Make My Heart Beat (5 page)

My back arches off the couch as I feel his lips travel from my collarbone down to my navel. The rough stubble along his jaw causes tingles to break out all over my skin. Connor’s large hands run up the outside of my thighs and come to rest firmly on my hips, holding them in place. I thread my fingers through his thick dark hair, making him look up at me. The depths of his emerald pools shoot straight through me. The roguish grin on his face and the look in his eyes are enough to make me melt on the spot. “I love you” escapes my lips on a sigh of pure pleasure.

“Your skin is the most delicious thing on this earth,” Connor says before tracing his tongue back over the path his mouth just traveled. His lips caress and suck the sensitive skin along the side of my neck just below my ear. I gasp as he pulls my earlobe between his teeth, gently tugging. The slight pain sends a lightning bolt straight to my core. “I have to have you, sweetness.”

I feel Connor’s hard length nudging the entrance of my sex as he settles his hips further between my thighs. God, I want this man so bad. He makes me weak in the knees. Thank heavens I’m laying down right now, I know there's no way I could stand. “Yes, Connor. I need you.” I moan. I’m breathless and panting at the same time. The sensations he evokes from my body still boggle my mind.

With one hard and quick thrust, Connor enters me on a growl. “Fucking heaven!” he pants as he pushes as far into me as he can as I cry out in ecstasy. “Too fucking good.”

Of their own volition, my hips surge up to meet Connor thrust for thrust. I feel the balls of his piercing dragging along my walls, causing my muscles to clench and spasm. It won’t be long before he pushes me over the edge of oblivion. I wrap my hands around Connor’s shoulders, holding on for dear life. I need this man so much. I love him with the very depths of my soul. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop!” I pant.

“You like that, baby?” Connor grunts, shifting the angle of his hips to hit me in the perfect spot. “God, you feel so good.”

“Yes!” I’m so close. Stars start to appear behind my closed eyelids. I try to push my body impossibly closer to him.

Connor starts really pounding into me. Harder than he has ever before. “You want it?” Pound. Thrust. Pound. “Like that?” Pound. Thrust. Pound. “I bet you liked it like this with Matt too,” he growls.

“NO! NO! NO!” I try pushing at Connor’s chest, but it’s no use. I can’t make him move. Why is he saying these things to me? I need to get away. He’s hurting me.

Suddenly I’m being shaken. I hear a garbled voice calling my name. “Lynae! Baby! Wake up!”

“Stop! No! Leave me alone!” I scream. I feel a sob tearing at my chest trying to get out. My flailing arms hit something hard and warm over me.

“Wake up, baby. It’s just a dream.”

I open my eyes and see Sly’s concerned face staring down at me. I sit straight up in the bed and throw my arms around him, clinging to him. I burst into tears. “Oh my God!”

“It’s ok. You’re safe.” Sly gently rubs my back up and down. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you ever again.”

I’m in my room. I’m in my apartment. Everything comes rushing back to me. I just got released from the hospital yesterday. It was all a nightmare. Connor isn’t really here. Bile starts to rise in my throat. I’m going to be sick. Pushing against Sly’s chest, I jump out of the bed and dash into the bathroom. I barely make it over the toilet before I start heaving. I didn’t eat much dinner last night, so there really isn’t anything in my stomach to throw up.

After a few minutes, the dry heaves subside and I rest my head on the toilet seat. I feel a cold rag
being pressed to the back of my neck as Sly settles himself on the floor beside me. “You want some crackers?” he quietly asks.

I shake my head no and continue to stare into the toilet bowl. I’m still trying to get my breathing under control, and the pain in my side is soaring, having been amplified by my body’s feeble attempt at throwing up. Damn broken ribs. I can’t do this. This pain is just too much.

Not the physical aches. The pain in my heart is beyond excruciating.

