by Emery Cross
I was riding him, but with no help from me. He was doing all the work and it felt utterly amazing. My pussy stretched around his wide girth on the downward stroke.
How long could he keep this up? I lingered on the edge of orgasm, trying to hold it off because it was just the most out of control feeling, having my gorgeous husband in complete control of my body like that.
The speed and depth of his penetration kept increasing. I cried out as he lifted me almost all the way off his cock and held me suspended for a long moment before forcing me back down so he was buried to the hilt.
My head started swimming as if I was being dropped from a great height. My whole body pulsed as the orgasm hit. I wanted to cry out my love for him, but I swallowed it back as I had learned to do. It was like a physical ache holding it in.
My orgasm was just tapering off when he set me down on the dresser, the wall cold against my back. He reached over and flipped on a second light. I knew from experience that he liked watching me take all of him. He growled low in his throat as I parted my thighs for him. A lock of his hair fell forward. I wanted to hold him, to touch him, to breathe in his scent, but, instead, I just gripped the edge of the dresser and opened my legs wider.
His intense gaze feasted on my spread pussy and I was reminded of how he'd kept me naked for hours after I'd returned to him, pretending to decide whether he wanted me to get another piercing. Without the ring, the piercing had closed up quickly.
He'd sucked and nibbled on my clit, and flicked it gently with his fingers. Loose-limbed and drowsy from multiple orgasms, I'd finally asked him what the verdict was.
"Baby, I decided after my first look. I don't want jewelry blocking my view. I want to see every tiny bit of your beautiful pussy."
He closed up the space between us and scooped one hand beneath my bottom, digging his fingers into my buttock cheek, and then he braced the other hand on the wall above my head. I pulled in a sharp breath as his pace quickened. He drove into me deep and fast. His shirt was getting damp with sweat.
My pussy was making a sucking sound as he continued to pump in and out. His movements started getting a little reckless, and then his big body shuddered, the heat of him spilling inside of me.
He pulled out of me. I stayed seated, still reeling from all his intimate attentions. I watched as he got himself back in order, straightening up his clothes.
He lifted me off the dresser and set me on my feet. "Hey, babe, never forget you have my heart in your hands."
That should have been poignant, but somehow it sounded like a warning.
Confused, I headed to the bathroom. I could feel his come trickling down my inner thigh. I wondered how many babies were conceived on anniversary nights. Wasn't going to happen with us. And I certainly wasn't blameless.
After fixing myself up, I stepped out of the bathroom to find the bedroom empty. I switched off the light and slipped naked into bed to wait for him. I heard the TV turn on, some droning sports news channel. Even after all that, he was still brooding.
I climbed out of bed and without bothering to turn on the light I plucked a t-shirt out of the drawer. It was short and fairly tight and barely reached the top of my thighs. Hardly, the appropriate attire to have a serious discussion with one's mate. I shrugged inwardly. Maybe I could entice him back to bed.
He was sitting forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands clasped together. His sleeves were rolled up and I caught the glint of his big silver sports watch. His head was bowed; he wasn't even looking at the TV.
Seeing him like that I forgot completely about my attempt to sexy him out of his bad mood. I came around the couch and he lifted his head. "Are you going to tell me what I've done wrong?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's not your fault. It's mine." He picked up the remote and muted the sound.
I crossed my arms over my chest which pulled up my already too short t-shirt. I immediately dropped my arms to my sides and tugged on the hem. "No, I'm pretty sure you think whatever it is, is my fault."
He watched for a second as I tried to stretch the fabric and then his gaze flicked to my face. "On this one thing you decide to obey me." He'd gone from contrite to angry in nothing flat.
Now I was bristling with anger, I wanted to remind him that I'd been entirely cooperative in the bedroom mere minutes ago, but when he was being bull-headed there was no getting through to him.
