“Don’t cover it. I want to see.” He looked up at her and she closed her eyes. Her insides shaking. “Aw, baby. Don’t. It’s just you and me.” He kissed her scar again. And again until she stopped shaking. “Is this the change you talked about? What you didn’t want me to know?” He ran his thumb along the red horizontal length.
She swallowed and squeezed her eyes tighter. “Yes.”
He replaced his thumb with his lips. “Battle scars. You got a battle scar … giving her to me.”
“It’s …” She stared at the ceiling, wanting to put her hand over it.
“Fucking beautiful.”
She inhaled a shaking breath. “I went to Althea’s salon to see what she could do. She got me into a photoshoot. It was the craziest thing. They were doing a piece on post-pregnant bodies. Wanting to show women they didn’t need to hide. Helping other women with these scars was the only thing that helped me stop crying at seeing mine.”
Jacob ran his thumb along the length again. “When I see it, I think of the daughter you gave me. And I’m no stranger to scars. You know I have them all over my body.”
She did know that. Of course she did. She just wasn’t used to having them on her.
“Come here.” Jacob lifted her hip toward his mouth and slid his tongue down over her scar and down to her clit.
“Jacob —” She moved.
“No.” He held her wrist more firmly to her side.
“We … ahhhh … have to … Oh God … talk.” He repeatedly pulled at her bundle of nerves, sucking and pulling her clit between his lips. The moment he added his tongue she was lost. “Oh … God — Jac … Jacob!” She bowed her body toward his hard lips, groaning a chuckle as she pulsed against him and rubbed her skin over his mouth.
“Talk?” He ran his thumb over his own lips to where her clit still pulsed in his mouth. “We can talk after I’m inside of you. Deep … inside here and coming.” He slid his thumb through her wetness as he crawled over her replete body. “We can talk all night, about anything you want, as long as it’s after I’m inside you.” He spread her legs with his knees and settled his hard muscled body over top of hers. “We can discuss whatever you like after I’m balls deep inside of you.”
She reached up and held onto his shoulders. She loved his shoulders and never got tired of holding them this way. But — she parted her lips to warn him but he threaded his hands around her neck and pinned her with that intense stare.
“Will this hurt you?” He rolled his hard length into her folds. “Is it too soon?”
Her body instinctively opened for him, enticed him to come in. “No. Yes.” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I haven’t … done anything since …” She thought of her decommissioned dildo and how she used to use it first, to test herself after every birth before giving Jacob the green light.
Jacob gripped her hair tight until she opened her eyes. “You fucking better not have been doing anything with any other other man.”
Her eyes widened. “What? No. That’s not what I meant.” She held her breath and gripped his shoulders tighter. “This’ll be the first time. I’ve never had a C-section before. You know I’ve never had one. I don’t know what to expect.” She looked away.
He leaned down and smiled before rubbing his lips over hers. “It’s our wedding night again. Think back to this moment. This exact same moment. What did I tell you then?” He moved his hot length through her core until he was poised at her entrance.
Her tummy quivered against his hard one. He held himself so still. So completely in control. She knew from experience that he could stay like that forever, or until she nodded her head and said it was okay. “Jacob, I —”
“Trust me.” He used the exact words from this moment on their wedding night. She was terrified it would hurt. He made love to her until she was calm.
She tensed below him. “But it could be a disaster.”
He reached between them and circled her still damp entrance. He circled her and circled until she covered his fingers with more wetness. He leaned down and kissed her again. “Trust me.”
She kept her eyes on his as she nodded, then dug her fingers into his shoulders as he carefully slid his full length deep inside of her. “I’m not the same anymore.” He didn’t stop until she felt his tight balls against her delicate nether skin.
“Fuck, baby, no you’re not. Your body is now shaped to mine.” He rested his forehead on hers. “And it’s so fucking hot. The only disaster is how long it’s been since you’ve let me in.”
A long ripple of pleasure washed through her body.
“Fucking feel that. I don’t give a fuck about anything else but this right here.” He shifted onto one elbow and entangled her thigh between his, holding them into an impossibly intimate swirled embrace before he looked down at her again.
“But now, now that we’re here, I promised that you could talk about or tell me anything you want.”
She inhaled and knew she had to, she could tell him everything right now. It was just them and they were so intimate, the best time to tell him the most intimate thing between them. “I can’t have any more children.”
His length twitched inside her. “Explain, can’t.”
“Daniella’s birth was difficult. I know it’s my fault but she came early. Too early at seven months. I almost lost her. They had to do an emergency C-section. And tie my tubes to stop the bleeding.”
“Fuck, honey.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be fucking sorry. I’m the fucking sorry one. This is all on me. You fought through it to bring her into this world. Alone. I should have been here. I never should have let things get so out of control.”
“I know you wanted more kids.”
“Fuck that. I want you. This. Them.” He nodded toward the closed bedroom door. “They’re all I’ve ever wanted. You are all I want.” He leaned down and inhaled, his forehead back against hers. “This is all I need.”
She inhaled back the tears that threatened to come again.
