by Anne Ashby
She rubbed herself against her aroused husband. “My idea exactly,” she confirmed. “Dinner, wine, presents.” Reaching onto tiptoes she lay her lips against his, using her tongue to gain access to his mouth. When his attempt to remain stoic crumbled and he took control of the kiss, Zoe ripped her mouth free just long enough to purr. “But only after we make love.”
Connor’s hands settled on her shoulders and he gently separated them. His eyes glazed with heat as he looked down at her. “There’s something we need to discuss, something—”
She twisted and grabbed his hand. “And we will, right afterwards.” She began pulling him toward their bedroom. “I didn’t get all dressed up to eat dinner,” she threw the challenge over her shoulder.
“Oh, what the hell.”
Zoe took no notice. When Connor began to chase her, she skedaddled. Throwing aside her robe, she reached for the bottom of the sheer negligee she’d worn beneath as she arrived beside their bed.
“Leave it on.” Connor’s voice was thick. “I want to feel it against my skin.” He was shedding his clothes with complete disregard to where they were falling.
“I’ve missed you so much.” He nuzzled her ear as they fell onto the bed together.
“Me too.” Coherency when her naked, very-aroused husband lay so close had never been a strong point with Zoe. She reached for him, clutching tight as he immediately smoothed the fabric of her negligee across her breasts and took a peaked nipple into his mouth, sucking it through the fabric. Not allowing her second nipple to feel ignored his fingers rolled and squeezed the bud.
Zoe groaned as her body responded. Somehow his hands roaming above the diaphanous barrier between them increased the eroticism of his touch, instead of hampering it, as she’d expected.
His lips and fingers continued working their magic. Her attempts to reciprocate resulted in murmured warnings to “stop, don’t touch.” Instead she endured a swelling rise of sensations until she could stand it no longer.
She arched her back, pressing closer, silently sharing her mounting need as the heat low in her stomach was ready to explode. “It’s been forever,” she murmured pulling his head back up to meet her lips.
“Thirteen days of torture,” he agreed.
“Hurry up then.” She wriggled. “I’d die if it got to fourteen.”
“No way in hell.”
Connor slid her negligee up just a little and positioned himself between her legs. He rested on his elbows above her and watched her expression. His subtle movements, not yet intimate, were intended to tease, and they did.
The power their love gave Zoe soon dictated the end to his teasing. The suddenness of her actions, arching her back, giving a hefty push and clasping her legs around him, attached their bodies.
“Welcome home, babe,” she whispered.
“Right where I always want to be.”
The newness of their first separation lent greater intensity to their lovemaking. Zoe reveled as Connor steadily stoked the fire within her until it exploded like a blaze of fireworks on Guy Fawkes Night.
As sanity slowly flooded back into her empty mind and limp body, Zoe’s shocked hands clasped at Connor as he jerked himself free of her just prior to climaxing.
She chewed on her lips as he reached for a tissue before pulling the duvet over them.
“That was a wonderful welcome home, Zoe.” Connor laid his head on the pillow next to hers and smiled into her eyes. “Happy anniversary, my darling. May all our time together be as wonderful as this past year has been.”
Zoe continued to chew her lip, hesitating. “Connor?” she began, then slammed her mouth shut. Their year had been wonderful. He’d just intimated he felt the same. He looked happy. He sounded content. It’s nothing to worry about. Their lovemaking had been as passionate and intense as ever, maybe more so. Except…at the end…
Perhaps it’s something I don’t understand. She played with the corded edge of the duvet cover. I’m not that sexually aware. But it’s just he’s never done that before.
Connor reached out a finger and tilted up her chin. “What’s up?”
Zoe avoided his gaze, blurting out her confusion. “Why did you…? There’s nothing…? You’ve never…” She couldn’t find words to voice her concern. She didn’t want to embarrass herself, or him, if his actions were tied to some sort of sexual fantasy. But…
The light from the streetlight outside provided enough for her to see the color build in Connor’s cheeks. Seconds later it disappeared, leaving him deathly pale.
