Just Friends (13 page)

She moaned as he pulled out of her
only to plunge back inside. He took her slowly, his thrusts going deeper with
each thrust. Mitch played wither her body. His hands were on her breasts then
moved down to her pussy. Leah cried out when he sucked on her nipples drawing
the bud between his teeth.

The pleasure they were creating was
driving her over the edge. This was way better than any dream. She was able to
touch and really feel what they were doing to her body.

“I love you,” she said on a gasp.

Mitch brought her to orgasm as
Chase filled her with his release. He held her in his tight grip refusing to
let her go.

He eased out of her, and Mitch
kissed her deeply. She opened her legs for him. He slid inside, holding her
tightly. The passion between them was magical. He held her down underneath him,
loving her in every way he could.

Chase stroked her hair.

She’d never felt so complete in her
whole life. It was like a dream come true.

Chapter Eleven

Life didn’t get any easier with
their business. Starting up
their own
business proved
to be time-consuming. Not only did they keep long hours, but they had no choice
in the hours they worked. Getting their business off the ground was far more difficult
than any of the three had expected. Chase and Mitch worked long hours while she
continued to work as a receptionist. Leah kept her appointments with her
midwife even though her men couldn’t attend most of them. They’d been with her
on the first one and when she found out the sex of her baby. She was having a
little boy.

She’d been asked if she wanted a
paternity test. Leah refused, explaining her situation to the midwife. The
older woman hadn’t minded the situation and continued to see her. Her mother
rang her all the time. Leah loved hearing her voice. Some of the nights she was
alone as Mitch and Chase tried to get their name out there, so her mother’s
phone calls were welcome.

With Mitch and Chase out, she spent
a great deal of time painting her son’s nursery. Leah didn’t mind the demands
of their business. She remembered how much they’d talked about it when they
were growing up.

Into the third month of her
pregnancy, she had finally picked a colour to paint the walls. She decided on a
vanilla colour. The lightness would make the room feel larger. She opened the
tin of paint on a Friday night. Leah had become used to the quiet in their
apartment.

She whistled a tune while she ran
the brush up and down the walls in one smooth action. The ceiling would have
white clouds with a blue sky peeking out. She wanted her son to look up into
something with texture rather than a plain white wall.

Leah climbed the ladder and was
painting around the light bulb when the sound of the door echoed around the
small room. She heard Mitch’s and Chase’s voices.

“Leah, where are you?” Mitch called
out to her.

“In the nursery,” she said. “If you
can remember where it is,” she muttered to herself.

“What the hell are you doing?”
Chase asked, charging into the room. He stood at the bottom of the ladder.”

“I’m painting my son’s nursery.”

“No, you’re fucking not. You could
have fallen. You’d put yourself and the baby at risk for some stupid ceiling?”
He lifted his hands up to her.

She saw red. Grabbing the tub of
paint she poured the little amount left inside over his head.

He moved out of the way as she came
down. When her two feet were on the floor, she poked his chest. “I would never
put our baby in harm’s way. You’re gone for most of the day and night. Our son
will not be coming home to a half-finished room. It will be ready for him, and
if you don’t like that, tough.”

Leah stormed out of the room, past
Mitch to the kitchen. She needed a drink of water. Her anger was getting the
better of her. The windows were wide open to deal with the fumes created from
the paint. She wasn’t doing any heavy lifting.

Mitch wrapped his arms around her
waist. His hand stroked her stomach. She leaned against him loving his comfort.
“He worries about you all the time.”

“If you ever came home you’d see I
was safe. I’m not going to wait around for you to do the nursery.”

“I know.”

“I know you’re hard at work, and I
hate it. I want to help you, but I can’t do anything to help,” she said. Her
frustration grew as his comfort reminded her how much time they missed
together.

“We’re doing really well, Leah.
There won’t be much more work to do. Our previous clients are there, and we’re
building a base. The money we’ve been given is perfect.”

“I miss you.”

“Am I forgiven?” Chase asked,
standing in front of her.

“Are you going to stop accusing me
of putting my son at risk?”

He nodded his head. “I shouldn’t
have said that.”

“You shouldn’t.”

After that night Mitch and Chase
tried to do as much of the work possible. Leah didn’t mind doing the work.
She’d tried to assemble the cot she’d bought, but it looked more like a wooden
igloo by the time she was finished. Her men fixed all the furniture, and as she
went into her seventh month of pregnancy, the nursery was complete.

The time was going by so fast. Her
pregnancy was speeding along. She’d felt her son kick. Chase and Mitch were
still waiting for that privilege. Whenever they cuddled up to her, he’d fall
asleep inside her. She figured their son was already forming a protest over the
lack of time. It felt like she’d turned into a giant penguin overnight. She
waddled with each step she took. Mitch and Chase teased her constantly over how
she moved.

Leah woke up one night to hear
Chase and Mitch shouting in the sitting room. She rolled off the bed onto her
knees. It was humiliating how she had to get herself out of bed in the mornings.
She moved closer and was shocked to see Mitch shaking a pair of keys at Chase.

“I told you I haven’t seen them in
months,” Chase said.

“What’s going on?” Leah asked,
rubbing her stomach.

“Chase has misplaced a set of
keys.”

“I haven’t misplaced them. I can’t
misplace what I’ve not had in months.”

“Are you seriously arguing about a
set of keys at two in the morning?” Leah asked.

