Vegas Aces: The Wide Receiver Complete Series

CHAPTER 16 TRISTAN

I pull back and lean my forehead to hers. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, oblivious to the rain falling around us. “I shouldn’t have walked away, and I shouldn’t have kept you in the dark. But I had to.”

“I understand,” she says, and she peppers kisses along my jawline.

I shake my head. She thinks she was giving me the space I needed to heal from her secret, and that’s how it started.

But it shifted that night I went to dinner with my wide receiver brothers after OTAs. It became about clearing away the past so we could head into the future together. It became about making sure Savannah would get what’s coming to her, and the only way I could do that was to fall off Tessa’s grid.

I had to make Savannah believe I was all in on her again. I had to make her believe it was truly over between Tessa and me. It was the only way she’d let down her guard long enough for me to get the inside track, and once I knew where she lived, once she started spilling secrets…the rest all just fell into place.

There will be time to tell her that. Time to make confessions. Time to contact the adoptive parents if we decide together it’s what we want.

But now…now’s the time for a reunion.

“Come on in,” she says, her arms around me as I clutch her as close as I can.

I realize the baby she’s growing isn’t biologically mine, but the second I saw her standing in the window watching me, my eyes flicked down to her belly as my chest warmed and that feeling of needing to protect both of them at all costs washed over me.

The baby is mine.

Tessa is mine.

These are my girls, and nothing will ever keep me from them again.

We’re stronger than that. We’re strong enough to overcome the secrets of the past. We’re strong enough to hold hands into the future together. We’re strong enough to get through anything, and it took Josh’s words to remind me of that.

Neither of us moves after she invites me in for a beat, both of us scared to let the other go. She might be scared I’ll run again. I might be scared she’ll leave again. But neither of us are going anywhere, and we’re long overdue for a talk about how we navigate this life together as we move forward toward our future.

I swing her up into my arms, carrying her like a child as I kick open the door she didn’t latch shut behind her when she ran out here for me.

I lean down to kiss her, and she giggles. “Your duffel bag,” she says, and I chuckle, too, as I set her down.

I run outside, grab my bag, and set it in the tiled entry to dry. It’s soaked, but thankfully it’s waterproof so the contents inside should be dry. But I don’t care. It doesn’t matter either way. I’m in Tessa’s house, and she’s standing two feet away from me, and as I reach out a hand to link my fingers through hers…that’s all that matters.

I kick off my shoes, too, and leave my wet socks on top of them.

She squeezes my hand, and then she runs into the hallway and returns a moment later with two towels. She hands one to me, and I start with my hair while she wraps hers around her shoulders.

“Let’s get some dry clothes,” she suggests, and she nods down the hall. I grab a shirt and shorts out of my duffel before I walk quietly behind her toward her bedroom. The split floor plan means her mother’s room on the other side of the house, and she’s a fairly heavy sleeper, from what I remember, but I still don’t want to wake her or worry her.

She closes the door behind her, and she rummages through her drawers to come up with a dry shirt and panties. She pulls off the wet shirt, and I can’t help but stare at her body.

She catches me looking, and she blushes a little as she moves to pull on the new shirt quickly.

I walk over toward her, still dripping all over her carpet. I toss my dry clothes on her dresser and grab her forearm, halting her progress. I shake my head, and then I pull my own wet shirt over my head and toss it on top of her wet one.

She’s in just a pair of panties, and I’m in just my shorts.

Her tits are huge and round, and her stomach has swelled even larger, and it’s one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.

I missed this the first time around. Her father took these moments from us, and I will not miss the remaining weeks that we have left this time.

I kneel down on the floor in front of her, and I slide my hands along the sides of her stomach. I press a kiss there, and her fingertips tenderly find my cheek. I tilt my head up to look at her. “Don’t cover this up.”

“I feel disgusting, Tristan,” she says softly. “I’m huge and my lower back is killing me and I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time in weeks.”

I push to my feet, and I grab her hand and walk her over to the bed. She sits on the edge, and I stare down at her.

I don’t want to negate her feelings. She has every right to feel how she feels, but I want her to know how I feel, too.

“You are gorgeous. You are powerful. You are courageous. You are nurturing. You are growing a human being inside your body, and I can’t think of a more incredible thing you could do. You’re sacrificing nine months of your life to create and nourish life, and then you’ll be a mother.” I shake my head in wonder of the whole thing. “And I don’t know if you’re emitting some strong-ass hormones or what, but I’ve never found anyone sexier than I find you right now.”

It's true. This primal need to mark her as mine lies heavy on my shoulders, but if she’s uncomfortable, or if she feels disgusting, or if she doesn’t want that right now, I’ll back down.

If she does, though, all bets are off.

Her brows dip a little doubtfully at me. “You really think so?”

I kneel between her legs and finger the edge of her panties. “I really do. I’ve never wanted to fuck someone more than I want to fuck you right now.”

She raises her brows. “Mr. Higgins!” she says, a hand flying to her chest in total shock at my words, as if she’d be clutching her pearls if she was wearing any…or if she was wearing anything at all. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I offer a sly smile, and then I stand, slide off my wet shorts and boxers, and allow my incredibly hard cock to prove just how much I want this.

Her eyes widen a little, and she licks her lips before her eyes move up my torso before finally connecting with mine. “Am I going to be punished again?” She bites her lip and raises a brow.

“The correct question is am I going to be punished, sir , but either way, the answer is no.” I take a step toward her, my cock moving even closer to her face. “No punishments tonight, Tessa. I just want to feel you, to love you, to show you how much I need you.” I sit on the bed beside her. “What’s going to be most comfortable for you?”

“Probably either me on top or you coming in from behind while I lay on my side. And I gotta tell you, Tristan, I’ve been so freaking horny the last few weeks. My shower head has been getting quite the workout.”

My brows arch as I let out a little groan. “Goddamn, woman. Are you trying to make me come before I even get inside you?”

She giggles, and I lay back. She climbs over the top of me, and this might be the best view I’ve ever had during sex before. I reach down to line up my cock with her pussy, and she sits down, impaling herself on me.

We both let out low moans at the feeling, and then I slide my hands under her ass. I watch her tits as they bounce and sway while I penetrate her, allowing her to control the speed and depth to give her exactly what she needs. Her eyes move to mine, and I fight to hold on a little longer. I don’t want this to end. I know we can do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, but this reconnection between the two of us is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

It's the physical act, of course—the way her pussy tightens over me, the sounds of skin slapping against skin and the moans she makes when I touch her nipples paired with the taste of them when she lowers one into my mouth.

But it’s the emotions that combine with the act that make this particular time with her so meaningful. Something passes between the two of us this time that tells me we finally got it right. We’re finally bared to one another with all secrets out in the open, and neither of us holds back as we touch and kiss each other and do everything to show the other one how deep our feelings run.

And it’s in that feeling that I arch into her, my body losing control as I start to come. The pleasure rips through me, and as I pump wildly into her from the bottom, she finds her release over me, too. She cries out when she comes, her climax tearing through her body as her pussy milks my cock for everything he’s got.

When it’s all over, she gently lifts off me and lays beside me, her head on my chest and my arm around her, stroking her shoulder mindlessly.

“Was that the best ever or am I just a horny pregnant woman?” she murmurs sleepily.

“Best ever.”

We lay together a few minutes, and then she uses her body weight to push to a stand as she sort of waddles toward the bathroom to clean up.

I lay in bliss a few minutes as I think about everything we’ve been through to get to this moment.

It hasn’t been easy.

It hasn’t been a short road, or a straight path, or a simple route.

But that’s what makes me believe that this time, we’re going to make it last.