Still Human

Chapter Twenty-seven Danny. You’re everything to me.

Lying awake behind her, I stroke my hand lightly across her stomach and leave it in place. I shake my head at myself as I bite back tears, again! This keeps happening, surely it should be Liv overcome with emotion, I can’t even blame hormones. But the last few days, whenever she sleeps I lie awake and do this. This morning, the Las Vegas sunshine woke me as we forgot to close the drapes after…God, that was amazing last night.

She gave me head in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of our room overlooking the Bellagio fountains. If they attracted the usual crowd, we most definitely had an audience. I suppose the windows are probably tinted, but not knowing for sure didn’t stop her. Then when I bent her over the desk beside the window, it didn’t stop me either.

I pull my mind away from thoughts of last night before I start thinking about waking her up. She is so beautiful sleeping. It’s just so unreal. This thing I’ve wanted since I was so young, since before the knowledge of what I wanted was even fully formed. She’s here in my arms and I can’t believe it. She is the love of my life, she’s taken me back, she loves me exactly like I love her, she is my wife and now she has made it all real, she is having my baby.

I give her a gentle squeeze and she stirs.

“Whoa, it’s bright.” She winces burying her face in the sheets.

I chuckle. “We forgot to close the drapes after your little show,” I tease, kissing the back of her neck.

“My little show? What about you? You actually swept stuff off the desk!”

“Sorry, next time I’ll just let you get the brochure stuck to your face.”

“Hmmm, next time, when will that be?”

I laugh as she turns to me, still squinting at the bright light, but I know that look. “You are insatiable.” I grin, kissing her. I’m the luckiest man alive.

“I’ve missed it that’s all, I’ve been sharing you with a cup for the last week.”

“Well, I’m all yours now.” I move over her and press against her until she groans. I nudge her knees apart and sink straight into her. She moans loudly and pulls me down on top of her, our bare skin pressing together as I start to move. Her fingers dig into my back, keeping me close while she raises her hips to meet me. I start to worry that I’m putting too much weight on her and I hesitate for a second giving my thoughts away.

“You were thinking about the baby again weren’t you?” She sighs, throwing her hands back against the pillow in frustration.

Last night when we burst through the door, I had only one thing on my mind, fuck her hard. But the now constant thought in the back of my mind stopped me.

She is carrying our baby.

I’m realistic enough to know that sex won’t do her or the baby any harm, but she’s also delicate. I have to take care of her, I can’t go throwing her around. But as hard as I try to be rational about nothing changing, I start feeling like the word ‘fuck’ should no longer be applied, she’s growing a child inside her, my child, she should be revered, not fucked. She busted me thinking it last night and gave me a stern talking to. She’s right, I just have to find the balance.

I’m processing all of this when I realise Liv is still looking at me.

“Danny, don’t you go all weird on me.”

“I’m not weird, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” she says firmly. We’re about to lose the moment and I don’t want that to happen.

“Good,” I say, leaning forward and kissing her with enough force that she lets out a sound of pleasure. While my tongue reminds her that I know she can take it, I press forward inside her and she moans again into my mouth. I grab her wrists and hold them together above her head, pressing them into the bed with my weight while I pick up the pace. She gets really into it and is pushing against my hands, not struggling, just testing. It feels amazing, holding her down, invading her mouth with my tongue and owning her everywhere else as well.

She groans when I let her breathe and then she kind of yells involuntarily when I shift slightly changing the angle of the friction between us. “Shhh!” I hiss, aware that Max and Charlie are next door and while that didn’t stop us last night, it’s early and sound will carry further in the quiet of the morning. Liv gives me a flick of her eyebrows, a challenge, like she’s saying, if I want her quiet, I’ll have to shut her up, then with an impish grin she moans loudly again. I flash back to that night in her parents’ guest room. She got really turned on when I made her shut up, maybe she wants me to do that again.

