Inevitably Yours (Imagine Ink Book 4) Read online

  She remembered just closing her eyes and breathing through it while Mickey went to town behind her, talking about how much tighter she felt like this and how he might actually be able to feel enough to enjoy himself. Asshole. It wasn’t like he didn’t get off every time anyway or that it was her fault. The reason he couldn’t “feel anything” was probably the fact that when I gave him head, my fingers overlapped, and I didn’t even gag.

  Mickey was an insecure jerk who tore her down every chance he got to compensate for his short comings. He had been her first, the one her parents had picked out for her. Bright future and good stock. Yep, those were the selling points her parents valued. It didn’t matter that he told her after the first time they slept together that she would stay at home, look pretty, breed him good progeny, and he would take a mistress to see to his pleasure since she couldn’t handle it.

  Timothy and Melody Thorne just tsked and said that’s how things were in society when she told them—like it was medieval times or something and they weren’t the people who gave her life. Her mother scolded her for speaking of such things, actually scolded her. She said it was just the life Gus was born to and it was how things were done, but if she were discrete enough, she could find her own…distractions.

  “Oh fuck,” Gus shouted. Yep, she dropped an F-bomb when John unceremoniously buried himself to the hilt and stopped completely. He held still, like a statue…a statue with a thick cock buried in her practically to her throat, stretching her to a width she had never even imagined. Yes, a hard…potentially pissed off statue. The only sound after her curse cut through the night was heavy breathing coming from behind.

  Gus held her breath, even after her body had adjusted. She was waiting for the other shoe or an explanation or…punishment. For what, she didn’t know, but she knew he was not a happy man. Even buried in her and connecting with her like no one else had, he was distanced somehow.

  She wanted to ask, but something told her that would be a transgression. Without warning, just like he connected them, he disconnected. This time, she kept the “oh fuck” to herself. The sudden invasion didn’t hurt, she was wetter than she had ever been in her life—it had been a shock, yes, but no pain. However, his withdrawal did come with pain. And Gus felt it much deeper than physical.

  John covered her back, bringing his mouth to her ear and resting his cock, coated in her juices, between her ass cheeks. She felt his heart beat between her shoulder blades and with her ass. It was racing, as was hers.

  “While I won’t paddle your ass in your condition, make no mistake, I will punish you.” He nipped her ear. Between his authority and his actions, Gus almost spiraled into an orgasm without having her fun zones touched. John groped her breast, eliciting a squeal of surprise. That hand slid over and around her belly to grab her pussy. He thrust one finger in and right back out.

  He presented her that finger with the command, “Suck.” She eagerly complied. “Do you want my dick in any of the places my finger has been?” He posed the question with a thrust between her rounded globes and his teeth latching on to her ear.

  She nodded as deeply as she could with the hold John had on her ear and mouth. Gus had never thought of herself as a woman who liked this rough, almost abusive style of control. She didn’t find it offensive or abusive at all. Not from John.

  “Good, because I want that too...and more. I want my cock pistoning in and out of that sweet pussy until I push you over the edge. Then, as soon as you can breathe again, I want it buried in your throat. Watching your neck ripple as you swallow and swallow just to take me all the way down will bring me to the razor-thin edge. And when you look up at me, eyes wide with pleasure, and perhaps the slightest touch of trepidation, I'll come down your throat, and you'll thank me for allowing you the pleasure.”

  John raised himself back up behind her, and she was too turned on to even wonder what he was doing or what he would say next. But she didn’t need to wonder, because she felt the head of his cock knocking at her back door for entrance. She tensed; this was completely uncharted territory for her. She had read books on the finer points of anal—push out while he pushes in, lots and lots of lube, which they didn’t have. She raised her head to protest, and John gently pushed it back down.

  “No, Augusta. I do not plan to take you there tonight, so relax.” Breathing a sigh of relief, and maybe a touch of disappointment, Gus shook her ass, hoping to encourage him back into her aching pussy. His words and authority had her turned on beyond her limits. When she was just about to beg him to fuck her, John rubbed the slick head against her clit.

