Hi guys! See, I didn't keep you waiting for a whole month, it was only almost three weeks (Nooo, don't hit me! lol). I'll try to update soon, but it depends on how much I'll write on the following days. I'm going back to school on September 5th, and I'll be pretty busy the whole year, so I'd like to have at least one chapter left, just in case. I promise I'll do my best! (The heat is not really helping, though. I just want to spend my days in a cold bath!)

Anyway, this chapter contains smut. Yep, again.

Many thanks to IHeartHouseCuddy for correcting this chapter, and to every one of you for reviewing and/or reading. :)

Enjoy!

Chapter Thirty-Five

When House drives Cuddy home, Rachel has already arrived from school. Now that both her parents will be home all day, they will only need Marina on few occasions – for instance, a medical appointment preventing them from picking up the kid at school. Both Cuddy and her sitter shed a tear when they say goodbye.

After drawing Cuddy a hot bath, House sits on the couch with Rachel and reads a few stories with her. Her mother joins them half an hour later, clad in her pyjamas, sprawls on the cushions and would doze off right there if she did not keep her mind busy explaining to her daughter that she will not be going to work for a few months. Even though she took a nap a few hours earlier, fatigue is winning over her. She hopes that unscrambling the hospital's inner workings to Wilson after dinner will not take too much time.

Indeed, after sharing a meal with his friends and taking note of his boss' advices while the diagnostician puts Rachel to bed, Wilson leaves at a half past nine. Cuddy brushes her teeth and goes straight to bed, falling asleep before House, who joins her a few minutes later. So as to avoid a miscarriage or a premature labour, she knows she will have to spend most of her days lying in bed, probably until her due date in mid-February. To the restless and workaholic woman she is, bed rest is close to torture; nevertheless, she could not wait to snuggle up in her sheets and just sleep.

She is awakened by the clock. House has set the alarm at seven thirty, in order to wake Rachel up and take her to school.

"I told you not to wake me up before next week," Cuddy grumbles. He eventually holds out his arm and turns off the alarm.

"You know, I'd definitely stay here," he says. Her legs are tangled with his own, her arm is desperately gripping his shoulders and her head is resting on his biceps. "But I have to get up."

"Give it five minutes."

He chuckles. "That's funny. I'm usually the one who begs you for these five extra minutes." She does not even stir, enjoying his presence beside her. "How is Offspring?" he asks, caressing gently her womb with his fingertips.

"Stop calling her that," she says, keeping her eyes close.

"She doesn't have a name yet. What do you want me to call her?"

She begins to giggle merrily."We're having a girl."

"If you keep bragging about it, I swear I'm leaving the bed," he threatens, not in the least serious.

Cuddy chuckles softly. "You wouldn't."

"Wanna bet?"

"Yeah," she challenges him. Barely one second has passed by when he gives up.

"Alright, you win."

A peaceful silence follows. House forbids himself to blink, scared that he may fall back to sleep. The cosiness of the bed he shares with his woman carrying his daughter is way too tempting. He wishes he could sink into this cloud of warmth and softness, embracing Cuddy, and just enjoy himself till the end of time. But he has to get up, so as to take care of Rachel.

Maybe this is what being a father feels like. Selflessly putting his own desires aside in order to be there for his kid.

He smiles, finding it oddly nice. He is going to be a father. This idea seems so foreign, and yet it has never been so real.

"I'll measure your blood pressure before I leave," he tells her. She hums. Glancing at the clock, he realises that seven minutes have passed. Shit. At this time, he should already be bathing Rachel. House pecks her forehead softly, before slowly pulling his arm from under her nape.

"Gotta pee," she blurts out of the blue, panic echoing in her voice. Her heavy womb is dangerously pressing on her bladder. It is a matter of seconds.

House's ritual on the morning is to swallow two ibuprofen pills and to rub his thigh. Cuddy's is to roll gently to the edge of the bed, push herself into a sitting position, and take a deep breath before heaving herself up onto her feet. Without performing this, she loses her balance and falls back on the bed, earning a protesting kick from Offspring. She learned it to her cost.

