Chapter Seventy-Seven: I Still Believe
Haley knelt in front of her daughter's crib while she napped, staring lovingly down at her. Eve had recently passed her first birthday, and was growing rapidly.
She reached a hand down to stroke her smooth cheek. She wrapped a dark curl around one finger. Eve sensed the motion and briefly opened her dark blue eyes. She smiled at her mother before drifting back to sleep, showing several small, pearly white teeth.
As Nathan walked down the hall, a ray of sunlight seeped into the room, falling on Haley's blonde hair. He stopped abruptly, watching her stand over their daughter.
After smiling at the affection between the two he loved most, he couldn't help but let his gaze fall to her hair falling down her back, her small tank top, the outline of her ass in her jeans. As older and younger as she sometimes seemed, Haley was twenty-two and looked it, despite the baby she'd carried.
Briefly, he imagined what he'd do to her that night. She'd probably let him do it, too. For months they'd been partaking in what they fondly referred to as their "affair"-constant, passionate sex, and the only thing that kept them together. Every night he swore he'd call it off, insist they start again in a more functional relationship, and every night she managed to avoid the conversation.
Sighing yet not breaking her of her reverie, he crossed the hall to their room and stripped down to his boxers to sleep the afternoon away.
After spending another half hour with her sleeping daughter, Haley walked to their room in search for Nathan. She was mildly disappointed to find him asleep in their bed, but quickly decided that it was an obstacle that she wouldn't be stopped by.
Haley quickly shed her tank top and jeans, leaving her in the strapless black lace bra and matching thong that Nathan had bought for her on the previous Valentine's Day.
Hopping onto the bed, she straddled him around the waist. Sighing in disappointment when he didn't awaken, she considered reaching back to store him, before remembering she's used the tactic only a week earlier.
Catching sight of a pile of his silk ties on the bedside table, a much more original idea came to her.
"Haley? What the hell are you doing?" asked Nathan in annoyance.
"Morning sunshine. Took you long enough," she said. He looked up in brief satisfaction to see his almost naked wife, before remembering that his wrists were tied to the bedposts and he was completely immobile.
"This your idea of a joke?" he asked angrily.
"What, don't like to be teased?" Haley leaned down until her breasts were mere inches above him.
She reached further to cut off his protests with a kiss. Immediately he deepened it and attempted to put his arms around her.
"Fuck Haley, I have things to do. Untie me," he demanded.
"Why should I?" she asked.
"Some of us have better things to do in the middle of the afternoon than lie around in bed. I have a meeting," he said. Though Haley had half a mind to leave him there, she reluctantly untied his wrists from the bedposts.
"There. Happy? Now go have fun with your business partners," she said sulkily. He smirked beneath her, and within a second had grasped her waist, lifted her off of him and dropped her onto the bed beside him. Before she could move, he'd rolled on top of her, pinning her in place.
"Fooled you, didn't I?" he said.
"What? Nathan, get off…" he clapped a hand on her mouth to silence her protests. Using his body to immobilize her, he grabbed one of the ties she'd used and quickly attached her to the bedpost. Underneath him, she squirmed in protest.
"Shut up," he said commandingly, leaning down to kiss her. Instantly her mood changed as she arched her body toward his.
Suddenly she broke away and stared up into his eyes. Blue eyes met brown and challenged all that their relationship was based on-control, passion, possession, even love.
Slowly, he took her compliant wrist and tied it up to join her other.
"So sure you aren't mine?" he asked, his voice low and husky, using the opportunity to bring up what she'd now been denying for months.
"You really need to tie me to up to prove to me that-," Nathan cut her off with a harsh, passionate kiss. Sliding a hand under her back, he pulled her up to collide her body with is. He smirked self-knowingly as he felt her hardened nipples, her body trembling in anticipation.
With effort, Haley broke off their kiss and tore her hot, swelling lips from his.
"Let me go," she demanded. He began to suck her neck, and felt her moan in response.
"Never."
Scowling darkly, he reached around her to undo her bra strap, revealing all of her to him. Reaching down, he tugged her underwear off, leaving her completely nude underneath him.
Nathan continued to suck her neck, knowing that she'd yell at him for leaving his mark.
Slowly, tantalizingly, he began to move his lips down her body. They kissed every crevice, every spot that he knew like the back of his hand. He began to nip at her already erect nipples, kissing and biting in turn. As she began to moan in response, his own desire began to grow. Reaching down, he slipped a hand between her legs to quicken her responses.
