by Kristi Rose
"What man? From where I'm standing, there's a paucity of eligible men. Look around you. There's no man, and not one trying be in my life. If I keep waiting, I'll end up like my Aunt Glory." Her face was flushed, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
He stood firm, arms locked across his chest. "So you're quitting. You're all done with men. Never mind that you might find someone next week or even tomorrow, you're just going to eliminate the guy now. Why bother when you can go to a bank and get all your needs met."
Melinda snapped. "Might find someone?" she screamed. "I've been waiting as patiently as I can. I've been flirting and trying and again I ask you, what guy?"
She dropped the slippers, then shoved him in his folded arms, pushing him back on his heels. "What guy? I have no one, Jared. It's just me."
Her chest heaved with controlled anger, and Jared knew this was the moment. It was time, for lack of a better phrase, to fish or cut bait.
He bent close to her before saying, "This guy. Me. I'm talking about me. I'm been trying to be a part of your life since high school. Trying to show you that not all Calhouns are created equal. Hoping you'd not judge me based on my stupid ass brother. I think I've been a pretty good friend to you, tried showing you I was trustworthy—"
"Why didn't you say anything? Back then, why didn't you say anything?" she whispered.
Jared hung his head, staring at his shoe as he gathered his thoughts before returning his gaze to hers. There was not point telling her now that Lance's initial interest had been less than honorable, and all because he'd had a crush on her.
"I'd already lost you once to my brother. Then again to what's his name. When you returned home, bought this house, I hoped my luck had changed, and then it seemed like the timing was never right."
"And it's right now, the timing?" She took a step toward him.
He shrugged and leaned against the wall. "I want to have babies with you. It's selfish, but if you think you might being able to like me like that—"
She wrapped her hands in his T-shirt, then jerked him toward her and planted her lips on his. Touching her left him hungry and wanting more. A lifetime of more.
She pressed her body against his, and her arms slid around his neck. He decided to stop wasting time and, with one swift movement, she was in his embrace, and he was finally kissing her neck as he had longed to do. To hell with all his fantasies of her. The real experience was far better than he'd ever imagined.
18 MONTHS LATER
EPILOGUE
Melinda pressed the button on her key fob to open the sliding passenger door on her minivan. Not once had she regretted her decision. Being the practical person she was, the precious cargo waiting for her in the back of the van was proof positive her determination to have a baby was the right thing to do.
"Are you all ready to get out of those awkward car seats? I bet you are. I bet someone has a stinky diaper." She was pretty sure someone did because the stench on the last mile had been powerful.
Melinda released the latch and swung a car seat from its base. She smiled down at her son and tickled his chin before she set him on the grass next to her. Stepping into the van, she reached across, released a second latch, and heaved the seat supporting her daughter up and out of the van.
Say whatever about her not losing all her baby weight and how she'd packed it on, but toting two car seats with fat twins had made her upper arms buff as hell. The better to slug someone with was what she told people. Not that she had actually hauled off and hit anyone, but flexing them came in handy when people got mouthy.
She heard Jared before she saw him. His whistling a jaunty tune told her he was around the corner working.
Holding a carrier in each hand, she started toward him.
"Hey," he said and tossed a hammer in the air before catching the other end and tucking it in his tool belt.
"What are you doing here?"
"Working on the sunroom." He pointed to the spot where he'd just hung a birdfeeder on her newly built and absolutely gorgeous sunroom. It had far exceeded her expectations.
"I mean, I thought you had a meeting in Tampa."
"It was cancelled so I came home to see my family." He stepped close, took both carriers from her, then leaned forward and pressed a slow kiss to her lips. "Hi, babe. How was Lorelei's?"
"Fun. She's pregnant again. So is Evie Duke. So it was full of baby talk and good food."
Jared smiled and kissed her again. "Not everyone can have two kids out of the gate like us. They're just trying to keep up."
Melinda smiled. "We still got 'em beat."
"Thankfully, it’s not a competition."
"But if this next baby has a twin then they'll never catch up."
Jared's laughter was cut short. "What? What next baby? You're talking about the one we might have in a year or so, right?"
"Or if all goes well, thirty-two more weeks."
"How...? What...? Where...?"
Melinda wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled close. "Don't you remember, babe. You were there. I'm not making these babies on my own."
"I thought you couldn't get pregnant if you were nursing."
"Apparently, you can."
"Sweet Jesus. We're gonna have to build out the second floor. Put in a bathroom."
Melinda laughed and pulled open the door to her new sunroom. Things had sure moved quickly for them, not that she was complaining. She glanced over her shoulder at her husband who was asking their six month olds what color they wanted their bedrooms and laughed when he told their daughter he was going to install bars on her windows.
Some people had all the luck, and Melinda was glad she was one of them. She swore that day, just as she had every day before, that she'd never take luck for granted. If it hadn't been for a small spark that started a fire, she and Jared might still be waiting for a sign.