Mitch walked over, wrapping his
arms around her body. She snuggled in close and reached for Chase. Her other
man came to her without any hesitation.

“I bumped into the lady who lives
downstairs, and she’s had a break-in recently,” Mitch said.

“What?”

“The burglaries are getting closer
to here.”

Leah shivered. She was alone in
this apartment by herself most days. She didn’t like the thought of being at
risk.

“Leah, have you seen my set of
keys?” Chase asked.

“No.”

She yawned. “I need to go to sleep,
guys.”

Mitch carried her through to their
room. Leah couldn’t wait for their baby to be born. It had been months since she’d
had any energy left.

****

Mitch stayed with her until she
fell asleep. He felt guilty for leaving her while she was heavily pregnant. It
was getting harder and harder each day to close the door behind him. She’d left
her job where she’d been a receptionist several weeks ago. Her energy levels
were low all the time. She couldn’t keep up with the heavy work-load, and he
didn’t like the stress she was under. When he’d bumped into the lady downstairs
and she’d warned him about the break-in, his fear had been increased. In Leah’s
condition she was in no state to handle a situation like that.

“I love you,” he said, kissing her
head.

She mumbled something, turned over,
and went back to sleep.

He walked out to find Chase coming
out of the shower.

“Are you sure you haven’t misplaced
your keys?” Mitch asked.

“I’ve not seen them in months.”

“We better get the locks changed.
I’m not risking her or the baby.”

Chase nodded his head. “How is
she?”

“Tired?”

“Only a few weeks left to go.”

Mitch nodded.

“I’m going to go and keep her warm.
I’ll see you in a minute.” Chase walked into their bedroom as Mitch closed the
bathroom door.

He removed his clothes climbing
into the already running shower. Rinsing his hair, Mitch thought about
everything that had happened in the last few months. Their business was running
okay. It was not as successful as he’d like it to be, but they had a constant
supply of clients and their work load was increasing. He hoped by the end of
the year they’d be able to hire someone to help out. Leah helped with filing
the paperwork away leaving them to go out and make the urgent calls. The time
they spent away was the hardest part.

The more work they got the less
time they got together. He’d hoped to be hands on during this pregnancy. Leah
had begun leaving them slips with updates on her progress.

Once he finished washing the day’s
stress of his back, he dried his body and made his way into their bedroom.
Chase and Leah were fast asleep wrapped in each other’s arms. He walked over
and climbed in beside her. His eyes closed the moment he hit the pillow.

****

Over the next few weeks, Leah felt
a pain increase in her back. When she informed her doctor she told her the
moment it got worse she was to call in and see her. Leah wasn’t too concerned.
With the amount of weight she was carrying she was surprised backache was all
she was suffering with. The burglaries were back in the papers once again.

Besides the woman downstairs, no
one else had been hit in their building. Mitch and Chase made sure they were
home every night before dark. She was relieved. The thought of someone being
out there trying to get in was terrifying her. Before her pregnancy she’d have
thought nothing of it whereas now she was in a more vulnerable position.

She cooked for Mitch and Chase on
Tuesday night. Her back was killing her. She rubbed the pain away hoping when
she lay down that would ease it a bit.

Her men were going over some
figures while she ate her food and read one of the erotic books she’d bought
some time ago. Mitch and Chase were holding off on sex until after she’d had
the baby. She understood why but missed their touch every night.

 
Later that night as she lay in bed surrounded
by Chase’s and Mitch’s warmth, she heard their apartment door opening. Leah
tensed. She knew that sound as Mitch and Chase had come through that door a
thousand times.

“
Shh
, I’m
awake,” Mitch said.

She stared at him feeling her heart
beating rapidly inside her chest. “Someone is in our apartment,” she whispered
to him.

Mitch nodded. “I don’t want to
alert them we know.”

“I’ve got my cell phone,” Chase
said, handing the phone to Leah. The door to their room was open. If they moved
too suddenly then the intruder would see the movement. She licked her lips and
then couldn’t believe what happened next. Mitch stared at her, and her eyes
widened.

“My waters just broke.”

“What?” Chase asked.

Mitch stared at her terrified. “Her
waters just broke.”

“Shit.” Chase handed her the phone.
“Call the police. We need to get this done fast.”

Leah’s hands were shaking. This was
the most inconvenient time. Mitch covered her mouth the moment her first
contraction started. She’d never felt anything like it. The pain was
unbearable. She stared into his eyes and bit her lip to try to contain the
scream.

“She’s not going to last,” Mitch
said.

“Fuck this.” Chase lunged out of
bed. In the commotion, Mitch let go, and her scream echoed off the walls of
their bedroom. She put the phone to her ear, waiting.

What happened next was the most
surreal experience of her life. Chase and Mitch wrestled the intruder to the
floor. The police arrived minutes later. There were several in the area because
of all the break-ins. The intruder turned out to be the woman who sat next to
her at the laundrette that day all those months ago. The woman took keys and
then stole anything of any value. She hadn’t tried to break into their
apartment sooner because she hadn’t seen Leah until the other week. The woman
didn’t try steal from places she didn’t have a key to.

Her contractions by that point were
already minutes apart. Leah knew she wasn’t going to make it to the hospital.
The ambulance that she’d phoned the moment after she’d spoken to the police
arrived, but too late.

However, she was unable to get to
the hospital.

Marvin Preston Fields Lawson Jones
was born on their living room carpet at three in the morning, screaming his
little head off.