I feel Sly’s arms coming under my knees and behind my back as he picks me up off the cold bathroom tile. He carries me out into the living room and softly places me on the couch. “I’ll go make you some toast. Michelle said to make you eat something first thing.” Dropping a quick kiss to the top of my head, he makes his way into the kitchen. “And don’t argue with me,” he calls over his shoulder.

Slumping back into the corner of the couch, I close my eyes. I hear Sly rummaging around my kitchen. I know he means well, but right now, eating is the last thing on my mind. My stomach is still in knots, but I know he will not let it go. Sly feels like he failed me, and has made it his personal mission to be at my beck and call. I love him dearly, but he's really starting to get on my nerves.

“You want some jelly or just butter?”

Neither. I’m not hungry. “I don’t care,” I mumble. Rumbling in my stomach causes me to open my eyes. Please no. I don’t want to throw up again. I sit up straight on the couch, taking some deep breaths. A tube of crackers appears before my eyes.

“Try these.” Sly holds them out. “The toast is fixing.”

I take out two saltines and take a small bite. I remember Carmen telling me that she used to keep a tube of crackers and a can of ginger ale on her bedside table when she was pregnant with her twins. Maybe these will help. As I chew my crackers, my eyes look around the room. I spot a dark green shirt draped over the rocking chair in the corner. It’s Connor’s. God, I miss him so much, but it hurts to miss him. I told as much to Wade yesterday too.

Wade came by the hospital yesterday morning before I was discharged. He tried to get me to listen to him about Connor. I was surprised to see him. After Connor left that first day, none of the guys had come in. I figured they wanted nothing to do with me. After all, they had all sided with him and believed that I had been messing around. When Gabbi walked out to go find out when my doctor would be in to write my release orders, Wade really took me by surprise by sitting on the side of my bed and pulling me into a hug.

“Missed you, Nae Nae. We all do.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“About that, I’m sorry. About all of it. None of us should have listened to the dumbass.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“He misses you. He loves you.”

“I can’t talk about him. Please.” The tears gathered.

Gabbi walked in and notices my tear filled eyes. Smacking Wade on the back of the head, she fussed at him. “I told you not to upset her, dipshit.”

I’ve gotten four crackers down, and my stomach seems to be settling a little as I continue to stare at Connor’s shirt. I swear I can almost smell him on it from all the way across the room. Sly returns with a plate of toast and a glass of water. He looks so confused. He’s looking at me as if he thinks if breathes on me the wrong way I’ll blow over and break. I take the plate from him and continue nibbling. I’m sure he will call Michelle home from work if I don’t comply. I remember her giving him a list of orders last night before we went to bed. She stayed here last night. She wanted to stay in my room but I insisted that she just go stay in Sly’s room. I wanted to be alone.

“You’re stuck with me for the next two weeks. I called the station and they know not to expect me back until you go back to work yourself,” Sly informs me. “Besides, I’m gonna look into transferring out here. I need to be close to my girls.”

I rest my head on his shoulder after he's settled into the couch next to me. “Thanks, babe.” I really am grateful for him rearranging his life for me. I just hope that I can tolerate him. I already feel a little more hormonal right now and I’m barely pregnant. For the first time since I’ve known Sly, I’m worried I may actually get mad at him. Especially since I feel like he has taken to acting like another parent to me. God help me.

~

I’ve been huddled in the corner of my bedroom with my arms wrapped around my knees for at least the last hour. It’s the first time Sly has left me alone in two days. He left to pick up some groceries a little while ago, and I found my phone in my purse. The battery was completely dead, so I plugged it up and it seemed to blow up with texts and missed calls from Connor as soon as it had enough power to turn on. I made myself read each and every text message from him. They made my eyes well up with tears, but it was the pain in his voice on the voice messages
that broke the dam all over again.

“Please, Lynae. Please call me. I need you. I love you.”

“I am so sorry. Baby, please. I’m dying here without you.”

“I will beg every single day of my life to get you back. I love you.”

“Sweetness, I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I don’t deserve you. You deserve so much better than me, but I am too selfish to let you go. I need you.”

