His Brother's Ex, His Unborn Child

Chapter 18

WARNING: This chapter contains explicit s****l content. Reader discretion is advised.

CHLOE

He arrived at half past midnight smelling of the argument.

I recognized it before he said a word. I know something had gone wrong that he couldn't control. Tight jaw, expensive jacket slightly off at the shoulder, the deliberate evenness of a man who had been driving too fast and was pretending he hadn't.

He kissed me at the door the way he kissed me when he needed something.

I let him in.

He didn't talk first.

That told me more than anything he could have said. Liam always talked. It was his primary instrument, the thing he used to manage every room he walked into.

When he stopped talking and reached for me instead, it meant something had happened that words couldn't fix yet.

What Liam and I had was a transaction with better packaging than most. The s*x is good. Presents and attention when he's with me. He gave me access and elevation and the occasional pieces of jewelry.

But I want more. I want the name. I want the label.

I want to be Mrs. Carter.

He pinned me on the nearest wall. I spread my legs just enough to tease the outline of my p***y through the silk fabric.

Liam's c**k hardened. Our breathing became heavy. He leaned close and his lips brushed my ear.

"You smell so good, sweetheart. But you've been a little naughty."

I twisted my head a bit. Either he wanted to play or something happened with Elena. Maybe he's not getting his needs met.

My breath was hot on his neck.

"Are you going to spank me?" I challenged him playfully.

He grabbed a handful of my hair. "Maybe I will."

"Try it and see if you can handle me."

Liam's hand roamed free. My breasts spilled out. It was hard and pink against my pale skin. He pinched one and I gasp.

He is exciting when he is like this.

He unzipped his pants and his thick c**k sprung free. The head was already leaking with pre-c*m.

I licked my lips as I stared at him with my defiant eyes.

"Suck me, Chloe." He fisted my hair and guided it towards his shaft.

I opened wide and swirled my tongue around the tip before taking him deep. I bobbed my head and my lips stretched around his girth.

I gagged but did not pull away. My saliva dripped down to my chin.

"That's it. Yes, sweetheart. You're really good at it."

His balls tighten. Then he hauled me up and bent me over the couch nearby. My ass was high in the air. He yanked my silk panties and promised to buy me another set. I laughed.

He slapped my ass check hard, leaving a mark for sure.

I yelped when he put his d**k inside me then pulled it out.

I moaned when he spat on my asshole and rubbed the saliva with his thumb.

"Liam, ahh!"

He put a finger on my ass while his d**k went on my p***y.

I was soaked. My juices coated his d**k.

"You like it when I f**k you like this, don't you?"

"YES! YES!"

My body trembled.

"f**k me, Liam! Give me your c**k!"

He buried himself balls deep this time and took out his finger from my ass. He played with my c**t. I met every thrust.

"Harder!"

Sweat poured our backs as our bodies slapped together.

He bit me on my shoulder making me clench tighter.

"I'm going to c*m and fill you up!"

"Wait, I..."

But it was too late. He came inside me with hot c*m flooding my p***y in thick spurts. I milked every drop from his c**k.

Afterward, he picked me up and we lay on the couch. He lay on his back with one arm behind his head and looked at the ceiling feeling satisfied while I was on top of him.

"She said no," he said eventually.

I said nothing.

"She's been saying no for weeks." He exhaled slowly.

"Even if she says no, it's not like you're not getting it from me."

He didn't comment on that. His focus was on his wife.

"Twelve weeks pregnant and she treats me like I'm the problem."

"You argued," I said. Not a question.

"She pushed me." His jaw tightened. "She has this way of not saying anything. Just looking at me. Like she knows something."

He turned his head toward me.

"Does that make sense?"

"Yes," I said.

It made complete sense. Elena Voss had always known more than she showed. I had understood that from the boutique, from the way she had looked at me across the counter with that precise, unhurried gaze. She was the kind of woman who collected information quietly and said nothing until the moment it mattered.

Liam had never understood that about her.

"I lost my temper," he said.

"How bad?"

"I broke something."

I looked at the ceiling. "Her something or your something?"

"Hers," he said. "I don't know what's wrong with her lately. She's different."

