Bearing My Boss's Baby (An MPreg Romance) Page 8

  Claude groaned pleasurably as Kevin pulled out, flopping back on the bed like the personification of relaxation, every muscle limp and loose. He dragged Kevin down with him and Kevin went, letting himself have this small favor, still confused about how any of this had come to pass. Claude curled up against him, eyes fluttering sleepily, and Kevin pulled him close, the words of affection from earlier still stuck on the tip of his tongue, feeling as though any sound he made might cause them to spill out and ruin everything.

  He'd had this gift, wasn't that enough for him? Claude had made it clear that this was about convenience, about being the only man around as Claude's hormones ran wild. His job was just to hold on for the ride, to be the support that Claude needed, and then to be there for their child. It would be enough. It would have to be enough.

  Chapter 19

  Claude

  With his mind less clouded over by horniness and hormones, Claude could hardly believe he'd been bold enough to demand that Kevin fuck him, let alone that Kevin had joined in with enthusiasm. Or at least, it had seemed like enthusiasm at the time. Claude had been a little too busy to really delve deep into Kevin's motivations when he could have his dick instead.

  Besides, if it had been a sympathy fuck, Claude didn't want to know or think about it. It sort of seemed like it had been. He'd fallen asleep afterwards, and he'd been pretty sure that Kevin had still been in the bed at that point, but when he'd woken up from his nap, he'd been alone. When he'd left his room, he'd found Kevin in the kitchen cooking dinner, and they'd eaten it like normal, talking about nothing in particular and definitely not about filthy hot sex.

  So all signs pointed to that particular escapade being a one-off. Right up until Claude found himself staring at the curve of Kevin's ass until he couldn't see straight, sliding up onto Kevin's lap, and announcing that he was having another hormonal surge. Which he was, but that didn't explain why Kevin slid his hands up Claude's thighs to cup his ass, and didn't let go until Claude was sufficiently exhausted that even the most aggressive of hormonal surges couldn't have roused him any further.

  From there, it seemed a straight, if perhaps steeply sloping, path to fucking in almost every room of the house. Claude found it hard to resist the power, especially when he was bored, as it seemed all he had to do was mention that he might be in the mood and suddenly he was being fucked so hard it was difficult to think about all the many reasons why this was a bad idea.

  It couldn't be that bad an idea, right? They'd come here for relaxation, and because Claude was complaining about the physical unpleasantnesses of being pregnant. Well, now he was supremely relaxed, and if his back still ached from time to time, at least he didn't feel it as much when his head was swimming in the afterglow. Kevin seemed much more relaxed too as he dozed beside Claude on the endless expanse of his king bed, naked and hot even with his hair all over the place from Claude's desperately grasping hands, starting to curl at the base of his neck where it was soaked with sweat.

  Their new ease seemed to sink into their whole day together, whether it was lounging next to each other on the couch inside, or splashing one another in the ocean, their hands all over each other until Claude couldn't take it anymore and they had to go jerk each other off on a lounger in the shade, Claude's face in Kevin's neck, smelling sunscreen and saltwater as he came in Kevin's firm grip.

  Kevin was a great guy to wake up next to, his arm thrown solidly over Claude's side, a warm presence in the mild chill of the air-conditioning. The rumble of his breathing should have lulled Claude right back to sleep. Claude waited a moment, willing himself to settle again into that reassurance. His lower back reminded him exactly why he was awake in the middle of the night, and then did it again, more insistently, when he tried to ignore it.

  Claude sighed inaudibly, sliding out of Kevin's embrace into the dark room. Kevin's hand, loosely resting on Claude's belly, slipped away easily without a change in his breathing. The tight press of Claude's back to Kevin's chest released more awkwardly, their skin sticking faintly to each other, as though Kevin was trying to pull Claude back to bed even in his sleep.

