Baby For The Bear

Once he was showered and dressed in a fresh suit, Ken took her on a proper tour of the penthouse and showed her where everything was. Then she walked him to the elevator door, and there they paused. Ken put his arms around the small of Samantha’s back and promised, “I’ll only be a few hours. I’ll be right back up here and I’d love to find you upstairs in that bed waiting for me when I get back.”

Looking off a bit, with the same mischief with which he’d addressed her earlier, Samantha said, “Mmm…I might be.”

“What have you got in mind, Sammie Vance? You’re not planning to get yourself into any trouble while I’m gone…”

“Well, it’s such a big place with so many things to do. No telling what a girl might get herself into.”

Almost scolding, Ken said, “You know I want your sweet little blonde ass in that bed.”

“Then you’d better get to work and hurry back, Mr. Brecker.”

Ken mock-growled at her. “Have you forgotten who’s the boss here?”

Devilishly, Samantha replied, “Have you forgotten who’s going to be the Mama Bear here?” And she tugged on his tie for emphasis.

With a husky laugh, Ken said, “Oh, wait till I get back up here. You are so getting it.”

“I’d better be.”

He pulled her up and into a hard kiss that made Sammie curl one leg back like an ingenue in an old movie. She felt very much in danger of him stripping them both and shagging her right here on the spot. Which was why she made the most reluctant gesture of her life and pushed him away. “Back to work, Papa Bear,” she admonished.

Stepping back towards the elevator door and straightening his tie, he pressed the Down button and shook his head and a finger at her. “Just a couple of hours. Be ready.”

She showed him a toothy grin as he disappeared into the elevator. Once Ken was gone, Samantha spun around and confronted the luxurious expanse of his penthouse by herself. Oh, Ken Brecker. You have plans for me? I have plans for you, my big bear…”

And she scampered off in the direction of the kitchen.

*****

Just a few minutes past six in the evening, the elevator doors slid open and Ken stepped back into the penthouse. “Sammie!” he called.

There was no answer. He cast a smoldering look at the stairs. “You’d better be up there in that bed like I told you,” he muttered, and made a beeline up to the master suite to find—an unoccupied bed. No Samantha. He looked about, confused.

Loosening his tie, he mumbled, “Where the fu*k is this chick?” He got the tie and his jacket off and tossed them into the chair with his other suit that he had cast off earlier. He was on his way to the master bath to check whether she might be waiting for him in the tub as he’d hinted at earlier. In his trousers came a stirring at the thought of a little screwing on the plush bathmat as the perfect welcome home. He had his shirt off by the time he got to the bathroom door and glanced inside to find—no Samantha.

Scratching his head, Ken came back into the bedroom and tossed the shirt onto the same chair, and called out loudly, “Sammie! Samantha!” Mounted by his frustration for want of mounting her, he was ready to go back out to the stairs and call for her again when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed something.

On the bed, on one of the pillows on the side where he’d lain with her earlier, was a note.

Ken went to the bed and picked up the note, which was just two words: Dining room.

In the dining room the shirtless Ken found his long glass tables, his set of eight imported upholstered chairs, his rack of imported wines, his fantastic chandelier sparkling from the ceiling, his wall of windows with a spectacular view of the city—and Samantha, smiling over a dinner of steak, bread, and vegetables that she’d prepared from a raid of the refrigerator in the adjoining kitchen.

“I thought I’d let you pick the wine,” she said.

Laughing softly, Ken forgave her for not being in bed where he’d told her to be, and went to the wine rack to find something appropriate for “Surprise Steak Dinner Made by the Woman You’re Trying to Knock Up.”

*****

They took their time with dinner, then Ken had her in bed. Three times. Three awesome, shouting, toe-curling times.

After the third time, they lay under the covers in dim lights and contented silence. She rested in the crook of his arm, grazing her fingers along the massive contours of his pecs and through his chest hair. Then, he spoke her name. “Sammie.”

“Yes, Ken?” she replied.

“You know what I’m thinking?”

She kissed his pec. “You want to do it one more time.”

“Okay, that. And…something else.”

She lifted her head, genuinely curious. “Something else”—in bed? During non-business hours, between the sheets with her, what could possibly be sharing equal time in Ken Brecker’s head with s*x?

“What is it?” she asked.

“Sooner or later,” he answered, making her all the more curious by looking not directly at her but out into the softly lit space, “not too soon, I hope, what’s going on in this bed is going to make me a father. Me. A father.”

“That’s the idea, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but,” he almost seemed to struggle with the next words, “what the hell kind of father am I supposed to be?” Now he did look at her, sincerely, seriously. “Really, Sammie. How are fatherhood and I going to go together?”

“You don’t really believe you’d make a bad father, do you?” she asked. “Ken…you’re good. You’re kind. You’re generous. You’re disciplined—outside of the bedroom. Did your father know how to be a good dad to you when you were just born? Nobody knows that. They figure it out as they go along. You’ll get it.”

“Will I? Because, you know, my whole life up to this point…it’s been about me. What I wanted, what I needed, not having to wait for it, expecting everyone around me to know what they needed to know and do what they needed to do. Having a kid—it’s all the way the opposite of that. There’s going to be a kid in this penthouse, Sammie. A real live kid. And not just any kid, but a kid who’s going to start turning into a little bear after his first birthday. It’ll be like having two kids, one of them not human! And they—he—she—they’re going to be running around this place, doing all kinds of things, getting into all kinds of things, making all kinds of racket. I can probably kiss the fortune that I spent to furnish and decorate this place goodbye.

“And my temper, Sammie—you’ve never seen me when I’m mad, in either of my bodies. It’s not a pretty thing. How am I going to handle a kid? With my temper? With my being used to everything being a certain way that I want it?” He put a hand over his eye and squeezed his brow as if he were in pain. “Holy sh*t, Sammie—me and fatherhood? What the fu*k was I thinking? Why didn’t I just take my CEO salary and run?”