Chapter 79: Baby Fever
The confirmation came three weeks later, not from a plastic stick bought in a discreet pharmacy, but from Isabella’s own hands in the medical suite, a gentle scan that painted a tiny, luminous seed of new life glowing against the dark backdrop of Camille’s womb. The image hovered in the air between them, a pale, pulsing star.
Camille stared at it, her hands pressed to her mouth. No sound came out. Her knees buckled.
Isabella caught her, guiding her to a chair. “Breathe, querida. Just breathe.”
“It’s real?” The words were a cracked whisper.
“It is more than real. It is vital. Strong.” Isabella’s smile was like the sun breaking through a lifetime of clouds. “The scar tissue is silent. It is only celebration in there now.”
Camille let out a sob, then another, great heaving gasps of a joy so profound it bordered on pain. She stumbled from the chair, out of the suite, into the hall. She didn’t run; she floated, propelled by a current of pure, undiluted feeling.
She found them in the breakfast villa. Dawn was just softening the severe lines of the hills, staining the ivory walls with honeyed light. The air was rich with the scent of espresso, warm brioche, and the jasmine creeping in from the terrace. Bruce stood at the massive window, a mug in his hand, staring out at the awakening world. Lena was beside him, her head resting against his arm. Susannah was across the room, nursing Roland, her face serene. The soft murmur of conversation stilled as Camille appeared in the arched doorway.
She didn’t have to say a word.
Her face told the story. The tear tracks glistening on her cheeks, the wide, disbelieving smile, the way she clutched the doorframe as if the earth itself had shifted beneath her.
Bruce saw it first. His hazel eyes, which could be so hard and calculating, went wide, then soft, then filled with a brightness that rivaled the rising sun. The mug dropped from his hand, shattering on the terracotta tiles with a sharp, unimportant crack.
He crossed the room in three strides. He didn’t ask. He knew. He swept her up, his powerful arms wrapping around her, lifting her off the ground as if she weighed nothing. He buried his face in her neck, his big body shuddering.
“Yes?” he rasped into her skin, the single word soaked in hope.
“Yes,” she gasped, her arms locked around his neck. “Oh, God, Bruce, yes.”
A raw, shattered sound broke from his chest. He held her tighter, so tight she could feel the frantic beat of his heart against hers. Tears wet her shoulder. They stood there in the middle of the sun-drenched room, clinging to each other, the epicenter of a private earthquake.
Then Bruce pulled back just enough to look over Camille’s shoulder. Isabella had followed, lingering in the doorway, her blue eyes quiet and watchful.
“Izzy,” Bruce said, his voice thick. He didn’t let go of Camille, but he extended one arm. “Get over here.”
Isabella moved into the embrace. Bruce pulled her in, crushing her against Camille’s back, encircling both women. He turned his head and kissed Isabella, not a kiss of passion, but of profound, desperate gratitude. It was deep and slow, a sealing of a pact. “Thank you,” he breathed against her lips when they parted. “Thank you, doc.”
The room erupted.
Lena was there first, squealing, wrapping her arms around all three of them, crying happy, messy tears. “Mami! Oh, Dios mío, mami!” Susannah joined, shifting Roland to her hip, her free arm adding to the group hug, her own eyes shining. Anya appeared, drawn by the commotion, her violet eyes taking in the scene, a slow, beautiful smile spreading across her face. Ketut watched from a corner, her dark eyes tracking the cascade of emotions across Bruce’s face, a soft understanding in her own.
The celebration was loud and tearful and full of overlapping chatter. Coffee was abandoned. Bruce finally set Camille down, but kept an arm around her, his hand splayed possessively over her still-flat belly.
It was Susannah who broke the circle first. She handed a gurgling Roland to Bruce, who took his son automatically, holding him against his chest. She turned her deep brown eyes on Camille, then on Bruce, her expression shifting from joy to something hotter, hungrier.
“Ain’t gonna lie,” she said, her voice low and carrying. “Seein’ that… it does somethin’ to a woman.” Her gaze flicked to the toddler in Bruce’s arms, then to Camille’s stomach. “Makes a body want to feel that growin’ inside her, too. That kind of life.”
