by Lulu Pratt
I touch Ethan all over, marveling at the way he’s grown physically in such a short time. His muscles moving under his skin on his chest feel amazing, and he’s grown a little more hair there. I push my hips down to get better contact with Ethan’s fingers and he moves the fabric aside, finally coming into contact with my soaking wet bare skin.
“You’re so wet,” he says, barely breaking away from my lips, and I mumble something back to him agreeing with that assessment. Really, I’m too turned on to think about anything so mundane as words. I wish, for a second, that he’d just rip the damn panties off and somehow get inside of me right away.
Instead, Ethan tumbles me off him and onto the couch, twisting around to pin me on my back against the cushions. I yelp in surprise, but the next moment his fingers hook into the waistband of my panties and pull them down over my hips, removing the last little bit of clothing on me. He tosses them across the room and I don’t even care where they’ve landed, not right now, at least. I just know that soon, hopefully, I’ll get what I want so badly I can taste it.
Ethan kisses his way down from my lips to my neck, my neck to my breasts, staying there for a few moments to give my pebble-hard nipples some attention, and then moves on to my ticklish belly, chuckling to himself as I squirm in reaction.
“Some things never change,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to himself. But then he’s slipping down between my legs, spreading them wide, looking up at me from just below my hips. I know what’s coming but even that doesn’t stop the shock of pleasure that lights up my nervous system when Ethan buries his face against my pussy, nuzzling against me for a moment before beginning to lick and suck.
He teases me for what seems like an hour, barely bringing the tip of his tongue up to my clit where I want it most and then dipping down to my inner labia, keeping me right on the edge as I moan and squirm and writhe, grabbing at his head and shoulders, trying to twist my hips in such a way that he can’t avoid giving me what I want. I forget about everything but the need to get relief, bucking up against Ethan’s mouth.
Finally, Ethan begins to focus on my clit, sucking it between his lips and swirling his tongue around the little bead of nerves, flicking against my pleasure center until I’m panting and gasping for breath. He pins my hips down with his arms and holds me right where he wants me, working me with his mouth until I couldn’t hold back if I wanted to. I grab his shoulders as the tension between my hips shatters and wave after wave of pleasure crashes through me.
Ethan doesn’t let up, and it feels like my climax goes on for an hour as he keeps just enough pressure on my clit to keep me going, backing off every so often and starting over again. I come until I’m gasping for breath and trembling from the pleasure tingling through my nerves, and my clit is almost unbearably sensitive. I’m just about to tell Ethan to pull back when he does, licking his lips and looking up at me with a little grin.
“That’s the most fun I’ve had in a while,” Ethan tells me as he moves back up my body to kiss me on the lips. I can feel the hard, hot ridge of his erection pressing against my hip, and even though maybe two seconds ago I would have said it would take me an hour to be ready for more, the reminder turns me on all over again.
I kiss him back, pressing my body against his, and wrap my legs around his hips. I’m soaking wet, and as I push my hips down, I love the feel of his cock, covered still by his shorts, against me. From the way Ethan tenses against me I can tell he likes the way I feel just as much.
“Give me two minutes to catch my breath and we can take care of your needs too,” I say, rubbing against him a little bit. Ethan groans, and I feel his weight shift on top of me, and then, deliciously, his shorts are gone and there’s nothing at all between us. I should probably stop things here, I should probably ask him if he’s got a condom or tell him I can look for one in my bathroom, but I don’t want to wait, or stop to think.
Ethan waits until my breathing has slowed and then I feel his fingertips brush against my labia as he guides the tip of his cock up against my pussy. He thrusts into me slowly and my toes curl as he fills me inch by inch, pushing against the little bit of resistance as my body tries to tighten around him. I push my hips down to take him deeper, faster, and Ethan chuckles lowly in my ear as we find our rhythm. It takes us a couple of moments. I’m only too eager and Ethan seems to be wanting to hold back a little bit, but once I fall into his movements, it feels so good that I don’t even care that he’s taking his time.
We move together, Ethan pushing deeper and deeper inside of me, and every movement of his hips rubs up against my still-sensitive clit. When the tip of Ethan’s cock starts brushing against my g-spot every third or fourth thrust, I almost can’t bear how good it feels, he fits inside of me so perfectly, it’s like my body was made to take him.
Before I know it, we’re both speeding up, touching each other everywhere, kissing each other again and again, and the tension is building between my hips until it’s almost unbearable. I twist my hips and try to consciously flex my inner muscles around Ethan’s thick, hard cock inside of me. Wanting nothing in the world more than to feel him climax with me, he keeps slowing down just when I’m on the edge, the same as before, until I’m just short of begging him to bring this ecstasy its end already.
Ethan speeds up again and I can’t hold back any longer. All at once the tension deep down in my hips just snaps, and I climax for the second, maybe the third, time that night, grabbing at Ethan’s back and shoulders, crying out as the pleasure washes through me again. He manages to hold back a little longer, but just as my orgasm is starting to ebb, I feel his whole body tense, and then his climax brings me back to my own heights yet again.
