“Please,” she whispers. “Give me everything.”
Devil May Care
Frankie
I hardly comeup for air over the next week. Despite my protests, Dante insists that I take the week off after working overtime in San Francisco. He doesn’t allow me to lift a finger, either, unless it’s to make baby blankets. It’s a stark contrast to never having time off before, and always feeling like I had to be on call for him.
Our days are spent in bed, only getting up to eat and drink water. He can’t cancel all of his appointments, especially the standing appointments with his most vulnerable patients, so he honors those and takes them from my closed-off dining room.
In the evenings, we sit on the couch while I read and he catches up on client emails. He rubs my feet and asks about the books I’m reading. We drink wine and order takeout, but some nights he also cooks me healthy meals full of leafy greens and protein. I know exactly what he’s doing, and I hate to admit that I love it.
He doesn’t sleepwalk at all, and I haven’t seen him take any pills.
I also haven’t gotten the courage to ask him about it.
The way he looks at me sometimes… it terrifies me. The dark possession that rolls off him sends shivers down my spine. Thelook on his face when he sinks into me first thing in the morning is intense enough to give me a complex. When we’re not in bed, eating, or working, we’re talking. I learn about his childhood. His friends—he doesn’t appreciate it when I tell him with a straight face that demons don’t usually have friends. We stay up until two in the morning telling each other everything. It’s a lot, and despite being the happiest I’ve ever been, the intensity with which everything happened makes my head spin.
Once I gave him permission to claim me, he stopped holding back.
That meant more smiling. More laughing. His face is more relaxed than ever, and despite still being a grump, he’s happy aroundme.
I tell myself it’s too soon to fall in love.
It’s too soon to have these big feelings.
I hardly know him—which is weird to think, considering I spent more time with him than anyone else for the last two years, at least online. I read back through our emails and chats. I look for any hidden clues that he’d felt like this with me for so long. There’s no affection in the text, but the possession is there. It’salwaysbeen there.
I’d like for you to check in with me every morning.
Don’t stay up too late working.
Please call me as soon as you can.
When I’d suggested hiring a local guy as a second assistant last year, since I was always so busy, he immediately shot it down, and rereading it now—in hindsight—is hilarious.
I do not have time to train anyone else, and I do not want you taking the time out of your workday to do so.
I tease him about it, and his usual response is to push me back onto the couch and remind me that he’s still my boss, and that he doesn’t appreciate being made fun of—all the while sliding between my legs.
Being with him feels like a marathon—swift and extreme. Sudden.Life-changing.
While he’s working a week after we return from San Francisco, I sneak out and walk to the drug store down the street. Popping into a nearby coffee shop, I pee on a stick, confirming what I already suspected. My period is a day late, and I cried big, blubbering tears when the serial killer from my last book got sentenced to death in the epilogue.
As the word ‘Pregnant’ appears on the digital test, I gauge my reaction, but I know by my private smile how I really feel. Excited. Nervous. Anxious.Happy.
The sun is shining as I walk back to my house. I have no idea how I’m going to tell Dante. I don’t think either of us expected it to work on the first try. I’m still waiting for him to tell me it’s all a joke and that this whole breeding kink he has going on is just for fun. I stop in front of my front door as reality hits me.
I’m pregnant.
With my boss’s baby.
Holy fuck.
Just as I reach out for the handle, Dante pulls my door open. “I’m not going to be one of those guys who needs to know where you are at all times. You’re a big girl. But a text would be nice, so I know you’re not dying in a ditch,” he says through his teeth.
I try not to laugh. Spending the week with me has him looking slightly more disheveled than usual. His hair is a bit wildsince he ran out of whatever product he used in San Francisco. His shirts are almost always wrinkled because I don’t own an ironing board, nor does he put in the effort to get them dry-cleaned. His shirt is untucked, and he’s barefoot. His beard is a little longer than normal, too.
And maybe it’s the hormones, but I love this version of him. The unkempt version. The one that makes love to me for hours and makes sure I don’t have to vacuum my own bedroom, because he prefers to do it himself. The one who constantly has to be touching me, despite his prickly demeanor. The snuggler who stays wrapped around me all night long. The version of him that laughs, drinks, and smiles like he won the lottery every time I tell a bad joke.
