Page 15 of Enemy Ex's Secret Baby

And that utterance of my name…the way he looks so desperate and tender and beautiful…the swelter of dark around us drives my pleasure higher and higher until. “Oh my god, I’m–I’m–” I press my chin to my chest and close my eyes tight. Don’t make a sound. Don’t make one fucking sound.

The orgasm is incredible. Earthshaking. My whole body is vibrating and my center clenches around him. Despite my best attempts, a small whimper crawls out of my throat.

“Oh!” Axel gasps, his body seizing beneath me. His hands slide up my back, pulling down on my shoulders as if somehow, we could get any closer or he could get any deeper. He bursts inside me like his life depends on it.

Thank god I’ve got an IUD. Otherwise this would do the trick, no doubt.

I collapse over him, into his chest. All the anger dissipates for one moment and I accept his embrace. His closeness.

I missed this so much. His touch. His smell. Him.

Oh, Axel…

That’s when the post-coital shame hits. Not just the general taboo feeling of sex that never seems to go away, but the fact that this should have never happened.

Though I’m wound in Axel’s arms, I push myself off of him as if doing so isn’t ripping me apart inside. As if my body hasn’t taken me to seven years ago, to when my heart was beating to the sound of his. I can’t do this. I’ve gone too soft. I must harden myself again.

“What are you doing?” he asks weakly.

I don’t dare look at him. He probably looks so vulnerable laid out there in the chair. Softening, confused.

Needing me. Just as much as I need him.

No. He’d never need me or want me. Not now.

“That can’t happen again,” I say as I pull my pants back on. I run my hands through my hair, the waves feeling crazy and voluminous in my hands. I get the courage to turn back for him. He needs to hear this clearly. I’m not flinching away. “Not after what you did to me seven years ago.”

Axel opens his mouth as if to respond and then shuts it.

“You should go. Now.”

“Right. Uh.” Axel hurriedly tucks himself away and gets up, smoothing out his suit jacket and pants errantly.

I feel him looking at me for something. But I have nothing else to say. Yes, that felt amazing. Which makes it even worse that it happened. How am I supposed to forget it when I know I must? For Lola’s sake. For everyone’s sake, really.

“Have a good night, Gillian.”

I don’t look up until I hear the door latch behind him. The room is empty. Just me and all the things that make up my life.

I’m filled with a sorrow I didn’t expect. Because Axel had the chance to defend himself, to speak up for his actions from the past. And he didn’t. If he had, maybe I would have finally told him the truth. A truth I have carried alone for the past seven years. A truth that may have the power to change everything.

I might have finally told him that the little girl sleeping in the other room isn’t just mine.

She’s his too.

Instead, he walked out of here just like he walks away from everything, proving every terrible thought I’ve had about him all this time.

Axel Hitchins is a coward and always will be.

6

AXEL

It’s been a week. A whole goddamn week, and I can’t get Gillian out of my head.

Obviously, this will not do. Not only is she the enemy to my whole livelihood, but she’s my sister’s best friend. It’s always been an unspoken boundary. The death stares I got in our teen years when I told Gillian she looked nice were warning enough.

Although not enough to stay away completely.

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