~ THE END ~
Kiss Me Again
A Coming Home Short Story
Kristi Rose
Vintage Housewife Books
Farmington, Mo
Copyright © 2015 by Kristi Rose
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
VINTAGE HOUSEWIFE BOOKS
PO BOX 841
Farmington, Mo 63640
www.kristirose.net
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout © 2014 BookDesignTemplates.com
Cover Art 2015 Paper and Sage Design
Edited by Paige Christian
KISS ME AGAIN/ Kristi Rose. -- 1st ed.
My Anya Monroe and Eryn Carpenter~ who are willing to brainstorm via skype, google hangout, or whatever it takes. #thisisfriendship
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
-Mignon McLaughlin
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE 275
CHAPTER TWO 288
CHAPTER THREE 297
CHAPTER FOUR 309
CHAPTER FIVE 319
CHAPTER SIX 328
CHAPTER SEVEN 337
EPILOGUE -Two Years Later 352
KISS ME AGAIN
CHAPTER ONE
With a final, forceful tug, Andee Swift pulled the jean skirt over her hips and nearly fell over, catching herself at the last minute by thrusting her hand out to grab the edge of the bed.
"Are you ready yet?" Buck called from the other room.
She heard the fridge slam closed and the telltale signs of her husband twisting the top off a beer, tossing the cap onto the counter, and letting it dance across the
space--where it would come to a rest nowhere near the garbage can, and would likely sit until she, or Janice, their cleaning lady, helped it make its way to the trash.
"Throw the cap away, "Andee yelled and rolled her eyes.
She sat on the edge of the bed and attempted to pull on her knee-high black boots--wench boots, Buck called them--but the band on her skirt cut painfully into her stomach, forcing her back upright.
All this for love.
Correction. She had love.
What she wanted was to be in love again. That heady rush of anticipation before Buck kissed her, the pinpricks of pleasure that followed lovemaking. She knew he missed those things, too, and it was her goal to make them recapture those feelings. Before they were so far gone, they'd never find them again. Before he found them with someone else. Even if they had to go to extremes to get there. No cost was too high to save her marriage.
She needed something to calm her nerves.
"And get me one, too." She certainly didn't have any room for a beer, much less food or air, but her nerves were shot and her anxiety was off the charts. "Take a step out of your comfort zone," the books advised. "Try something new," suggested online sites. Heck, what they were about to do could be considered a giant leap.
"That was the last one. I'll pour some for you in a glass," Buck called.
Andee leaned back against the bed to ease the pinch of her stomach. How many beers had he had today? This week? She wasn't sure, but it was definitely more than normal. Buck was not himself. Hadn't been for--if her math was correct and she were to be completely honest--over a year. It started with an impatience and edginess he'd never displayed before and was now complemented with increased drinking and limited touching. Yes, it could be worse but she didn't want to see what that looked like.
She pushed her worries aside, intent on focusing on today and not the disaster that was their relationship. They hadn't fought this much since . . . ever.
After much struggling, which resulted in heavy breathing and sweat beads on her brow, Andee was finally ready to go. She stood, smoothed the old skirt before trying to stretch the band to give her more room, and then made her way out of their bedroom to the center of the house--a kitchen and great room combination.
Buck gave a low whistle. "Sweet mother of God, those boots are hot." He handed her a small glass of beer. "You don't look comfortable."
"It'll be fine. It's the skirt. It's tight." She chugged the beer and fought off a burp born from carbonation. Ugh! This was so not the start she had pictured for this night, their night out. It should not start out with beer, burps, or farts. Could anything be less romantic? She was trying to get him to fall back in love with her, not be one of the guys.
"Why don't you wear a different one?" Buck squinted and leaned in to take a closer look at the skirt.
"Because I wear those other ones to church or family dinners and there is no way--No. Way--I'm wearing a church skirt to a sex dungeon. I'd have to burn it afterward."
"Is there writing along the bottom there?"
Andee covered the ink marks that dotted the hem with her hand. "Maybe."
"Does it say Andee hearts Buck? Lorelei and . . . Andee . . . B.F.F.?" He looked at her, puzzled. "Is that skirt from high school?"
"Maybe." Andee shrugged.
"That skirt's what? Twenty years old?" Buck laughed then took a pull from the beer. "You still have clothes from high school?"
She swatted at his arm. "Stop. And it's about seventeen years old. Thank you very much. Look at you. Those pants are about the same age."
"Hey," he cried indignantly and pointed to his well-worn camouflage cargo pants. "These are my hunting pants. They're good luck. I figured we could use all the luck we could get." He finished his beer and set the bottle on the counter.
What did that mean? Did he think they were going to need luck to get turned on by each other? That arousal might require more than a highly charged sexual ambience and the person you loved? Unsure of how to respond, she went with sarcasm.
"Yeah, that's why you should wear the pants that you spray with deer urine every year. Because that's hot. It's a sex club, Buck. We should try for sexy." Andee picked the bottle up and walked to the sink to rinse it out. She dropped it into the recycling bin before returning to the fridge to get two bottles of water. It was a bit of a drive to where they were going.