  Back and forth, back and forth. Just fast enough to create a delicious friction but just slow enough to keep her from soaring. “As I was saying, if, you want my cock where my fingers have been, including this greedy pussy of yours, you will not,” he punctuated with a hard thrust against her, “Be. Anywhere. But. Here. Focused. On. This!”

  His voice rose with each word until he was practically shouting. Each thrust against her was harder than the one before. And of course, she was wetter.

  “Understood?”

  “Yes.” That was all she got to say. The apology poised on her lips died there as he thrust back into her. This time, he didn’t still, he didn’t slow down, and he didn’t speak. He just fucked her senseless like he said he would.

  When she felt herself approaching something big, bigger even than the orgasm John had already given her, she began to whimper uncontrollably. Tears leaked from her eyes, and her body hummed in anticipation. And just when she thought she couldn’t take another minute, light burst behind her eyes and she was rocketing into the sky, then hurtling toward the ground. Every nerve ending she possessed was rapid-firing and the pleasure center of her brain overloaded.

  Gus couldn’t swear to it, but it felt like she lost consciousness for a moment, as if she were disconnected from the Earth, from her very body, but she could still feel the overwhelming sensations so she couldn’t explain it even to herself. She became aware of being back in her own body. She heard John shout her name, and he stiffened behind her, grinding and grinding until he stilled completely, and she felt a warmth come from him.

  John pulled from her body, and she shivered at the loss of heat. As he laid on the bed next to her, he reached around and pushed the pillows aside, bringing her to lay against him. Gus felt cherished with John at her back and his arms wrapped around her. His hand moved from cupping her breast to caressing her protruding belly.

  He stilled.

  He kissed the back of her head and got out of bed. After returning, he sat by her belly and gently pushed her to her back. “Let me clean you up.” Gus complied lazily. The warm cloth cleaned her torso first, her lady bits next.

  John disappeared again. Gus didn’t hear him return, but she had the feeling someone was watching her. When she cracked her eyes open, John was standing at the foot of the bed devouring her with his eyes, but unlike last time he looked at her, this time, the overwhelming feeling coming from him was pain.

  Feeling particularly exposed, Gus leaned up and groped for the covers. She brought them in front of her like a shield, a way to stop his pain—pain that was obviously caused by her somehow. “John? I can see something is hurting you. I have a feeling it is the same thing that has stood between us for months now. Are you finally ready to talk about it?” He didn’t answer her, just continued to stare as if she hadn’t spoken or even covered her body with the tangled sheet.

  Snapping her fingers to get his attention didn’t work, he just stared. Gus got up, tucking the sheet around her. When she stood in front of him, she grabbed his cheeks in her hands. “John?” He finally shook off whatever was holding him. “Now who is somewhere else? Or some time else? After what we shared here tonight, do you think you can find it in your heart to share where or when you were just now? Why this pregnancy is freaking you out more than it should?”

  When his hands covered hers and he looked into her eyes, she almost wept. The depth of pain a
nd loss swimming in them broke her heart.

  John slid her hands from his cheeks and kissed them, letting his lips linger. His eyes flickered closed. A deep inhale preceded his scratchy voice, “I think I owe you that much, but can we get dressed first? I can’t focus on anything but your body if we stay naked.”

  Augusta agreed, and he donned his discarded clothing. Augusta just enjoyed the play of his muscles. She memorized the dusting of hair that coated his chest, and the freckles that rested atop his shoulders…the way his hips dimpled as he bent, and the way his cock rested against his leg as he sat to pull on his pants.

  She noted all these things in great detail because she had the sinking feeling this could be the last time she got to appreciate them. It all depended on the secrets he would share, and she wouldn’t know until she was dressed.

  As she stepped into her closet, she dropped the sheet and tossed a shapeless giant T-shirt over her head. She rummaged through the basket of clean clothes that needed to be put away and found some cut-off sweats. She looked at herself in the mirror that hung on the back of the door. She looked frumpy and felt even worse.

