Page 127 of Sweet Little Thing

“Hell yeah, it is. Want to go back to sleep and do it again before you have to officially wake up?”

She beamed at me making my heart tighten. This was going to be okay. I could keep it all handled. I didn’t have to let go of one to have the other. She wanted me to get Wills, too. She was on my side. My insecurities were deep-rooted, and I had to stop letting them get the best of me.

Chapter

Seventy-Eight

Beulah

Six days after Stone’s return, Hilda still hadn’t come back. He wasn’t talking about it, but I knew her not being here concerned him. Although he could do it without her, it would be a massive help if he had Hilda’s support in getting custody of Wills. She knew that. I hated to see the tension and stress in his eyes. The scowl I caught him with when he was thinking made me worry about everything, too. I knew he wasn’t telling me all of it. I only got bits and pieces.

Hilda hadn’t called or returned his calls. He had shared that with me last night. Preparing to fight this without her was his next step, but I suggested he fly to Chicago to talk to her. He didn’t think it would help. She was only after whatever got her attention. This wasn’t about Wills for her. She’d made that obvious with her actions.

Our sex wasn’t hindered by any of it though. Selfishly, I was thankful. I woke up several times about to orgasm. My body wasdoing crazy things. I wanted sex all the time. It was as if the simple act of walking stimulated me so much I began to ache for release. Stone was accommodating and didn’t seem concerned with my new nymphomaniac tendencies.

I’d enjoyed sex with him before. Loved it. But this was different. I just needed to get off. It sounded unromantic, and honestly, at times, it was. Sex was all my body seemed to want. Not the sweetness that I had wanted before. I was aching to be used. My face flushed from even thinking about it.

Standing in the bathroom, I stared at my body in the mirror. My breasts were tender. So much so that brushing against them made me tingle between my legs. That was new. They also ached from just being touched by a bra. I’d gone without one a couple of days in a row, thinking it would help, but all it had really done was stimulate me further from my shirt, constantly teasing them.

I squeezed my legs together, and the tenderness down there wasn’t just because I was constantly asking to be fucked, but because it felt more sensitive too. Apparently, most men enjoy this part of the pregnancy with their wives or girlfriends. Stone didn’t even realize he was enjoying that exactly. To him, we were just going at it like maniacs because we could.

My hips weren’t wider, and my stomach was still flat. I was almost seven weeks pregnant. My body didn’t feel different well…except for my constant state of horniness and sensitive boobs. I wasn’t getting sick. I wasn’t having food cravings.

Stone’s yelling snapped me out of my thoughts. I grabbed my jeans and t-shirt and dressed quickly before running to see what was wrong. When I opened the bedroom door, Stone was yelling again, but I couldn’t hear anyone else.

I followed the sound of his voice to the kitchen, where he was standing with his phone to his ear. His face was red, and his furious glare was directed at the wall. The person on the otherend of the call continued to talk to him. It wasn’t helping. They were only making him angrier.

“How could you?” He grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and hurled it against the wall. There were obvious marks on the wall now while the chair lay with a broken leg on the ground. I stayed back out of his line of fire.

“Wills isn’t his son! You crazy ass bitch!!!”

The phone call was about Wills. I should have expected that. Stone was never violent like this. Hilda had done something. From the sounds of it, that something was terrible.

“I want him!” was his response to whatever was said on the other end.

His breathing was fast as he listened, and his face was so bent with rage that it made me anxious. But I didn’t leave the room. I waited for him to finish the call. He was facing yet another obstacle—one that Wills’ mother caused.

“Fine,” his voice was eerily calm now—low and cold with zero emotion. His calmness was scarier than the shouting had been. “You do what you need to. Find your happiness. I will finish this.” He ended the call, and his phone stayed tightly in his grasp as he breathed heavily through his nose.

I didn’t move. He didn’t speak, and the time ticked by. Although I wanted to go to him and hold him. I wanted to comfort him. I didn’t think he would want me near him at the moment. He needed space.

Stone hadn’t seen or heard from Wills since last week. He’d tried to call, but the nanny always said Wills was unavailable or not home. Stone didn’t want to push too hard for fear of drawing his father’s attention. As evidenced by his reaction to Hilda’s phone call, something more had happened today. Stone seemed determined and broken at the same time. Whatever Hilda had done, it didn’t change that Wills was Stone’s biological son.

“The senator’s wife found out about Hilda. That’s why shecame here. Not for Wills. The Senator has begged her to come back, and he’s put her up in fucking Harbor Country in her own waterfront villa where he can skip out of Chicago and go fuck her when he wants to. She’s not helping me and not helping her son. She said it would draw unwanted attention to her that the senator doesn’t want. And if I press this further, she will give up any rights to Wills. Allow the motherfucker sole custody while she lives like a wealthy mistress.”

His voice wasn’t angry now, it was empty. Hollow. His pain was apparent, but it was the lack of emotion as he said the words that was so haunting. I didn’t believe he was giving up, but there was defeat in his tone.

“He doesn’t even like her. Wills. He doesn’t like Hilda. He wants to like her. I think he’s conflicted.” Stone laughed hard, but there was no humor. “Fucking conflicted on how he feels about his mother, and he is eight years old. Jesus, he’s gonna be as screwed up as I am. The harder I fight to stop this, the worse it gets. I get an inch, and then I’m knocked back several feet.”

I didn’t move. I wanted to. God, I wanted to go to him so bad. But I stayed put. He was dealing with it all by talking about it out loud. Telling me was his way of processing, venting. He hadn’t even looked at me yet. His focus was still on the wall he had damaged in front of him.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I wasn’t meant to have children. I never wanted them. How the fuck am I expected to be a father when I have no model to follow? Teenage boys should be fucking locked away until they can think with something other than their dicks.”

My heart slowly sank as my throat felt thick.

“No kid deserves this, me.” He pointed at himself. “It’s why I wanted you on birth control. I fucked up a few times, but fate didn’t make the same mistake again. Thankfully, we didn’t create a life. I couldn’t deal with that. God, a fucking baby,” helet out another hard laugh. “That would have been a nightmare.” He looked at me then. His eyes expressing the regret, pain, and frustration he was battling. As he bared his soul to me, I found a way to keep from shattering. I held myself together…but only barely.

He didn’t want the life growing inside me. He couldn’t deal with fatherhood. He had called our baby a mistake…a, a…nightmare. He didn’t realize it, but he had.

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