Gloria's Forever (Gloria Book 3) (7 page)

“What are you doing?” I scream out, breaking away.

A cocky smile plays on his contemplative face. “I’m going devour every bit of you, sweet angel.”

“Don’t you want some more of the Prosecco?”

He licks his glistening lips. “No, baby. I’m already drunk with love.”

In a heartbeat, his talented tongue is scrolling down my body, sensuously savoring every bit of the liquid. He starts at the hypersensitive crook of my neck and languidly slides it down to the valley between my engorged breasts, lapping and licking. He flicks my nipples, hardening them further. I let out a loud sigh. It feels so divine. The small of my back arches, and between my upper thighs, a barrage of sparks is set off. Some of the Prosecco has gathered in the pit of my navel. Jaime’s warm velvety tongue dips into it and laps at it. The fire between my legs intensifies at the squishy erotic sound. I moan again this time louder, my navel, with its lifelines to Paulette and Payton, more sensitive than ever.

His tongue continues to travel down to my center where the sparkling wine has dripped. He licks and laps, swirls and twirls, and then it stays on my clit. Flicking and licking. Oh. My. God. My arousal is more than I can bear. I curl my fingers around this hot, pulsing girth and nudge it against my hungry opening. My harsh, heated breaths sound in my ears.

“Do you want me to fuck you, angel?”

“Oh, yes. Please!”
Please, please, please!
I’m practically in tears.

He smiles seductively. The Tuscan sun dances across his face. Lust shines in his sapphire eyes.

Spreading my legs wider, he spears inside me and fills me to the hilt.

We groan simultaneously as I clench my muscles around him. He begins to pummel me. First slowly to gauge me. Then faster and harder. I fist his hair to hold on. He’s taking me to the edge.

“Fuck.
You
are my truffle, Mrs. Zander,” he grunts into my ear.

So close to coming, I don’t care what he calls me in my cloud of passion.

“Tell me when you’re going to come.”

In a mere breath, I combust. Flames of ecstasy sweep through me. A wildfire. Its path consuming me and taking every cell in its wake.

“I’m coming…”

“Someone’s coming…”

The sound of Jaime’s excited voice cuts the beautiful memory short and brings my mind back to the moment. My new reality.

Gloria

M
y eyes snapped open. Coming out of my orgasmic flashback, it took me a moment to remember where I was. What was happening.

Jaime’s blue eyes were as round as two marbles. “Angel, I see a baby’s head!”

Weakly, I glanced down between my legs. I started sobbing with joy. “Oh, Jaime!”

“Push again,” urged the officer, kneeling next to us.

Using every ounce of strength I could muster, I grunted again and gave another forceful push.
Uggggggggh!

On the next harsh breath, I heard a piercing wail, and on one more, a tiny blood-streaked lifeform was in the officer’s large hands. Loud applause broke out among the crowd gathered around us. Quirking the tiniest of smiles, I kept my heavy-lidded eyes on the beaming uniformed man as he handed the infant to Jaime. My darling looked as if he’d at once seen a ghost and seen God, the expression on his face a mixture of fear and awe. I wanted so badly to run my fingers along his jaw. Exhausted, I just didn’t have the strength.

“Gloria, it’s Paulette.” His voice was almost tearful. “She’s beautiful. She has your lips and hair.”

I was a speechless, sweating, blubbering mess. Dazed and wasted, I eyed the little bundle of joy, her sweet rosebud lips puckering as she wailed. Our beautiful little girl. My heart swelled with emotion. Finally, one little word tumbled out of my mouth. “Oh!”

Bending down, the kind Chanel manager gently washed our wailing newborn and then swathed her in the pink cashmere shawl. “Your husband is right. She is one beautiful baby.” She gently handed the baby back to Jaime who planted a tender kiss on her porcelain forehead. My eyes clicked open and shut like the shutter of a camera, taking a mental snapshot of this heart-melting moment that would stay with me forever.

I was bursting with love. Oh, how I longed to hold her in my arms, but an intense shooting pain unexpectedly ripped through my core. I winced and quivered. Another baby was on his way. Our Payton. I pushed with another loud grunt, but I felt no movement. I pushed again. Still nada. Panic gripped me. Why wasn’t he coming out? Gritting my teeth, I pushed again. Nothing. Only more agonizing pain.

My watering eyes bore into Jaime’s. Panic was written all over his face too. He knew.

I sobbed. “Baby, something’s wrong. Terribly wrong.”

Jaime

G
loria was right. Something was wrong, terribly fucking wrong. She was a trembling bundle of blood, sweat, and tears. Forcing myself to look down, I couldn’t believe how much blood she’d lost. The lining of my jacket was soaked red. And so was the edge of her white shirt. A shudder ran through me.

The lovely Chanel manager cupped her hand over her mouth. “Your wife, she’s bleeding heavily.”

The officer murmured, “Holy mother of God,” and bit his lip.

“Would you please hold our baby?” I asked the Chanel lady, not sure if I was begging or demanding.

“Of course,” she answered, gently taking our now peaceful Paulette back into her arms.

Right now, I needed to hold Gloria. My beloved angel.

She was sobbing uncontrollably. Gutting me.

“Hang in there, angel,” I said as she heaved in my arms. I kissed her everywhere I could.

“Payton,” she cried out.