"I thought it would be something you were as desperate to say to me as I was desperate to hear it," he said. "I thought sure as hell, tonight of all nights, you'd say it. I didn't think I'd have to beg you."
Now I understood. Steam should be coming out of my ears.
"Jump in anytime, babe," he said.
"I thought I wasn't allowed to say those words until I crossed that arbitrary line you'd established. Our second anniversary, right? Not our first."
He shrugged his big shoulders as if to say it was his prerogative to change the terms of his edict.
He stood up and faced me. I felt his tightly coiled emotions from here. "Maybe you can't say it because I was right. Maybe it was nothing more than a schoolgirl crush."
"My feelings for you—"
"No, don't placate me," he said, clearly trying to cut me off before I said something he wouldn’t like. "You're my wife. For better or worse, darlin'. Doesn't matter if you love me or not."
The scowl on his face said otherwise.
"Rowley, you aren't going to shut me up about this again."
He squared his jaw. Damn if he wasn't bracing himself for what he'd always thought was inevitable, that I would break his heart.
"You are wrong. My love for you has always been real. Yeah, I found out things about you I didn't know. That you have a temper, and that you expect to always get your way and that if you don't, you can be quite a jerk. But guess what? Those flaws just make me love you more. Did you think that just because I didn't say those words that I wasn't thinking them? Do you have any idea what it feels like to keep something like that bottled up all the time? Just now in the bedroom, I wanted so badly to say it.”
He was crossing the room to me. His shirt gaped open, exposing a tantalizing sliver of his muscular chest. The second he got close enough, I began popping open the rest of the buttons. I slipped my arms beneath his open shirt and around his warm body.
"So say it." I could feel the rumble of his deep voice beneath my cheek.
And here I thought I'd said it quite eloquently. "I'm in love with you," I said against his chest.
He reached around and peeled my hands off his back and then set me away from him. He tilted my chin up with his fingers so that I was forced to look him in the face. "Say it again," he said.
I was blinking back tears now, quite unsuccessfully. "I love you more than anything.” The tears started rolling down my face. “You are the only man I have ever loved or will ever love," I said on a sob.
He lifted the tail of his shirt and started to dry my face. "I'm going to need to hear that a lot to make up for all that lost time."
"And whose fault is that?"
"Mine. I'm a goddamn idiot." He dropped his shirt tail and yanked me into his big, protective arms.
EPILOGUE II
ROWLEY
MARRIED ONE YEAR & four months...
I spotted the flyer with an image of the Eiffel Tower on top of the mail and picked it up. The school she attended for baking classes was offering a two week crash course in French pastry.
Had she placed this for me to find? Did she want to go? Jesus, I still felt sick every time I thought of her Las Vegas trip.
She was in the kitchen, which I was beginning to think was her favorite room in the house. My pride wanted it to be the bedroom.
She was dressed in skimpy torn jean shorts and a little tank top. Her hair was in a messy bun, clipped to the back of her head. She hummed to herself as she layered cold cuts atop a slice of bread. She was putting together food for a day of poker. She already had a big tray filled with sandwich
es and there were fresh baked cookies on another tray.
Pizza and beer were our usual fare, and sometimes, when nobody took the initiative to call for pizza, just beer.
She picked up a knife and cut the sandwich diagonally and then placed it on top of the pile.
"You should go if you want to," I said. I was doing the, if you love someone set them free and they'll come back to you bullshit. It was a wonder I didn't choke on my words. I prayed making the suggestion would be enough and that she wouldn't take me up on my generous offer. Two weeks apart from her would be pure hell.
"Go where?" She glanced over and I held up the flyer.
"We could go together," she said. "The honeymoon we never had."
Shit, she was considering it. "I can't. We're doing some controlled burns in the foothills."
"I don't want to go without you."
I let out a pent-up breath. That was enough selflessness for one day. I wasn't going to encourage her to go alone. I shoved the flyer out of sight under some junk mail.
She put cellophane wrap over the stacks of sandwiches and placed the tray in the fridge.