I push into her harder than before and she moans, “Shhh,” I whisper. She moans again. “Quiet!” I say with as much authority as I can muster. “I’ll have to stop if you can’t keep it down." In response, she does a kind of hip swivel that nearly has me shouting out. “Fuck,” I manage to say quietly. Then, still holding her hands captive, I slip my free hand between us and touch her in a way I know can only result in her being loud.

“Oh!” she cries.

I stop myself grinning triumphantly as I release her hands and plant my hand over her lips. “Shut the fuck up!” I whisper in her ear, getting a little carried away. How we got to this from me being worried about the baby, I’ll never know, but it’s working for her.

“Oh. My. GOD!” She breathlessly mumbles from behind my hand. Her eyes roll and I know if she had been standing she would have crumbled. Her hands stay firmly planted like I’m still holding her down, and while I keep her mouth shut, I still draw endless circles with my fingers, pushing her to the edge. She lets out a loud, “Ugh.” So I shake my head and withdraw. My hand still gagging her, she whimpers with disappointment.

“Are you going to do as you are told?” I ask, trying hard not to laugh.

I like this game.

She nods vigorously behind my hand.

“Okay,” I concede. “Quiet.” I slide into her again. Her eyes close and she draws in a deep breath as I move, fingers still in place. She begins a rhythmic breathing. I watch her internalising all the sensation. I catch the odd flicker of her eyes and she’s frowning in that cute way she does when she gets close. I can’t take my eyes off her, she’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. She makes a tiny, clipped “mmh” and her eyes flicker open as she assesses my reaction to this slip up. I raise an eyebrow and stop moving. She shakes her head, pleading with her eyes for me not to stop.

I love this game!

I resume my pace and take it up a notch. Her eyes stay on mine until she can’t take it anymore and she flickers them shut as she digs her fingers in the pillow and at the same time sinks her teeth into the palm of my hand to keep from making a sound. I feel rather than hear her intense orgasm and she whimpers slightly because I don’t let up with my fingers while she rides it out, but I let her off. I’m so close to giving in, but watching her squirm is something wonderful. Her body tries to come down from the heights it has just visited, but my fingers won’t let her, I wonder if she could go again?

I know from experience there is almost no limit to the number of times she can come, but I’ve never got her tripping one straight into the next like this, we always have a breather. But suddenly it becomes my mission in life to get her to come again, right now.

“You’re going to come again,” I whisper. Upping my efforts and allowing her to cry out.

“What?” she slurs, pushing my hand aside, still a little lost in the aftershocks and battling against my fingers, relentless on her oversensitive clit.

“You heard me. You’re going to give me another one before I let you go.” With that I pull out all the stops.

“I don’t think I…I need a min…OH GOD!” She cries out and convulses beneath me, arching her back off the bed in the throes of a violent climax. Her grip on me from the inside almost takes me with her, almost. But I’m on a mission now and she groans and wriggles and then whimpers and pleads when she registers that I’m still not stopping.

“One more,” I order. I’m loving this, she’s normally so in control that pulling her apart is a dizzying power trip. I could get used to this, once she goes, she’s putty. Mine to shape however I choose.

“Danny…please give me a…please…fuck!…it’s too much…ah, sensitive…please…” She claws her way up the bed to get away from my relentless hand.

“Ssshh,” I soothe, slowing my hand slightly. We have reached the huge upholstered headboard and I kneel, lifting her up so that she is sitting astride me and inch us closer to prop her up against it. She moans almost in despair when I push my fingers back against her, well this time it’s just my thumb, but it still gets her full attention as it starts turning those circles that will bring her one more. One more that I’m having with her.

I grab her delicious butt with my other hand and hoist her up, raising up on my knees and pushing her into the cushiony wall behind us. Now I can really fuck her into another hotel wall, but it’s soft enough that I don’t have to feel bad. I give her everything I have, slamming into her again and again, still teasing those frayed nerves with my thumb.

“God, Liv…I love you,” I growl, digging my fingers into her hip and burying my face in her neck. “Go on, one more.”