A beat of silence followed, charged and heavy.
Then Lena, still clinging to Bruce’s side, piped up, her voice bright. “Well, I’ve been thinking… Rafael is two. He’s walking, talking. A little brother or sister… it’s a good age gap, sí?” She looked up at Bruce, her dark eyes pleading and playful. “Maybe we should… you know. Try for another.”
The words hung in the jasmine-scented air. Baby fever, contagious and potent, shimmered like heat haze.
Ketut, ever observant, peeled herself from the shadows. She walked up to Bruce, her movements silent and graceful. She didn’t speak. She just placed her palm on his chest, over his heart, and looked into his eyes. Her own dark, fathomless eyes seemed to drink in his thoughts, his memories of the night Camille was healed, the focused intent he’d poured into her. A faint, knowing smile touched Ketut’s lips. She leaned in, rising on her toes to whisper in his ear, her voice a silken thread only he could hear. “You planted a flag. The ground is fertile. The others feel it. They want their own banners flying.”
Bruce absorbed this, his gaze sweeping the room—Susannah’s fierce want, Lena’s hopeful excitement, Anya’s curious tilt of her head, even Isabella’s calm, professional approval.
He handed Roland back to Susannah. Then he took Camille’s face in his hands, kissed her forehead with a tenderness that made her want to weep all over again. “You,” he murmured, “go rest. Eat. Glow. Doctor’s orders.” He glanced at Isabella, who nodded.
Camille, feeling suddenly weightless and exhausted from the emotional tide, allowed Lena to lead her towards the sofa, chattering about prenatal nutrition.
Bruce’s eyes found Susannah’s. He didn’t gesture. He just held her look for a long moment, then turned and walked out of the breakfast villa, through the arched doors and onto the dew-slicked terrace. He didn’t look back.
Susannah understood. A slow smile spread across her face. She handed Roland to Anya. “Hold him a minute, sugar.”
She followed him out.
He was waiting for her in the shadow of a massive terracotta urn, the morning sun carving his shaved head and broad shoulders in gold. The moment she cleared the doorway, he was on her. He grabbed her by the back of the neck, his grip firm, and pulled her into a searing, demanding kiss. It was nothing like the kiss he’d given Isabella. This was all possession, all hunger.
Susannah met it with equal ferocity, her teeth nipping his lower lip, her hands sliding under his shirt, nails raking over the hard muscle of his back. “You heard me in there,” she gasped when they broke apart.
“I heard you.” His voice was gravel. “You want a baby, Susannah?”
“I want your baby,” she corrected, her breath hot against his throat. “I want to feel that inside me. I want to watch my belly swell with it. I want that piece of you growing under my heart.” Her hands went to his belt, working the buckle with practiced urgency. “You gave it to Camille. Now give it to me.”
The crude, beautiful demand went straight to his cock. He was already hard, straining against his jeans. He helped her, shoving them down along with his boxers. His cock sprang free, thick and already leaking. The sight of it, knowing what it had just accomplished, made Susannah moan. She pushed her own loose linen pants and panties down her thighs, not even bothering to take them off. She was wet for him, had been since the moment Camille had collapsed crying into his arms.
She turned her back to him, bracing her hands on the cool, sun-warmed terracotta of the urn. “Don’t be gentle,” she said over her shoulder, looking at him with those fierce gunslinger eyes. “Fuck it into me. Deep as it’ll go.”
Bruce needed no further invitation. He spat into his palm, slicked his length, and positioned himself at her entrance. He grabbed her hip with one hand, the other tangling in her long, curly hair, pulling just enough to arch her back. He drove into her with one powerful, merciless thrust.
Susannah cried out, a sharp, ragged sound swallowed by the vast morning. She was tight, but she took him, her body stretching to accommodate his girth. “Yes! God, yes!” she panted, pushing back against him. “That’s it! Fill me up!”
