Insta-Hubby

by Lauren Milson

  A numb feeling washes over me as I make my way back into the living room. The tree’s still lit up, and without thinking, I whisper a swear word under my breath and wonder why Chris even bothered to come over last night. Why he bothered to bring the tree inside, when I would have been perfectly capable of doing it myself. Why he sat down with my family and ate dinner and dessert and agreed to stay the night. Why he squeezed my hand and reassured me and helped me have the courage to do everything I did last night, for my family and for me.

  Why he pushed me down and kissed me and made me come like I never have before.

  Even though it’s Christmas and it’s uncharitable to say bad things about anyone, let alone your ex, even if it’s just under your breath, I let out another little swear and slink into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee and start making breakfast.

  My mind runs cold as I start pulling down bowls and measuring cups from the cabinets and retrieving the wet and dry ingredients from the fridge and pantry. I stare blankly at the tree, and I’m more relieved now than I was before that I woke up alone. I made the right decision. Good job, me.

  And if I wasn’t able to listen to Christmas music last night, then damn it, I’m going to listen to it now. Instead of putting it on the stereo and risk jolting everyone awake, I grab my earbuds from the pocket of my coat in the hallway and fire up my personal radio app on my phone and get to work on the pancakes.

  I quickly start to take out my anger on the poor eggs and milk. I know the recipe by heart, and I crack two eggs and measure out the correct amount of milk into one of my mom’s old glazed ceramic bowls from the 70s, beating everything into a frothy mixture to the tempo of an instrumental version of Carol of the Bells for way longer than necessary.

  That fucking guy. I was so right to do what I did. Now I can go back to California with the confidence I lacked when I left here a year ago.

  I catch my brother come into the living room from the corner of my eye. I don’t feel like talking to him, and I put my head down and turn around to grab some half and half from the fridge for the coffee that’s finally ready. He’s saying something behind me, but I can’t make it out over the music.

  “Jess!” My earbuds pop out of my ears and I swing around to see Chris standing in front of me. He’s traded in his rugged red button-down and dark jeans for a white button-down and a skinny black tie and slacks, but all I can focus on is his gorgeous smile and the light in his eyes.

  I’m taken aback, and my heart leaps into my stomach, sending butterflies through my body.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. My brother is behind him, laughing.

  “We were standing here for a good minute before I finally had to take matters into my own hands,” Chris says, pulling my phone out of the front pocket of my pajama pants and setting it down on the counter. “Everything okay?”

  “I thought you were gone,” I say, turning my attention to the coffee, pouring myself a big cup and sloshing some milk into my mug.

  “Merry Christmas to you too, sis,” Paul says, smiling. “Did someone piss in your corn flakes this morning?”

  “Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting anyone to be up.” I turn back to the boys, sipping my coffee. “You guys want pancakes?”

  “Make mine with extra love,” Chris says, wrapping his arms around me and planting a kiss on the top of my head.

  “Aw, how sweet.” Paul dashes upstairs as I put my coffee down and hug Chris back.

  “I thought you left.” I nuzzle into Chris’ crisp white shirt and breathe him in. He smells like wintergreen and snow, and his broad, muscular chest feels solid and strong against me.

  “Sweetheart, no. I didn’t leave. I’m not going to do that.” He scoops my ass up in his hands and I’m met with the memory of last night again. His mouth against me, his lips, his hands holding me down and making me feel so amazingly good.

  “Where did you go?” I ask quietly. I was relieved when he wasn’t there with me in my bed, and then the cold numbness that followed when I thought he was gone for good made me feel vulnerable and exposed. And now? Now I feel like I’ve been cut open for him to see everything, and I don’t know whether I should run and hide or ask him to do the same for me.

  He lets go of me and starts fixing himself a cup of coffee. “In case you forgot, you happened to abandon your truck on the side of the road in a blizzard last night. Paul and I just spent the better part of the last two hours digging it out.”

  “Oh.” I take a sip of my coffee and go back to my half-made pancake batter and shrug coolly. “Thanks for that.”

  “I know a way you can repay me.” He leans against the counter and blows on his coffee, his sexy, pouty lips making me think naughty things.

  He walks toward me and takes my coffee cup away from me like I’ve done something wrong, heat and fire burning in his eyes as he pushes me back against the counter, making a cage around me with his arms.

  I look down to see the outline of his cock growing inside his pants, and he pushes it against me in response. “Want to know how you can thank me for digging out your truck?”

  “And here I was,” I say, “thinking you did me some favor out of the kindness of your heart. I thought it was all for the spirit of the season.”

  His tongue traces along his upper lip and he bends down, forcing his mouth onto my neck and nibbling softly at my tender skin. “It was all for you, baby. You can repay me by letting me get down on my knees and licking you until you come all over my face again. Or do you want me to carry you upstairs right now and fuck you senseless?”

  My body slacks down against his. He captures me with his hands, gripping my arms and sending heat through my body at his touch and his words.

  “I don’t know. You want a repeat of last night?” I ask softly. We both know I have to go back to California shortly. We both know this won’t last. We both know that all the questions we had a year ago are still burning and urgent.