I hear her gasp and then she lets go. She shudders against me, she would have doubled over if my body wasn’t pressing her against the wall. “Danny,” she whispers.

Hearing my name is all it takes. I tense and then lose myself in a free-fall. Fuck…amazing…perfect…Is this the best it has ever been?…I mean ever?…Can you ever really know that?…Do I need to be thinking about it now? Through all the thoughts crowding my brain, I can only get out one word. “Liv.”

We flop back onto the bed, panting and exhausted. Liv lands on top of me and does not have the energy to peel herself off, so she just sighs heavily and gives in to it.

I run my fingers lightly up and down her spine. “Liv?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?” I whisper.

She giggles slightly. “Okay?” She lifts her head to look at me, blowing a strand of her freshly fucked hair out of her eye. “You're asking me if I’m O.K…After THAT?”

“Uh-huh.” I nod. “Are you?” I frown, she doesn’t get it. I need to take care of her. She convinces me to not treat her any differently and then somehow we end up in that crazy frenzy and now I’m not supposed to show any concern.

“I’m fine, Danny.” She shakes her head in exasperation. “More than fine actually, I’m floating. I probably won’t be able to walk today, but that was beyond incredible.” She laughs and drops her head back down on my chest.

“So it wasn’t too much?” I ask, knowing it’s going to piss her off, but I can’t find a way not to ask.

She sighs. “If you do anything that is too much, I’ll tell you then and there and if you won’t stop killing my buzz then I’m afraid it’s your turn to shut the fuck up.” She lifts her jelly-like hand and carelessly mashes it onto my face.

“Liv?” My voice is muffled and distorted by her hand.

She lifts her head and narrows her eyes, daring me to bring her any further out of her post-orgasmic haze.

“Wanna go again?” I laugh.

“Fuck off!” she says laughing with me. I pull her up my chest and our mouths lock.

“Three times? Fuck off, you’re so full of shit!” Scott shouts, waving my claim off. “Three times in one night, fine, but three times in ten minutes? Fuck off!”

I shrug. “I’m telling you, she digs it. I tell her what to do and she falls apart.”

“Liv? We are talking about Liv here, right?” Charlie laughs from across the table. “Liv? About your height, tattoos, nice girl, control freak, beautiful, wouldn’t fuck with her…Are you sure you don’t mean you tell her what to do and she slaps you in the head so you don’t do it again?”

The three of us belly laugh. “I know, I nearly shit myself the first time I did it. But I swear, it gets results.”

“Wow. Max won’t believe this,” Charlie says shaking his head and reaching for his coffee.

“Oh hell no! This is bachelor party talk. He made his choice when he when to the spa with the girls, this stays between us.”

Charlie holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. I won’t say a word. But you know they’ll be discussing it right now. Liv tells Max everything.”

“This is one twisted little circle we have got ourselves here,” Scott mutters.

“Yeah, I think we went past twisted around Tuesday. There’s no word for the place we are now.” I joke, looking at Scott, still waiting for some sign that he’s not fine with the whole my-sperm-inside-his-wife-thing.

“I think it’s one of those situations where we have to agree that the details stay between us, I mean it works, but I doubt anyone would understand.”

“We’re not, like, gang-banging here!” I reply.

Charlie laughs, “No, but come on, there’s you and Liv, right. You both have these questionably close friendships with members of the opposite sex. Just about everyone already accepts that. But here we are in Vegas, getting you secretly married because the first one was a fake, you’ve knocked your bride up already. Then you, hopefully, get your best friend pregnant while on your honeymoon. Now there is talk of Liv helping us if we want kids. People are going to think there’s some bed swapping going on. ”

“I don’t care what anyone thinks, it is what it is. I’m happy.” I watch the pool for a moment, reflecting on how utterly inadequate the words ‘I’m happy’ actually are. I’m complete, alive, ecstatic, delirious, content, excited, relaxed, overwhelmed and most of all deeply in love. Is there a word for that? Happy is a piss poor excuse if that is all there is. I shrug, with all that in my life, people can think what they like. They can’t touch us. “So, what do we have planned?”

