I bend my knees and Kai hooks his feet over the tops of my legs, spreading them apart as his hands move lower, the thumbs digging twin channels on either side of my spine, then working deep into the muscles of my lower back, the ones that scream at me from night to noon, the ones that would weep with gratitude right now if they only had access to tears.
“Thank you,” I whimper as he hits a knot and keeps working it, showing it who’s boss with such efficiency that a few of its neighbours detangle before they can get the same treatment.
His large fingers grab my hips, thumbs still pressing, and something in my back clicks, releasing a nerve that has been caught for days.
The degrading scars still mark my back but in between pregnancies, I began sitting for sessions with a local tattoo artist who is gradually incorporating them into an ever more detailed design. For the parts of me that can absorb the markings, there are knotted flowers and twisting thorns, a lattice underneath supporting the structure as it blooms.
For where the scar tissue resists the ink, the old words still lurk. Harder to see, emptied of menace, but still there if someone ventures close enough.
But that’s okay. Nobody gets through life completely unscathed. The tattoo is more a tribute to my letting go of shame than it is a complete disguise.
I stretch my arms out, feeling behind me until I can thread my fingers through Kai’s hair. He perches his chin on my shoulder while his hands continue to work magic.
“Oh,” I gasp as little Ian or William or Adrian kicks at my kidneys, mistaking them for a football.
Kai spreads his fingers wide across my belly, forehead resting against my nape as he waits to see if there’ll be another.
“That was a good one,” he whispers with delight as my little man elbows me on one side and lobs another kick at the other. “Do you think he’s planning a prison break?”
He’s meant to be in there for another month but between the fluid retention and the joints that would rather I took it easy than try to give birth to the spawn of the largest man in the known universe (or my known universe, anyway) he doesn’t seem intent on staying for the entirety of his allotted booking.
Joshua didn’t either, of course, but I’ve made it past his early arrival date, so everything from now on is just a bonus.
“You know what I want to do?” Kai whispers against my skin.
“Keep massaging me until I fall asleep?”
He chuckles into the curve of my neck, igniting a vibration that never fails to make my hairs stand on end and send tingles shooting straight to my core.
“The moment this little one is able, I want to task Vaile with babysitting them both, and drive you into the hills for a nice afternoon game of chase.”
Vaile is a local girl, just turning sixteen, and ranks high among Leilani’s favourite people in the world.
“Oh, do you?”
“Mm-hm.” He lets the echoes of his low hum die away before he speaks again, low murmurs that set my aural nerves dancing with delight. ASMR on tap. “I’ll give you a nice head start, to make things fair, and then I’ll come after you.”
“And what happens if you catch me?”
“Dirty, dirty things,” he mutters, kissing along the rear of my jaw until I have to dig my fingertips into his leg to stay grounded.
“First, I’d tackle you to the ground and pin you under me. You’re so tiny but I know you’ll keep struggling, so I’ll grip your hands like this”—he winds his fingers through mine, then tenses them, forcing my palms hard against the mattress—“and wind my legs around yours like this”—he curls his ankles over the front of my calves, spreading me even wider than before—“and I’d let you wriggle under me until you’ve worn yourself out.”
“And then?”
He unwinds the fingers of his right hand from mine and slides them along the curve of my hip, underneath my bulging belly, between my legs, finding a warm wet welcome for him there.
“Then I’d reach down and slip my fingers into the waistband of your jeans while you get a second burst of energy and fight against me, wriggling and writhing and twisting your body under mine until I’m so hard for you I won’t be able to help myself.”
He slips his middle finger deeper, stroking in and out of me until I’m gasping for an entirely different reason. My free hand tries to angle behind, where a large rod is growing steadily harder against my lower back, but he nips the top of my ear, rumbling a warning and I dig my fingertips into the hard muscle of his thigh instead.
“I’d pull your jeans and your underwear down to your knees in one go, baring your pretty pussy for the world to see. Then I’d stroke you with my finger, just like this…”
Kai dips his middle finger still deeper inside me, then bends the top knuckle as he curls it back out, rubbing along a piece of flesh so sensitive it only comes out to play occasionally. He bites into the side of my neck as he does it again, sucking at the skin, nipping it gently between his teeth as he adds another finger, stretching me, then another, all of them working in tandem to bring me skating close to the edge.
“When you’re so drenched that you’re dribbling down my wrist, I’ll push your head down into the forest floor, pressing your cheek against the lichen and the soft earth and the debris from a thousand dying leaves. I’d hold you still and then I’ll take you so fast and so hard, you won’t know what’s happening.”
His fingers pump into me, finding their rhythm, making my body writhe until I’m sobbing with need, teasing me, edging me until it feels like my head’s about to explode.