  “A repeat of last night? No, baby. I want that to be a permanent part of my life. Of yours too.” He starts to kiss my neck, nipping his teeth against my ear as he trails kisses down my body.

  “I can’t right now,” I say, smiling, my body craving his touch. “I need to get breakfast ready.”

  He straightens up and adjusts his shirt. He looked so hot last night in his lumberjack outfit, but now he looks even hotter in his dress shirt and tie.

  “You were never one to wear something like that, were you?” I ask, starting to mix up the dry ingredients and turning my music back on my phone. I pop out the earbuds so we can both enjoy the music, and adjust the volume so it isn’t too loud to wake up my sister and parents.

  Chris moves into the living room and picks up an ornament that fell off the tree overnight, putting it back on an empty branch. He isn’t putting it back in the right place, but he looks so cute and his butt looks so good in those pants that I let it slide.

  “Nah,” he says, looking the tree up and down and then gazing out the window. “But I thought it was a special occasion. Wanted to spruce up the old look for my girl.”

  “And what about your dad?” I ask, combining the dry and wet ingredients. “Have you talked to him yet? Is he coming over today?”

  Chris keeps looking out the window. His model-good looks are making him seem like he stepped out right off of a website. His beard is really doing wonders for his sexiness level. Not that he wasn’t hot before - but now it’s on another level.

  “Nah. I don’t think so,” he says, unmoving and matter-of-factly. “He isn’t really one to celebrate the holidays anymore, you know?”

  I bite my lip and look down at the bowl of pancake batter starting to come together. “Right. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Chris turns to me and flashes that gorgeous smile. “It’s nothing, babe.”

  I feel stupid for having brought it up, and I hope he isn’t really mad at me under that smile. When my mom asked Chris last night to invite his dad over, I noticed a palpable shift in h
im. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Babe,” he says, crossing the living room and coming into the kitchen again. “Don’t worry about it. Please. You can’t do anything wrong. You’re incapable of it.”

  He sets my mind at ease and I giggle. “Oh, sure. So leaving my truck on the side of the road was the right thing to do last night?”

  “Absolutely. Young lady, you know you shouldn’t drive if you feel unsafe,” he says, wagging a finger at me.

  “Have you ever thought about going into law enforcement?” I grab a pan from a cabinet and slice a pat of butter into it, turning on the old gas burner. A few clicks and it fires up.

  “Now that you mention it, it might not be a bad career path for me.” He dips his finger into the pancake batter and licks it off, sending a little shock into my stomach. “Or maybe I just want the handcuffs that come with the gig.”

  He winks and I groan, throwing my hands up into the air.

  “Can you please make yourself useful and add some mini chocolate chips to that batter, officer?” The pan is heating up and Chris tosses a few chips into his mouth before pouring a generous amount into the bowl, mixing everything up with the whisk and bringing the bowl over to stove.

  “You like giving orders, do you?” He stands behind me and kisses me on the cheek, setting the bowl on the counter next to the stove and pulling me back into him deep with his strong arms. I place my fingers tentatively on his forearms, feeling pure muscle beneath my hands. There’s something different in his embrace than there was a year ago, and it isn’t just because he’s become bigger and stronger. I can feel something different in the way he holds me now. It’s like he knows I’m his. It feel so good, but those feelings of doubt keep creeping their way in.

  But I can’t say no. I can’t hold out any longer. I won’t be able to.

  I cannot resist this man.

  Chris

  This time I’m driving. All those nights we spent under the starry sky with her head in the crook of my neck, our shoes off and our toes feeling the warmth of the silky summer air were nice, and there’s more to come. I’m going to make her mine, and I know how much she wants it.

  We hop into her truck after a delicious breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. I even helped make them. Maybe I just added one ingredient to the mix, but that’s helping. They wouldn’t have been the same without the chocolate chips. They would have been good, but lacking something special for Christmas morning.

  “What do you want to listen to?” I ask, clicking on the radio. “Classic rock, Christmas tunes, pop, hip hop, country. The world is your oyster.”

  “Do you feel like just talking?” she asks, peering out the window. By now the roads have been cleared, and I feel confident that we’ll be able to get to my house without any trouble. I need to wish my dad a Merry Christmas, and I want to bring home my girl to see him. They’ve met a million times before, but I want to remind him of what a good girl I have. Plus, I’m hoping we can entice him to come over to the Murphys for dinner.

  “Absolutely,” I say, shifting into gear and pulling carefully out of the long driveway. When I come back later I’ll quickly shovel and throw down some salt. I don’t want Jess’ old man to do it. “I think we have a lot to talk about, anyway.”

  We make our way steadily up the small hill at the end of Jess’ street. I should have done a better job of getting the pile of snow out of the bed of the truck, because the weight feels a little heavy in the back, but we’re off and on our way in no time at all.

  “Well, what do you want to talk about?” she asks, looking over at me but then shifting her eyes back to the road. She seems nervous, but there’s no need.

  “I’ve got you, babe. No need to doubt my driving ability. You think a boy from central New York can’t drive in the aftermath of a storm?” I laugh and glance over at her as her expression warms up a little and she relaxes her hands in her lap.