Something stuck in Zoe’s throat. “Connor? Is there something I’m not doing?” Isn’t he content with our lovemaking? Her heart thumped. Her breath rasped in tiny little pants. She reached out to clutch at his shoulder. “I’ll change, I’ll learn. I’ll do anything to make you happy.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re perfect.” He kissed her. “Your lovemaking always knocks me right off this planet.”
“Then why…?”
Guilty color rising up his neck and into his face sent chills up and down Zoe’s spine.
“I’ll be back in a sec.” He leapt out of bed and disappeared into the lounge. Returning moments later with the present she’d wrapped and a white envelope, he switched on the bedside lamp.
She sat up, uncaring of the cold night air on her skin. “Con, can we talk?” Zoe gnawed her lip as she ignored the gifts. “We need to talk about this. I’m scared something’s wrong.”
“It’s okay. You’ll understand soon.” His fingers shook as he held the envelope.
Zoe’s heart thumped ever more erratically as he stared at his gift to her for some time.
He took a huge shuddering breath and handed it to her.
“Now, I know we should have talked about this first.” He looked nervous. No, much more than nervous, he looked terrified.
“What?” Zoe frowned, biting her lip some more. She wasn’t sure she wanted whatever was in this envelope. She thought she might prefer to throw it away. Her heart was pounding, roaring in her ears.
“I know our first anniversary is a paper one. For weeks I’d been trying to think of what to give you. It had to be something special. Then I had this idea. I thought of a wonderful way to show you just how much you mean to me, how much I love you. Now…I’m not so sure.”
He scrubbed a hand around the back of his neck. “I know I’ve probably stuffed up. I should have asked you. I had no right to do this without first consulting you. We should have discussed…” His Adam’s apple bounced up and down. “Just hurry up and open the damned thing.”
Zoe’s eyes darted between the innocuous envelope and his screwed-up face. His eyes were clenched shut, his lips moving in what Zoe could only assume was prayer.
With shaking fingers Zoe tore it open. After a couple of strengthening breaths, she withdrew the slip of paper from within a beautiful card. Her mind went blank as she stared down at the unfamiliar medical laboratory form. The words made no sense to her befuddled brain.
“I don’t understand.” Her hand was shaking so much she couldn’t see the writing anymore. “What’s”—she stumbled over the unfamiliar word—“spermatozoa?” She gasped and then her breath caught in her lungs as a possible explanation dawned on her.
“It’s the results from a semen specimen I had analyzed.”
The paper fell from her shaking fingers.
“You’ve had your vasectomy reversed?” she croaked.
He nodded.
Her mind whirled.
They hadn’t made love properly for ages. She’d had her period right before he went to Wellington and he’d been away for a week. Her mind traveled back a little further, to a couple of days before that.
“You didn’t strain a muscle at squash?”
He shook his head.
Connor’s nervousness was growing, but Zoe couldn’t put him out of his misery. She still couldn’t assimilate what he’d done. She was freefalling from a great height, waiting for the bungee cord to stop her fall.
Shaking her head to clear it, she murmured, “So that’s why…? Before you…?”
Grimacing uneasily, Connor confirmed. “I couldn’t risk coming inside you before we’d talked it over. You’re at your most fertile right now.” Zoe wrinkled her nose, for the first time lamenting she’d married a doctor.
“So that’s why you tried to suggest we have dinner and presents first?”
Connor nodded.
“I thought it might be some sexual fantasy you had.”
Connor tried to laugh, but the sound wasn’t very convincing. “I’m sorry, Zoe. This hasn’t worked out like I expected. I wanted to surprise you, give you something special to mark the most amazing year of my life. I’ve been so happy. Everything fell into place so perfectly for us, I decided this must be what heaven is like.”
His hand shook as he tucked the blanket around her. “Now I realize I had no right to make a decision like this on my own.”
Her hands clasped hold of his, but he pulled away to scrunch up the duvet in his fists. “How bloody arrogant of me. A major decision like this should have been discussed between us. I’m so sorry, Zoe.”
His expression showed his misery as he faced her. “If you’ve changed your mind about having children, if you don’t want—”
“Not want children?” Zoe yelped, squeezing his face between her hands. “Not want your children? Connor? Don’t be crazy.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m in shock, that’s all.”
She’d bet her smile was wobbly but it seemed to restore some of his lost confidence. She lowered her hands to his shoulders as she gazed off into space, allowing herself to imagine a miracle.