Pulling his hand up slightly, he was satisfied to find that she was already wet. With his light, agonizing touch he found her pleasure point and began to make her moans increase.
He knew she was ready, as he always did, when she began to scream out his name. Putting his arms back around her, he opened her legs with one of his knees before he slid inside of her, watching her eyes slide closed in ecstasy as his own orgasm began to roll through his body in intense waves of pleasure.
He thrust harder and harder, burying himself deep inside of her, taking her as roughly as he'd once never considered, back when she'd been a virgin and he'd been consumed by his guilt and pain.
Finally withdrawing from her, he looked down into her eyes. He cupped one of her round, firm breasts in his hand and waited for her to speak.
"Let me go," she said again, her breathing still heavy, the affects of her orgasm still on her. Trying to hide his disappointment, he carefully untied her wrists and rolled off of her.
Slowly she refastened her bra and grabbed her dressing gown from where she'd left it that morning, and ran from the room.
Nathan watched her curiously. Afterward, Haley was generally not in her most loving mood, but this was an all new low. Had he gone too far? Judging by her responses he was inclined to disagree with this, but in a relationship such as theirs it was hard to know where the boundaries lay.
Haley paced anxiously in the bathroom, calculating nervously.
"Fuck. Fuck," she muttered to herself.
How could she have been so stupid?
It would have been bad enough if it had happened during their earlier days-the tender yet passionate love-making. It was better than conceiving during their rough, angry sex. The very thought of a child coming from such a union sickened her.
Anxiously biting a fingernail, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair was in complete disarray. Her lips were swollen, she had a hickey on her neck and slight blistering on her wrists. She ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to appear calm.
She was surprised Nathan wasn't yet kicking the door in. He'd become gradually less accepting of her temper tantrums.
Abruptly thrusting open the cabinet above the sink, she rooted around in it until she found what she was looking for-an abandoned pregnancy test that had stayed there since the time of Eve's birth.
With shaky fingers, she followed the directions on the box and waited the agonizing three minutes until it was complete.
When she saw the results, she screamed the first name that came to her head-
"NATHAN!"
She heard him come running through the hall. After jiggling the doorknob for a few seconds, he kicked the door open as she'd predicted he'd do. He ran to her, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, shaking and crying.
Quickly he turned on the shower, and waited until the water was warm to get in and pull her in with him.
She wasn't soothed by the warm water. Her body began to shake in fear. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as close as possible to him. He wrapped one arm around her waist and placed the other on the back of her head and kissed her hair repeatedly, muttering soothing, nonsensical phrases.
Her hands slowly crept out from around her and clutched at him, afraid to break contact. He pulled her farther in to him, their slick bodies pressed up together.
As the hot water slowly diminished, he turned it off. Stepping out, he gathered her still quaking body in his arms and began to walk back to the bedroom, cradling her like a baby.
In the bedroom, he laid her atop the crisp white sheets and laid down beside her, pulling her in to him again. She buried her face in his shoulder, her salty tears mingling with the water of the shower.
"What's wrong?" he asked eventually, speaking soothingly into her hair.
"I'm pregnant," she said. Deciding that now wasn't the moment to pick a fight over this, he simply nodded.
"Do you need anything?" he asked softly. She looked up at him, her red-rimmed eyes beseeching him.
"I want… I just need to feel…" Haley flushed a deep red, and Nathan realized how difficult it was for her to ask it of him. Slowly he nodded, and rolled over to position himself on top of her.
Suddenly, he was at a loss. He began to kiss her, but he didn't know anymore what was acceptable. Would he hurt her, if he rode her roughly again as he'd done so many times in the past month? She seemed to need something else.
He brushed light kisses on her neck, muttering soothing words in between, trying to comfort her. He brushed a closed eyelid and then another on her mouth.
Slowly he worked until her breath began to come in laboured, short breaths. He moved slowly inside of her, holding her closely as he did so, feeling the heat of her body against his.
"Thank-you," she murmured after they were done.
"Of course," he said.
"I'm sorry I freaked. I don't know what came over me," she admitted.
"I'm glad you're having another baby," he said.
Haley looked up at him, her eyes finally calm.
"Me too," she said, reaching up to kiss him again, once again embarking on a new stage of their relationship.
Author's note: As some of you may know from reading Davis' stories, Davis and I (brookenlucas 12 and I) are starting up a C2, "Can't Walk Away". It's a place you can go to find the stories that we think are the best ones on the site. So keep your eyes open for that, and enjoy the update.