"She's pregnant," I said. "Women change. I would be too once I'm carrying a child."

"It's not that." He sat up slightly. "It's something else. She looks at me sometimes like she's deciding something. And then it's gone and she's perfectly normal. I think I imagined it." He shook his head. "But I didn't imagine it."

My phone was on the coffee table. The screen lit briefly with a notification. I reached for it.

I read the message then set the phone face down.

"What is it?" Liam said.

"Nothing." I settled back against the pillow. "Go to sleep."

He did eventually.

He had been pulling away for three weeks. The calls arriving less often. The plans cancelled with better excuses than before.

I noticed.

And then he showed up at my door at midnight.

I told myself I knew what that meant. That Elena had failed him somehow — they always did eventually — and he had come to the one person who never failed him. I let myself feel it. The warmth of being chosen. The particular satisfaction of being the one he came back to.

Those letters I sent worked wonders.

Then my phone buzzed again.

It was a message from Diane front desk supervisor at the Carlyle. She is a woman I had known for six years through the overlap of our professional worlds that shared the same client base and the same social geography.

Thought you'd want to know — Elena Carter just checked in. Solo. Saw her in the bar an hour ago with Nicholas Carter and some other man. Looked cozy. Figured it was relevant given our last conversation.

I had mentioned Elena to Diane once. Months ago, casually, in the way you mention things you want remembered without appearing to want them remembered. Diane was good at her job in all the ways that mattered.

I read the message twice.

Then I put the phone face down and listened to Liam breathe beside me and thought about Elena Voss checking into the Carlyle at midnight with a bag and sitting in the bar with Nicholas Carter.

**

He was up at seven.

I heard him in the bathroom showering. By the time he came out in his shirt and yesterday's jacket, coffee was made and I was at the kitchen counter in my robe with my phone in my hand, reading Diane's message again as if I hadn't already memorized it.

"You didn't have to—" he started, about the coffee.

"Liam." I set my phone on the counter, screen up, message visible. "Come look at this."

He crossed to me. Read it over my shoulder.

I watched his face in my peripheral vision.

The stillness first. The rapid processing that happened behind his eyes when information arrived that required immediate management. Then something darker but not quite jealousy, something older and more territorial than that.

"When did you get this?" he said.

"Last night. After you fell asleep."

He looked at me. "You didn't wake me."

"You needed to sleep." I picked up my coffee. "You were upset."

His jaw was doing the thing it did. "She was at the Carlyle."

"Apparently."

"With Nicholas."

"And someone else, according to Diane. A friend of his perhaps."

He stepped back from the counter. The fury was building in the particular way Liam's fury built.

"She left our home," he said, "and went to a hotel and sat in a bar with my brother."

"She checked in solo," I said. "Diane said she came in alone. But you're here with me since last night so it's fine."

"That's not the point." His voice was very controlled. "The point is—"

"I know what the point is, Liam."

He looked at me. Something in my tone had registered. The flatness of it, the absence of the outrage he expected me to share. He was used to me being on his side. He was used to me being useful.

I looked back at him with the expression I had been practicing since midnight.

"What are you going to do? This is the perfect moment to divorce her. Fate already did it for you and if you can tell the lawyers she cheated on you or has been cheating then—" I said.

"Stop it! She cannot do that to me!"

"Liam—"

"I'm going to call her."

"She won't answer."

He already had his phone out. He dialed. I watched him listen to it ring out. His expression didn't change but his grip on the phone tightened.

"She won't answer," I said again. "She's probably still in bed with your brother."

I know. I'm deliberately making the fire bigger. But this is the perfect opportunity to end their marriage and I will be the next Mrs. Carter. I can almost taste it! I knew my plan would work. Liam would file the divorce very soon! He is not going to keep a cheating wife. That w***e! Who knew Elena Voss would want to taste the Carter brothers?

He put the phone in his pocket. "Why not this morning you say?"

I swallowed once then smiled.

"Because she's still upset. Pregnant women gets upset differently."

He looked at me for a moment .

Then his own phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen and his face went very still.

"I have to go."

I did not stop him.

I smiled then went to get dressed and get ready for the day. I can hear the wedding bells ringing.