The Tiger's Baby: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance (4 page)

Kristen’s heart was beating faster now, and it pounded against her ribs. Unconsciously, she drew her hand to her breast and tried to slow it, but to no avail. She felt a latent desire begin to ebb and flow inside her and opened her mouth. “I think I’m beginning to,” she said, and touched his hand.

Another silence hung, suspended on a word. The sound of the coffee machine began to burble, steam issued from the top. Rodney dropped his eyes and made to attend to it, but as he lifted himself from the couch Kristen reached out and tugged at his wrist.

“Don’t go,” she said, barely a whisper.

CHAPTER THREE

Gently, she pulled him back down to her, and Rodney kissed her. Kristen felt the couch press up against her back as she was flattened into it and brought her own hand up to caress his cheek. He was a passionate kisser, and she closed her eyes and let him have her, relishing the feel of his lips brush against hers, working in a kind of rhythmic pulse.

“Rodney,” she murmured, pulling away, but he continued to kiss her, moving down her neck and nibbling at the almost translucent skin. She let out a little moan of surprise and wrapped her fingers into his hair as he worked with infinite care, touching every part of her with his lips. He went across her shoulder blade, and she felt the strap of her dress tumble down her arm. “Rodney,” she repeated, this time it was like a coo.

“Is this… okay?” he whispered back. His hand had found her waist and was resting on the parabola of her hip. “I can go… slower. I’m sorry, I-”

“Kiss me again,” she stated flatly.

He did, and she lifted her head back, opening her mouth wider as he leaned into her and his tongue pressed against her lips, eager to taste. She let him, moaning into his mouth, even as her own fingers blindly scrambled to unbutton his shirt. He drove his tongue hard against her, and she fought back, wrestling with her own wet organ, until the two of them were locked in a passionate embrace, one neither of them could escape from.

Kristen reached up, scratching her fingers over his torso, and found his muscles hard and rigid with the work of years. His chest hair tickled her palms, and she found herself caressing his abdomen, reveling in the sculpted rise and fall of the flesh she found there.

“You’re… stronger than you look,” she said, wondering if it was a compliment.

“And you’re more beautiful than you pretend not to be,” he flashed back.

He kissed her again, but this time his hand moved up her waist and braced itself at the bottom of her small breasts. She reached down, pulling his fingers upward so that he was cupping her left breast, and he began to knead it in a circular motion.

With one strap already down, the green dress had begun to fall further, and Rodney was drawn ever downward. Kristen let out another little gasp as his tongue trailed over the tops of her breasts. With an almost teasing slowness he pulled the lip of the dress down further, further, until it was barely balanced on the perch of both nipples. Her cleavage heaved back at him, and he licked the dark space between them, causing her to flatten her back and push her chest out at him.

She looked down as he pulled the dress off her nipples, and exhaled. Her small pink nipples beamed with a youthful exuberance, and it was almost too much for him. He planted his lips over one breast, sucking hard until she reached behind his neck and held his head against her. His other hand massaged the other nipple between the V of his middle and pointer finger. It hardened under his touch, rising to meet a singular desire that passed between them.

“Uhh, Rodney,” she murmured.

He stopped for a moment, his hand still firmly clutching her breast, and brushed her cheek with his other hand. They held each other’s gazes for a moment, hazel mingling with a verdant green, and she merely nodded, as if giving him permission.

Gently, he pushed her down onto the couch so that her head was propped against one end. The green dress had rode up on her thighs almost all the way, and Rodney saw she was wearing her blue panties again. Kristen didn’t need to look between her legs to know that she was aroused, or that a dark spot had formed on her groin.

Rodney said very little as he bent down, unbuckling his own jeans and scrambling out of them. His member throbbed tightly against the black briefs, and she opened her legs wider, letting him slide between them as he kissed her again. She lifted one knee, and almost jerked with the sensation of his bulge rubbing against the fabric of her panties.

His hand moved lower and scooted the green fabric of the dress up higher. Kristen felt entirely exposed now, but the feel of his warm naked torso against her breasts was a special kind of ecstasy she could scarcely ignore. She kissed him back, gyrating her hips against him even as he matched her movements. She tried to flatten herself against the couch underneath her, and found if she timed it correctly she could push her pelvis upward at the right moment so that Rodney’s member skidded across her clitoris.