I don’t know how long we keep going. After a while I realize that we’ve stopped, panting for breath, and then I drift off, with Ethan’s comfortable weight pressed against me, until I’m asleep. By the time I wake up again, Ethan’s fallen asleep too, and I realize that we’ve probably both been on short sleep rations, between taking care of Riley and all the stress that comes along with it. It’s something like three in the morning and I shift Ethan on top of me, moving him little by little until he wakes up.
“That was amazing,” he says, smiling at me dreamily, and I feel like someone has dumped ice water down my back.
“We can’t ever do it again,” I tell him. The afterglow of our sex together has completely deserted me, and I have this feeling like panic welling up. What the hell have I done? It’s been five months since Alexis died and here I am fucking her husband! It isn’t just that — while I was able to forget everything, all the hurt, all the complication, all the drama, while we were going at it, every last bit of the problems between Ethan and me seem to come rushing back to me in the aftermath.
“What?” Ethan sits up and I slip off the couch, looking around the living room for my clothes.
What the hell came over me? Why did I go along with him?
“We can’t have sex again. We can’t even kiss. We can’t get involved physically,” I reply, finding my shirt first and then hurriedly pulling it on over my head.
“Why not?”
I look at Ethan. “You’re a widower, and my sister, who you started dating after we broke up, has only been dead for a few months,” I say.
“She’s dead, Lara. Us not having sex isn’t going to bring her back,” Ethan points out.
“No, but us not having sex will let me stay objective,” I insist. I remember what I said to my father during our fight, but even more clearly, I can remember the crushing way that I’d felt when I came home to discover my sister with my ex-boyfriend.
I say to myself, You’re just a comfortable rebound for him at the moment. As soon as he gets over Alexis all the way, he’s going to go after someone else, and you can’t afford to get hurt by him again.
“What’s going on, Lara?”
“You should go home,” I say. I finally find my panties and put them on as well, though I know as soon as
I get rid of Ethan I’m going to take a shower, and I realize that he came inside of me, and that I’m going to have to get Plan B or something similar the next day.
“Are you sure?”
I nod in response to his question.
“Take care. I told Dad that I don’t want Riley on my own and I mean it,” I say, trying to soften the blow a little bit. Ethan gets up, quickly gets dressed, and even though he keeps looking at me curiously, I make myself stay quiet until he leaves.
Chapter Twenty-Two
ETHAN
I LOOK AT the big binder that Lara has brought out while Riley plays on the living room floor and shake my head to myself. Alexis had done a pretty big first birthday deal for our daughter, but Lara apparently wants to eclipse that, or maybe she’s just making up for lost time.
“I’ve got a few different theme ideas we could go with, and of course a couple of guest lists to look over. I feel like that’s going to be the really tough part,” Lara says, sitting down with a cup of coffee across the table from me.
It’s been weird ever since we had sex, and I guess I should have expected that. In a way I have to admit that Lara was right. We need to, at least for now, be able to take care of business without feelings being involved. Maybe when Riley’s a little older and things are more settled we can revisit the feelings that obviously never completely died out.
“She’s turning two, it’s not like she’s even really going to remember the birthday,” I point out, a little amused at the different themes that Lara has come up with, even as I obediently flip through the book. When did she find time to put this together, anyway? We’re both being run ragged with the schedule, even if it’s a lot better than anything either of us could have come up with on our own.
“There will be pictures, and when she’s older it will mean something,” Lara says firmly.
I look up from the book and I can see that she’s actually truly serious about this.
“We could take pictures of her at the park with a damn pony, and a cake, and it would mean something to her,” I counter.
Lara sighs and looks over at Riley. “It’s not just about her, it’s about showing the people in the family who need to know that life is going on,” Lara says quietly.
“Yeah, I can see a point in that,” I admit. My parents, and Nathan, amongst other people in the family, have all been anxious to reassure themselves that I’m doing okay, that Riley’s okay without Alexis, that Lara’s handling her new role as Riley’s adoptive mom. Nathan’s questions have gotten a little pointed whenever I drop Riley off with him, so Lara’s started being responsible for that task.
“I just want everyone to kind of back off us a bit, and this is one of the better ways of doing that,” Lara says.
I nod my agreement with that idea.
“I’m just looking out for costs, the same way I did with Riley’s first birthday,” I say, giving Lara a weak smile. Lara looks away, not at Riley, but at the floor. She hadn’t been around for my daughter’s first birthday, and had only barely been around for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s amazing to me that all this has happened in less than a year, that this time, last year, Lara was still freezing me and Alexis and even Riley out.
“In any case, it shouldn’t be that expensive,” Lara says finally.
“Some of this looks like it’s on the pricy end,” I point out, flipping through the book again.
“That’s just a ballpark, the actual party is going to be a lot smaller,” she tells me.
I look through things in more detail. Obviously Lara has put a lot of thought into this, and I have to admit a big party, as long as we invite the right people, will put a lot of rumors and bullshit to rest. It may even be fun.