“But...” He raised himself to look down at her again, that focused stare back in his eyes. “Make no mistake that this does make a difference between us. A big fucking difference now that I know I’m the only one who will ever have knocked up this body.” He moved inside her. “No other man will ever impregnate you. You will never be fertilized by another man’s seed.” He held her eyes as he moved faster and deeper inside. “Just mine. My babies will be the only ones you’ll ever make. Ever have carried. No one else’s but mine.” He stroked her insides with every word, his hard length surging until he growled down into her ear. “And that fucking satisfies me to no fucking end.”
Hours later, as the sun lightened the bedroom window, Jacob reached over and opened Danika’s side table drawer.
She rolled over in the sheets and frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
He dug around in the deep bottom drawer until he found the case he was looking for. “Looking for this.”
“Oh God,” she shook her head and fell back onto the bed. “I should have known. Just because you didn’t say anything at the time, doesn’t mean that you didn’t miss it.”
He shook the case and smiled. “Nope.” He closed the drawer and rolled over to face her. “Did you think about me when you used this?” He withdrew her dildo from the plush case and ran it between her thighs. “It’s not quite my size, but did you imagine it was me? Miss me? Driving into you?”
“Jacob.” She squirmed as he dragged it through her intimate folds.
“Tell me.” He smiled like a mischievous ten-year-old. “I want to know.”
“Okay, yes,” she admitted. “I would think of you, dream of you. I’d take that time to imagine and remember what it was like.”
“Is like.” His eyes flared with a flash of intensity before he slid it out and took off the end. “After your declaration speech, I went out and got these.” He opened a package of batteries he’d pulled from h
is pants on the floor and put them into the sex toy. “I put an extra supply stock in your kitchen.” He turned it on and off. “My wife in a sex shop. I wish I could have been there.”
Danika groaned. “No you don’t. It was a lesson in unadulterated embarrassment. Not only did I have to drive to the other side of town, I had to endure some hipster selling me on the merits of each one. Like he’d know.”
“The fucker was imagining you using it.”
She scoffed. “He was half my age and just wanted the sale. I heard they all work on commission.”
“Uh huh.” Jacob put the toy back into the case and buried it back in the bottom of the drawer. “Well you won’t need it any time soon.” He rolled onto Danika. “You’ve got the real deal for the next little while.”
*****
“I’m just the driver.” Jake Langdon stood on the front step with his hands out.
Jacob stared at his SEAL underling with curiosity. Jake was an excellent SEAL. Young. Dedicated. A complete freak in the field — the good kind of freak. “She has a meet with your wife.”
“Hi Marianne.” Danika came up beside him. He inhaled her fresh cocoa-butter-and-vanilla scent. “Come on in.” The two of them disappeared into the house behind him. He looked back to Langdon.
“You want a beer?”
“Absolutely.” He strolled into the house. “What the— fu—”
Jacob closed the door and turned in time to see Zachary and Sid withdraw from behind a wall and the twins stumble out into the hallway.
“What the hell is this shit?” Langdon pulled at a batch of silly string stuck to his face and shirt.
Jacob stared at the twins.
“We did it,” they said in unison.
“Uh huh.” Jacob picked them up and looked around the corner. Zachary and Sid now long gone. He set down the twins in the kitchen. “Go play.”
“Play?” Langdon came up behind him still pulling at his shirt. “What is this all over me?”
“Silly string.” Boy walked passed him. “They do it to everyone who comes in here.”
Langdon stared at Jacob who shrugged and picked up Daniella from within her carrier. “Beer’s in the fridge.”
Jake stared at Jacob. “You had another kid?”
“Looks like.”
“Fuck. You leave for a couple of months and —”
“All Hell breaks loose.”
Jake leaned into the fridge and pulled out a beer. “Don’t I know it. I came home and she was gone. Caught up to her at a motel. In bed with my brother so I don’t judge.”
Jacob opened his mouth then closed it. No, they were brothers and never judged.
***
“So I heard you had another a baby?” Marianne Kent sat down at the patio table.
“She’s four months.” Danika poured sweet tea into the set out glasses. “This community is so small. About as much privacy as a gold fish.”
Marianne laughed. “Oh so true. So so true. The reason why I’m here actually.”
Danika set the glass before her sorority sister. “Yeah?”
“I have a favour to ask. About your parents’ fellowship grant program. I just finished writing my Master’s thesis and want to pursue graduate studies in environmental studies.”
“That’s a great idea.” Danika sipped her drink. “And you’d like an in with the fellowship program?”
“Well, not an in per se. More like a leg up so I can put in the best possible application.”
“I haven’t spoken to my parents in a while, but I’ll certainly see what I can do.” She hadn’t really thought about her parents’ grant programs in ages. Once she married Jacob and didn’t pursue a career after graduation, she and her parents had parted ways, their disappointment in her choice complete.
***
The conversation with Marianne was still on Danika’s mind as she sat down at the table with Jacob.
“I know that look.” He set down the plates of food Max had left in the oven.