"You didn't need to do all this."
"I thought it would be nice." She showed me where she'd stashed the bags of chips.
"Too nice. I don't want to get these guys used to this treatment. They're good with sitting in the garage and grabbing beer out of an ice chest."
She shook her head and smiled, flashing me her adorable dimples. She approached me and ran her fingers over my shower dampened skin. To be precise she was tracing the snake on my tattoo. My cock was instantly rock hard. She was always tracing my tattoos. I planned on getting a few more.
A car horn blared and her hand dropped away.
"That's Lili. We're going to the beach." She grabbed a tote bag I hadn't noticed before off the kitchen stool. "Have fun," she said.
I watched her sassy sweet ass swaying in those tiny shorts as she stepped out the back door.
She'd settled down a lot, but she could still be infuriatingly unpredictable. Not a word to me about her plans until the very last second. I didn't even get a kiss goodbye.
I'D BEEN RIGHT. THE guys weren't fit for indoor poker. Just an hour into play and there were already empties everywhere and sandwiches with bites out of them, lying directly on the table. Nobody could be bothered to get napkins or plates, me included. I congratulated myself for having the foresight to bring in the folding table and chairs rather than having them sit in the dining room as Harper had suggested.
There was a knock at the front door. I set down my cards to answer it.
Denise and Kelly were standing there with babies in their arms and bags filled to the top with baby equipment.
"We didn't think we should have all the fun," Denise said with a smart-ass smile. I took the bags from them and led them inside.
“Hey, man,” I said to Jake as I returned to the table. “You’d better call Steph and tell her to bring the twins or she’s going to feel left out.”
“She’s good,” Jake said. “She’s staying at her sisters for a few days.”
“Must be damned quiet at your house,” Nick said.
Jake grinned. “Yeah. It’s downright blissful.”
The living room quickly turned into a daycare center. Toys and blankets were scattered everywhere. There were baby bottles and small food jars on the coffee table. Kelly had switched off the baseball game we’d had playing in the background and put on a cooking show.
I heard the sound of laughter spilling through the back screen door. Harper and Lili had returned from the beach.
Harper left her friend in the kitchen and came out to the table. Her hair was down and wavy. Instead of shorts, she was now wearing a long summer dress over her bathing suit. It clung to her curves.
She said hello to Tony and Nick, and then I introduced her to the two guys she hadn’t met yet, Jake and Wyatt.
“Nice to meet, ya,” Wyatt said. He was an Alabama boy like me. He’d lived in California even longer than I had, yet somehow his accent was thicker.
Harper scanned the room and I figured she was unhappy with the mess. She disappeared into the kitchen. I expected her to return with a trash bag, instead, she brought out two big bowls of chips. I hadn't bothered to serve them. In fact, the guys had discovered the sandwiches she'd prepared on their own when they went to the fridge for beer.
She made another trip to the kitchen this time returning with the freshly baked cookies. She shot me an annoyed look as she set the tray down on the sideboard. I could see specks of sand glittering on her skin, the light freckles across her nose standing out from the sun. I wanted to kick everyone out of my house so that I could make love to her nice and slow.
Lili and another girl came out of the kitchen and Harper introduced them around. Coco. That was the name. I could never remember. Not sure why? She was fairly memorable, with her lip piercings and a full sleeve tattoo. But I knew I would forget her name again the moment she left.
"Oh my God, I didn't realize you married the guy from the concert." Coco wagged a finger at Harper. "I saw you. That night, I saw it all. Finn Newton singing that love ballad in front of everyone and—"
"Coco, don't." Harper's cheeks were pink.
All the men had set down their cards.
Denise and Kelly suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“I downloaded one of his albums,” Kelly said. “He’s really good.”
Harper threw Coco an annoyed glance before moving around the card table toward Denise and Kelly. "I didn't know you guys were going to be here. I would have stuck around."