“We finish breakfast,” says Scott. “Then we hit a strip joint.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

Charlie groans and throws his head back, although I get the sense that he would tolerate it for the sake of the group. But I screw up my nose.

“I’m kidding! I’m not telling you what we have planned. Drink up.” He grins.

“Easy, it’s bad enough you are making me eat breakfast without Liv, now I’m on the clock?” I knock back the rest of my coffee, wishing secretly I could have gone to the spa.

“This is your bachelor party, suck it up. Tonight you’ll be married, this is your last stand,” Scott moans.

“I’ve been married for two weeks,” I remind him. God, if he keeps mentioning it, I’m going to kill him. I can’t wait to get this paperwork straight to shut him up.

“Whatever, come on let’s go.”

When I get back to the room its 4pm. Liv is drying her hair wearing a hotel robe and doesn’t hear me come in. I watch her from the doorway to the bathroom. She’s just beautiful. I could watch her all day. She looks up and shuts off the dryer.

“Hi, I didn’t hear you come in,” she says smiling sweetly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” I step over to her and wrap my arms around her. We both face the mirror and look in each other’s eyes. I kiss behind her ear. “How was your day? You smell fantastic.”

“My day was very relaxing thanks. How about yours?”

“I wouldn’t say it was relaxing, but it was awesome! We went to the Speedway, took a tour and got to drive some fast cars. Then we stopped in at the Shelby HQ for a tour. Honestly, you should have seen some of the cars, Liv; it was a great day.”

“I can see you enjoyed it.” She grins and kisses me on the forehead. “You look like you did when your dad gave you that BMX when you were eight.”

I laugh, I love that she knows that much of my life. “I feel like an eight year old.” I agree. “I’d better shower and get ready.” I turn on the shower and Liv finishes her hair. Then we help each other get dressed. She straightens my tie and I zip up her dress.

“You should leave the jacket,” she says. “It’s way too hot. But here…” She turns back the cuffs of my dress shirt in wide neat folds until they are just above my elbows and then she buttons my vest. Then she steps back to appraise me. I put my hands in my pockets, self-conscious with her eyes on me.

“Do I pass?”

“Pass? You look perfect. I might make us fashionably late.” She purrs running her hands around to my back and pulling me tight.

“No you won’t, not for this, I need to get this done, it’s been driving me crazy.” I admit.

“Okay.” She laughs. “Come on then.”

I grab my wallet and shades and take her hand, lacing her fingers between mine. I stop and look at her. “You are perfect, you know that? I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I hold the door open for her and she walks through still holding my hand tight. We stay like that, firmly connected while we knock for Max and Charlie, and then Jen and Scott. We ride in the lift and I lead her proudly through the lobby, wanting everyone to see how beautiful she is and that I’m the lucky guy she’s marrying. We don’t let go while we climb into the waiting limo and we’re still holding hands when the limo arrives at The Chapel of the Flowers.

We fill out the papers and choose Liv a small bouquet from the flower shop, then we walk around to the cute white Victorian Chapel. While we wait for a few minutes, we’re quiet as a group. I watch our friends. Following our lead, they’re all holding hands. Jen and Scott sit on a leather couch in the marble reception and Jen is speaking softly to Scott, while he strokes his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand. She giggles at his reply. It makes me happy to see them like this despite the stress they have gone through recently.

Charlie and Max are standing by the window. Max lifts their intertwined hands to his lips and kisses Charlie’s fingers. Charlie smiles shyly and smoothes Max’s collar. Max smiles. They’re so different at home than they seem separately and in moments like this, amongst friends, they can be so tender. I’m grateful for my time living with them so that I could really get to know them. I hope Liv and I are as happy after six years together.

Liv squeezes my hand. “Nervous?” she asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “Happy.” I kiss her on the cheek as she just reapplied the gloss that makes me want to get messy.