  A cute, if implausible, thought and Claude let it buoy him along as he slipped away along the hall towards the kitchen. He tried to stretch his back as he went, reminded at every step that his body had changed, that his usual flexibility was gone and replaced with stiffness in his back, and extra flexibility in the oddest places. The warm place on his back where Kevin had curled around him started to fade, cooled by the faint draft that lifted the air in the beach house that was otherwise silent and still.

  One hand rubbing absently at his hip, Claude stood in front of the refrigerator, drinking a glass of water. He wasn't sure how this was supposed to make him go back to sleep, but it was something to do and felt better than trying to recapture the feeling of just a few minutes before, the feeling that had faded with every step he took away from his bedroom.

  Shouldn't he be happy with this? He'd wanted to feel Kevin's arms around him again and that was exactly what was happening now. What did he have to complain about?

  Maybe the fact that it was all an invention of his love-starved brain, that however much it felt like Kevin was unconsciously pulling him back into bed, it was all in Claude's head. Kevin was asleep. The pull towards him that Claude felt so strongly was the one that had always been there, the one that had gotten him into this situation in the first place: pregnant and confused.

  He smacked his glass down on the counter with a click that seemed to echo, water slopping over the edge onto his hand. Wrinkling his nose at the mess, Claude spun on his heel, leaving it to be tomorrow's problem. He was too sleepy to think about these things right now, that was what was wrong. More sleep would fix everything, or at least put off the problem.

  The bedroom door slid smoothly open as Claude returned, padding silently across the hardwood floor. Kevin, visible only as an outline in the faint light coming from the window, had rolled slightly onto his back, but was otherwise exactly how Claude had left him. He hardly stirred as Claude lifted the sheet and lay down beside him, curling up once again with his back pressed to Kevin's warmth.

  The slow rise and fall of Kevin's chest hitched only once, for a brief second, as his arm fell back over Claude's hip, and settled back into its regular, smooth rhythm. It was like Claude had never gotten up.

  He'd meant the thought to be soothing, but instead it rattled around inside his chest as Claude lay in the dark, trying to will himself back to sleep. It shouldn't mean anything that Kevin was a heavy sleeper. It didn't mean anything that Kevin was a heavy sleeper. Claude just couldn't help but wonder if that had been their problem all along, that whether he came or went, it didn't seem to affect Kevin one way or another.

  Kevin seemed to roll with everything: beach houses, losing his assistant, gaining a new roommate, an almost unfathomable amount of hot sweaty sex. If even that last item failed to change their relationship, if everything could go back to the same way it was before despite their obvious chemistry, then Claude would...he didn't know what he would do. But it would have to be something.

  He couldn't stand everything being the same anymore.

  Chapter 20

  Kevin

  "Hello!" Kevin called into the stillness of the penthouse as he unlocked the door. He dropped his briefcase lightly on the hall table, toeing off his shoes as he made his way into the living room for a well-deserved rest. He flopped into an armchair, letting himself relax into the softness of the cushions and dropping the stress of his working day off of his shoulders. He did miss having Claude in the office, he couldn't deny that. It was certainly much better having Claude here, in his house, but there were days like today when he desperately wished that Claude's replacement had a fraction of Claude's organizational skills and ability to wrangle their clients.

  Kevin sighed deeply, letting his head loll back. "Claude?" he said into the quiet, his voice wavering on the last sound as the depth of the quiet in the house hit him.
/>
  It wasn't as though Claude didn't have friends, and he almost always went somewhere else to meet them instead of bringing them back to the penthouse—despite the many times that Kevin had assured him it was his house too and he could do whatever he wanted. This wasn't the first time that Claude hadn't been home when Kevin had gotten back from work. Kevin shook himself. There was nothing sinister here. He was being ridiculous because he missed Claude, and that had more to do with how things had been between them since they'd come back from their vacation.

