rest of my life. I know an unlikely path brought us here.
But itdidbring us here. I will not turn my back on a second chance at a love this boundless, passionate—dangerous. I owe it to myself.
A moan works free of me as his tongue slides between my thighs. I slide my fingers into his curls as he draws my panties aside, mouth seeking and finding exactly where I need him. I wrap my legs around his shoulders, gasping as his stroking intensifies. His rough palms brush the inside of my thighs, until his fingers find me too.
I arch my back, my cries ragged as he plunges his fingers inside of me, tongue working in deft, wet circles. It’s wrong. I know it is. So why does it feel so good?
He rises suddenly, yanking me toward him. I pull his shirt over his head, fumbling with his pants. I can’t wait. Not another instant. I need him inside of me.
Malcom pulls me into his arms, pinning me roughly to the wall. I lock my legs around his hips, arching my back when he pulls my blouse down, and then my bra, his mouth searching. He gently sinks his teeth into my neck and I moan, grinding my hips against him, seeking, wanting, needing. He drags his tongue down my neck, not stopping until his mouth finds and wraps around my breast.
Rain slashes against the windows, thunder crashing overhead, hard enough rattle the glass in its casement.
I clutch him to me as his hands drop, sliding beneath my skirt. All too easily, he rips my panties straight down the front, flinging the lace to the floor. With one deft thrust, his cock fills me.
I throw back my head, crying out as he plunges deep, rocking me with a rhythm more hungry than the last. I wrap my arms around his neck, arching my back and meeting his thrusts with thighs spread wide. I take him as deep as I can, not even bothering to muffle my cries of pleasure.
“Malcom,” I gasp, edging toward climax. He fucks me harder in response, gripping my thighs in his rough hands, my body pinned to the wall. “Malcom, I love you.”
His mouth finds mine, silencing the words, swallowing my moans. I thrust my hips into him, embracing him as I come. Heat floods my body, starry and blinding. I throw back my head, my screams echoing off the walls, drowned by the floor of thunder outside the manor. The ecstasy is overwhelming, a flooding tide. I lose myself for a moment, until I’m brought back to my pleasure by the sound of his. He groans as he comes inside me, clutching my pliant body to his steel one.
Even as my climax begins to seep away, I don’t let go of Malcom. I bury my head in his shoulder, inhaling his familiar scent, my arms wrapped around his neck.
“I love you,” I repeat softly. This man who, even when I couldn’t give him what he needed, couldn’t stop himself from wanting me. Protecting me. Falling in love with me. This man who may have given me a child yet. “I never stopped.” A secret I didn’t know until now. That the roots of our affection have survived in me like a rose through frost; that what I felt for him then never withered, and is growing again, nurtured by hope and impossibility and passion.
Malcom holds me. He kisses my neck. “You didn’t want to go.”
My body is weak. I’m so grateful he’s here to hold me up. Rain crashes against the glass, and I hold him and don’t let go. “I should,” I whisper into his curls. “I should have left. I should want to leave you.”
He draws back then, his face open with wonder and sorrow and affection. He strokes my hair, gazing down at me. “But you didn’t.”
Tears fill my eyes again, but this time, they’re born of hope and happiness, both utterly unexpected and fully buoying. “I want to stay with you.”
“Then you will stay.” He kisses me softly. “You’ll be mine, as you once were.”
“Yours.” The word fills me with love.
He kisses my nose softly. “Now,” he says. “Let’s get you to the doctor.”
* * *
“How is that possible?” I ask. The OBGYN’s words ring on and on in my head, meaningless. Lilly clutches my hand, her eyes full of tears. “I—I don’t understand.”
“Well, you never actually checked with a doctor,” she says, smiling fondly. “It’s likely your former partner may actually be experiencing infertility issues.”
“Fuck him,” hisses Lilly under her breath. “The cocksucker. Sorry,” she adds, but the doctor waves dismissively.
“You know, stress plays a big part in fertility,” she says to me. “Putting so much pressure on yourself, or facing so much pressure from a partner, can make conception incredibly difficult. Have you had any big life changes recently, apart from having intercourse with a new partner?”
Heat fills my face. I try not to fall into a spiral, remembering Malcom. His tongue, his fingers, the heat and power of his body. “I—um, yes. I’ve been…spending more time in the country.”
Lilly snorts, but the doctor only nods. “Sure. Your body might have been in a kind of survival mode before. It’s common in more stressful relationships. But whatever you’re doing now, Ms. Rosen, it’s working. You are, indeed, pregnant. It’s early yet, but you’re in very good shape, and so are your babies.”
I stare again at the screen. I can barely make them out—three tiny, impossible, miraculous children, growing inside of me. Three tiny futures. All mine, and Malcom’s.
“Again,” the doctor says. “Very early.”