“We’re ready for you now,” says a lady from the doorway. We walk in as a group and Liv and I don’t let go of each other once until the minister asks us to place rings on each other’s fingers. Then we go right back to holding hands. It’s a simple ceremony, because I still want our wedding two weeks ago to be the real one in our memories. This is just a renewal to me.

We have some photos taken outside, it was part of the package, like the flowers. But aside from the included extras, we don’t really want all the Vegas crap added on. I chose this place because it wasn’t tacky. It’s still Vegas, but it’s nice.

“Thank you,” Liv whispers while we pose with our friends for a shot with Jen’s camera.

“Anytime.” I smile. “Mrs Morgan.”

The limo is waiting when we’re all done and we hit the town. Dinner, Chinese at Liv’s request, was amazing, thanks to Scott’s insider knowledge. I parade Liv around in her dress, showing her off like I just won the grand prize. We get a few congratulations from strangers and each one lifts me slightly higher. We wander through the casino back at the Bellagio and decide to have celebratory game or two. Then it happens. I find out something about my wife that I never knew.

My. Girl. Plays. Poker.

“What are you doing to me?” I whisper in her ear.

“What?” She looks puzzled.

“Poker? You’re killing me. Do you have any idea how hot that is? I’m in enough trouble around you already.” I shake my head.

“We play at the bar sometimes, Connie taught me.”

Can she get any more perfect? Not only that but she and Max are good. In the end, us lesser mortals give up trying and gather around them at a table. She’s something to watch. Does she go around doing stuff like learning how to play poker, just to make herself more irresistible to me? She must. I’m literally hard. I already have enough trouble with the mental image of her behind the wheel of the Shelby, now I have to have her at a poker table at the Bellagio wearing her wedding dress rolling around in my head too. I won’t get anything done!

Then she does something only a woman could do, she quits while she’s ahead and walks away $600 up.

“I have to have you right now!” I tell her as I scoop her into my arms.

Laughing, she pouts. “But I want to dance.”

I sigh. “Seriously, you’re going to be the end of me. You think I can go rub myself up against you when I already feel like this?” I settle her down and pull her tight so she can feel the extent of my predicament.

She smirks and presses in. “You’ll survive. Besides, anticipation is half the fun.”

“Jesus,” I mutter and follow her to cash in her chips.

We end up at The Bank, the club inside the Bellagio and Liv drags me straight out onto the dance floor. This is another experience I’ve yet to have with her. We danced at our wedding and a couple of times when there was live music in the bar. But we have never been to a club together. Our friends join us and it’s clear that we both have the same setup with our friends. Scott doesn’t dance and Jen loves it, so I was usually her dance partner. It seems like Max and Liv dance and Charlie doesn’t so much. Well tonight everyone makes an effort. Before long Charlie and Scott head to the bar, leaving Liv to torture me and Max to more than adequately partner Jen.

Liv can move. I mean it was obvious. She is unbelievable at everything else and I’ve seen her move her body in countless other ways. How could she be bad? But I’m in serious trouble, like the elevator last night but with about a thousand more witnesses. She faces away from me, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe. She backs all the way up against me and the rhythm she is keeping with her hips ensures I don’t get a break.

When I see that Scott and Charlie have secured a small table near the dance floor, I suggest we go cool down. I signal to Jen and she grabs Max and follows. They’ve got beers and cocktails waiting.

“Those had better be virgins,” Liv shouts to Scott.

“Well you sure as hell ain’t sweetheart!” he jokes.

Liv laughs, but clocks him in the arm anyway. She grins as she takes a gulp of her virgin daiquiri and winks at me. Seriously? How long do I have to put up with this shit before I can take her upstairs? I have maybe thirty minutes left in me and that’s it. After that I can’t be held accountable for my actions. After a quick pit stop, the girls drag Max and I back out onto the floor.

Liv turns and wraps her arms around my neck, looking in my eyes as she moves. We can’t talk, it’s too loud, but she says everything she wants to in that look.

I love you too, baby, you’re everything to me.