  Did it really matter that Claude wasn't in the house when he'd spent the last two weeks trying to pretend that he wasn't avoiding Kevin? Claude hadn't said anything aloud, but Kevin wasn't stupid. He'd gone right back to sleeping in his own bed the second they'd come back home, all of their sunshine closeness seemingly evaporated in an instant. They'd gone back to the way it had been when Claude had just moved in, when he spent almost all of his time in his room and hardly seemed comfortable coming into the kitchen or any of the other common areas in the penthouse. Kevin felt the loss of that closeness as almost a physical pain, and he didn't know what had brought it on.

  He sighed again, staring up at the ceiling and going over his own faults in his mind. He could have done more, he supposed. It was obvious now. But it hadn't been as clear when they'd just gotten back from the beach house and Kevin had had two or three days of complete chaos at the office. He'd spent every day on his laptop and there had still been a million things that had piled up on his desk in that time, half of them now decidedly overdue from the sheer incompetence of his new assistant. The long days at work weren't anything new to Kevin, but he regretted them more now than he had a year ago. Coming home at the end of the day meant more when someone was there in the apartment. Not exactly waiting for him, Kevin supposed, but he'd thought that Claude enjoyed spending time together. It wasn't entirely on his side, surely? Enough that perhaps he'd been upset when Kevin hadn't come back until late those few days.

  Thrusting himself upright, Kevin tried to shake this mess of pointless thoughts out of his head. What was done was in the past. What he needed to do now was to make things right, to show Claude that he did care.

  The only trouble with this approach was that it was a little difficult to get started on all of his good resolutions until Claude came home.

  And Claude didn't come home.

  Kevin stalked around the penthouse, nibbling petulantly on the cheese and crackers he'd put out in the kitchen, in a subtle attempt to impress Claude when he came home. Claude had every right to go have dinner with his friends or whatever he was doing. Kevin just wanted to see him. Besides, it was weird of him not to send Kevin a text or anything. He usually checked in at least once if he wasn't going to be around for dinner and didn't want Kevin to save him anything.

  He pulled out his phone to check it again. A long list of notifications appeared on the screen, but none of them were from Claude, and he shoved his phone back in his pocket in disgust, making another restless sweep of the apartment. He paused in the hall outside of Claude's door, listening as hard as he could.

  Was that the sound of someone breathing? Could Claude just be having a really long nap? He'd been tired lately. Kevin had figured that the baby was keeping him up all night, even if Claude seemed reluctant to admit to any of it. He deserved the nap, if he was having one, but didn't he also need to eat?

  Assuring himself that he was being thoughtful, Kevin pushed open the bedroom door. At a glance, he could tell that the bed was empty, the sheets pushed back into a knot that could hardly have concealed a cat, let alone a fully-grown man. So Claude wasn't home. But, oddly enough, neither was his suitcase, and several drawers were pulled half-open, things spilling from them to a degree that didn't fit with Claude's usual tidiness.

  Kevin tugged at one of the dresser drawers, finding it half-empty. So was the next. He stepped away from the dresser, turning in a slow circle in the center of the room, trying to see what else was missing. Some shoes, he thought, definitely several pairs of shoes. Also the robe that Claude had started wearing once the pregnancy had become very obvious, another way that he tried to hide it, though Kevin still wasn't sure who he was hiding it from.

  Someone had definitely packed things then—it couldn't be some kind of bizarre kidnapping. But that didn't explain just where Claude was.

  Moving faster now, Kevin went through Claude's room like a whirlwind, searching his desk, his bedside table. But there was nothing unusual there, and, more importantly, no note. He checked his phone again. Still nothing.

  The hospital? Panic rose in Kevin's chest and he squashed it down again as quickly as it had come. Someone would have told him if Claude had gone to the hospital. They'd have had to. This was too early anyway. He found himself reaching for Claude's name in his contact list and let it happen.

  The phone rang once. Then again. Again, and then it shut off. Call ended. Did that mean something had gone wrong, or just that Claude was too busy to pick up. Kevin stared at the dark screen, his mind going over a thousand possibilities in an instant.