This morning, though, she tries to speed it up as much as possible. So much for the likely collateral damage!

"Seriously?" House grumbles, reaching out towards the bottle of pills sitting on his bedside table. "I'm already late. I need to take a piss, too!"

"I swear that if I am not sitting on the toilet within the next five seconds, I wet the bed," she threatens, bracing herself to stand up. "And you will be changing the sheets since your offspring is a bit too voluminous to allow me to do it."

"Please, go ahead," he says, frightened to death. She almost runs to the bathroom. A few seconds after he heard the distinctive clack of the lid hitting the tank, Cuddy lets out a moan of complete ecstasy. "Aw, God, yes!"

"Are you having an orgasm in there?" he calls out, causing her to crack up.

"I came," she confirms. "Twice!"

"Howwws!" Rachel hollers from her bedroom, confused that neither of her parents have picked her up yet.

Massaging his leg hastily, he eventually stands up. "Duty calls, honeybun," he tells Cuddy through the bathroom door as he passes it.

"I heard. What did you just call me?"

"Don't fall asleep on the seat," he says as he limps away.

"I'll try, honeybun," she mocks him.

Five minutes later, he enters the bathroom with the toddler. Thankfully, Cuddy has already disappeared . Before closing the door, he gazes into their bedroom, sees her sprawled on the bed, slipping back into slumber.

"Howwws, hurry, we gonna be late!" she hears her kid call out. Opening her eyes, she finds House sitting on the edge of the bed, clad in his winter coat.

"Hold out your arm," he says, brandishing a blood pressure meter.

"Can't it wait?" she growls, however doing as she is told and sitting up. He quickly inflates the cuff. "You mind getting me a glass of water after that, please?"

He is about to respond, but is interrupted by Rachel's footfalls running towards the kitchen.

"BP's a bit high," he comments, peeling the band off her arm.

"But not too high."

"Does your head hurt? Your stomach?"

"I'm fine."

House heaves a sigh. "I don't like leaving you alone."

"Here, Momma," the toddler cuts them off, her tiny arm threading her way between House and the table. Cuddy smiles and takes the glass her kid is handing to her.

"Thanks, honey." She takes a sip of water. "You come kiss me?" Rachel nods cheerfully. House grabs her carefully under the armpits and lifts her up onto the bed.

"Momma, 'you sick?" she asks after dropping a long peck to her mother's cheek.

"No, I told you, I'm just tired. I'm staying in bed until the baby comes out of my tummy."

"All the time?!" Rachel exclaims, both horrified and incredulous.

"No, not all the time."

"Like when your ma has to pee, for example," House intervenes. "She doesn't wet the bed like you."

"I don't!" the kid protests.

"I know," he says, gently ruffling her hair. "I was just teasing you."

Rachel pouts. "Silly you."

With a smile, Cuddy pulls her daughter into a hug. "See, I can get up when I need to." Then, to House, "Relax. It's only twenty minutes. Nothing will happen to me. You don't have to call the sitter." He cracks a smile.

"What time is it?" the toddler blurts out, suddenly remembering about school.

"Ten past eight," Cuddy reads on the clock.

"I'm late!"

"It's okay, school starts in twenty minutes," House attempts in vain to reassure her. Rachel turns to him, staring at his face in total astonishment, as if he just said the most shocking and improbable thing on Earth.

"Hows, I can't be late and you know it!"

He tries his best to restrain himself from bursting out laughing, thinking she does remind him of someone... "Okay, let's go."

Rachel kisses her mother tenderly. "Goodbye, Momma."

"See you tonight, honey." The kid slides her way out of bed and hurries towards the hallway.

"She sounds like you when you were too tired to drive and you'd ask me to take you to the hospital," he says, causing Cuddy to chuckle.

"So, you managed to catch up?"

"Yeah, I didn't wash her hair to save some time, hence the ponytail. I suck at it anyway," he sighs. "She either gets shampoo in her eyes or water in her ears."

"I'll teach you."

"Howwwws!" Rachel insists, shouting from the other end of the house.