“I have a look?” She picked up the fork. It was after nine o’clock and the house was relatively quiet now that the boys were in bed and Daniella was asleep for now.
“Oh yeah, you do.” Jacob sat down and immediately shoveled food into his mouth. She watched him for long moments. “And I want to hear all about it.”
“But first you need to polish off your plate?”
He looked up sheepishly. “No.” He spoke around the food in his mouth. “I just —” He chewed and drank down half his bottle of beer.
“Do they not feed you in the Navy?”
“You know they do but —” He finished his mouthful as well as several others. “That stuff is shit and I like your cooking.”
“That isn’t my cooking, it’s Max’s.”
“Still better than rations.”
She shook her head as he cleared off the plate and sat back, looking at her expectantly. “Okay. Talk to me.”
She smiled. That was Jacob. He’d never change. He was finished one thing and was now focused on the next. Her telling him what was on her mind. Her perspective on everything that had come to pass over the past year. They had to have this talk. There was no avoiding it if they planned to move forward.
She inhaled and started talking. Really talking to him, for hours and hours, and well into the night.
*****
Jacob immediately spotted Danika and the twins when he turned into the boys’ school parking lot. He looked down at Daniella beside him, asleep in her car seat after their swimming class. He’d never participated in swimming classes with the boys. He went to see them with Danika, but had never been the one to take them and get in the water. Ironic for a SEAL. Daniella wriggled her face and sighed, cradling a deep sense of contentment in Jacob.
His two weeks of leave was now at an end. Two weeks he’d spent at Danika’s new home, talking to her and reconnecting, working through their changes and finding a new emotional place for them to be. She hadn’t been dramatic or exaggerating when she said things had changed beyond her having Daniella. Something inside her had changed, grown or come about from the woman he separated from a year ago. It was like something that had always been inside her, hidden there, had broken open and grown. Finding a place for himself now was not going to be easy. But he would find a way. There was no other option.
Jacob pulled into an empty parking space and got out with Daniella.
“Thought that was your truck.” Danika waved him over to where she stood with a group of other parents at the pick-up gate. The twins immediately stood on his feet and wrapped their arms around his thighs. “Everyone, this is Jacob. My husband.”
A warm girly feeling washed through his body at Danika’s words. Fuck, he was such a pussy around this woman. He nodded to the other women who smiled at him with obvious curiosity. He shook the few other fathers’ hands before taking and holding Danika’s hand. These people were so not military, a rarity in these parts, but clearly what Danika needed to grow and separate herself from their old life.
He scanned the huge school playground to where the manicured grass met the open forest beyond. Children played everywhere, with teachers standing and supervising them from different vantage points over the yard. It almost reminded him of a war zone with so many things going on at once. He ran his eyes over each of the children until he knew exactly where Boy, Zachary, and Sid were.
“So swimming was okay?” Danika looked up at him then down at Daniella.
“Yeah, it was good.” He looked from his daughter back to the yard. “Wish I had done it for the boys, too.”
Danika smiled. “Just enjoy it this time.”
He looked down at her. No regrets. They had ended their last conversation about the past year with the decision to have no regrets, to only move forward. Jacob nodded to her then frowned when one of the children in the yard fell down. Not that children weren’t running and playing and falling all over the place, but this one boy jerked backward then went down. Jacob’s eyes ra
n to each of the teachers out there, but none moved toward the boy.
“What’s wrong?” Danika stared at him as he untangled his hand from hers. He watched some children approach the boy, one running to a teacher when another child dropped down like the first one had.
“What the —? Fuck!” More children kept falling, like they were being hit by gunfire, which was too crazy to — Teachers ran toward the children, talking on their walkie-talkies. The parents around them moved closer to the gate, watching as the teachers began to gather and direct the children back to the school doors. “Stay here.” Jacob ordered Danika.
“The twins.” She picked up Daniella’s basinet. “I don’t see the boys.” She rushed to the gate with the Daniella.
“Stay. Here.” Jacob pointed at the spot before her feet before he hopped the fence and ran into the growing frenzy in the yard, his eyes searching for his boys. When another child dropped down before him, he dropped down too and took the screaming girl into his arms. He didn’t see any blood or obvious injury as he picked her up but kept running toward the sandbox, his eyes searching every child that ran screaming past for his own boys. He came upon the twins, both clamoring their way out of the sandbox, being pushed and shoved by the other children trying to do the same thing. The girl in his arms was now limp. He tucked her under his arm and picked up the twins before sprinting back to Danika.
“Get to the car and stay there.” He thrust the children at her. “She’s okay just passed out.”
“The boys!” Her eyes darted from him to the yard in complete panic.
“I’ll get them.” He turned back to the fence. “Car. Now.” He glanced back before he jumped the fence, relieved to see her hoisting the limp girl in one arm, and Daniella in the other before herding the twins through the parking lot. “And stay down.”
He jumped into the frenzy of children and teachers, scanning the lines of the children along the wall of the school until he found Zachary and Sid together, Boy in another line. Thank fuck. He dropped down to where a teacher was crouched over two boys on the ground.
Suburban Cyborg Page 123
