The ache in the wanting

Pregnancy had done strange things to my body—aching breasts, mood swings, the constant tight pull low in my belly. But what no one really warned me about was the hunger. Not for food. For him. For the way Doc made me feel when his hands weren’t gentle. When he stopped worshipping and started possessing.

I tried to fight it at first. I told myself it was hormones, that it would pass. But one night, lying next to him while he read a dog-eared journal article and absently rubbed my thigh, I snapped.

“Doc?”

“Mmhmm?” He didn’t look up, just kept tracing circles on my skin.

“I need something.”

He glanced at me then, finally seeing the tension in my jaw, the heat behind my eyes.

“What kind of something?”

“I need you to… fuck me,” I said, voice trembling. “Not make love. Not slow. Just… take me. Hard.”

He blinked, set the journal down, and turned fully toward me. “Andy…”

“I know,” I rushed to say. “I know it sounds crazy. I know I’m pregnant, I know my body’s different, and you’re probably terrified you’ll hurt me but—”

His mouth was on mine before I could finish. Not soft. Not sweet. Devouring. Claiming.

“Don’t you dare apologize for wanting that,” he growled into my neck. “You think I don’t lie here every night imagining what it’d be like to see you come apart like that beneath me?”

“Then do it,” I hissed. “Don’t hold back tonight.”

He didn’t.

He threw the blanket off and yanked my shirt over my head, his hands immediately finding my swollen breasts, thumbing my nipples until I gasped. “So sensitive now,” he murmured, kissing down the valley of my chest. “Everything about you is fuller. Softer. Mine.”

His words lit something fire-hot in my belly.

When he flipped me onto my stomach, I arched, offered myself without shame. “Please,” I whispered. “Don’t be gentle.”

Doc growled something feral and shoved my hips up with one hand while freeing himself with the other. He didn’t waste time. No teasing. No easing in. He drove into me in one rough, glorious thrust that made me cry out into the pillow.

“You feel this?” he panted, thrusting again, deeper. “This is how I need you.”

“Yes, Doc—fuck—don’t stop.”

The rhythm was hard and fast, his hand tangled in my hair, pulling me upright so my back pressed against his chest, his other hand splayed across my belly—his baby swelling just beneath it.

“I’m not hurting you?” he asked, his voice strained.

“No,” I moaned, grinding back against him. “You’re reminding me I’m alive.”

That undid him.

He drove into me harder, his hands everywhere—on my throat, down between my legs, over my hips. Every thrust felt like punishment and praise, like he was loving the pieces of me I didn’t know still needed healing.

We collapsed after, sweaty and panting, bodies trembling from the force of it.

He turned me to face him, eyes soft now. “You okay?”

I nodded, eyes wet but not from pain. “Better than okay.”

“You scare the hell out of me when you ask for that,” he said, brushing a damp curl from my face. “But I’ll always give it to you. As long as you’re sure. As long as it’s what you want.”

“I want you,” I whispered. “However you’ll have me.”

His hands rested on my belly. “I want all of you. The wild, the soft, the broken, the rebuilding.”

“I’m yours,” I said, pressing my lips to his.

And this time, when he touched me again—it was gentle.

The kind of gentle that only comes after the storm.