"Comin'!" he replies, before bending over to kiss Cuddy's lips and standing up.

"She soooo has you at her beck and call," she teases him as he limps away.

"Oh, shut up!" he whines, disappearing into the corridor. She laughs heartily.

"There's only one towel left," Cuddy shouted from where she was standing, precisely in front of the open cupboard in House's bedroom.

"Hurry, I'm getting a cold," he yelled back, sitting in the empty bathtub. She returned with the white towel folded on her arm, some scarce droplets of water dropping from her wet hair and to the floor, sliding leisurely along her bare body. House had no other choice but to admire the sight.

"I put your clothes on the bed," she said, setting the towel down on the toilet seat. "Why did you take your towels to our place? I had more than enough for the four of..." Her voice trailed off. "For all of us."

He grabbed the hand she was holding out to him and, with the additional help of the edge of the tub, stood up and stepped over the rim of the ceramic cradle. "If you want it to be our place and not just yours, I need to add some of my stuff."

"Good point," she admitted.

"I left a towel here just in case."

"Well, thank God it's oversized," Cuddy said as she unfolded the large piece of terrycloth. She could easily drape it around the both of them.

"Oh, please, you can call me Greg." She chuckled, pressed her belly to his own and wrapped the towel around his back and then hers, bundling them together.

House held back a grunt. As if the sight of her naked body were not enough, she had to press her breasts on his chest, press her lower stomach on his. He felt blood converge on his already growing erection.

"Now what?" she asked, rousing him from his thoughts.

"Huh?"

"We're not gonna stay here all day."

"Oh, yeah." He reached out and picked up a comb from the shelves. "Bed."

After she craned her neck to cast a glance behind her, she moved back, House following her closely. At every step she took, her crotch was rubbing against his own. He tried his best not to moan. Come on, she had to be feeling him poking her skin!

Once in the bedroom, she turned to him and smiled mischievously, deliberately grinding against him.

"Need a hand?" she asked in a sultry voice. He smirked.

"Why not? I gotta save my last pair of socks."

She gently rotated them, so that he was turning his back to the bed, and raised on her toes so as to nibble slightly his lower lip, while peeling the towel off their waists.

"Sit down," she whispered close, so close to his mouth. He complied happily as she stood naked between his spread legs. "Why don't you just ask for it instead of containing yourself?" she inquired, leaning over to kiss his lips. "Not so long ago, you would have jumped on me."

"It feels," he responded in between short, heated kisses. "A bit. Inap. Propriate."

She sighed, her hand cupping his cheek and travelling down to his neck. "Why? I'm still capable of having sex with you."

"I know." She kissed him again. "I just don't want you to feel forced or anything." Her fingers ran across his torso, approaching dangerously his crotch. He gripped her waist.

"Why is it so complicated between us, now?" Her hot mouth followed the same itinerary as her hand, only much more slowly. Her slender fingers wrapped around his already hard cock, and began to caress it up and down leisurely. He groaned and covered her hand with his own.

"I have no idea," he managed to utter, knowing that it was the last coherent sentence he would be capable of saying for the next minutes.

She smiled, nuzzling the crook of his neck. She took her time to devour his skin with sloppy kisses, biting occasionally, before soothing his shudder with another kiss. She trailed down to his collarbone, then his chest, which she caressed lasciviously with her free hand, barely accelerating the pace with which she stroked his shaft. The slowness was killing him. She sucked a nipple into her hot mouth and eventually dropped to her knees, between his legs. He was throbbing desperately in her hand and, hearing his moans, she knew he needed her to speed it up. She left his nipple alone, nuzzled his sternum and continued towards his bellybutton. House's hands found their way towards her head and his fingers tangled in her wet hair. She licked into his navel, then slid down towards his left groin, where his hip met his thigh. She kissed his skin delicately, caressing his cock no faster than before. He groaned, gripping her curls tightly. Her tongue snaked its way to his balls. His shaft in her fist and his scrotum tickled by her tongue, she looked up at him. His mouth was half-open, letting out his ragged breath, and his head slightly tilted back. Their eyes met. His own were gleaming with a feral spark. So were hers. Maintaining eye-contact with him, she gently pulled one of his balls into her wet, hot mouth. It was too much for him to handle. He closed his eyes, threw his head back and moaned loudly. All he could feel was this warm dampness surrounding the most sensitive part of his body and this hand squeezing his cock up and down softly, all of this thanks to the gorgeous woman kneeling at his feet.

