Chapter 9: High-Vis Hazard
The air in Matt’s apartment was different. It smelled of him—of clean laundry, motor oil from a side job he’d mentioned, and the underlying spice of his skin. Hannah stood just inside the doorway, holding her overnight bag, taking it in. It was neater than she’d expected. A worn, brown leather couch dominated the small living room, facing a large TV on a simple stand. The posters were of classic Mustangs and Chevys, not bands or movies. A bookshelf was crammed with automotive manuals and a surprising number of thick fantasy novels. The space was unpretentious, undeniably male, and yet it felt welcoming.
“Home sweet home,” Matt said, tossing his keys into a ceramic bowl on a small table. “It’s not much.”
“It’s you,” she said, and he glanced at her, a faint smile touching his lips.
He gave her the briefest of tours. The kitchen, smaller than hers, with a well-used coffee maker. The bathroom, clean but with a rust stain in the sink. His bedroom, which she only peeked into, dominated by a large bed with a simple navy comforter. Her heart did a little flip. That was where they would sleep.
“Come on,” he said, nodding toward the door. “I should introduce you to Mrs. Henderson next door. She’s the building watchdog. If she sees you coming and going and doesn’t know you, she’ll call the cops thinking I’m running a burglary ring.”
The late afternoon sun was warm. Mrs. Henderson, a elderly Black woman with bright eyes and a skeptical mouth, was on her patio tending to pots of geraniums. Matt approached with an easy grin. “Hey, Miss Clara. Brought you some tomatoes from my mom’s garden.” He produced a small paper bag from his back pocket that he must have grabbed on the way out.
“Well, ain’t you sweet,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. Her gaze immediately swung to Hannah, taking in her petite frame, the undeniable swell of her belly under her t-shirt.
“This is Hannah,” Matt said, his hand coming to rest on the small of Hannah’s back. A simple, possessive gesture. “She’s staying with me for a bit.”
“I see,” Mrs. Henderson said, her eyes softening. “Pleasure, honey. You treating her right, Matthew? She looks like she needs feeding up.”
“Trying to, ma’am.”
“You make sure you do. That baby needs a strong start.” She turned her attention fully to Hannah. “You need anything, honey, and this one’s at work, you knock on my door. I make a mean chicken soup.”
Hannah felt a lump in her throat. “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I will.”
As they walked back toward his apartment, a man around Matt’s age emerged from the first-floor unit. He was tall, with dreads pulled back, and he carried a basketball. “Yo, Matt! You hitting the court tomorrow?”
“Maybe. Tyrell, this is Hannah. Hannah, Tyrell, my nuisance of a neighbor.”
Tyrell’s smile was wide and knowing. “Ah, the famous Hannah. Heard a lot about you.” He winked at Matt, who shook his head minutely.
“Don’t believe a word he says,” Hannah said, finding her footing in this new social puzzle.
“Only good things, I promise,” Tyrell said, his eyes flicking to her stomach and back to her face with genuine warmth. “Good to finally put a face to the name. Take care of him, he’s one of the good ones.”
Back inside, the door closed, Hannah leaned against it. “Heard a lot about me, huh?”
Matt shrugged, moving to the kitchen to fill a kettle. “Might’ve mentioned you. Once or twice.”
“Before or after?”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Before. During. After.” The honesty was blunt, disarming. “You’re all I’ve thought about for months, Hannah. It just took a broken faucet to do something about it.”
The simplicity of the statement floored her. She pushed off the door and went to her bag, pulling out soft sleep shorts and one of his old t-shirts she’d stolen from her own place. “I’m gonna change. Then I’m cooking you dinner.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
In his bedroom, she stripped off her day clothes. The air was cool on her skin. A bold, thrilling idea took hold. She pulled on the sleep shorts but left the shirt off. She walked bare-chested into the living room, her small breasts full and sensitive, her belly round. Matt was at the counter, and he turned, the spoon in his hand clattering to the floor.
His gaze was a physical touch, hot and hungry. It traveled from her face, down her neck, over her breasts, lingering on the dark, taut nipples, then down the curve of her stomach. He didn’t speak. He just watched as she walked calmly to the kitchen, opened his fridge, and began pulling out ingredients: an onion, peppers, a pack of chicken.
“What are you making?” His voice was thick.
“Stir-fry,” she said, reaching for a knife. She felt powerful, beautiful under his stare. She bent to get a cutting board from a lower cabinet, knowing it arched her back, presented the full curve of her ass in the thin shorts. She heard him shift, a low sound in his throat.
She started chopping the onion, the crisp snick of the knife the only sound. She could feel his eyes on her, on the sway of her breasts as she worked. A heat built between her legs, a low, persistent throb. She was doing this on purpose, and he knew it.
