He knew that she was trying and doing all that she felt she could where their marriage was concerned but he just missed her so much. When she was in his arms for the brief moments when she allowed him to hug her goodbye, he could pretend that their marriage was what it used to be, or what he had always wanted it to be at least.
It still bothered Paul that the fact that he had turned down her sexual advances and had been so concerned about the safety of the baby even when he knew deep down that normal sexual activity would not harm their son, had driven her into Luke’s arms. He had known since the first time they had had sex that Sierra was a sensual, sexual woman and it had scared him. She was so beautiful and so open with what she wanted in bed. There was a part of him that was convinced that he would never truly be able to satisfy her sexual urges.
But before everything had come out about his encounter with Kimber, he had been trying. And their sex life had been good. He loved making love to his wife. Paul enjoyed having sex with his wife more than he liked to admit. It bugged him that she got a little kinky sometimes, but he’d been sure that he could learn to enjoy at least some of what seemed to turn Sierra on. If he wanted to be completely honest with himself and ignore the voice in the back of his head that still told him that sex in marriage was best kept to two nights a week on designated days, he knew that most of the different positions that she wanted to try probably would turn him on too.
But between the fact that his parents had given him a very stern sex talk and the telltale squeaking of their bedsprings two nights a week, and what had happened with his high school girlfriend, letting go in the bedroom was still a scary thing to Paul. He loved Sierra so much that it hurt sometimes even when they weren’t putting each other through the kind of pain they had put each other through in the past few months but sex and love still sometimes seemed very separate to him.
Paul thought that therapy was definitely in order if Sierra made the decision to let him come home. He knew that it would be extremely hard for him to talk about sex in front of a stranger, but he knew that his wife needed him to try. He’d never meant to make her feel unattractive, even for a moment. She’d always been beautiful to him, even when she was smoking and smoking disgusted him.
Paul was a little concerned about Sierra’s drinking. He knew that she didn’t get drunk unless he had Nathan, but he didn’t want her to end up dependent on alcohol. He was drinking a lot more himself than he ever had before too though. He knew that they were both using it to try to shut out the pain. He knew that it definitely wasn’t working for him, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t working for her either. But it unfortunately didn’t stop him from having more than an occasional beer when Nathan was with Sierra as the days went by.
Sierra
Sierra felt guilty about having phone sex with Luke. She thought that it had changed their relationship in some irrevocable way, in a way that not even their affair had changed it. It also bothered her that she knew Paul would probably be upset over it. But she put off telling him because she was tired of arguing with him and it seemed so petty compared to their other indiscretions.
As far as Luke was concerned, she still found him attractive, but it had been Paul she’d been thinking of when they’d been whispering dirty things over the phone line. It didn’t bother her that having phone sex had felt strange for both of them and it was something that they’d never do again. It bothered her that they might not be able talk the way they always had. It seemed dumb even to her since they had been much more intimate than phone sex, but it felt like she and Luke had taken steps to where they might not be friends anymore. And that hurt.
Sierra tried to be happy, but she wasn’t really feeling it. She thought that if her son were older he would have been able to sense her mood. She thought that he did sometimes anyway. She cried a lot when he was napping or in bed and she definitely cried when Nathan was with Paul. Sierra felt like a basket case.
There was a part of her that wished she were a stronger woman and that she could stand by her man and continue to be his wife is he’d fathered Kimber’s child. But she knew she couldn’t. She held onto the hope that the baby was Luke’s and that their marriage could be saved ever tighter as the days passed, much tighter than she was willing to admit to her husband, because she couldn’t let him get his hopes up.
Kimber
Kimber felt hope fill her as the days passed. Luke held her more tightly and for longer every time he left her. He told her that he had been doing a lot of soul searching, and she hoped that he would find it within him to stand by her no matter what. She knew that the hope was a selfish one, but she felt it all the same.
He agreed to still accompany her to her doctor’s appointments too, which was a huge relief. Luke hated hospitals and doctors, but Kimber wasn’t very fond of them either and the thought of going to her checkups all alone didn’t sit well with her.