He set a brutal, punishing rhythm, each thrust slamming her hips against the urn. The sound was obscenely wet, flesh on flesh, punctuated by their harsh grunts. This wasn’t love-making; it was a claiming. A planting. Every snap of his hips was a declaration of intent, every grunt from his chest a promise of life. He fucked her with a single-minded focus, his hazel eyes fixed on where their bodies joined, watching himself disappear into her again and again.
“You feel that?” he growled, his voice strained. “That’s yours. You take it. You fucking hold onto it.”
“I will! I will, I swear!” she chanted, her own climax coiling tight, triggered as much by the raw purpose of the act as the physical friction. “Give it to me! Don’t you dare pull out! Shoot it all the way up in my womb, Bruce! Impregnate me!”
Her words, so similar to Camille’s yet entirely her own, broke his control. With a final, deep grind, he buried himself to the hilt and came. His roar was muffled against her shoulder as he pulsed inside her, a hot, endless flood. He held himself there, locked, as his body emptied into hers with convulsive jets.
They stayed like that for a long minute, leaning against the urn, sweating and spent in the cool morning air. Finally, he softened and slipped out. A trickle of his release traced a path down her inner thigh.
She turned, her face flushed with triumph and exertion, and kissed him, slow and deep. “Good,” she whispered against his mouth.
Inside, the mood had shifted. The initial burst of celebration had simmered into a low, buzzing tension. Camille sat on a sofa, a serene hand resting on her belly, watching with a knowing softness as Ketut approached Bruce the moment he and Susannah returned, Susannah walking with a slight, satisfied waddle.
Ketut said nothing. She simply took Bruce’s hand and led him away, down a corridor and into a small, sunlit library. The moment the door clicked shut, she was on her knees before him. Her dark, intelligent eyes looked up at him as her hands worked his still-damp cock back to full hardness with terrifying efficiency.
“I saw it,” she said, her voice quiet and certain. “In your eyes. The power of your will. The… focus.” She leaned forward, her long black hair falling like a curtain, and took him into her mouth. She sucked him deep, her tongue working the underside, before pulling off with a wet pop. “I do not need a healer’s touch. My body has no scars. It only needs your command.” She stood, shedding her simple dress. Her lithe, taut body was a contrast to the others’ curves. She pressed him back into a deep armchair and straddled him, guiding him inside her in one smooth, determined slide.
She rode him with a fierce, concentrated intensity, her dark eyes locked on his. She was silent, her breath coming in controlled huffs, her entire being focused on the connection. She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear. “Think it into me,” she whispered, a psychotically direct command. “Look into my eyes and push the thought into your seed. Tell it to find its home.”
Bruce gripped her hips, his thumbs digging into the sharp bones. He fucked up into her, matching her rhythm, staring into the black pools of her eyes. He visualized it, the intent becoming a tangible force, a current running from his mind down his spine into his balls, electrifying his impending release. When he came, it was with a silent, shuddering intensity, his eyes wide open, holding hers, pouring the silent command into her with every pulse.
Ketut collapsed against him, a slight tremor running through her. “It is done,” she breathed, as if stating a fact.
By lunchtime, the villa hummed with a different energy. It was Lena who found him next, cornering him in the cool, tiled pantry as he fetched a bottle of water. Her approach was less fierce, more worshipful. She pressed herself against him, her amazing body fitting to his like a key.
“Mi sombra,” she whispered, nuzzling his neck. “My turn? Please? For Rafael’s brother?”
He didn’t answer with words. He turned her around, bent her over a sack of flour, and took her from behind, his hands gripping her ample hips. He was rougher with her than usual, driven by the day’s desperate, life-giving momentum. She loved it, crying out as he pounded into her, chanting “dame un bebé, dame un bebé” until her words dissolved into wordless screams of pleasure. He came inside her with a guttural groan, spending himself with the same fervent hope.
The day bled into a hazy, sensual dream. The normal rhythms of the house were suspended. Camille, the quiet queen at the center of it all, watched from her perch on the terrace, a gentle smile playing on her lips as, one by one, the others stole Bruce away. It was a frenzy, but a focused one. A propagation.
