Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.
A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Thirty-Five. Listen to the audio version at Nobilis Erotica here!
Chapter 35
For a moment, Sally looked alarmed. “Do you… ah… want kids?” she asked Luke.
Luke looked down at Sally’s stomach. A series of images flashed though his mind in quick succession, like a film montage–Sally holding a baby, following an exploring toddler at the park, sitting with a young child doing homework, reading a dark-haired little girl to sleep. He tried to imagine Sally pregnant. Pregnant with his baby, her tummy round and smooth. He brought his hands around to the front of her waist and ran his thumbs over her currently mostly flat stomach.
“Yeah,” he said, “I do want kids. You and I, we’d make some pretty ones.”
“Let’s see…. Your mom’s Greek, right?”
“Yup. And Dad’s of vaguely Germanic descent. All-American mutt.”
“So’s my mom, though she calls herself Cherokee if pressed.”
Luke snorted. “So she’s got black hair.”
“I said if pressed! And Dad, of course, is Navajo and Italian.”
Luke nodded. “Yeah, sounds like we have the makings of true Americans. But I like mutts.” He froze in the middle of nuzzling her ear. “Did someone–”
“Yes, I took care of Sootie. She’s sound asleep in Dad’s office.”
“OK, good, thank you.” He moved against her, pressing his body along the length of hers. His cock stiffened, and from the way she tilted her hips and moved her knee to the outside of his, she was well aware of it. “The idea of you being pregnant from me…. It’s a major turn-on. I hope it doesn’t weird you out.”
“Seems like the most natural turn-on in the world,” she said, grinning.
“You know, we do have a bedroom all to ourselves….”
“Not exactly. The bed Cormick is in is right on the other side of this very thin wall. And Luke, look around–when I’m in this room, I feel like a little girl. I cannot fuck you good and proper in this room.”
Luke glanced around and sighed. He could see her point. “Damn. It’s just as well, I’ve been up over twenty-four hours, and I’ve been utterly drained and recharged in an incredibly short time, on top of finding out I lost my job and kissing some guy I’ve never met. I am positively loopy.”
Sally giggled. “That was really hot, by the way.”
“Excuse me if I feel odd about it.”
“Don’t feel odd. It’s good for Charlie to get some attention. His last boyfriend was a bastard, and he thinks you’re hot.”
“You can fill me in on his history later.”
“Or you can ask him about it.”
Luke snorted. “We’re guys. We don’t typically give a lot of backstory.”
“Fine,” Sally said, rolling her eyes. “Later. Right now, though, given that I can’t jump your bones, let’s get some sleep.”
She made him leave the room while she changed into a set of soft gray and pink pajamas. Luke stripped down to boxers and slipped into the bed beside her. It squeaked tremendously with every motion, settling any doubt in Luke’s mind that they could possibly have sex without alerting everyone in the house. He wondered if her parents had left it that way on purpose.
Sally smelled good, like lavender and chamomile. Luke put his arm over her and slipped his hand under her shirt, feeling the soft skin of her belly. He imagined once more a baby growing in her, a new life moving under his hand, their child. He felt a great swell of emotion, remembering in a rush all the times in past lives he’d shared the creation of a child with a woman. Sometimes it was wrong, or a mistake, but most of the time, it had been on purpose. The best times were with his wives, when it was their second, or fifth, or ninth pregnancy. So many children created and lost. He wondered what their lives had been like after he’d died. He had looked some of them up, but not all of them, and of course most had no records to look for.
He’d been on the other side of it too, as a woman. He was grateful for the times it had been easy and tried to forget the times it had been hard. The best life he’d had as a mother, he decided, had been in Italy, when he’d had seven children, and every one had outlived him. He pressed his hand protectively over Sally’s stomach. Prenatal care was good these days, he thought. Childbirth wasn’t the great danger that it used to be, to mother or child. Sally would be OK. Their children would be OK. It would be a great life. The best ever.
Sally stirred slightly. “You thinkin’ about babies?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Luke kissed the back of Sally’s neck. “You gonna marry me, Sally?”
“Well yeah, if we’re gonna have babies.”
“Oh good.”
* * *
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About the author: Julie Cox is the author of Chasing Tail and numerous short stories in Circlet Press erotica anthologies. She lives in Texas with her husband, children, and ever-expanding menagerie of animals on their farm. She runs a small online yarn business and teaches yarn spinning. She has numerous stories published with Circlet Press and elsewhere.
Welcome to Fox Pass, Texas, a small community where the mythical creatures aren’t so mythical after all. Satyr Luke’s comfortable routine is thrown into disarray when he becomes the target of enemies who won’t hesitate to hurt his friends to get to him. Struggling to save his town—and to sort out his feelings for his friend Sally—Luke faces the adventure of a lifetime in Julie Cox’s Capricious.
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