She finished the onion and moved to the peppers. As she sliced, she let one hand drift down, casually scratching her inner thigh, her fingers grazing the edge of the shorts’ leg opening. She didn’t look at him. She focused on the bright red pepper under her knife.
“Hannah.” It was a warning.
“Hmm?” She looked up, innocent.
He was across the kitchen in two strides. He didn’t touch her. He just stood there, his body radiating tension. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I’m just making dinner.” She turned to put the peppers in a bowl, and as she did, she subtly pressed her thighs together. The dampness there was undeniable, a slickness she knew he could probably smell.
He cursed, softly, vehemently. His hand shot out and gripped her wrist. He brought her fingers to his nose and inhaled, his eyes locked on hers. They were glazed with lust. “You’re fucking soaked. And you’re standing in my kitchen, half-naked, pretending to cook.”
She didn’t deny it. She pulled her wrist from his grasp and, holding his gaze, slid her fingers into the waistband of her shorts, down through the thatch of curls, and between her own lips. She let out a soft sigh as she touched herself, her eyes fluttering for a second. Then she pulled her fingers out, glistening, and held them up to his mouth.
“Taste,” she whispered.
He growled, a raw, animal sound. He captured her hand and sucked her fingers deep into his mouth, his tongue lashing between them, cleaning every trace of her from her skin. His other arm banded around her waist, pulling her against him. The hard ridge of his erection pressed into her stomach.
“Dinner can wait,” he snarled.
He turned her, bending her over the kitchen counter. The cold laminate shocked her skin. He yanked the shorts down her thighs in one rough motion, baring her to the waist. He didn’t bother with his own pants, just unzipped and freed himself. He rubbed the broad, slick head of his cock through her folds, coating himself in her arousal, teasing her entrance but not entering.
“You wanted to tease me?” he muttered, leaning over her, his chest hot against her back. “Now you get fucked on the counter like the little slut you are.”
He pushed inside, not with the slow burn of their first time, but with a single, demanding thrust that buried him to the hilt. She cried out, her hands splayed on the counter, knocking the bowl of peppers to the floor. It shattered, ignored.
He set a relentless, driving pace. Each slam of his hips drove her forward, her breasts rubbing against the cold counter. The sounds were lewd, flesh on flesh, the wet slap of his body against hers. He gripped her hips, his fingers digging in, holding her still for his use.
“This cunt,” he grunted, pounding into her. “This perfect, greedy, pregnant cunt. It’s mine. You hear me? Say it.”
“It’s yours!” she gasped, the words ripped from her. The angle was deep, brutal, hitting a place inside that made her vision blur. The pressure was building, coiling tight in her core.
One of his hands left her hip and snaked around, his fingers finding her clit. He rubbed it hard, in frantic circles, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. “Come for me. Come all over my cock. Show me what I do to you.”
The command broke her. Her orgasm exploded, a searing wave of pleasure that clenched around him, milking him. She screamed, her body convulsing against the counter.
Feeling her pulse around him was his undoing. With three more jagged thrusts, he drove deep and held, a ragged roar torn from his chest as he came, his release hot and endless inside her. He collapsed over her, his weight pinning her to the counter, both of them panting, slick with sweat.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out. He righted her shorts with a surprisingly tender touch, then turned her to face him. Her legs were trembling. He held her up, his forehead pressed to hers.
“You’re a menace,” he breathed, but he was smiling, a real, full smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“You like it.”
“I fucking love it.” He kissed her, slow and deep. “Now, I’m ordering pizza. You’ve made enough of a mess.”
As they cleaned up the shattered bowl and scattered vegetables, moving around each other in the small kitchen, Hannah felt a sense of belonging so profound it ached. Later, curled into his side on the leather couch, eating pepperoni pizza, watching a mindless action movie, he spoke into her hair.
“My sister wants to meet you.”
The statement hung in the air. Family. This was a new threshold.
“Okay,” Hannah said, her voice small.
“She’s… protective. She’s gonna have questions. About the baby, about… everything.”
“I know.”
“I don’t care what she thinks,” he said, his arm tightening around her. “I just want you to be ready.”
Hannah looked up at the posters of cars he loved, at the fantasy novels that spoke of a hidden inner world, at the strong profile of the man who had just claimed her body and soul in his kitchen. She thought of Mrs. Henderson’s chicken soup and Tyrell’s knowing wink.
“I’m ready,” she said, and for the first time, she believed it completely.
The credits rolled over a car chase, the screen’s blue light flickering across the quiet room. Her head was a comfortable weight on his shoulder, her hand resting on his chest. The domestic calm was a blanket, smothering the earlier frantic energy. She shifted, sighing contentedly.
