"I didn't know that you were carrying my child until yesterday," Chris told me coldly. "And now the rules have changed. Before, annulment and/or divorce were a possibility. Now they are not."
"Hey there. I'm pretty sure I get half the say in this marriage, and I think those are still on the table."
"They aren't."
I bristled. "What do you mean, ‘they aren't?'"
"We're never getting divorced. We have a baby."
"You didn't really … we're not even really married! We got married by Elvis."
"But we are married." Chris leaned forward in his seat. "Jalicia might be my dad's second wife, but he stayed married to his first wife, my mother, until death separated them. I know that I take marriage really seriously."
"We were married in the Chapel of Love! That's not a real marriage."
"It is to me."
"Are you joking? You've had more girls than you can even count, and suddenly marriage is everything to you? We got drunk in Vegas and made a stupid mistake."
"We're not divorcing. We're going to stay married and raise our baby together."
"There is no us!" My voice was getting loud enough to get some glances from the other people in the dining room. I quieted down a little bit. "You're barely my husband. I have no desire to stay married to you. We'll figure something out for the baby, and I know that Laila is going to be over the moon to have a playmate for her little one. It'll be fine."
"We're staying married," Chris parroted. "That's the end of it."
I crossed my arms and lost my appetite. "Marriage takes two people, buddy, and don't forget it."
Chris folded his newspaper neatly, and he laid it to the side. "Are you done with your breakfast?"
The fruit that had looked so fresh and nice only minutes ago looked repulsive now. "Yes."
Chris laid a $100 bill on the table. "I'm sure that this will take care of it." He signaled for a waiter and handed the money to him.
"Let's go."
I wasn't sure what had me trailing him out of the restaurant. I didn't bring much to the resort. They had a store where I could buy a change of clothes, and I hadn't bothered to go home yesterday. I just ran straight to the mountains, so I didn't really have anything of my own in my hotel room.
I got outside, and I realized that my car was gone.
"What the heck did you do to my car? Where is it?"
"I had it towed this morning." Chris' tone sounded like it was to be expected. Like I was a fool to expect my car to be where I left it yesterday.
"Listen up."
"Get into my car."
"No!" I shouted. "I'm going back in there, and I'm going back to my room. I don't want to talk to you right now. You're the one who got me into this mess, and I don't want to deal with you."
"If you don't want to do this the nice way … " Chris came by me and stuffed me in the back seat, then shut the door. I tried to open the door, but it had the child locks on. I tried to get over the center console, but Chris stopped me.
"Buckle up. Don't want to hurt the baby."
I crossed my arms. "No."
"Don't be a child." His voice was cold, stone cold. It wasn't even like this when I'd met him again.
He turned on the car, and we pulled out. When we went around the first mountain road curve, my shoulder hit the window. Hard. I winced. That would leave a mark. I buckled up.
Chris turned on the radio, and we were quiet as we made our way back to LA.
I fell asleep in the backseat.
Staying Married
Nora
When I woke up, I wasn't in the mountains anymore. I was at Chris' solo place, a nice mansion in Bel Air.
There was a bottle of water next to my bed. I drank a swig, then I got out of bed.
I felt so tired, as if I wanted to go back and sleep in the fluffy bed again.
I could hear Chris crashing around in the kitchen. Something smelled good. Pork, maybe? For the first time in a while, meat smelled good to me.
I walked down the stairs and headed towards Chris' kitchen.
"How do you feel about pork braciole?"
"Braciole? I've never had that before."
"It's just pork pounded thin and rolled around chard, provolone, Parmesan, bread crumbs, prosciutto, and a little egg to make it all stick together."
"Sounds great to me." Suddenly I was ravenous. My stomach growled. "When will it be ready?"
"Maybe another minute. Could you get out two plates?"
I looked around, and all of his cabinets had glass fronts. There was a pile of plates, and I had to stand on my tiptoes in order to reach the dishes.
I got two of them out, and I brought them to Chris. He pulled the braciole out of the pan and slid it onto our plates. He had some kind of tomato sauce in a little sauce pot, and he ladled it onto our plates.
"Smells heavenly. I didn't even know that you could cook." The spices in that tomato sauce were insanely great.
Chris shrugged. "My mom made me learn. After my freshman swim season, she got tired of feeding what she called bottomless pits. You know I had a lot of the team over all the time."
"Yeah, totally."
"I got pretty proficient at cooking stuff in our slow-cooker so that we could just heat it up on the stove and eat."
"Cool."
"Yeah, and in college, there were a lot of nights when I'd get drunk-hungry around 3 AM, when only McDonald's was open. I'm a swimmer, so … "
"McD's wasn't your best friend."
"Not if I wanted to win, no." Chris shrugged. "I can cook."
Chris' ability to cook was sexier than any tattoos or any motorcycles, though he had tats and a bike.
We sat down in his breakfast nook, and he had already set the table with forks and knives.
I cut off a little of the braciole, and it was fantastic.
"Oh my god, I've never eaten this before, but I want to eat it every day."
Chris grinned at me. "I'm glad that you like it."
We ate in silence for a little while before Chris stopped to take a sip of his milk.
"We've got to talk."
My shoulders instantly tensed up. I knew that we had to talk, but I'd run away yesterday to get away from this conversation. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and nodded. "We do."
He leaned forward. "I know that I might have sounded a little bit like a caveman at the resort, but I really believe that we can make this thing work. I would take great care of our kid, you know that."
I nodded. "I do."
"So you can move in … we can figure it out as we go, like we told Laila."
I dropped my fork and covered my eyes with my hand. "Let me think." When he was staring at me with his laser-focused blue eyes, it was hard for me to figure out what I wanted to do. What I really wanted was to do a replay of our honeymoon, as brief as it had been.
"You can set the terms," he told me. "Tell me what you need, and I'll make it happen."
"I want some autonomy."
"Noted. What else?"
"I'd like to not worry about providing for the baby."
Chris snorted. "What kind of man do you think I am? Of course I'll provide for the baby. That was never in question. What else?"
All the tension seeped out of my body. I really thought that we could make this work.
I smiled at him, and I wasn't shocked when he came around the table and brought his mouth down on mine.
He pulled me out of the seat and carried me to his bedroom.
Tied Up
Chris
I put her facedown on my bed.
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Then keep your hands where they are." I got soft cloth ties out of my nightstand, and I tied her hands together after I pulled them above her head.
I quickly and methodically pulled all of her clothes off. I could not get them all of the way off, but she was naked enough for my purposes.
I took in the feast in front of me. She was so beautiful, and she held herself like she didn't know how fucking stunning she was. She was everything that I needed and never knew I did.
I petted her pussy, and I was gratified to hear her sharp intake of breath. I stroked her clit as I decided to explore her pussy lips with my mouth.
She moaned as I pushed my tongue inside of her, aiming straight for her G-spot. From the volume of her moans, I knew that I'd hit the target.
She shook her way through one orgasm, then another. And another.
"No more," she begged. "Too much."
"Baby, I'm not done."
She didn't have time to protest as I rolled her on her back and pushed two fingers inside of her waiting body. Her hips came off the bed, and I pushed her pelvis back down with the two fingers which were inside of her. She screamed as she found the strength inside to go over the cliff another time. I stroked inside of her as her sensitive body pushed her towards another peak.
"You want me to stop? You don't want more."
"You bastard … don't you dare not finish."