Connor’s baby in her arms, suckling her breast, learning to walk, learning to talk, calling her Mum. Her smile grew as the images continued to grow alongside that child.
His hand urging her to look at him didn’t dispel the pictures now flashing through her mind. Not only one child, but maybe more, a whole family of children. Tears filled her eyes as she nestled into his slumped body.
A huge breath whizzed by Zoe’s ear as Connor clutched her tight. “You’re sure? I haven’t made a monumental error of judgment?” Connor’s voice was shaky.
She didn’t answer, just shook her head, before pulling away just far enough to rain kisses all over his face.
Wow, oh wow! I’m going to be a mother. I’m going to have my very own baby one day. Maybe more than one baby. Her heart flitted around inside her chest, as bouncy as a fantail searching for food. Am I glowing? Right this minute I feel like the sun and the moon and all the stars in the universe are there just for me. Happy tears escaped and ran down her face.
Snuggled in close they lay back against the pillows. Connor tucked the duvet around them. Zoe lay for some time in silence before her curiosity stirred.
“But, what happened? Why did you change your mind?” She leaned back until she could see his face. “I was perfectly happy with the life we planned.” Concern suddenly filled her. “You didn’t feel you had to, that I was pressuring you in any way?”
“Never.” His smile was relaxed and open. “Actually my decision had nothing to do with you.”
Zoe started and pulled a face before Connor backtracked. “Well, maybe a little,” he conceded as he kissed her. “I’d never wanted children. I think it was because I was too scared. But after I fell in love with you, suddenly my idea of having a child changed. I was still scared stiff, but I found I wanted us to share the joy of our love by creating something so unique.”
Despite wanting to hug the breath out of him, Zoe somehow resisted and settled for running her fingers up and down Connor's arm.
“I started to envy the fathers I saw at work, wishing some little one would look at me the way their children looked at them. Instead of all the negatives that have always hounded me, I began to wonder if I could consider it.”
His smile was rather self-conscious. “That was happening by the time we got married.”
Connor’s smile widened at her gasp. “The cake was iced at a troubled-teen parenting group meeting earlier this year.” He was often a guest speaker at such groups.
Unconsciously rubbing his chin against her head, he told her about a man who’d approached him at the end of the evening. An on-the-wagon alcoholic, and now a grandfather, he’d admitted being the perpetrator of abuse against his children. Seeing the vicious cycle continuing within his family, he’d sought help to stop it.
This man had not only started appearing at meetings to speak to anyone willing to listen, his attitude convinced Connor people can change. With help, even abusers can learn the error of their ways, and the abusive cycle can be stopped by anyone with the strength to say no.
“It took a while but I finally accepted what he said. The cycle of violence doesn’t continue because of bad genes, it’s because each individual doesn’t become educated about alternative behaviors and find the strength to stop it.”
Zoe held him tight, thrilled beyond belief at the calm certainty in his voice. “You could never hurt a child, Connor. You’d never have become a pediatrician without all the compassion you have for children. Everyone else knew that, Con. You just took a while to realize it.”
Connor chuckled. They lay there, both lost in their own thoughts, both content with their lot.
At last Zoe moved. “Now about us having a baby…” She stretched up a hand and teased her fingers down his cheek. “I can’t think of anything more fantastic, but I’m not sure I want it to happen right this minute. Do you think we could wait…?”
Laughing, Connor leaned over to fossick among his clothes on the floor. He extracted a small foil packet from his wallet.
“I bought plenty to last, until you either go on the pill, or we decide the time is right.”
Zoe grabbed the dangling packet from his fingers.
“Are they flavored?”
After a few laughing moments she discovered the answer.
A word about the author…
Anne Ashby grew up in a very small coastal town in Southland, New Zealand. An eagerness to see the world led her to join the Royal NZ Navy, where she enjoyed a very satisfying career.
She loves to travel and has lived in Singapore and Maryland, USA. When not reading or writing, Anne finds plenty to occupy her time with commitments to her family and the Naval Women’s Association as well as an intense interest in genealogy.
She currently lives in Auckland with her husband, close to their four children and four grandchildren.
http:// www.anneashby.com
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