Belly Button Tickle

I had been married for five years, but my belly remained flat—no sign of a child. Then, on my 35th birthday, I suddenly found out I was pregnant. When I shared the good news with my husband, he flew into a rage. Instead of being happy, he accused me of carrying someone else's baby. Only then did I learn he had a mistress. He even claimed he wanted a "real" child—one that truly belonged to him—with her. I thought he was just being irrational and would eventually come to his senses. After getting an amniocentesis, I immediately brought him the paternity test results to prove the baby was his. He came home acting like a changed man—hugging me, kissing me, claiming that he didn't cheat on me. The very next day, he booked a hotel and threw a banquet, announcing to all our friends and family that he was going to be a father. However, when his mistress saw the news, she completely lost it. She showed up with a group of people, blocked me in the street, and—despite my pregnancy—started punching and kicking me. "You shameless woman! How dare you carry my man's child? Are you that desperate to die?"

I accompany my husband, Michael Yates, to a stationed assignment on a remote island. Out at sea, a sudden storm hits. The ship capsizes and begins to sink. As the commanding officer, my husband gives the last life vest to his so-called godsister, Naomi Hollister. I don't cry or scream. I just watch silently as he carefully fastens the straps around her body. In my past life, I had clutched my pregnant belly and begged him for help. After a brief hesitation, he finally put the vest on me. But Naomi was swept away by the waves, and her body later washed up on shore. Only half of it remained. Michael insisted it wasn't my fault. He also said that saving me was his duty, both morally and professionally. He even took leave to stay by my side before I gave birth. But when my water broke in the dead of night, he pushed me into the sea. His eyes were bloodshot and burning with hatred. "Leah, if it weren't for you, Mimi would still be alive! Did you really have to force me to give you the vest when you were just pregnant? Couldn't you have waited a little longer? Why do you get to live? Go down there and die with her!" I drown, and fish tear my body apart. I die without even a full corpse left behind. And then, I open my eyes. I'm back on the day of the storm.

Shah Zain was holding her with one hand while opening his shirt button with the other hand. Meanwhile, he didn't let Minal separate from him for a moment. "Shah Zain please, it's not right time, it's too early." She was trying hard to control her unsteady condition, but who was listening to her? "Nothing is early Minal.... and today you can't stop me..... because today you himself come close to me." He picks her up in his arms and lays her on the bed. He bends on Minal while saying that. Feeling his lips on her neck, Minal feels like losing herself. "Shah Zain please....." For the last time, she tried to free herself from his hold. But Shah Zain again stops her from uttering anything. He just wants to feel Minal's closeness with himself. He wants to say how much he loves her.

I am Charles Grant’s crush, and everyone said that he was really loyal to me. But on our third wedding anniversary, I found out that he had gotten a replacement for me. They even had a three-year-old child. I caressed my belly and tore apart the pregnancy report that I had brought to give him as a surprise.

"All she wanted was a spark, a fire that would burn her skin. She craved passion, wildness, and insanity." Among all the reckless things she'd done, sleeping with a complete stranger might have been the craziest. Things would have been different if she wasn’t still haunted by thoughts of the man who, for one night, brought three-fourths of her fantasies to life. Coral had given up hope, knowing that in a city of over two million people, finding a man whose face and name she didn’t know was impossible. But then she met him again—on a blind date. Lucian Andersen, the son of one of her father’s closest friends. He was devastatingly handsome, a cold heartthrob, dangerous, and whenever he smirked, shivers danced down her spine. Her mind went blank, reeling from the shock that out of all the people in the world, it was him she had shared that wild night with in an unknown room. The date might have been ordinary, but then the man, with an ego larger than a football stadium, said something that left her breathless. “I want to marry you, Coral Shen.” The butterflies in her belly might have danced at his proposal, but they died instantly upon hearing his true intentions. He didn’t love her. Hell, she wasn’t even sure if he liked her. But she knew one thing: the marriage proposal was purely for business. Coral refused, but the twists of fate had other plans. Against all odds, she found herself asking him to be her fiancé.