“It’s okay, angel. We have a beautiful healthy baby.”

She wept. Nothing I could say could comfort her. Her body contorted with pain and endless tears poured down her face.

The cop did a Hail Mary. Securing Paulette in one arm, the Chanel lady followed suit. Never one to be religious, I silently prayed to God for a miracle.

Our prayers were answered. Just as the President passed by in his black Lincoln Navigator to raucous cheers, the barricade lifted; a siren roared in my ears. In a flash, an ambulance pulled up to us. A team of three paramedics jumped out of the vehicle.

They immediately examined Gloria who was losing blood by the handful.

“Twin B is in breech,” said the female paramedic.

“What do you mean?” I panicked.

“He’s in a transverse position. This happens often after the birth of Twin A.”

Our Payton. The athlete! I loved him and damned him at the same time. “What are we going to do?” My eyes bounced from my poor Gloria, who looked like all life had drained from her, to the paramedic whose expression was intense. She glanced down at my bloodstained jacket.

“We’re going to do a breech extraction: pull the baby out by his legs.”

The cop crossed his heart; the Chanel lady bit down on her lip, and some in the crowd folded their hands in prayer.

Before I could utter a word, the paramedic inserted her long-fingered hand into my Gloria, now delirious. I held my breath. And could hear my heart pounding. A few long minutes later, a miracle appeared. My son. Our son. Payton. He was wailing at the top of his lungs. I swear the little guy already had my don’t-fuck-with-me attitude. He was going to be one handsome cocky little devil. Just like his father.

Another paramedic, a young Latino, washed him off and then grabbed the blue cashmere shawl from the Chanel lady and wrapped him up. He was still wailing loudly.

“I think your wife has just given you one fine, healthy boy.”

“Gloria, did you hear that?” My smiling eyes connected with Gloria’s, except hers were rolling back in her head. My heart leapt into my throat.

“Gloria’s, what’s wrong?” Blood was still pouring out of her by the bucketful.

The female paramedic, her dark eyes wide with alarm, quickly took Gloria’s pulse. She bit down on her lip.

“Is my wife okay?” My voice wavered.

To my utter horror, Gloria, white as a ghost, began to convulse. “Gloria!”

“Your wife is hemorrhaging. She’s in hypovolemic shock.”

The next few minutes were a total frenzied blur. Surreal. For the second time in my life, I was in the back of an ambulance with my beloved angel…this time unconscious, strapped down on a gurney hooked up to IVs and wearing an oxygen mask. Her breathing was labored. Our beautiful babies slept peacefully in my arms. But my reality was an ugly nightmare. Gloria might die.

Jaime

D
r. Marcy Bernstein, Gloria’s gynecologist, met us at the entrance of the emergency entrance to Cedars. She was a handsome, dark-haired woman in her early forties, the sister of my best bud, Blake Burns. Several paramedics and nurses accompanied her. The pinched expression on her face told me she knew Gloria was in trouble.

“Move it, move it!” she shouted out as the paramedics swung open the ambulance doors and worked at breakneck speed to get Gloria out of the ambulance.

Everything happened so fast. A couple of nurses took the swaddled, still sleeping babies into their arms, telling me they were bringing them to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where they would be fully examined and fed. The thought that something could be wrong with Paulette and Payton never occurred to me, but now another dark cloud hung over my head.

“Are they okay?” The words raced out of my mouth.

“Don’t worry, sir,” replied one of the nurses as I jumped out of the ambulance. “They look healthy and beautiful. The NICU is where we take all preemies for a thorough examination.”

With a heavy sigh of relief, my attention returned to Gloria. The paramedics were hooking her up to a portable IV unit.

“Get her legs up,” ordered Marcy.

“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice frantic. My heart was thudding so loudly I could hear it.

“She’s probably torn her uterus,” she replied and then addressed the paramedics, who were still hurriedly hooking her up to various tubes. One of them covered her with a thick blanket, sparing me the sight of seeing her blood-soaked shirt.

“Let’s go!” the stern doctor snapped.

On my next rapid breath, the paramedics burst through the automatic doors with Gloria unconscious on the gurney and all hooked up to IVs. My angel was as white as chalk, but I focused on the rise and fall of her chest. Thank fucking God, she was still breathing. I held onto the railing of the gurney, racing with them as they rushed her down a long corridor and into a wide elevator. Dr. Bernstein kept pace beside me.

“Where are you taking her?” My heart was beating a mile a minute, my voice breathless.

“For an MRI and then surgery.”

At the word surgery, my stomach twisted into a painful knot.

“What blood type is she?”

“O.” Gloria’s blood type was the same as mine.

“She’s likely going to need a transfusion. She’s had significant blood loss.”

I quickly shared the fact that Gloria and I shared the same blood type.

“We’re going to need you,” she breathed out. “Stay with us.”

Two hours and six units of blood later, I restlessly sat in the waiting room, my unhinged body a bundle of nerves. What was fucking taking so long? To distract myself, I checked my iPhone; I’d turned it off while Gloria was giving birth on the street. There were now dozens of texts and messages awaiting me. One was from Blake whom I’d call later, but the great majority were from Kevin. I owed him a call. He was like a brother to Gloria; they had been through thick and thin together. He needed to know what was going on. I speed-dialed his number.