Page 20 of Love's Patient Journey
“Mmm, I missed you, honey. I can’t stand to be away from you, even for a night.” Ryan tried to take her mouth again, and she pulled back.
“Ryan, no.” Jenna could feel the heat coming from his body, and all she wanted to do was strip down and let him take her against the wall in her hallway.
“We can’t do this anymore—we broke up, in case you forgot.” Jenna was doing everything in her power to shove his heavy body from hers, but she gave up with a huff, feeling sick. She must have looked as green as she suddenly felt because Ryan moved out of her way. She ran into her master bathroom and made it to the toilet just in time. Before she knew what was happening, Ryan was holding her hair back from her face and rubbing her back while she puked.
“No—” she gurgled, swatting futilely in his direction. “Can’t see me like this.”
“Jenna, baby,” he crooned, still stroking her back, “It’s been over a month since you caught this flu. Zac is better, but you can’t seem to shake it. Maybe you should see the doctor.” He wiped her mouth with some tissues and got her a warm washcloth to clean up.
“I’m all right, just all this stress makes me nauseous. I need a break from life, from all this stress, from us, Ryan. You need to give me some room.” She looked at his reflection in her bathroom mirror and saw his determination. She wasn’t going to win this argument easily. She suddenly felt very tired and wasn’t sure that she wanted to argue at all. Defeated, she decided that silence was her only way out of this conversation. After breakfast, she would run Zac to school and head to work. Ryan surely couldn’t follow her there.
“How about you take a shower and get dressed. You need to relax, and I am here to help you and to take care of Zac. The sooner you get that through your thick skull, the faster we can move past this little bump.”
“Little bump? Is that what you call derailing my life and making all my decisions for me? I call that being an alpha control freak, Ryan.” Jenna tried to push him out of her bathroom, but he was like an immovable wall. Smiling, he bent and kissed her forehead.
“Now you’re starting to understand me, honey. I told you from the start, baby, I like to be the one in control, and I take care of what is mine. You and Zac are mine now. I love you, Jenna, and even if you refuse to tell me that you love me, I can see it in your eyes. I would never make a decision for you that would hurt you. I knew that Jake would talk to me, that he would accept my deal. We used to be best friends; we grew up together. If you had gone in to ask him to sign those damn papers, he would have taunted you and laughed in your face. I did what I had to do for you and Zac. Hell, for me—I want to be Zac’s dad. I want to marry his mama, and I want us to be a family.” Ryan pulled her into his arms, and damn it, her traitorous body willingly melted into his hold.
“How about what I want, Ryan? Have you ever considered what I want or even need from you?” Jenna pulled back to look up into his green eyes. She needed to see for herself if he was getting what she was saying to him. “I need to have my voice, my opinion heard. I need to have some control over my own life. It’s not fair for you to come into our lives and expect me to just let you take over. I haven’t had a partner since Zac was born, and now, you want me to not only let you be my partner, my husband, but to surrender all my control to you. I just don’t know if I can do that. I want us to be a team, but to do that, you have to start including me in our decisions. You need to let me be a part of making the plans.” Ryan started her down, and she knew that he heard her; she just hoped that he understood.
“I get it, Jenna, and I will try to ease up on my control issues. I just need the chance to prove to you that we are good together. We are a great team. I promise that I will try to consider your feelings before I go off and try to fix everything. Fair?” Jenna nodded and wrapped her arms around Ryan’s middle again, snuggling into his hold.
“Well,” she paused for a moment, “You don’t have to ease up on your control issues in the bedroom,” she wiggled into his body, giggling.
Ryan grabbed her ass and squeezed, “That’s not a problem, baby. I plan on controlling you very well this evening!” He pressed his lips to hers, giving her ass a quick smack. “Now, how about you get this cute little ass in the shower, and I’ll wrangle up a toddler and make breakfast?” Jenna laughed, shaking her head as he sauntered out of her bathroom.
A few seconds later, she could hear Ryan growl, followed by her happy, squealing son, as they ran down the stairs together. Well, at least someone was having a good morning. Jenna knew thatRyan was right; she had been sick for a lot longer than Zac. She didn’t think that she still had a virus, though. She tried to ignore the signs, telling herself that it just couldn’t have happened again. But Jenna knew all the symptoms—she wasn’t eating very much, her boobs were swollen and sensitive, and she was puking every morning. To top it all off—she was late. She was hoping that she would get her period for about two weeks now, and she prolonged taking the test, knowing that her chances weren’t the best. And, as long as she didn’t know for sure, she could deny what she feared was the truth.
