Chapter 9: The Ultrasound
The clinic door clicked shut behind the nurse, leaving only the echo of the heartbeat in the sterile air. It had been a sound both alien and profoundly familiar, a tiny, frantic drumbeat from the center of her own body. Vanja stared at the ceiling, the cold gel slick on her skin, the black-and-white phantom on the screen already burned onto the back of her eyelids.
Ragnar hadn’t let go of her hand. His grip was bone-crushing. She could feel the fine tremor running through him.
“Did you see?” he said, his voice thick. “The shape. The head.”
“It looked like a bean,” she whispered.
“It looked like a person.” He finally turned his head to look at her. The blue of his eyes was fractured, shining with a wet, terrifying intensity. “Our person.”
He moved then, a sudden release of coiled energy. He dropped her hand and locked the exam room door with a decisive turn of the bolt. The sound was absolute. He turned back to her, his gaze sweeping over her body on the table, her leggings still pulled down to her hips, her shirt rucked up under her breasts, her skin gleaming with conductive gel.
“You’re a mess,” he said, but his tone was reverent.
He came to the side of the table, his fingers trailing through the cool, clear gel on her lower belly, spreading it, painting her skin with it. “This is where it is.” His touch was possessive, mapping the territory. “Right here. Mine.”
He leaned down, his breath hot against her ear. “I need to taste you. I need to taste where my child is.”
Before she could respond, he pushed her legs apart, his hands rough on her inner thighs. He dropped to his knees on the polished floor, the crisp fabric of his trousers pulling tight. He didn’t pause. He buried his face between her legs, his tongue a broad, hot stroke through her folds.
She jolted, a gasp catching in her throat. The contrast was shocking: the clinical cold of the room, the paper crinkling beneath her, and the wet, intimate heat of his mouth. He licked her with a focused, relentless hunger, lapping at her clit, sucking it into his mouth, his stubble scraping the tender skin of her inner thighs.
“Ragnar… the door…” she breathed, but her hips were already lifting off the table, seeking his mouth.
“They won’t come in,” he muttered against her, his voice vibrating through her core. “I own this clinic. I own every silent fucking door in this place.” He speared his tongue inside her, fucking her with it, deep and dirty. “And I own this cunt. This perfect, fertile cunt growing my son.”
His words, crude and absolute, sent a bolt of electric shame directly to her clit. She came suddenly, violently, her back arching off the table as a silent, seized scream tore through her. He drank from her, his mouth sealed over her, sucking every pulse and shudder until she was limp, twitching with oversensitivity.
He stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes dark with triumph. His erection strained against his tailored trousers. He unfastened them, shoved them and his briefs down just enough to free himself. His cock sprang out, thick and aggressively hard, the head already wet.
“Up,” he commanded, his voice guttural.
Dazed, she pushed herself up on her elbows. He grabbed her hips and hauled her to the very edge of the table, her ass barely on the paper sheet. He kicked her legs wider, stepped between them, and without any further ceremony, he drove into her.
The stretch was immense. She was wet from his mouth and her own climax, but he was huge, and he filled her with a single, claiming thrust that pushed the air from her lungs. The gel on her stomach smeared between their bodies.
“Look at me,” he growled.
She forced her eyes open. He was staring down at where their bodies joined, watching himself disappear into her, his face a mask of primal concentration. He began to move, short, deep pumps that rocked her entire body on the table. The paper beneath her tore with the violence of his rhythm.
“This is where I put it,” he grunted, slamming home. “Right here. In this sweet, tight hole. You feel it? You feel how deep I am?”
She could only nod, her nails digging into the edges of the vinyl table. Each thrust felt like it reached the very nucleus of her, the place the wand had just pressed. It was a brutal, physical reinforcement of the ghostly image on the screen.
“Say it,” he demanded, his pace quickening. The table legs squeaked against the floor. “Say whose baby that is.”
“Yours!” she cried out, the word breaking on a moan.
“Louder.”
“It’s yours, Ragnar! God, it’s yours!” Her second orgasm was building, not a wave but a sustained, rising pressure, amplified by the raw, clinical setting, by the echo of the heartbeat still in her ears.
“And who does this belong to?” He pinched her clit hard, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.
“You! You, you, you—” The confession became a meaningless chant as the pressure snapped. She shattered, her cunt clamping around him in rhythmic, viselike spasms that milked his length. She saw stars, the sterile lights overhead blurring into streaks.
Her climax tore his control from him. With a ragged, animal groan, he plunged deep and held, his body shuddering as he emptied himself into her, jet after hot jet marking his claim all over again, mixing with the evidence of his mouth and her own pleasure. He collapsed forward, catching his weight on his arms bracketing her head, his forehead dropping to her shoulder. They were both slick with sweat and gel, panting in the silent, sunlit room.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their breathing and the distant hum of the building. He softened inside her but didn’t pull out. He nuzzled her neck, his lips against her pulse point. “I love you,” he whispered, the words hot and raw against her skin. “I love you so much it is going to destroy everything.”
The drive back to the penthouse was conducted in a saturated silence. The phantom thump-thump-thump seemed to have taken up residence in her skull. Ragnar’s hand rested on her thigh, his thumb making absent, possessive circles. He had cleaned her up in the clinic’s ensuite with a bizarre, clinical tenderness, wiping the gel and his own spend from her skin with warm, damp cloths, before helping her dress. It felt like being prepared for burial.
As the elevator ascended to his floor, he spoke, his eyes fixed on the climbing numbers. “We’ll tell people I’m the father. A whirlwind romance with a fan. It’s sordid, but the press will swallow it. They love a cliché.”