  It was stark opposition to the way she felt mere moments ago. John made her feel like the most beautiful creature in the world, not just some frumpy pregnant lady. She sighed a sad memorial to that lady and stiffened her spine. Everything was up to John at this point, and nothing she did or didn’t do could change whatever he was going through or how he had to deal with it.

  “No worries, Augusta. Tonight was magical, no matter what happens from this moment on. No one can take that from you. You are stronger than your past and so is John,” she told herself in the mirror. Then she heard her own voice speaking in her head, a sad version of her. But are you stronger than his?

  John thought by the time Augusta came from the closet, he would be more even-keeled about the pregnancy. He was when he headed over here, so what changed? He saw her beautiful pregnant body, watched it contort in pleasure…caused it to contort in pleasure. And when they were both sated and snuggled in the afterglow, that’s when it hit him once again—a woman he loved, pregnant with a child he wouldn’t get to have in his life. Not in the capacity he expected, anyway. Marco and Andy pretty much considered all of them aunts and uncles and godparents.

  Augusta deserved to know why he had pulled away, why he was so conflicted, and he deserved to speak of it and let it go. It had claimed enough of his life, stolen too much of his joy. He looked her way and found her utterly adorable in some long shorts and a shirt she was swimming in. He also found her terrified and uncertain. There was no guarantee of how she would react to his childish behavior and inability to separate past from present, but he could do away with her uncertainty.

  Patting the bed beside him, he silently invited her into his space. He found pleasure in sharing his bubble with her, but he didn’t want to obligate her to accept his explanation. So he stood after she sat, opting to pace a bit then sitting cross-legged against the wall opposite her. This was a good position for him—far enough away but still within reach—and he could look directly into her eyes, even when she cast her attention toward her toes. Which she was doing now while twisting her fingers in the hem of the tent she wore as a shirt.

  Time to just dive in. His intent was to tell her about Deborah and the child first, but apparently, his issues didn’t start there, because when he opened his mouth, that was not the story that came tumbling out.

  “When my parents died, I felt helpless, even though I was an adult. Then, I felt guilty. Guilty that I wasn’t a better son, guilty that Stacy, even as a teenager, felt that she needed to mother our brother, instead of just being a girl. Then, when Troy started spiraling down and I couldn’t help him, I felt helpless again.”

  “John,” her voice was soft and soothing, “I can only imagine what you went through losing your parents. I won’t insult you by pretending to understand. I do know a lot of what happened with Troy, and you cannot blame yourself. Even had your parents been alive, they likely would have missed it, too.”

  In his head, he knew Augusta had a point. It’s not every day a teenage boy is raped by a girl. It’s not every day the tables are turned and the victim is sent to prison. But when Troy took his own life, it had broken both John and Stacy in an unimaginable way.

  “But what if I had just loved him enough to see something had happened to him. That he wasn’t the same, maybe—”

  “No.” This time, her voice was sharp and angry. “You will drive yourself crazy with the what ifs in life. You can do everything right and shit can still go to pot. He was your brother, and you were left in a situation that no one, not even the great John Roberts, could plan for.” John got the feeling she was talking about more than just him at this point. As much as he wanted to hear all her words, drink them in and digest their meanings, he got hung up on her fiery beauty. She was spellbinding in her anger, and he was getting a little turned on by her potty mouth.

  A defeated sigh pierced the silence, and Augusta deflated a bit. “You can’t control everything, John.”

  And there it was. The heart of the matter. While all those things marked his past and marred his future, it was the things he couldn’t control that haunted him.

  “I know that now, Gussy Girl, but the memories are still cemented in that part of me that feels like a total failure. I was an out of control mess, if I had just…I don’t know. And that just makes it worse.” John brought his knees up, rested his elbows on top of them, and dragged his hands over his head over and over. Suddenly, he stilled his movement. Turning into himself was the last thing he needed. He needed to soldier through, get it all out and maybe, just maybe, find his control and possibly a measure of happiness, too.