“We just have to make sure that the people we invite to the party will all get along,” I say, halfway thinking out loud and halfway making a point to Lara. I look up from the binder she’s put together and see her nodding.
“Yeah, that’s the biggest thing,” she agrees. She glances at Riley. “I don’t want anything to ruin her birthday if we can help it.”
“Well, we know we have to invite all the grandparents,” I say. Lara makes a face but nods again, agreeing with me on that point. If either Nathan or my parents were left out of Riley’s birthday, it would cause even more drama. We can only hope that they’ll get along for the sake of their granddaughter.
“We should invite some of your friends, yours and Alexis’,” Lara says. I raise an eyebrow.
“But not any of yours?”
Lara shrugs. “I don’t have all that many friends from high school that I’m still close with, or who still live in the area,” Lara says.
“And those who are here and who you’re close with?” I ask.
Lara blushes and looks away slightly.
“They sided with me on the issue of you and Alexis,” she says quietly.
“So probably not exactly the best people to bring to a party where we’re going to be playing parents, then,” I conclude.
Lara smiles at me wryly. “Probably not,” she agrees.
“Well, you should invite at least a few people from your life now, maybe some friends from work?” I don’t want to make the invitation list too heavy with people who are or were on “my” side, that will create completely the wrong vibe, and Nathan will take it wrong, I’m sure.
“I can invite some people, and they’ll get Riley some great presents, I’m sure,” Lara says, grinning more genuinely.
Riley gets bored with her toys and comes over to us, toddling in her slightly clumsy way. I ask her if she wants me to pick her up and she shakes her head.
“Want juice!” she says.
Immediately, Lara gets up to go to the fridge. She mixes half apple juice and half water in Riley’s sippy cup and hands it to her, and Riley drinks about third of it down all at once, taking the cup away from her mouth with a big gasp for breath and then a belch. Lara and I both laugh and Riley smiles, pleased that she has made us laugh. She then clambers her way onto Lara’s lap, holding her sippy cup in both hands and looking at both of us in turn.
“Are you ready for your birthday, sweetie?” Lara pulls the binder from me and holds it so that Riley can see it.
“What that?” Riley frowns in thought, and I remember she’s too young to really understand what a birthday is, even at two.
“We’re celebrating you being born,” I tell her. Riley digests this for a few moments, frowning more deeply, and in that moment, she looks almost exactly like a tiny version of Alexis, complete with the little crease between her barely-there eyebrows and the puckering of her lips.
“Mommy there?”
If seeing Riley looking exactly like Alexis brought back my sense of guilt, her question reminds me even harder of my loss. As much as having sex with Lara a week ago soothed something in me, in the moment, it’s just made me feel the loss of my wife even more when I’m home alone.
“No, sweetie. Mommy won’t be there,” Lara tells her gently. “Mommy is gone.”
Riley considers this, and I have to wonder how long it will be before I can explain to her that her mother isn’t coming back in a way that she’ll actually understand it.
“But Daddy will be there, and Aunt Lara, and your grandparents, and all our friends,” I tell her.
“We should make sure to invite some people who’ve got kids Riley’s age,” Lara remarks.
“I guess,” I say with a shrug. It wasn’t really a huge issue at Riley’s first birthday, but I can see where it would take some of the pressure off the adults.
“She needs to start socializing,” Lara says. “I’ve been taking her to the park sometimes, but she can’t keep up with some of the bigger kids. Besides, she’s going to be starting preschool next year, right?”
“Alexis and I were starting to talk about when she could start,” I say. I don’t mention that we hadn’t really come to a conclusion on that, we’d put it off until Riley would turn two.
“I think if s
he’s ready at three, it’ll make it a bit easier on everyone,” Lara says.
“We’ll talk about it,” I tell her. I want to get off the topic, but I can’t think of anything that we could possibly talk about that wouldn’t just end up reminding me again and again of the wife I’ve lost.
“What do you want at your party, Riley-baby?” Lara turns my daughter’s attention back to the binder, and I watch her guide Riley through the different choices, pointing out pictures. Riley, of course, isn’t sure specifically what she wants, she doesn’t even really understand what her birthday is going to be. But she gets excited at pictures of face painting and ponies, butterflies and flowers, and Lara takes out a marker to make little squiggles next to what my daughter likes the best.
Once Riley gets bored of this, and goes back to her toys, her sippy cup still firmly in her hands, I know I need to start getting us ready to leave. And we need to make at least one decision about the party.
“How are we going to split the cost?” I look at Lara levelly and she shrugs.
“I figured once we decide between us what budget we want to go with, we can split that in half,” she suggests. She hands me back the binder, flipped to the page that has the ballpark costs for each of the ideas she’s had.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her. I don’t even really know what Alexis spent on Riley’s first birthday. Alexis planned it almost completely without me, just telling me what part I would play. So many things in my life that Alexis just did and handled, without telling me about it, and now I’m running everything myself, trying to keep things half as organized as she did. Even months later, I feel like I’m treading water, Riley held in my arms, waiting for my feet to touch ground or someone to rescue us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
LARA