As the sun began to dip below the cypress trees, painting the sky in shades of rose and amber, a familiar throaty rumble echoed from the private airstrip. Jasmine was back from her supply run to the mainland.
Bruce, freshly showered but with a deep, bone-weary satisfaction etched into his face, walked out to the front terrace to meet her. The Jamaican pilot climbed down from the cockpit, her brown eyes with their gold flecks taking in his demeanor, the charged stillness of the villa behind him.
She dropped her flight bag and strode towards him, her curvy hips rolling with a confident sway. She stopped inches from him, her gaze sharp, missing nothing.
“The whole place feels like the air before a thunderstorm,” she said, her accent melodic and direct. “What happened?”
“Camille’s pregnant,” Bruce said, the words still fresh and powerful on his tongue.
Jasmine’s eyes widened, then softened with genuine joy. “Oh, that’s wonderful news! Congratulations, Captain.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek.
As she pulled back, her gaze flicked over his shoulder towards the villa, then back to his face. A slow, knowing smile spread across her goddess-like features. She saw the faint love-bite on his neck from Susannah, the fresh scratch marks on his back visible through his thin shirt from Lena, the utterly spent, yet vibrantly alive look in his hazel eyes.
“And by the looks of you,” she murmured, stepping closer, her voice dropping to a husky register, “the rest of the crew is lining up for their own share of the miracle.” Her hand came up, resting lightly on his chest. “You planning to repopulate the whole island in one day?”
Bruce looked down at her, at the fierce loyalty and adventurous spark in her golden-flecked eyes. He said nothing.
Jasmine’s smile turned wicked. “Well,” she said, taking his hand and leading him towards the path that wound down to the secluded beach cove, “don’t let me stop a sacred mission. But just so you know, Captain… I don’t need a miracle. I just want you.”
The sound of the waves welcomed them as they disappeared down the path, leaving the villa glowing in the twilight, full of sleeping children, hopeful women, and the quiet, potent promise of life stirring in the warm, fragrant dark.
The stone steps were cool and uneven under their feet, worn smooth by generations of salt wind. Jasmine led, her hand warm and sure in his, pulling him into the gathering dusk. The roar of the surf grew, a primal heartbeat swallowing the last chirps of cicadas from the villa gardens.
They reached the cove. It was a private crescent of black sand, walled by jagged cliffs, the water a sheet of bruised purple under the twilight sky. The air smelled of wet stone and deep ocean. Jasmine dropped his hand and turned to face him, the sea wind lifting her dark hair.
She studied his face, her eyes reflecting the last of the light. “You look… hammered,” she said, a grin quirking her full lips. “In the best way. Like a god who’s just finished a day’s hard work of creation.”
Bruce let out a short, tired laugh. “Feels like it.” He looked back up the path towards the villa, a silhouette now against the darkening blue. “It’s been a day, Jazzy.”
“I bet.” She stepped closer, her fingers tracing the faint scratches on his bicep. “So. You seeding the whole island, then? One fertile field at a time?”
He met her gaze, the gold flecks in her brown eyes seeming to glow. “Do you want a baby too, Jazzy?”
The question hung between them, stark and simple, stripped of ceremony. The wind caught it, wrapped it in the sound of crashing waves.
She didn’t look away. Her smile softened, became something more intimate, more wondrous. “Mmm. Imagine how beautiful a child of ours would be?” Her voice was a low murmur, almost lost to the surf. “Half black, half white. He’d have your eyes, I can picture it.” She cocked her head, her curiosity suddenly precise. “What kind of white are you? I don’t even know.”
Bruce shrugged, a small, honest movement. “Neither do I. I was an orphan. I never knew my birth parents.”
A flicker of pain crossed Jasmine’s face. Her hand came up, cupping his jaw. “I’m sorry, Bruce. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay, Jazzy.” He leaned into her touch. “I look at my sons,” he said, his voice roughened by the sea air and the memory of Rafael’s laugh, Roland’s serious gaze, “and I think how could someone possibly abandon such a miracle. But who knows why. I never looked for them.”