She moved to his left ball and sucked on it as slowly as she had done with the right one. "Cuddy," he soughed, prodding her into picking up pace, which she did. Her tongue slid up to his cock, following her hand closely, until reaching his head, which Cuddy rubbed with her thumb. All the while, she licked his prick up and down, along the pulsating veins that coursed across it. Eventually, she let go of him and immediately circled his glans with her lips, tearing a throaty moan from him. Her hands stroking his inner thighs, she teased him with her tongue, running it across the tip of his shaft in a circular motion. His hips jerked towards her face, demanding more. She bobbed her head up and down, taking a tiny bit more of him into her mouth each time, so as to let the tension build up. He thought he could not wait any longer, but she was so skilled that he knew the conclusion would be all the more mind-blowing.

He was right. She pulled away with a pop, but quickly made herself forgiven by caressing his balls briefly, before slipping her hand lower.

"Oh, fuck," he breathed, bringing his hips to the edge of the mattress and steadying himself by laying a hand on the bed behind his back.

"Enjoying that?" she asked, rubbing him in circles behind his testicles.

"Oh yeah." He could barely find his words, could barely think. She wrapped her free fingers around him again, running her tongue across his throbbing dick.

"Suck me off," he groaned, pulling impatiently at her hair. He tried to make it sound like an order, but they both knew he was begging her. She complied, her mouth engulfing most of him as she kept on massaging his prostate. She moved her head up and down faster, much faster than before. He was close and she knew he could not bear the wait anymore. She hummed against him, moaning occasionally. She loved it just as much as he did.

He nearly came when the thought crossed his mind.

She picked up pace, let out unrestrained throaty growls and wiggled her tongue underneath him. When she raised her eyes and plunged them into his as she was fucking him with her mouth, he felt himself go. The way he was gripping her hair, she knew he was restraining himself from thrusting deeper, so she took as much of him as she could down her throat, gagging slightly at the intrusion and pressing her face to his pelvis.

"Oh, fuck, yeah, Cuddy," he cried out in between loud groans of pleasure. His whole lower stomach was on fire. His eyes squeezed shut, as he was overwhelmed by the intense feeling of ecstasy coursing across each and every one of his nerves. He felt himself shooting hot, long salves of semen down her throat, cumming so hard he thought it would never end. Her throat felt so good squeezing his dick tightly, he wanted to bury himself there forever. Cuddy swallowed his seed as it gushed down her gorge. His thick cock filling her mouth made breathing tricky, but she kept it there for as long as she could, until she had to pull away to catch her breath, however letting him cum some more on her tongue. His hand grasping at her hair relaxed, and his loud moans came to an end. As he slowly came down from his high, Cuddy rested her head on his good thigh. He listlessly fell back onto the bed. She climbed on top of him, laying over his body.

"That was amazing," he breathed, gently taking hold of her waist. She smiled and dropped a peck on his lips. Propping herself up onto her elbow and resting her chin in her palm, she observed him. His eyelids had dropped. He had let a small smile appear on his face, while his rapid, hectic breathing was slowing down to a more peaceful rhythm. She stared in awe.

House drifted back into full consciousness after a few minutes spent absent-mindedly caressing her back with his fingertips, drawing random, absurd patterns on her skin. His eyes, full of love and gratefulness, stared into her own before he gently stroked her cheek and pulled her into a toe-curling kiss. She let him, and kissed back, however pulling away when his hand threaded its way towards her bosom.

"I'm not really in the mood for that," she said, dropping a chaste kiss onto his lips, so as to let him know she, nevertheless, enjoyed the part when their mouths fondled each other.

