Page 104 of Fall to Me
The double glass doors slide open, and we walk inside, the heater over the door blowing hot air into my face. I find a seat in the waiting area next to the windows while River retrieves a clipboard from the receptionist before coming over to sit next to me. I’d be thrilled to be here if it were for a completely different reason, but the pregnancy test I had her take last week after we left Cal and Aspen’s house came out negative. As I sit here,thinking about her getting on birth control, my stomach twists in knots.
I place my hand on hers—to stop her pen from moving—and she turns her head to look at me.
“Let’s just . . .” I pause, searching for the right words. “Can we not do this and see where it goes?”
Her brows tug together in disbelief as she scoffs, “You want a baby now?”
“Yeah . . .” I swallow hard and lick my lips. “Yes. I really do.”
River shakes her head, giggling. “We had a deal. Two years.”
“One and a half,” I argue back.
It was a long shot, but worth a try. Sighing, I sit back in the chair and stretch out my legs, then grab one of the magazines from the seat next to me and flip through it. River takes the clipboard back to the receptionist, then moseys her way back to her chair, reaches into her bag, and pulls out a book, flipping it to the bookmarked page. She leans her elbow on the arm of her chair, turning herself in a position where I can’t read the pages over her shoulder. If she weren’t being a sneaky little shit, I might not have even noticed, but now I’m intrigued. The black book has what looks like a picture of a strawberry milkshake on the back, and as innocent as that looks, I’m sure it’s anything but. I crane my neck, trying to take a peek.
“What are you reading there?”
“Nothing,” she quips, not taking her eyes off the pages.
A breathy chuckle bursts from her mouth. I try again to look over her shoulder, but she inches away from me a little more. I study her out of my periphery, watching as her hand climbs up her neck. A gasp leaves her sexy lips, and as she lifts her eyes and takes a look around, the prettiest pink blush blooms on her cheeks. I now know what my wife listens to, and if this book is anything like what I heard in the car . . .
I lean over in my seat and whisper in her ear, “I’d be willing to bet that you’re wet right now. You’re looking around, wondering if anyone knows what kind of book you’re reading. If they can tell how turned you are by it.” I take a lock of her hair between my fingers. “Well, Kitten . . . I know. I can tell that your little pussy is just begging to be filled with my?—.”
“River Graham,” a nurse interrupts from the open door across the waiting area.
River jumps up and slams her book closed. Just as she’s about to toss it back into her bag, I snatch the book out of her hands. Her mouth drops open in shock. I know she wants to yell at me to give it back, but she also doesn’t want to cause a scene. I can’t help but let out an ornery chuckle.
“Actually, why don’t you come back with me?” she asks, holding up one finger to the nurse, asking her to wait.
I know what she’s doing, and it’s not gonna work. I quickly thumb through the pages, not taking my eyes off the book. “You don’t need me. It’s just birth control, right? I have this to keep me company. You go ahead.” I lift my eyes and smirk. “Unless . . . you want to go home and try for a baby instead . . . we can put this little bad boy back into your bag and pretend you weren’t sitting here reading the filthiest?—.”
She spins fast on her heels, leaving the room before I can finish.
Laughing, I flip the book over.Seven Gravesby H. B. Elliot. Alright, H. B., show me what kind of kinky fuckery you wrote in this book that had my sweet little wife over here nearly creaming in her lace panties.
Flipping back to the beginning of the chapter, my eyes fly across the pages. I spend the next twenty minutes laughing, schooling my expressions to the best of my ability, and shifting in my fucking seat. The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m sitting in an OB office with a smut book in my hand, a hard on in mypants, a wife in the back who won’t let me knock her up, and a room full of pregnant women rubbing that fact in my face.
A shadow falls over me. “Mr. Graham.” I look up. A woman in navy blue scrubs stands in front of me. “Your wife has requested that you come to the back.”
I close the book and follow the lady through the waiting area. She swipes her card, then holds the door open, allowing me to pass. We walk through a hallway decorated in black and white newborn pictures, hanging on the wall, then we turn right, bypassing a couple of rooms before she leads me to a room on the left. The nurse gives a couple of taps on the door before opening it to reveal my wife, sitting on an exam table in a blue gown with a white paper cloth over her lap while scrolling through her phone.
“What’s wrong baby?” I ask, rolling the doctor’s stool closer to her and sitting down.
Casting a glance around the room, she sighs and asks, “Can I have my book back now?”
She called me in here so I would give back her book? Of course she fucking did.
Thirty-Three
River
Was it dirty of me to call him back here so I could make him give my book back? Yes. Yes, it was. Do I feel bad? Not one little bit.
“I can see why you like this so much,” he says, holding up my paperback and waving it in the air before placing it in my outreached hand. “I kinda wanna be like Malek when I grow up.”
“What? Deranged? Unhinged?” I giggle, shifting on the bed, the paper crinkling underneath me.
“He’s hilarious,” Carter counters.