“Unnnh, god,” she said, feeling a trembling spasm course through her body. Rodney reached under one leg, pulling it up higher so he could better grind against her. Their dry-humping had become a sweaty tangle of limbs, awkward and desperate, and she closed her eyes and grit her teeth. “Uhn, do you want to have sex?” she whispered at last.

Rodney gave a single nod.

He pulled his boxers further down, kicking them off onto the floor. She looked down and saw his penis fully flared and engorged. The purple head had pulled free of its foreskin, and was glimmering with an anticipatory wetness. She reached down, clutching the veined sex in one hand, and shivered at the thought of it moving into her. With care she stroked it, and took pleasure in watching Rodney close his eyes and submit to her own caress. She gave it another gentle squeeze, and felt a clear liquid drool over her wrist.

Some inner passion erupted in her, and she recognized it as the Tiger. A kind of intractable fieriness that hated to be chained – and when she left the cage open to it, as she had done by lowering her defenses to Rodney, then it would take the opportunity to express itself. Almost against her will, she growled and gave him a pleading snarl.

Rodney opened his eyes and a steely accord hardened in his eyes as he reached down, cupping her groin and rubbing upward. “Yes, unnnh, like that… I like it when you do
that
,” she said, craning her waist toward him. Her panties were almost totally soaked through, and Rodney pulled his hand away and found it slick with her juices. “Fuck me, Rodney,” she whined, closing her eyes, and her hands balled into fists as she gripped at the fabric of the couch.

Rodney bent lower and took his penis in his own hand. With the other he pulled aside the fabric of her blue panties. Her vulva was wide and gleaming with pre-cum, and he nudged the head of his sex against the pink folds of her vagina.

It was enough to bring Kristen temporarily out of her reverie. Her eyes went wide, and she grunted, stifling her breath as he plied apart the fleshy folds. When he touched the entrance of her vagina she stiffened again, as if in pain, but her mouth was open in a silent plea for him to enter her. With little effort he nudged again, and saw the head of his penis disappear into her.

“Oh, fuck!” she said, tightening her hands on the couch.

He moved deeper, growing harder and thicker as he entered, and let out a sigh of his own as he tried to keep from coming immediately. The muscles of her vagina tightened and untightened against her will as she tried to loosen them enough for him to enter her all the way.

When he did, she merely hummed and tilted her head back. Her black hair cascaded down the pillows behind her, and he leaned down and kissed her neck again, moving slowly at first, his buttocks flexing as he pushed in and out. Kristen groaned, an almost childish sound escaping her lips, as she wrapped her arms around his back and lifted her legs up higher, allowing him better access.

The soft wet sounds of their sexes mingling and crushing became a symphony, accompanied only by the rapacious shudders or moans of desire that emanated from both. Sweat speckled Kristen’s forehead as he began to fuck her harder, and she wrapped both legs around him. She felt ready to explode, and her nails cut into his back.

“Unnng, fuck, fuck,” she wailed.

“Don’t come yet,” he said, plunging into her again and again.

His hand came up and rubbed her breast, and she felt like every nerve of her body was coming undone, being given its own attention. It was almost unbearable, and she wondered if she would not lose consciousness. She held on for dear life as Rodney continued to penetrate her, and only dared to look down between both of their chests once. Her black pubic hair was moist and lathered with white foam, and she fought the urge to come when she saw his giant member moving like a piston, pulling itself in and out of her small vagina.

“I can’t.. oh fuck, I’m-I’m coming, Rodney!” she bellowed at last.

Her vagina tightened around his penis and she clung to him like a chimpanzee. Her pelvis butted against him, forcing his penis even further up into her. At the same time Rodney’s orgasm hit like a white flash of lightning inside her. It felt as if a sun had been born inside her and she let out a scream which was half pleasure and half pain as the searing liquid splashed against her insides, filling her, squirting out between her vagina and his penis which was still rigid inside her.

Rodney held her as the seizures overtook her and she sobbed, feeling the muscles in her legs shudder and cramp with the force of her climax. She was still sobbing almost a minute later when the orgasm had exhausted itself and only the occasional flicker of her abdomen remained. Tenderly, he leaned over on his side so he was facing her. His penis, half-flaccid, slipped out of her and she reached down and held a splayed hand over her vulva.

The small tuft of her pubic mound was slicked back, and she felt the hot pressure of her own passion subsiding. Both of them were damp with sweat and lovemaking, and her inner thighs were sticky with his semen, which had coated everything. She rubbed herself, pressing a finger deep inside, and felt another small stream of his seed leak out from between the folds of her inflamed labia.