Her thumb stroked his cheekbone. The kindness in her touch, the lack of pity, was a balm. She understood empty spaces. Her eyes searched his, this man who commanded so much, who was a father so many times over, yet carried that old, quiet void within him.
“Would you put a baby in me, Bruce?”
Her question was direct, devoid of coquetry. It was a pilot’s request, clear and navigating straight to the point.
He answered by kissing her. It was different from the others today—slower, deeper, infused with the melancholy of his confession and the sharp, sweet hope of her question. He tasted the sea salt on her lips. His hands found the zipper of her flight suit, tugging it down with a sharp rasp. She shrugged it off her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet on the dark sand. She wore nothing underneath.
Her body was a legend in the dim light, curves that seemed carved from the same obsidian as the cliffs. He backed her towards a smooth, sloping rock warmed by the vanished sun. The chill of the stone kissed her back as he pressed her against it.
He undressed quickly, his clothes joining hers in a heap on the sand. The cold air prickled his skin, but the heat coming off her was immense. He slid his hands up her thick thighs, over the glorious swell of her hips, his thumbs digging into the soft give of her waist.
“Yes,” he said, the word a vow swallowed by a wave’s crash.
He lifted her, her legs wrapping around his hips, her arms locking around his neck. He guided himself into her with one sure, slow thrust. She was soaking wet, her heat enveloping him, tighter than he expected. She gasped, her head falling back against the rock.
“Fuck,” she breathed, her nails biting into his shoulders.
He began to move, a relentless, rolling rhythm aided by the strength in his legs and back. The setting sun painted one last stripe of violent orange across the water, lighting the sweat on their colliding bodies. This wasn’t the frenzied claiming of the terrace or the silent intensity of the library. This was a joining, a rhythmic push against the void he’d just named.
He fucked her with a powerful, deep cadence, each thrust a silent answer to her question. She met him rise for rise, her hips grinding down onto him, taking him deeper. The wet, slick sound of their union was raw against the natural roar of the cove.
“Give it to me,” she chanted into his ear, her breath hot and ragged. “Fill this black pussy up. Knock me the fuck up, Captain. I want it. I want to feel your come swimming inside me all night.”
Her filthy talk ignited him. He drove into her harder, the rock digging into her back. He could feel her muscles fluttering around him, the first tremors of her climax.
“You gonna come for me, Jazzy?” he grunted, his own control fraying. “You gonna come on this dick and then take my seed?”
“Yes! God, yes! Right there, right fucking there!”
Her orgasm ripped through her, a convulsive wave that clenched around him like a fist. She cried out, a sharp, wild sound that was carried off by the wind. The violent clench of her pushed him over the edge.
He slammed home, burying himself to the root, and let go. His release was a flood, a surging, endless pulse that he poured into her depths, a physical answer to her direct request. He held her there, impaled, as he emptied himself, his own shout muffled in the hollow of her shoulder.
They stayed locked together as the last light died, panting, the cold ocean air cooling their heated skin. He softened inside her, a slow, tender retreat. He didn’t pull away. He just held her weight against the rock, her legs still wrapped around him.
Finally, she loosened her grip, her legs sliding down to stand on trembling knees. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his chest. A mixture of their fluids leaked down her inner thigh.
He scooped her flight suit from the sand and gently helped her into it. She zipped it up slowly, her eyes never leaving his. Then she took his hand again, lacing her fingers through his.
They walked back up the path in a comfortable silence, the weight of the day and the promise of the night settled between them. The villa windows glowed like distant lanterns. As they reached the terrace, the sound of soft laughter drifted from inside—Camille’s, bright and clear, mingling with Lena’s.
Bruce paused, looking at the illuminated windows, each one a frame holding a piece of his expanding world. Jasmine squeezed his hand.
“Come on,” she said softly. “Let’s go inside. Your work’s not done ‘til all the fields are sown.”
He followed her in, the scent of jasmine and sleeping children and infinite possibility wrapping around him, denser and more real than the night.