  “Guess I’ve spent too long on the West Coast, maybe.”

  “So what was that about you maybe transferring?” I ask, pulling onto the main drag. I honk as we pass Derek showing his last tree to an eager customer, and he waves back at me. In the light of day, it seems like last night’s storm is a distant memory. The roads are clear and everything’s been plowed and salted. There’s even a good amount of cars on the road, people picking up last minute things for the holiday.

  “Yeah, I don’t know. I was thinking about it.” Her voice is a little brighter than it was before, and as I look over at her gorgeous, fresh face, her beautiful lips and sparkling eyes, my cock starts acting up again.

  I pull onto my street and into the driveway. It’s the house I grew up in with my mom and dad, and now that it’s just me and dad the house feels bigger and more empty. Dad and I rarely eat dinner together, and he’s always working. He commutes down to the city every day for his job at a finance firm in Midtown. I think this was part of why mom left, but I never really got involved in their arguments. I tended to be out of the house when things really heated up between them. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to face it.

  The driveway’s been plowed and shoveled, and as I slow to a stop to grab my keys to click open the garage, I notice that his car is gone.

  Jess and I tie our scarves around our necks a little tighter before getting out of her truck and making our way quickly toward the house.

  “Doesn’t look like dad’s home,” I say, grabbing my phone and pulling up the last text I sent him. I reply, wishing him a Merry Christmas and asking where he is.

  Jess steps tentatively into the foyer, peeking up the stairs and removing her coat. “I haven’t been at your house in a while, huh?” she says, hanging up her coat on the pegboard on the wall next to the door as though she's in her own home. A surge of possessiveness shoots through my veins when I see her make herself at home in the old house I grew up in. She belongs here.

  I check the first floor, the kitchen, living room and dining room for my dad, thinking he might have left his car somewhere. But he doesn’t seem to be around, and I decide it’s all for the better.

  “It’s a shame you haven’t been here in so long, Jess.” I circle around her and force her back against the wall, lifting her up easily in my arms.

  Her lips meet mine frantically, our mouths crashing together in a long, passionate kiss. I grind myself into her body, squeezing her ass and pressing her into me. Her gorgeous, curvy legs wrap up around me and I hold her against the wall easily, hungrily kissing her and imagining our clothes off and my cock buried deep inside her wet pussy.

  “You belong here now. Do you understand?” I groan into her hair, my steel-hard cock straining against my clothes.

  “Yes,” she pants, over and over. “Yes. Yes.”

  It was so easy to bring her off last night, her body absolutely melting in my hands. I know that she’s untouched, and I’m going to make myself her first and last.

  I slip a hand down between us, feeling her ripe and soft pussy behind my fingers. I move and massage her clit softly, strumming against her wetness and pulling soft moans from inside her throat. Her head is tilted back and my mouth feasts upon her long, beautiful neck, licking and sucking until I can’t take it anymore.

  Pulling my hand out of her panties, I scoop her up by the ass and carry her to the stairs. Her legs are wrapped around me so tight, and I move up the stairs fast and carry her to my bedroom.

  Laying her down on top of my made up bed, I realize I haven’t slept here in a few days myself. Last night I was at Jess’, and the night before that I was passed out on a couch in some basement of a frat house where I was slightly too old to be partying anymore. The night before that I slept in my car because I was too drunk to drive home from the bar and it was too cold to walk. I was a fucking wreck before Jess came bursting back into my life, only leaving the house to do odd jobs or get fucked up, my only companionship a bartender and some regular whose name I can never remember who happens to love whiskey and beer as much as I
do.

  Jess scoots back on the bed and sits up against my headboard, propping up some pillows behind her. We’ve been in this bed together before, but not like this. The only time I’ve had my cock out in this bed, I was thinking of her and replaying the memory of her smile and her kiss over and over inside my head.

  “Don’t hide,” I say, kicking my shoes off and untying my tie. She’s moving a pillow in front of her and squeezing it close. “I want to see you.”

  She slowly moves the pillow away, and even with all her clothes on she’s the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. My girl gets on her knees in front of me and lifts her grey sweater over her head, revealing her perfect breasts inside a pretty white lace bra. Through the delicate fabric her nipples are standing erect, tempting me to rip the lace away and devour those pretty pink peaks.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” I say as she throws her arms around my neck. I push her back and crawl between her legs, taking a perfect handful of each of her breasts in my palms, squeezing gently and capturing each nipple between my fingers. “I need to see more of you.”

  I kiss down between her breasts and to her stomach, caressing each side of her as her waist cinches in at her narrowest part and then flares out to perfect, curvy hips. My lips travel down below her belly button and to the top of her jeans, when I look up and smile at her. Her eyes are closed and her head is thrown back even though I’m not touching her where it counts.

  “Look at me, Jess,” I whisper, kissing her stomach. Her eyes fly open as I slowly unzip her jeans and pull them down her hips and ass, keeping eye contact with her. I want to go slow and make her feel everything, but I need my cock to be inside her and feel her come fast and hard.