Rodney touched her cheek and brushed a lock of black damp hair out of her eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“You ask that a lot, don’t you?” she said, pulling her fingers out of her and drawing a wet line like a snail’s path up her abdomen and between her breasts. “I… I’ve never had… sex like that. I’ve never come… so hard.”

“Me neither,” he admitted.

“I can still feel you… unhh… inside me,” Kristen breathed, panting.             

Rodney smiled and pulled her closer, and she wrapped a white leg over top of him, settling her waist against his. She had never imagined what it would be like, to make love with the intention of getting pregnant. All of her former lovers had never reached the same level of intimacy, but this, this was different. Absently, she pulled the panties the rest of the way down and over her ankles, and let them fall with a wet slap on the wooden floor.

“Hold me,” she whispered softly, her round ass jutting against him as she turned so that they were spooning each other. Rodney quietly laid a hand over her waist, and she guided it over her navel with her own hand. Almost on cue, the candle he had lit on the far fireplace dwindled, and she let herself close her eyes.

For the moment, she didn’t let herself worry about anything. It was enough simply to exist, here and now, in his arms. She would have to take tests of course, but she had a feeling – something she couldn’t explain, except as a sort of extra-sensory perception – that somehow a new life had begun tonight. Her own hand touched the space between her navel and pubis, and she smiled.

A new life
, she thought bravely.

Something she had desired for so long had finally come true.

CHAPTER FOUR

“It says I have to wait five minutes,” Kristen said, emerging from the washroom, and held the small little blue stick in her left hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger.

Gloria was seated at the kitchen table, and had an eager look on her face. Kristen was surprised at how easily her friend had adapted to Nelson – she now had a circle of her own friends, attended the daily markets, and had even started to sport the colorful hand-made DIY clothes that seemed common to the small hippie town. She’d even found a temporary job as a cashier at one of the local alternative bookstores.
Very different from the straight laced style-connoisseur from Seattle
, Kristen observed. While the changes in Gloria were self-evident, she wondered if she herself had undergone some sort of change since coming here.

“Five minutes!? What are they trying to do, give us hysterics? I swear, if I were smarter, I would invent a pregnancy test that was immediate. I mean how difficult can it be?”

“Four minutes,” Kristen said, setting the test on the table. She crossed her arms and began to pace.

“Stop doing that. You’ll wear a hole in the floor if you’re not careful. Here, sit down, I’ll make you some tea instead. Mint, okay? I’ll make it strong,” Gloria offered, standing up and going to boil some water. That was another change, she seemed obsessed with tea these days, but Kristen could hardly argue. Every time she came home from work, there was always a hot beverage waiting for her.

“I can’t help it. I mean, I’m almost positive, but… but what if it didn’t work?”

“I’m just glad you two finally got down to
business
,” Gloria muttered, “took you long enough. If it was me, I’d have laid and made that handsome little paramedic on day one.”

“You’d lay just about anything,” Kristen said, and tapped her fingers on the table.

Rodney’s story about his sister, and about how even Shifter’s could suffer from infertility, had haunted her since he’d told her. And in a way, her own hypochondriac tendencies had caused her to wonder if she didn’t suffer from a similar affliction.

“Knock it off, girl!” Gloria said, but without any sting. Kristen stopped tapping. “Three minutes now… pick up that newspaper. Read to me. That’ll keep us occupied for the next couple of minutes, and keep me from strangling you.”

Kristen stuck out her tongue, but obliged by reaching for the newspaper. “Fine. Uh, lets see. Ah, great, perfect headline, Gloria. More Dead Animals Found On North Shore,” she read. “Geez, looks like a mess. I think Dave wrote this. Ugh.”

Gloria set a cup of hot tea down beside her friend. “You know, I was talking about that with some of my friends at work. They say this has happened before, you know, a rash of animal killings. They say all the animals are just simply killed, not even eaten, like whatever’s doing it just does it for the pleasure.”

“Rodney mentioned something about this the first day… he said the cops wanted him to check it out. I never asked him about it though…”

“Thing is,” Gloria made a
humph
sound as she sat down and slurped at her own tea, “ow, hot, geezus. Erm. Anyway, thing is, they’re not sure what’s doing it. The wounds look like a bear or something, but it’s not consistent. If they had to guess, they’d say cougar. But the wounds, at least that’s what Alicia says, she remembers the last time this happened, oh fifteen years ago or so… what was I saying? Oh yeah, the wounds are too big to be a cougar.”