“That was terrible,” Matt murmured, his voice rumbling under her ear.
“I wasn’t watching,” she admitted.
She stretched, a deliberate, cat-like movement that made her shirt ride up. As she leaned forward, she reached across his lap, her fingers grazing the remote on his far thigh. Her hand didn’t avoid the firm swell of his crotch; she brushed the back of her knuckles slowly, deliberately, along the length of him through his jeans. He inhaled sharply, his body tensing beneath her.
“Just getting this,” she said softly, her fingers closing on the plastic. She clicked the TV off, plunging the room into near-darkness save for the orange streetlight glow through the blinds.
She stood up, a silhouette against the window. Without a word, she pulled the stolen t-shirt over her head and dropped it on the couch. The shorts followed, kicked away toward the kitchen with a soft rustle. She walked naked toward the hallway, the curve of her ass and the swell of her pregnancy a pale, inviting shape receding into shadow.
He was moving before he consciously decided to. The leather couch creaked as he pushed himself up, his own arousal now a demanding, tight ache. He followed her, his footsteps quiet on the carpet. He watched her hands reach back to unclasp her bra, the straps sliding down her arms as she crossed the bedroom threshold.
She let it fall to the floor just inside the door. She turned to face him then, backlit by the faint light from the window behind him. Her small breasts, fuller now, the dark nipples peaked. The round, firm dome of her belly. The thatch of hair at the junction of her thighs.
“You coming to bed?” she asked, as if it were any other question.
He reached her in two strides. He didn’t kiss her. His hands went to her hips, thumbs digging into the soft flesh, and he turned her roughly back around, pressing her front against the cool wall just inside the room. He kicked the door shut with his foot, the click final in the dark.
He leaned into her, his mouth at her ear, his cock, freed from his jeans, pressing hard against the cleft of her ass. “You’ve been teasing me all goddamn night.”
“I know.” Her voice was a breath.
“You think it’s a game?”
“I think you like it.”
He spat into his palm, a crude, wet sound. He slicked himself, then used the same hand to rub between her legs, finding her already wet, her folds slick and hot. He pushed two fingers into her, curling them, and she gasped, pushing back against his hand. “Fucking soaked again. You’re insatiable.”
He replaced his fingers with the blunt head of his cock. He nudged, pressed, and entered her with a single, deep, continuous thrust that forced a choked cry from her throat. He filled her completely, this angle against the wall somehow deeper, more invasive. He held there, buried, letting her feel every inch.
“This is what you wanted, walking in here like that,” he growled, his hands sliding up to grasp her breasts, squeezing, his thumbs rubbing her nipples. He began to move, not a frantic pace but a slow, punishing roll of his hips. Each withdrawal was agonizingly deliberate, each push back a claiming.
“Yes,” she hissed, her forehead against the wall.
“Say it clearer.”
“I wanted you to fuck me. Just like this.” The words were filth in the dark, and they ignited him.
His rhythm broke into something harder, faster. The slap of his skin against hers, the wet sounds of their joining, echoed in the small room. One hand left her breast and clamped on her hip, holding her steady for his drive. The other hand snaked down her belly, through her curls, finding the swollen nub of her clit.
“Come on,” he urged, his breath hot and ragged against her neck. “Come on this cock. Let me feel it.”
The pressure of his fingers, the relentless deep stroke of him inside her, the sheer, wanton reality of being taken against a wall—it coalesced into a sharp, sudden detonation. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, open-mouthed scream against the paint, her internal muscles clenching and fluttering around him in frantic pulses.
The sensation tore his own control to shreds. With a guttural, broken sound, he drove into her one last, final time, his body locking, his release pumping into her in hot, endless waves. He slumped against her, his weight pinning her to the wall, both of them slick with sweat, breathing in ragged, synced gasps.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out. He turned her, gathering her against him, her face pressed into his chest. They stood there in the dark, clinging to each other, the only sound their slowing breaths. The wall against her back, the man against her front—she was anchored, held.
He finally led her to the bed. They slid under the covers, skin to skin, legs entwined. His palm settled on her belly, a habit now. A strong kick answered his touch, a flutter against his hand.
“Someone’s awake,” he murmured.
“They like the company,” she whispered back.
He was silent for a long moment. His fingers traced idle patterns on her skin. “Dinner at my mom’s. Sunday. My sister will be there.”
The world, with all its complications, rushed back in. She nestled closer, her nose in the hollow of his throat, breathing him in. The scent of sex, of him, of safety.
“Okay,” she said. It was just a word. But in the dark, it felt like a vow.