Vanja looked at their reflection in the polished doors. They looked like strangers. “And what am I? A groupie who got lucky?”
“You’re the mother of my child. That’s all anyone needs to know.” The doors opened.
Erik was in the living room.
He was sitting in Ragnar’s favorite chair, a crystal glass of amber liquid in his hand, his feet propped on the steel coffee table. He looked utterly at home. The sight was a punch to the gut.
Ragnar went very still. “Get your feet off my table. And get out.”
Erik took a slow sip, his eyes sliding from Ragnar’s stormy face to Vanja’s drained one. A smile touched his lips. “How was the appointment? Everyone healthy?”
“None of your business,” Ragnar said, his voice low and deadly.
“I think it is.” Erik swung his feet down and stood. He was nearly as tall as Ragnar, and just as formidable. “Considering the probability matrix. It could be mine. It could be dear old Dad’s. Makes it everyone’s business, doesn’t it?” He walked toward Vanja, his gaze predatory. “You look pale, kjære. The prodigal son’s seed weighing heavy?”
Ragnar stepped in front of her. “You have three seconds.”
“To do what?” Erik’s smile widened. “You won’t touch me. Not seriously. Because then I go to the press. Not with a cliché, but with a truth so fucking toxic it would end you. Incest. Abuse. A shared pregnancy. They’d feast on it for years. Your endorsements? Ash. Your career? A punchline.”
The truth hung in the air, a stalemate forged in mutual destruction. Vanja saw the realization dawn in Ragnar’s rigid posture. He was trapped.
Erik saw it too. He sidestepped Ragnar and stood directly before Vanja. He reached out and placed his hand flat on her stomach, over the shirt. Ragnar vibrated with the effort of not breaking his arm.
“So,” Erik said softly, his hand warm and heavy through the fabric. “We have an understanding. This is a family matter. And we’re all family now.” He leaned in, his breath smelling of expensive whiskey. “When do I get my turn to listen? To put my head right here,” he pressed his hand down, “and see if it kicks for me?”
Vanja slapped his hand away. The crack echoed in the room. “Don’t touch me.”
Erik’s eyes lit with genuine amusement. He brought his hand to his own cheek, as if feeling the ghost of the blow. “There’s my girl. Still some fight left.” He looked at Ragnar. “She’s not just your vessel, brother. She’s our crossroads. And crossroads belong to everyone.”
He picked up his coat, slung it over his shoulder, and walked to the door. “I’ll see myself out. We’ll talk schedules. I want to be… involved.”
The door closed behind him.
Ragnar stood immobile for a full minute, staring at the spot where Erik had been. Then, with a sudden, violent motion, he swept his arm across the console table, sending a vase, a stack of books, and a sculpture crashing to the floor. The sound of shattering porcelain was deafening.
He turned to Vanja, his chest heaving. The quiet, fearful man from the clinic was gone, replaced by something cornered and ferocious. “Schedules,” he spat the word.
He crossed the room in two strides, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pushed her backwards toward the floor-to-ceiling window. The city and the distant Alps sprawled behind her, a dizzying drop. He pinned her against the cool glass.
“He thinks this is a democracy,” Ragnar hissed, his mouth an inch from hers. “He thinks he gets a vote.” One hand fumbled between them, tearing at the button of her jeans. “Let’s remind him how wrong he is.”
He yanked her jeans and underwear down to her knees, the denim scraping her skin. He unfastened his own trousers with brutal efficiency. He was already hard again, a brutal, vengeful arousal. He hooked one of her legs over his hip, his hand gripping her ass to angle her, and thrust up into her.
The entry was rough, almost dry. She cried out, her forehead thumping against the glass. He didn’t care. He set a punishing, rhythmic pace, fucking her against the window for all of Munich to see, were anyone close enough to look. His hips slapped against her ass, the sound stark and rhythmic.
“You are not a crossroads,” he grunted, each word punctuated by a drive of his hips. “You are my end of the line. My. Fucking. Destination.”
He bit her shoulder, teeth breaking the skin. The sharp pain mingled with the deep, penetrating ache of his possession. Her body, traitorously, began to respond, slickness returning, welcoming the furious, familiar invasion. Her nipples pebbled against the cold glass.
“Tell me you hate him,” Ragnar demanded, his hand tangling in her hair, pulling her head back. “Tell me you want him dead.”
“I want him dead,” she choked out, the words tasting true.
“And this is mine.” He slammed into her, hitting a spot that made her vision blur. “All of it. The baby. The cunt. The heart. Mine.”
“Yours!” she screamed. The orgasm took her like a seizure, wracking her body, her inner walls fluttering around his driving cock in helpless, desperate rhythm. She came silently, her mouth open against the glass, fogging it with her breath.
He followed seconds later, a guttural roar muffled in her hair, his release pumping into her, another futile attempt to overwrite any other potential claim. He stayed buried inside her, his weight pressing her against the window, both of them panting, spent, staring out at the indifferent city.
His voice, when it came, was hollow with exhaustion. “I don’t know how to protect you from this.”
She turned her head, her cheek against the cold glass. She looked at their reflection again – a man and a woman, tangled in violence and need, with a ghostly city superimposed over them. “Maybe you’re not supposed to,” she whispered. “Maybe we’re past protection.”
She felt him go still. He pulled out of her slowly, his spend leaking down her thigh. He gently pulled her clothing back into place, his motions now devoid of anger, full of a profound, hopeless weariness. He turned her around and gathered her into his arms, holding her as if she were the only solid thing in a dissolving world.
Outside, the first winter snow began to fall, silent and blanketing, promising to cover everything.