It was all too much, and not really engaging her attention. Kristen was still focused on the small blue stick at the far end of the table. “Done, done… we’re up, right? Ugh, tell me what it says.”

She lowered her head into her hands, too afraid to look up. Gloria waddled to the far end of the table and picked it up. Her face was a completely stoic expression. Kristen made a mental note never to play poker with her.

“Well? Well!?”

“Thing is,” Gloria said, her intonation lowering, and her eyes became downcast as she pursed her lips, “I’ve always wanted to be an aunt!”

The news was like a hammer. It struck Kristen right between the eyes, and she felt the reverberation of it signal all the way down her spine to her heart, where it suddenly resonated. Her limbs felt like jelly, and for several moments she couldn’t even move. It wasn’t until Gloria tugged on her shirt and lifted her off the chair that the reality of it hit home.

“I’m… I’m pregnant?”

“Read it and weep!” Gloria said with an excited flair, shoving the pregnancy test in Kristen’s face. It was positive. “I mean, don’t weep, unless you want to, but… you’re pregnant, hey!”

Gloria jumped up and down, gripping both of Kristen’s wrists, and laughed uproariously. Kristen smiled, and it took over her face, inhabiting every muscle. She began to jump up and down with Gloria, and suddenly her eyes felt wet and she couldn’t stop crying. It started out innocently, and in seconds she was sobbing again through her smile.

She reached out and wrapped her arms around Gloria’s neck and held her friend tightly. “I can’t believe it… I can’t….”

“Believe it, beautiful,” Gloria said.

“I-I have to go tell Rodney!” she said, almost sprinting for the door, but somehow Gloria was faster and skidded on the tiles to block her. “Hey, what… what are you doing? Gloria, it worked… I’m going to have a child.”

“Yes,” Gloria said, but all the joy had suddenly evaporated from her frowning face, “but just hold on a second. I’ve been avoiding bringing this up, because… well, quite frankly, you looked happy and who am I to question that or get in the way of it? I don’t have that right… but I need to ask, Kristen.”

“Ask what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You said it yourself when we first got here. That you wanted to take it slow, which I admit was a good thing. But… but what do you intend to do, now that you are pregnant?”

The question opened up a vacuum for her, and Kristen swallowed and sat back down at the table. The tea was still hot, and she pored over it as she circulated the cup in her hands. What had she planned to do, once she got pregnant? Go back to the Enclave? That was the obvious choice even though it had become a sort of unspoken fact she had taken for granted.
But what about Rodney?

Gloria seemed to anticipate the flux of questions unleashed in her mind, and breathed out slowly through her nose. “So you haven’t really thought that far ahead, have you?”

I never do
, Kristen though shamefully again,
I’m always reckless like this
. “I… I don’t know, Gloria. I mean, I guess, I always suspected that… that we would return, y’know?”

“Is that what you want to do, now?” she asked, and when Kristen couldn’t answer, she asked a different question. “Listen, honey, you know me. I’ll follow you anywhere. I’m your sister, in all but blood. Don’t worry about me when making this decision but you obviously have to ask yourself: what is Rodney to you, now? I warned you about getting too close…”

“You wanted this to be an
actual
business transaction,” Kristen said accusingly.

Gloria gave her a smile that could well have been the sort of expression a knowing parent gives to a petulant child, and it hurt Kristen even more deeply. “No, sweetie. I wanted what was best for you, to make sure you didn’t get hurt. All I’m here to do is offer my advice, to point out the consequences, the possibilities. You’re the one that has to make the choices,” she said resolutely, “and live with them. I knew that if you got too close to Rodney, if this became too, geez, I can’t believe I’m saying this… if this became too
human
, it would be difficult.

“When emotions get involved, especially where children are concerned, it complicates things. I’ve seen the way you act around Rodney, the way you talk about him, the way you daydream when you think I’m not watching. I’m not here to dictate how you actually feel about him, but the question remains. How
do
you feel about him?”

“I’m afraid to answer that,” Kristen said, and sipped at the tea. It was almost lukewarm now. Outside, the leaves had reached their full pinnacle of color, and some were beginning to droop and litter the roadsides in yellow piles. “I care about him. I do. And I know whatever decision I make, he’ll be okay with it… but that’s not the point anymore.”