“You make my heart beat. Please, baby. I can’t live without you. I didn’t mean anything I said. I’d rather cut my own heart out than hurt you like I did. Please. Please.”

“I love you. You have to know I love you.”

God, I know he loves me. My heart knows he loves me. My brain probably knows that too, but it won’t let me turn off the racing thoughts telling me he isn’t
good enough for me. I want to call him back. I want to stay here in this corner hiding. I don’t know what the hell I want to do. I just know I want to stop crying and stop this pain. For a few brief moments, I felt like my life was finally getting back on a road I wanted to follow. I opened my heart up and let someone in. Look where it got me.

“Bitch! Where are you?” Gabbi’s voice carries through the apartment. I hear the front door slam and the sound of something being tossed on the kitchen table.

I remain sitting in the corner. I don’t know why; it’s not like I can hide from her. She will come looking for me.

“Babe?” Gabbi is kneeling in front of me, her hands on my shoulders.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” Gabbi pulls at my hands. “You look like you haven’t showered in a few days. Gross. Come on.”

I let her pull me up and into the bathroom. I lean against counter as she turns on the shower then retreats back into my bedroom to gather some clothes.

Returning, Gabbi doesn’t waste any time yanking on my clothes in an attempt to get me into the shower.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I try to push her away, smacking at her hands.

“Finally, some fire back in ya.” Gabbi steps back and crosses her arms over her chest.

I weakly lean back against the counter again and look at her. “What?”

“You’ve crawled even more into your damn shell than before you met Connor. I don’t want to see you like that again. I miss the you that you became,” she responds. “We can see it in your eyes. Your fire is gone.”

For some reason, this just pisses me off. I know Gabbi is trying to help, but she’s not. “Damn it! The last few days have been really shitty!” I cry. “The man I thought I would end up marrying completely flips the fuck out on me. I fall down a flight of stairs after getting into argument with him. I find out I’m pregnant and alone. And I don’t know what the fuck I want to do.” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “I am so confused about Connor that my mind is spinning. I thought after I made him leave the hospital that he'd had enough of me because he didn’t come back. I come home and there's a million messages from him, all begging me and telling me he loves me.”

I push myself away from the counter and strip out of my clothes while I continue on my tirade. I don’t care that Gabbi is standing there and I’m as naked as the day I was born. I yank the shower curtain back and step into the hot water. “Sly wants to kill him. Daddy is surprisingly calm about everything, which completely confuses the shit out of me. Michelle wants his balls.” I stick my head back out to glare at Gabbi. “And you are talking to me about me being in a fucking shell! Maybe I like my shell! If I hadn’t come out of it in the first place I wouldn’t be so fucking shattered that I can’t even begin to put the pieces back together again! I fucking love him so goddamned much that it's killing me!” I crumble against the shower wall and bury my face into my hands and knees.

As I sit there under the streaming water, I feel Gabbi wrap her arms around me. She is still in her clothes, which are now soaking wet. “That’s the fire I was talking about. Let it out. You need to let all this pain out of you, or it is going to just eat away and destroy you.”

“I know, but it just hurts too much. I want to make it all go away.”

“Honey, I know that. But you can’t make it go away. It’s not going to.” Gabbi helps me stand up and finish showering. I feel totally helpless right now. I’m emotionally spent. Having Gabbi here to show me some tough love is exactly what I needed. Michelle and Sly have been treating me like porcelain since I woke up. 

After getting dressed, and Gabbi changed into some of my dry clothes, I flop back on the bed
as Gabbi lays down beside me.

“Feel better?” she asks, taking my hand in hers.

“A little.” And it’s the truth. I think letting it all out really helped. I haven’t really said much to anyone other than Connor when I first woke up. I had been keeping myself in my own head. I didn’t want to let my emotions and feelings out of their box. It felt like they were safer in there. Almost like if I didn’t say anything, this wouldn’t be real. “Thanks, girl. You know I love you, right?”