  It was probably nothing. No need to make a fool of himself this early on. He typed something out, short and quick. Something that would seem innocuous if Claude was out having a good time. On my way home. Want me to pick you up dinner too? A lie, it was true, but Kevin was at his wit’s end. He stared at the phone a little longer. No response.

  He tried to settle, tried to go back into the living room and watch TV, tried to check his email on his tablet, but everything he did seemed to lead back to him staring fruitlessly at his texts. Nothing new. Not even a peep from all the people he usually tried to avoid as much as possible.

  Pacing back and forth in front of the windows did little to calm Kevin's restless energy. He was on the verge of starting to call all the hospitals in town when the phone in his hand vibrated, and he nearly dropped it in his haste to open up his texts.

  It was from Claude, which was a relief, but all it said was, No, thanks. See you in a few days.

  That was hardly an answer, or rather, it was an answer to the question that Kevin had asked, but not to all the questions that still buzzed angrily in his head. Claude was gone, that was obvious now. Gone to more than just dinner with a pal.

  It still didn't tell Kevin anything about where he'd gone, or why. The thought of not knowing, of letting Claude out of his sight in this way, gripped Kevin hard, making his breath rasp in his chest, slowing the endless movement of his feet to a crawl.

  The fear that he'd had for the child that Claude carried was enough, but Kevin was man enough to admit that that wasn't what fueled him now. He missed Claude, Claude himself, and he wasn't going to rest until he knew where he was.

  Chapter 21

  Claude

  "Claude!"

  He dropped his bag on the doorstep, leaning in for his mother's hug, a small smile creeping onto his face. "Surprised?"

  "Very!" She patted his shoulder as they let go, beaming at him. "But so pleased to see you! Come in, come in!"

  It had been too long, Claude decided, as he walked into his parents' house, nudging his bag along into the hall and looking around with satisfaction at the room, still much the same as it had been for the past decade. He should have come here earlier. Somewhere where he knew what was going on. Somewhere that welcomed him.

  "What's going on?" his mom asked as she closed the door behind them both. "Is everything all right? Did I miss a message? We haven't seen you in ages!" She hugged him again. "Take your shoes off. Do you want something to drink?"

  "That's too many questions all at once," Claude said, laughing gently. "Which one do you want answered first?"

  "I wouldn't have so many if you came to see us more often!" she replied, shaking her forefinger at him mock-sternly. "You'll have to stay for dinner of course, you'll want to see your father. Oh, let me look at you!" Putting her hands on Claude's shoulders, she beamed at him, looking him up and down.

  Just like normal, until t
he realization of just how pregnant he was started to creep into her eyes and Claude remembered why he'd mostly stayed away.

  "Well!" she said at last. "You look so healthy, dear! Everything going well? Where's your man? Picked out a name yet?"

  "Not yet," Claude admitted. It wasn't like she hadn't been supportive over the phone, but it had been too hard to explain exactly what had gone on between him and Kevin. He hadn't lied about the baby's father, but it had been easier to explain moving in with Kevin if she thought they were a real family, the way he wanted them to be. In person, it was too hard to lie to them all the time. Things were easier on the phone.

  "You've got to get started on that," his mother said firmly. "Come on, come on! There's some lemonade in the fridge. We'll go out on the back deck."

  "Anything you say," Claude said, letting her chivvy him into the kitchen and pour him a drink. It had been too long. Maybe this wouldn't be so awkward after all.

  They went out to the deck, settling down on the same old chairs that had been there forever, looking out over the small clump of rosebushes that were Claude's mother's pride and joy. It felt like home, far more than Kevin's perfect apartment did. Even more so than the tiny place he'd rented before everything had just kind of happened.

  His mom took a sip of her lemonade and smiled at him over the rim of the cup, her eyes crinkled with happiness. "Now." She put her glass down on the table with a faint clink. "Tell me about your mysterious boyfriend."