The first night she and Ryan were together, they didn’t use anything. She didn’t want to be pregnant again, especially now that their relationship was so rocky. Fear gripped her as she thought about Ryan wanting to do the right thing by her and the baby. She knew that he would insist on being a part of that baby’s life and, ultimately, hers. She just couldn’t give him that power without really knowing how she felt about him still. She knew that she was in love with him, but could she truly get past the control that he seemed to need?
It was now or never; she pulled out the pregnancy test that she had picked up a week ago and didn’t even bother with the directions. She remembered all too well how these little things worked. She peed on the stick and got into the shower while it “cooked”. She even took some extra time in the shower, not wanting to see the plus sign that she knew would be waiting for her.
She wrapped herself in her towel and stepped out of her shower, right into Ryan. He was standing in her bathroom, holding her pregnancy test, and staring at it, like he had never seen one before.
“When were you going to let me in on your little secret, Jenna?” He turned the test to show her that she was indeed pregnant. She gasped and covered her face, sobbing into her bath towel.
∞
Ryan looked at the pregnancy test that Jenna had taken before her shower. He was starting to suspect that something was going on, but never in a million years would he have guessed that they were going to have a baby. From her reaction, she didn’t know it either.
“Jenna, honey,” Ryan pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried. She was shivering all over. “I take it you didn’t know until just now?” She shook her head against his chest. Ryan was stroking her back, trying to calm her.
“I thought it could be possible,” she sobbed into his shirt, “but I didn’t want to believe that I could be so stupid again.” Now, she was fisting his shirt, looking into his eyes. “I didn’t plan this, Ryan, I swear.”
Ryan chuckled at her worry that he would believe that she planned on getting pregnant to trap him. Hell, he wanted to be “trapped”. “Honey, I’m the one who should be sorry. I was so out of control that first night that I forgot the condom. This is all my fault, but I won’t lie, I love the idea that you are having my baby. I told you earlier, and I’ll say it again—I love you, Jenna, and I want you, Zac, and me to be a family. Well, and now this baby.” He put his hand over her bare belly, cupping where the baby was not yet showing. “I want for all of us to be a family, and I will do whatever it takes to make that happen, even making a deal with the devil. I would do it all again to keep you all safe.”
Jenna pulled away from him and looked into his eyes before she could say anything to argue her point. Ryan sealed his lips over her mouth. He would just have to show her how much he loved her, every day, for as long as it took her to see that she was his. Jenna moaned into his mouth and wrapped her arms around him. Her towel fell to the floor, giving him access to her breasts. He slid his palm up over her taut nipples and ground his erection into her belly.
“Mommy- where you clothes?” Zac was standing in the doorway, smiling up at them. Ryan instantly covered Jenna with his body, shielding her from Zac.
“Mommy just got out of the shower, buddy. Go on to your room and play with your trains. I’ll be right there, and we’ll eat our pancakes.” That seemed to make the curious toddler happy, and he ran to his room, shouting to the world about his trains.
“Thanks,” Jenna sagged in his arms. “I can’t believe he saw that.”
Ryan helped her pull her robe on and pushed her unruly hair out of her face, “I don’t think he saw too much, princess. It’s okay that he sees how much I love his mama. He’s going to have to get used to it because I’m not going anywhere, baby.” Ryan thought that if he said it enough, she would just accept it.
Jenna nodded and started brushing her hair. “I just need a few minutes to get ready for work, then I will come down and help with breakfast.” At the mention of food, Jenna seemed to turn green. Ryan pulled her back against his body, “You take all the time you need, honey. I’ll feed Zac and take him to pre-school.” She opened her mouth to fuss at him but stopped when Ryan bent to kiss her open mouth. He liked this new technique; kissing Jenna every time she wanted to argue with him wouldn’t be too much of a hardship. And with the way his woman likedto argue with him, he’d be kissing her all the time. As he pulled away from the kiss, he swatted her ass and winked at her. He wasn’t about to give her any more chances to argue with him. At this rate, they’d never get to work on time.
∞