It's Thanksgiving, and I'm waiting for Zeke Jones to come home after cooking up an extravagant meal. When Zeke returns, he doesn't even glance at the meal I've prepared for him. Instead, he proceeds to pack a bag. "I can't celebrate Thanksgiving with you this year," he says. I take another bite of my turkey and say nothing. At the stroke of midnight, Zeke's first love posts a new photo on her social media page. In the photo, she's lying on Zeke's back with a bright smile on her face. The moon outside the window is bright. "Happy to spend Thanksgiving with good company," her caption reads. Instead of hysterically questioning Zeke about the post, I just tap on the "like" button without reacting in any way. Zeke calls me. His voice sounds panicked as he tries to explain himself. "Please don't misinterpret the post. I will definitely spend Thanksgiving with you next year…" I freeze for a few moments, letting out a small laugh. I don't offer him a reply. Next time, he says? Oh, Zeke, I'm afraid there won't be a next time.

My husband’s first love had a miscarriage. He insisted that it was my doing and forced me to give my daughter up. “If it weren’t for you, Becky wouldn’t have a miscarriage! You should let her have your baby! You must pay for her pain of losing her baby!” I begged for mercy and resisted him. However, he grabbed my hair and kicked my belly even though I had just delivered my baby. He tied me up and locked me up in the basement for fear that I might run away. But I was dying. He even made a nice excuse. “You’re petty and jealous. You harmed Becky too. Since you feel no remorse, I’ll punish you and lock you up in the basement to reflect on your mistakes!” Seven days later, his first love found the baby too noisy and got annoyed by the baby. Suddenly, he thought of me. “Let her have the baby. And see if she’s behaving herself.” Little did he know that I was rotting in the basement with maggots eating away at my body.

I'm betrothed to Hylton Miller from the moment I'm born. For as long as I can remember, he protects and loves me like I'm already his wife. Even if I get a tiny splinter on my hand, he holds it carefully as he gently clips it away. That is, until the young woman his family sponsors offends a client and is about to be sent to Zubania. He drugs me with a glass of wine. When I wake up, I'm in a foreign country and trapped in an illegal factory. Here, I endure inhuman abuse, torment, even humiliation... At my lowest, when despair almost swallows me whole, that sponsored young woman appears before me in a pristine, custom-made white gown. She smiles sweetly and presses the play button on a voice recording. And from the speaker comes the voice I long for every day and night. "It's fine. Alina's the young lady of the Winslet family—they won't do anything to her. But Priscilla? She's different. Worst case, I'll make it up to Alina when she gets back…" In that moment, it feels like someone tears my heart open with their bare hands.

The day before the wedding, my fiancé James's childhood sweetheart had a severe depressive episode. Threatening to take her own life, she demanded the destruction of the wedding gown my grandmother had painstakingly made for me before her passing. To calm her down, James locked me in a room and stayed by her side, helping her cut the gown into shreds. Amid the mess, he spoke indifferently. "Be reasonable. It's just a wedding gown. Do you want to see her die?" Later, James's hot uncle approached me, asking me to carry on the family lineage. I nodded in agreement. But James, with reddened eyes, confronted me. "Are you really going to have his child? Have you completely given up on me?" Covering my slightly rounded belly, I replied, "Be reasonable. It's just a child. He’s your uncle. Do you want to see him with no heir to carry on the family name?”

I shoot without any kind of fear, with violence, I advance in the lair of the Romans that I hate so much, while I protect my belly. The confrontation is complicated, because we have the same level and weapons, but, if I have come here, it is because I want to end right now with the hatred that has prevented us from advancing. My babies in my belly move and I transform into a wolf to advance quickly through the place, until I collide with a big wolf that makes me angry. The man transforms into a human and smiles at me. “I didn't think you would be so vindictive. It was just a little rejection, Rain, you should let me go.” Lake says, the man that in the past, I loved with my soul. The desire to transform into a human and shoot him flashes through my mind, but I can't give myself away. So, I jump to bite his neck, but, he grabs me in his arms and throws me to the other end of the room, where one of my men grabs me and I, out of shock, transform into a human. “Are you all right?” my bodyguard asks worriedly and I nod in fear. “Are you pregnant?” Lake asks in a daze, looking at my bulging belly. 'Oh, no. Now he knows. Darn.' I mentally tell myself with worry. “'That baby... “If you came to talk, you can talk in hell.” I say shooting at him and he doesn't dodge my bullet, but, instead, rushes towards me. “It's my son, isn't it?” Lake asks. “I don't have to answer anything you ask me; our connection was broken when you rejected me as your moon.” I say coldly.