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She laughed a little, then took him into her mouth again. The word “love” pinballed through her brain as she began a rhythmic suckling that she knew would make him come in a very short time. Best to keep the risk to a minimum, after all.
She savored the slide of her mouth along his shaft. That velvety smoothness felt so good. She imagined him penetrating her pussy, and felt new arousal clench her lower belly. It didn’t distract her from his erection; it added to the pleasure. Now she knew what he meant when he said that making her come was good for him too. This was pleasure of a different kind. But still pleasure.
After he’d finished, and she’d gently wiped him off, he lay with his arm flung over his face.
“Bliss…” he began, his voice drowsy.
“Shhh. You should rest. That was a long trip.” He had a habit of falling asleep hard after sex, while it left her wide awake.
“Mmm.”
And there he went, that telltale light snore letting her know he was out.
Quietly, she made her way to her feet and went into the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. A breakfast nook with bay windows called to her, but her belly didn’t fit into the booth. So she climbed the stairs and wandered into a sitting nook with a lone armchair that offered a beautiful view of Lake Bittersweet through the tops of some maple and aspen trees that had just leafed out.
With a grateful sigh, she sank into the armchair and lost herself in the tossing of the treetops in the May breeze.
I either love you or hate you right now, I can’t tell.
Love.What was it, anyway? Whenever someone had claimed to love her, it had always brought trouble. Her mother said she loved her, and yet she always seemed to be trying to profit from her somehow. And then there were the boys with crushes who didn’t like hearing “no.” The men who wanted to sleep with her, same thing.
She and Carly and Conor rarely used those words with each other. Did they love her? Did she love them? Sure, in that complicated family dynamic way.
Gault. Gault had loved her. But he hadn’t fought for her to come stay with him more. He’d asked her if she wanted him to. She remembered that conversation on the piano bench so well. Apparently what he’d gotten from it was that she didn’t want him to take her from her mother. She’d worried about her mom, and what would happen to her if she didn’t have Bliss. Even at that age, she’d known that her mother needed her desperately. But she hadn’t known how to set boundaries.
Love.Was it always so complicated? So thorny? Would she be able to offer her child the simple, unconditional love she’d never gotten herself? And what about Granger? He was a complex man. There was so much she still didn’t know about him. And they were about to have a baby!
She sat upright as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. What was she thinking? This entire thing was crazy!
Her breath started coming fast. Wheezing, almost. Her heart was racing like a herd of horses trying to break the sound barrier. How could she have a baby with someone she barely knew? How did she get herself into these messes? Typical Bliss, waltzing into a situation without thinking it through, assuming everything would work out for the best, completely unprepared for possible consequences.
The world turned blurry at the edges, and stars spangled her vision. Was she having a panic attack? She’d paused her anti-anxiety prescription for the sake of the pregnancy, and hadn’t seemed to need it. She’d been able to self-regulate on her own.
Until now.
She tried to haul in air, but it felt as if her lungs had collapsed. “Help,” she tried to say. But it came out as a squeak. “Please” sounded like “eee.”
Oh God. She was going to faint. At least she was sitting down. But the baby. The poor baby. Was the podling going to be okay? Was she going to be the worst mother in the entire world?
“Help,” she tried again. “Eh,” was what came out.
There was something about five things, or senses, some way to ground herself in the here and now. But she couldn’t remember exactly how it went and her mind was spinning like a pinwheel on overdrive.
And then warm hands were heavy on her shoulders and a deep voice resonated in her ear. “You’re okay. You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Twenty-Four
Granger had seen this kind of thing before—it had happened a few times to fellow soldiers in Afghanistan—but it had never wrenched his heart the way it did when he saw Bliss in the grip of a panic attack. He kept talking to her in a low, soothing voice as he came around the chair so she could see him. Her eyes were wild, the color racing through her face in waves. Her breath came in fast wheezes.
Slowly, she focused her eyes on him, and that seemed to help. He took deep, audible breaths for her to imitate. In, out.
Practice for the big day, he thought. But he didn’t say it out loud—that might terrify her even more.
“Okay?” she finally managed. “It’s not okay, Granger. We’re about to have a baby. You’re injured, and even when you’re not, you don’t like to talk about yourself. I’m a flaky head case. This isn’t my first panic attack, but that’s probably no surprise to you. I went off my anti-anxiety meds, but you didn’t even know I took them. We barely know each other, and we’re going to have a baby. In what world is that okay?”
He had to admit she made some valid points. This was not what he’d planned for his life. He’d imagined a much more orderly sequence of events. One: find out who his father was. Two: find a compatible woman. Three: Get married. Four: have a child. There were probably some steps in there he’d left out, like buy a house and switch to a more predictable job. But no matter what, it was a multi-step process with a clearly delineated order.
But things didn’t always go according to plan. See his entire life history for proof of that.