  “Stacy changed so much over everything with Troy. So, I not only failed my parents and Troy, I failed my baby sister, too. She—”

  “No.” This time, her anger wasn’t sexy at all, it was intimidating and unlike anything he had ever witnessed with Augusta. She rose and took a dominate stance; her voice brooked no argument. “You do not get to blame yourself because your sister is an amazing person. In the first place, it makes no sense, and secondly, the implication that she is less now than she should be is insulting. Not only to her but to you. People change, our experiences mold us for better or for worse, it’s called life. Stop focusing on the causes of everything and look at the effect. She is an amazing woman, a crazy good step-mom, the perfect sister to you, and a friend that is unequalled.”

  Augusta approached him and, with his assistance, lowered herself to the floor beside him. She rested her head on his shoulder and spoke low and reflectively, “How is it you can so easily shoulder the blame but refuse to accept any credit? You grasp the burden of your failures, both real and perceived, so tightly, do you ever wonder what you hold in the other hand? You should open it sometime and look. The results of our actions come in two flavors, blame and credit. Most people choke on the blame and never savor the credit.”

  Warm tears pierced his shirt and stung his heart. John brought his hand to her cheek. As he expected, it was warm and wet. He knew the tears were not just for him but for the guilt she carried over January. The depths he felt toward the woman at his side were overwhelming. Love? Hmm, it could be, I can see that. It was the first time he almost admitted it to himself, that he might have felt more than a physical attraction for the woman who filled his thoughts both day and night.

  At first, it scared him. Loving another meant relinquishing control. But the longer he sat and the deeper their conversation delved into the pivotal moments of his life…and hers, it was like taking some control back. He decided it wasn’t losing more control but exchanging some.

  “So should you, Augusta.” As he spoke, he took her hand in his and brought it up in front of their faces. He opened his hand and encouraged her to do the same. He stared at both of their palms. Then, he intertwined his with hers. “So should you.” Once she had time to examine their hands and grasp his meani
ng, he allowed them to rest on her thigh, still together, still holding on, and let the silence speak to them louder than a voice ever could.

  “We are so much more than our past and stronger than we think,” Augusta whispered, and the room fell silent once more.

  A sense of peace and contentment took him by surprise. It started at their joined hands and flowed up his arm, eventually filling his entire body. John knew there was still more she deserved to know, and now, he finally felt that he deserved to unburden himself. But he was loath to break the atmosphere of the room just yet. Augusta beat him to it. John would have been content with a few more minutes of simply sitting there and being connected to her in such a meaningful way, but she was more perceptive than he was. Augusta probably knew he would chicken out if he didn’t get on with it.

  “Are you ready to tell me about whatever it is that has you freaked out about this pregnancy?”

  There it was, his freshest wound. One that was still raw and angry. A wound so deep, it may never heal. The one reopened by the woman he loved being pregnant by another man.

  “I was a father once.” John was unsure how to explain this to Augusta. The story seemed small and insignificant to someone who hadn’t experienced it. How can I make her understand?

  “Oh, John.” The tone in her voice told him he hadn’t said enough, and she misunderstood.

  He patted their joined hands with his other and let it linger there and focused on that spot. The feel of her palm connected to his. The visual of his hand eclipsing her delicate one.

  “Not like that Augusta, my…the child is still alive. He’s almost three years old and lives with his biological parents.” Augusta’s confusion was apparent when he glanced at her face and in the feel of her body next to him. He was screwing this up; it seemed impossible to explain clearly.

  “I was with Deborah for about six months when she became pregnant. I was over the moon but scared shitless. After losing Troy, I had always thought I would make a horrible dad to another kid, but a part of me always wanted to give it a shot. Maybe it would be different if I raised them from the start, you know? Anyway, I cared for her, I think I even loved her in my own way.”