It was exactly what I needed.

I did love him. I really believed that. I just didn’t know if I was ready to admit it.

70. My Mouth is Big

I kept Nicole’s secret for all of sixteen hours. Anything past that would have been impossible, it was just too great for me to sit on alone. Which was why, at seven in the morning, I woke Cammie up with an enthusiastic use of her buzzer. Lucky for me, I was in a car accident the day before, so I got a free pass. Once we covered my injuries and got some coffee brewing, we sat on her couch, whispering so as not to wake Dante, and I spilled everything.

“Shut up.” Cammie’s eyebrows raised in evil glee. “She’s pregnant?”

“Yes.” I giggled despite myself. It wasn’t funny. But for all of the shit I’d watched Nicole get away with, the woman had it coming. I composed my face and tried my best serious face. “It’s not funny,” I admonished.

“It’s kinda funny,” Cammie mused, lifting her coffee mug for a sip. “Have you told Benta?”

“No. Don’t.”

She raised a hand in surrender. “No worries there.” Benta, God love her, couldn’t keep a secret for shit. You told her anything juicy and she’d have a Times billboard rented before the end of the hour.

It felt good to let it out. To have a sounding board. And, let’s face it, it felt great to hear her gasp of shock, to have someone who truly understood and appreciated the magnitude of the fact that NICOLE WAS PREGNANT. Cammie all but whipped out a calendar, trying to figure out ovulation windows and the probability of whose sperm was luckiest. Or rather, unluckiest. I tried to picture a pregnant, hormonal Nicole and saw absolute disaster. When I thought of her as a mother … well. I already felt bad for Chanel.

We talked for over an hour, and produced absolutely no game plan on how to handle the pregnancy test. I left with promises to keep her updated. So for right now, I was sitting on the information and trying to pretend I didn’t know it, and trying my best not to think about it.

Talk about an impossible task.

I knew from the news that my parents’ noose was tightening, their legal fight running out of options and funding. When I called on his birthday, Dad actually answered. We chatted about the Dolphins and then he shared a moment of truth, his voice tight and irritated.

“We just thought we had more time, Chloe. They came in so fast … they took everything. If I had known, things would have been different. The investigation wouldn’t have mattered.”

A bundle of sentences that took any remaining respect I had for my father and ground it to dust. I didn’t want parents who squirreled away money and then ran. I didn’t want to come from that stock. I wanted a dad who apologized to me. Who hugged me and told me that he screwed up. That he was sorry for not supporting me through the last year. Who said something that validated all of my love for him. On that call, he didn’t even tell me he loved me. It was as though my parents had only known how to show love through gifts and—without their money—had no feelings left for me.

71. Distracted by the D

I knocked on Carter’s door with one goal in mind: To Confess Love. He opened the door, and I didn’t even get out a greeting. He hooked a finger through my belt loop and pulled me into his chest. His mouth came down on mine, his other hand pushing the door closed and then I felt the full palm of his hand on my butt, squeezing hard. He gripped me like he thought I might slip away, his kiss deepening as we stood in place, my bag dropping through my fingers, my hands reaching up to grip his hair.

Any chance of talking disappeared in the pull of his mouth off mine, his hand pushing me back, and as my shoulders hit the door, his knees hit the floor, his fingers at the top of my leggings. His name was a question off my lips and he ignored it, pulling at the waist of my pants and my panties, and then they were skimmed down my legs and around my feet.

He was a man on a mission, and my flats were off, my left thigh lifted over his shoulder, and then his mouth was between my legs, my hands skittering over the door as I tried to hold on to something. “Carter,” I gasped his name around the time that his tongue found that spot, the one he discovered one morning and could barely hold me down after. It wasn’t my clit, it was further back … and when he flicked his tongue over it, I was gone. I collapsed against the door, my hands weak on his shoulders, my weight on him, his hands holding me up as he worshiped me with his mouth.

Light flutters, so light and constant and perfect—at that spot then up to my clit, his fingers biting into my bare ass, a guttural groan humming over my sensitive skin and spelling out his enjoyment. I wanted to move, wanted to not be standing, two wants that got lost in the swell of pleasure. When I came, my nails dug into his shoulders, my foot braced against the floor, my thighs tightened around his head, and everything in my mind went black.

I had a vague recollection of him lifting me up. Of him carrying me to his bed. I found my bearings around the time that my back hit the sheets. I helped him pull off my shirt and watched as he yanked at his, his abs flexing as he threw it into the corner of the room, his fingers quick as they worked at his pants. He was so freaking hot. So strong, the cut of his muscles showing in the simple act of shedding his clothes. His eyes were on mine the entire time and when he crawled onto the bed, hard and ready for me, I was ready for him.

I was so ready for him.

“You need more furniture.” I picked up a shrimp with my chopsticks and gestured to his bare bones room.

“I don’t like clutter,” he remarked, scooping fried rice onto his plate.

“Yeah—I’ve seen your closet. I could tell.” I popped the shrimp in my mouth and chewed, watching him crack open a Coke.

He glanced my way. “You prefer your men messy?”

“Not at all.” I thought of Vic, who tossed his clothes on the floor, a maid picking them up the minute our back was turned. “I’m just jealous I wasn’t born with that gene.”

“I don’t know if I was born with it or if it was beaten into me.” He made a whip motion with his hand, and I raised my eyebrows.

“Please tell me it wasn’t by Presa.” I made a face and he laughed.

“No, no. My mom. She wouldn’t let me eat unless everything was in its place.”

I smiled at the image, one so different than my childhood. I could picture him, a miniature heartbreaker, then a lanky teenager, put into place by a bossy mother. “I wish my mom had been more like that. Maybe then…” Maybe then I’d be a lot different. Maybe then I wouldn’t have struggled so much when the rug was yanked out from beneath me.

He shrugged. “It’s one of those things that you hate as a kid but learn to appreciate the benefits of later. I think they did a pretty good job of raising me.”

“Was your Dad strict too?”

He nodded, scooping out some noodles and holding them out for me. “Do you want kids?”

Kids? That wasn’t something I had ever thought about. Literally. I had always assumed I’d have them, just hadn’t ever really thought if I had wanted them. Vic had wanted five boys. So that had always been that. Discussion over, damn whatever sperm or Chloe had to say about the matter. “I don’t know,” I said, taking a sip of my tea.

“I think you’d make a great mom.” I almost asked him to repeat himself, wanted to hear the words one more time.