He nodded, his hand slipping towards her shoulder blade. A smile dwelled on his lips, to which she responded. He loved those moments of intimacy between them, when they would forget about the entire world and merely enjoy each other's presence. And he hated when his stomach reminded him of its emptiness. Just like then. Cuddy chuckled as it rumbled loudly.

"What do you want for lunch?" he asked. She shrugged. "Does that mean you're not hungry or you don't care?"

"I don't care. I'm kinda starving, though."

He acquiesced, and his eyes gleamed like those of a child imagining what Santa would drop at the feet of the Christmas tree for him. "How about a pizza?"

"Sounds perfect." She smiled and rolled off of him, so that he could crawl towards his bedside table. He picked up his cell phone and turned it on. Much to his surprise, it vibrated. Who could have texted him during the night? Maybe his team panicking in the middle of a case.

No texts from his team; on the other hand, he had missed three calls. From Arlene.

Shit.

"Your mom called," he told Cuddy. "Three times." Intrigued, she slithered beside him and looked down at the screen, rubbing her moist hair with the towel. All of a sudden, his phone went off, startling them. "Speaking of the devil," he muttered, glancing at the caller's ID, before reality struck him. "Oh shit, it's her! She's calling!" he yelled, slightly panicky, then took a deep breath, and picked up. "Hello?"

"Finally you answer your cell phone! What the hell have you been doing?" Arlene 'greeted' him in an exasperated tone.

"Well, sorry about that," he apologized, not in the least meaning it. He did not know whether she would believe it or not, and frankly he did not care. "We were, uh, sleeping."

"At two in the afternoon?" she asked.

"What do you mean, two in the afternoon?" Both him and Cuddy turned to the clock. Indeed, it was ten past two. "Oh." Then he furrowed his brows. She was supposed to drop Rachel in the afternoon. She must be calling for a reason. "Why are you calling?"

Arlene sighed. "What do you think? I'm in front of Lisa's place!"

"In front? Why not inside?"

"Because I don't have a key," she whined. "Thank God I took my car. Without my heater, Rachel would have caught a cold for sure! We've been waiting for an hour, you see."

Cuddy, who had pressed her ear on the phone in order to listen to the conversation, heaved a weary sigh and grabbed House's cell.

"Mom, there's a spare key under the flower pot next to the doormat," she intervened. As she expected, her mother started to complain.

"Lisa, you shouldn't leave spare keys so close to your entry door! You have a daughter. It's not safe. It's like you leave your door wide open!"

House took back his phone. "Look, we'll be there in twenty minutes."

"And why aren't you already here anyway?"

Cuddy cast him a panicked look. He gave her a nod, thus promising he would keep her secret safe and come up with a lie. If Arlene found out that her daughter had been in the hospital, if only briefly, she would deduce that House was not the right man for her, and would never leave the couple alone. During Cuddy's pregnancy, he had proved that he was capable of taking care of her, and her mother had managed to accept it. He could not afford to betray her trust, even if, ironically, it involved lying to her. "Well, since you were keeping Rachel, we thought we could spend the night at my apartment and–"

"How does where you sleep matter?" she cut him off. "Whether it's your apartment or her house, it's all the same! You're supposed to be at home when I drop Rachel!"

"Yeah, in the afternoon!" he retorted. Would she ever stop complaining? "I might be wrong, but one o'clock is a tiny bit too early."

"I can't keep the kid all day, I have stuff to do this afternoon!"

He held back a harsh comment. Perhaps he should end the call if he wanted to avoid causing an incident. The woman was obnoxious anyway, but today she had broken her own record. "Twenty minutes," he said, before hanging up.

He put his phone down on the bedside table. Both he and Cuddy let out a long sigh.

"So much for a pizza," she spoke up.

"Yeah, we won't have time. Looks like we're gonna have lunch at home," he replied, before exclaiming, "Oh, damn! I should have asked your mother to cook something for us."

"'You suicidal?" Cuddy scoffed, causing him to chuckle. She smiled and picked up the comb sitting on the edge of the bed.

TBC...