Chapter 13: Morning-After Near-Catch

Dawn bled pale gold through the basement window slats at six a.m., turning the old couch into a hazy nest of tangled limbs and warm skin. I lay spooned naked against Derek’s chest, his arm heavy across my waist, one leg hooked over mine so his softening cock nestled slick and warm between my cheeks. The championship high still thrummed in my veins—his cum from the basement ride still seeping slow and sticky down my inner thigh onto the cushion, the blackmail video saved on his phone like a loaded gun we both pretended wasn’t there. My sundress lay crumpled on the concrete floor beside his jersey, the one I’d pulled over my bare shoulders sometime after midnight when the party noise finally faded upstairs.

His breathing was steady against my neck, but mine wasn’t. The pregnancy test hidden upstairs, Ethan’s glowing smile last night, the ex’s furious exit—all of it crashed over me in the quiet. Tears slipped hot and silent down my temples before I could stop them. A broken sob caught in my throat. Derek stirred instantly, tightening his hold, lips brushing my ear. “Hey ... talk to me, Mommy.”

I turned in his arms, face buried against his chest, voice cracking raw. “I’m destroying everything. Ethan almost caught us last night and he still said I looked happy. He wants me to be happy. And here I am letting you claim me in his own house while your ex screams the truth loud enough for the whole block to hear.” Fresh sobs shook me. He rolled me gently onto my back, hovering above, eyes soft in the half-light. His fingers traced my jaw, thumb catching a tear.

You already know about my dad leaving when I was fifteen,’ he said quietly, voice cracking the same way it had in the hotel. ‘You’re the first person who ever made me feel like I didn’t have to carry that alone.’