Denise thrust her baby at Harper and Harper took him with a smile. Damn, that baby looked right in her arms.
"Last minute decision. I didn't want Tony to miss out on quality time with Tony, Jr." Her lips curled in a sarcastic smile.
"I suggested that womenfolk shouldn't be around such sordid card play, but she wouldn't listen," Tony said.
Denise rolled her eyes at her husband.
"Keep going, Coco,” Kelly said. “I want to hear the rest.”
I could tell by the disappointed expression on Harper's face that she thought the subject had been changed.
"You know his newest hit? The one they play on the radio all the time. That's about Harper," Lili offered.
Harper's cheeks were bright red now. "Coco, Lili, please cut it out."
I had no fucking problem hearing this story told. I was the one who got the girl.
"So picture this," Coco said ignoring Harper's pleading. She held her hands up as if she were framing a scene. "There's Finn singing his heart out on stage, trying to win Harper back and she stuffs her hair under her hood—Oops, forgot to mention, he asks the audience to find his beautiful redhead and point her in his direction. Which is why she hid her hair." She paused for maximum effect. Harper was focusing on the baby, cooing and gently bouncing him in her arms. She was trying her best to ignore the whole thing.
“It’s like a baseball player proposing in the middle of the field, during a game,” Lili said. “I mean you almost have to say yes, don’t you?”
Coco directed a narrow-eyed glance at Lili for inserting herself, before continuing. "So Harp's going the opposite direction, pushing through the crowd and away from the stage."
"And?" Denise prodded.
"She gets clear of everybody and then she makes a crazy dash straight into another man's arms. His arms." She pointed at me.
All eyes turned to me.
“Shit, Ford, that must have made you feel like the cock of the walk,” Wyatt said. He was a man of few, but often cut-to-the-chase words.
“That about sums it up,” I said with a smile.
"She made the right choice," Kelly said and her husband, Nick, threw her a surprised look over his shoulder.
"Definitely," Denise agreed.
Only my wife stayed silent.
"You sure?" Tony asked. "Newton is probably worth millions."
I gave the bot
tom of his chair a hard shove with my boot. He grabbed the edge of the table to stop from toppling. The other guys groused as a couple of beer bottles fell over and poker chips slid off the table and bounced onto the floor.
Once he righted himself and the table, he scooted his chair a safe distance from me. "Just stating the obvious." He gave me a shit-eating grin.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Harper handing Tony, Jr. back to Denise before slipping into the kitchen. Given the chance to redo that moment, would she still come running to me? She sure as hell didn't want to have my babies.
I knew it was all my own damn fault. You don’t tell your brand new bride that you don’t have faith in her.
All my apologies hadn't helped. And I was clearly shit at the grand gesture. My attempt to make her feel better about that painful prom experience by filling a room with roses turned out to be a pathetic stunt.
I followed her into the kitchen. Wyatt and Tony trailed after me, obviously to fetch beers.
She started at the sight of us and quickly swiped her fingers beneath her eyes.
She approached me and wrapped her arms around my waist and hugged me. “Sorry, that must have been embarrassing for you.”
“Hell, that ain’t the kind of thing that embarrasses a man,” Wyatt said. “That’s the kind of thing a man brags about it.”
Harper gave him a smile.
I waited impatiently for the guys to grab their beers and get the hell out of there, before asking, “Why were you crying?”
"I'm just so happy."
Moments later, Coco walked in, so I didn't have the opportunity to find out why she was crying if she was so damned happy.
"We need to get ready,” Coco said. “We're on at nine."
"Sorry, forgot to mention we're playing at The Escape, a little club downtown," Harper said to me. "We'll get dressed in the guesthouse so we'll be out of your way."
She had me spinning. This felt like deja vu. I wanted to tell her to settle the fuck down.
Harper gathered clothes and makeup and headed out the back door, her bandmates in tow.
"You're going to the show, right?" Tony asked.