"It's sexy to the deer."
Andee turned to hide her eye roll and immediately regretted her impatience. "Did you put the overnight bags in the car?"
"Yup." Buck took the water bottle she handed him.
Grotte d'Amour, also known as the Love Cave, Tampa Bay's finest BDSM dungeon, was their destination and over an hour away. Andee had felt it best they get a hotel nearby. Should everything go as planned, fingers crossed, she hoped they'd be too revved up to make the drive home, too desperate for each other. A hotel would be the icing on the cake. Besides, she'd already had plenty of sex with Buck in a car and they were long past high school lovemaking, forced to be creative with their intimacy. This was to be a new experience, something spontaneous and fun. One of the relationship books she'd read had given her the idea, and she was still bowled over that he'd agreed to try.
"Are you ready?" Buck asked. "You sure you still want to try this?"
"Are you having second thoughts?" She played with the lid on her water bottle.
"You said you wanted us to spice things up. This is sure a deviation from what we're doing."
Dreading where a response might lead, Andee searched carefully for the right words. "We're in a rut, Buck. Marriage does that to couples, and we don't have the excuse, or luxury, of blaming it on children. Research shows that the seven-year itch really happens at ten years. Happiness in relationships declines."
They'd be celebrating ten years of marriage next week. But what worried Andee more was that they really had seventeen years together, having been high school sweethearts. Andee couldn't bring herself to look at the statistics on those dynamics. The ten-year itch numbers were disturbing enough.
"If you say so."
"Look," Andee said and pointed to the large thermometer she'd created in Excel, blown up to over two hundred percent and hung on their fridge. "We've worked really hard to save money for the last ten years. Which is great. It's starting to pay off. The article I read about the ten-year itch says that spontaneity is lost to forward planning. We are awesome at forward planning." She tapped her finger on the picture she took great pleasure in updating every month to mark their progress. They were one month out from achieving their goal: to buy a vacation home. Every time Andee looked at the picture, she wanted to clap her hands in glee and dance around the room. That was until she had read that article. Seeing the confusion on Buck's face, she finished with, "Which means we have no spontaneity."
"And apparently too much forward planning means the balance is a sex dungeon." Buck pushed up the sleeve to his white T-shirt to scratch his bicep.
"We're trying something new."
"Aren't we though," he said with a shake of his head.
Andee pulled scissors from the kitchen drawer and held them up. "The instructions on the web site say the theme for Friday nights is sensual. To come as your alter ego. A hunting man is not your alter ego." The list of suggestions she'd read in the women's magazine listed both BDSM and costume play. Doing both in the same night gave her a double win, made her feel victorious.
She gathered up his sleeve to his shoulder hem and began cutting. When she'd finished both sides, a quick look told her she needed something more. Ignoring his sighs, she cut strips lengthwise down the front giving the shirt a shredded look.
She dropped the extra fabric in the garbage. Looking down at her plain attire, she wondered if she could cut something from her shirt as well. Maybe a hole in the middle to expose her stomach? But she couldn't see wasting a good T-shirt for these purposes and instead grabbed the bottom edge of the shirt, pulled it up
and over the center of the collar under her chin and tugged the edge downward, cinching the fabric. The look exposed her midriff and cupped her large breasts nicely. In fact, the pull of the fabric helped tug her breasts upward, a position they'd struggled to maintain in recent years.
"Now I see the theme. I kinda look like a homeless redneck and you look like a redneck cheerleader." Buck stared at his exposed arms. "I think we should have gone the leather route."
"The only leather we have is your letterman's jacket." Andee pulled her waistband up, hoping to minimize the red marks it was creating from the constant pressure.
"We really suck at this." He held out his shredded shirt and raised a brow. Turning his wrist slightly, he glanced at his watch. "I guess we should go. It's almost ten."
Andee stifled a yawn.
Buck slid a riding crop belonging to their fifteen-year-old niece who rode dressage off the counter. "We could forget this and just go to bed."
There was no tease in his remarks, no suggestion of what they might do if they stayed home versus trying out this dungeon.
"Are you scared?" Andee poked, knowing his triggers. Truth was she thought she might be. Just a little.
"Shut your mouth, woman. Nothing scares Buchanon Swift." Buck waved the crop over his head before bringing it down for a light slap against her thigh, the cattail catching her exposed skin right below the hemline of her skirt.
"Ow," Andee cried, tears springing to her eyes. "Wow. That really hurt." She rubbed vigorously against the already red and raised skin.
Buck rushed to her. "I'm sorry, babe. I didn't even swing it that hard. Flicked it, really." He pulled her hand away to look at the welt and hissed upon first inspection. "You should put ice on it."
Blinking back the tears, Andee looked at Buck. "Maybe this is a really bad idea. How can we go to a place like this Love Cave and even consider participating when I can't take a slight flick from the crop?"
