Page 38 of Keeper

She launches herself at me and squeezes me tight. “Congratulations! See? Everything’s going to be fine. You two will get there. These things take a while sometimes.”

I fight the urge to remind her that you can’t get pregnant if you don’t get fucked. She still doesn’t know. I’m almost positive I can trust her, but I haven’t told her yet. I can’t. “Thanks, Shay. I’m gonna go for a run, but I’ll see you later.”

Already dressed for it, I jog out my bedroom door and down the stairs, not stopping until I’m outside. I nearly run smack into Draven, his arms catching me and holding me against him a second longer than he should.

“Damn, Sully. I missed you too,” he teases, flashing me a smirk that makes my knees weak.

I haven’t seen him since the tests. Since he told an entire office full of people that he was dying to breed me, trying over and over again.

I haven’t recovered yet, either.

“Hi. I’m late for a very important run, so...”

“I hate running,” he complains, moving his giant body to block me before I can take off.

“So do I. Haven’t we been through this before?”

“Have we? Probably. But if you run I’m going to chase you, and you don’t have a clue what that does for me.”

Okay. Glancing down, I mentally flip off my traitorous pussy. Maybe one day I’ll be able to talk to him without feeling a rush of wetness, but that day clearly isn’t today. “So I won’t run then, as amusing as it would be to see you trying to hustle with a nine-inch boner.”

He tosses his head back with a laugh that has multiple workers turning our way. “I could see it now. You’d be tripping on purpose for me.”

“Not today,” I say softly. “We got the results back. No problems.”

The fact that I get to watch his pupils expand at that news doesn’t help me at all. His intense stare drops down to my stomach in a way that seems unintentional, and then he blinks his trance away. “Yeah, no surprise there, huh? Father talk to you?”

“Not yet. It’ll happen, though. Shay warned me that he wants to talk to us both after dinner.”

His playful mood seems to have faded some as he shakes his head. “Alex get his results too?”

“Yeah, we both did. So hopefully, after tonight, he’ll see reason and do what he needs to do.”

“My offer still stands,” he says darkly. “Tell me what you’re so afraid of.”

Where do I start? I’m afraid of it working, I’m afraid I’ll love it, I’m afraid we’ll get caught and then my child will be in danger too. “It’s just not necessary. Alex will come around. He has to.”

Draven sighs. “All Ephraim cares about is there being a Creed baby in your belly. I may be the bastard, but my last name is still Creed which means our child’s will be too.”

“And there will be a Creed baby in my belly,” I remind him. It feels like beating a dead horse at this point especially since I don’t have a single shred of evidence to support what I’m saying, but I just don’t understand. “There will be.”

I see the second understanding dawns on him, and the space between us grows. “You’re not seeing it, little keeper. Alex isn’t going to come around. He’s not going to wake up one day and realize what an idiot he is for pushing the better woman aside and decide to love you. It’s April. He’s had months to step up and do his job, and he’s no closer today than he was in December. He won’t touch you. He doesn’t fucking want to.”

There’s a difference between wants and needs. It’s not about him wanting to do it anymore. He needs to. I have a sneaking suspicion that our conversation with Ephraim tonight will make that crystal clear to him.

But... then what?

And what happens if Draven is right?

“And what’s he going to do when he finds out you knocked me up?” I whisper sharply. “You think he just... what? Won’t notice? Will think maybe he got drunk one night and doesn’t remember coming inside me?”

“I think he’d be relieved you got pregnant and not really give a fuck because that’s just it, Sullivan. He doesn’t give a fuck. Don’t believe me? Go and ask him then.”

“Ask him? Are you insane?” I tug him a little further from the house, just in case. “I’m not going to go ask him if he cares if I let his brother impregnate me three months before our wedding.”

It’s then I realize how isolated we are right now, and when he takes slow deliberate steps toward me I feel myself backing up against a tree. “I am insane, little keeper. I thought you knew that?” He rests his hand against the side of my face, swiping my cheek with his thumb. “That’s why I already told him I want you.”

Fuck.

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