“What is the point?” Gloria asked pointedly.

“I thought this was all about me. I was prepared for this to be all about me. But it isn’t anymore. As much as I wish I could just reproduce asexually, it doesn’t work that way. This baby, it’s part of Rodney as well. I don’t feel I have the right to take it away from him.”

“That doesn’t answer how
you
feel about him,” Gloria said, “but, we’ll leave that for the moment. The next question is: do you think he even
wants
to be a part of the child’s life?”

Kristen stood up and took her jacket off the rack. Without a word she zipped it up and tied her shoes, and this time Gloria didn’t stand in her way. At the door she finally turned, maybe it was the effect of realizing she was pregnant, maybe it was a lot of things, but suddenly she felt a clarity wind its way through her. It wasn’t confidence – she didn’t think she’d ever be able to use that adjective to describe herself. But it was as if certain parts of her life had fallen into place, some proverbial existential Tetris game, and the last piece had somehow come into focus, and fit perfectly where it should.

“Only one way to find out,” she gave a brusque nod, and closed the door behind her.

As she walked down the steep roads toward main street and toward the first café where they’d met, she sent a quick message to Rodney on her cellphone and slipped it back into her pocket. She breathed in the deep scent of the maples. The slow revolving of the seasons seemed to echo the movement of her life, an inexorable cycle.
In life you can make choices
, she thought
, but there are other things, other events, other forces, that you have no control over… all you can do is hold on
.

It occurred to her that this way of thinking, a sort of laidback acceptance of things beyond her scope, was in fact something that had changed in her since moving to Nelson. People here had a slower pace of life, and didn’t get caught up on the small hitches that confronted them. It seemed like a more libertarian way of living, less stressful – even her job at the local newspaper was degrees less strenuous, and there was plenty of room for her to exercise her own creative processes.
A good place for a child to grow up
, she thought against her will, and lambasted herself for thinking it at all.  What about the Enclave? Was she willing to give up the only home she had ever known, in order to stay here?

“I’ll take two mochas, Jen, thanks,” she said to the barista behind the coffee bar.

“Coming right up, K,” the dread-locked woman replied, “my, you look radiant today! Normally, at this time of year, right in between summer and skiing season, folks are grumpy. What's got you in such a great mood?”

“I really can’t say,” Kristen lied.
I only just found out I’m pregnant, is it that obvious to others?

“Well, as a thank you for bringing a smile in here, I’ll give you second mocha free. Not a lot of business this morning anyway, so the boss isn’t around. Just keep it between us.”

The café, Oso Negro, was a charming little artistic residence. Local artists had their paintings on the wall, and there was even a small garden behind the shop with herbs and local flowers. Most of them had died and withered by now, but it was still a safe little enclosure of nature that she enjoyed, despite the growing cold. She zipped up the collar on her jacket tighter, and the flection of the burgundy leather squealed.

“That for me?”

She turned and saw Rodney. “How do you that?”

He took a seat beside her on the cold stone bench and breathed into his hands. “Sneak up on you? It’s pretty easy… I’m a Tiger.”

“So am I,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but I’ve had more practice,” he winked. “What’s the big news, I came as soon as I saw your text. Just got off shift, so I’m totally free this time – no interruptions.” He held up his pager as evidence and flipped off the switch.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were on a call…” she started, “nothing too serious?”

He squirmed uncomfortably. “Just more…” he stopped, “no, no nothing. It’s fine. I’m glad for the distraction actually, heh. So what is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost or something?”

Maybe I really am that easy to read
, she sighed, and brought both hands up to her face to massage the tension out of them. She felt Rodney’s hands slip out and touch her shoulder, and took in a deep breath.

“I’m pregnant,” she said at last. She had hoped that getting it off her chest would somehow alleviate the uncertainty she felt, but it only served to increase her tenuous grip on her emotions. Rodney did his best to hide his own. His face went through a transition of different expressions, and she could barely keep up with them.
Joy? Anger? Sadness?
It was impossible to tell. “Please say something,” she said after he had failed to speak up.

“I… I’m sorry, it’s just,” he rubbed his head, “I guess this is what you wanted right? What you’ve been working towards. It’s just big news… but I’m happy, Kristen! Really. Just surprised – I don’t know why I should be.”