A month and a half after he had left, they all had a picnic together in the park. It felt so much like old times that Kimber cried for half an hour after she left Alexis with Luke and went home. But it felt good too and the hope that Luke would share her bed again didn’t leave her.
Luke
Luke took a deep breath and then let it out. He lit the last cigarette in the pack and dialed his wife’s cell phone number.
She picked up almost immediately. “Hi.”
Luke thought that his beautiful, confident wife sounded almost shy. “Hello beautiful.”
“Um hi.”
Luke chuckled. “I can’t call you beautiful anymore?”
“It’s not that. It’s just. . .”
“I know. I don’t want to beat around the bush Kimber. I want to come home. I can’t pretend anymore that my heart doesn’t break every time I lie down to sleep at night and you’re not beside me.”
“Luke.”
“But I need to tell you something first.”
“Okay.” He thought that her voice sounded cautious.
“I will stand by you no matter what happens with the baby. But I am in no way going to promise that I’m going to be a perfect husband if the child belongs to Paul. You’ll have to be patient with me okay?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me something Kimber.”
“Anything.”
“If I act like too big of an asshole, tell me. If I act like such an asshole if the baby is Paul’s and I ever cause the kid to feel so bad that you can’t stand to look at me anymore, file for divorce.”
“I don’t know if I can promise that Luke. I love you so much. I don’t want to be a terrible mother, but I have been so lost without you. I’m so sorry that I screwed things up.”
“I know babe. But Alexis has always been more important than me, and the baby is too, no matter who the father is. If I ever start to think that I can’t hang I’ll try to walk away before I mess things up, but if I don’t, I need you to promise me that you will take matters into your own hands. Please Kimber. An innocent child doesn’t deserve pain because an adult is acting like an asshole.”
“I was the asshole Luke. You’re too good to me.”
“Baby none of that matters anymore. Well, yeah, it obviously does, but we both screwed up. And we have to act like adults and deal with it. I have searched my heart and my soul over and over in the time that we’ve been apart and I truly believe that I have the strength within me to love the baby like my own if it’s not mine, to treat the child in the exact same way that I treat our daughter. But if that changes we both need to be able to deal with it in the right way. I need to know that you can do what’s right for that child. None of this is the fault of an innocent child.”
“I know. I promise you Luke. It hurts to say it, but I know you’re right.”
Luke let out a sigh of a relief. “That’s my woman. Is Alexis home? No, she’s probably at school huh?”
“She is at school. Bunny’s mom Juliana is picking her up afterwards and then she’s spending the night again. I hate to think of what it�
�s going to be like when they’re teenagers with all of the sleepovers they already have.”
Luke chuckled. “I will miss her but I do believe that I would like to make love to my wife.”
“Oh Luke.”
“Do I detect a lack of enthusiasm in your voice?” He was teasing her. He thought that if she wanted him half as much as he wanted her they were both going to have an orgasm at the touch of bare skin to bare skin.
“Hardly. When are you coming home?”
“As soon as I check out of this place. Give me half an hour.”
“I’ll be waiting. You still remember where our bedroom is don’t you?”
He laughed. “Yes darlin’ I believe I do. I love you.”
“I love you too Luke. Thank you so much.”
“Honey, if you were any other woman this wouldn’t be an issue. If I was the man that I was before I was with Sierra, it really wouldn’t be an issue. But you were meant to be my woman, and I can’t stand the thought of being without you. I never really could, I just had to know that I would do the right thing.”
“I think I’m going to cry Luke. I’d better let you go.”
“Don’t cry baby. This is gonna be a good day. I’ll see you in a bit. Bye Kimber.”
“Goodbye Luke.”
Luke hung up the phone and then packed his belongings. There wasn’t much, but it still seemed to him to take forever. Once he had made the decision that he wanted to go home, every minute without Kimber started to feel like a thousand.
He checked out. The manager was sad to see him go since he was definitely one of the quietest tenants and everyone had loved Alexis when she’d stayed with him, but he got a wide grin on his face when Luke told him he was going home to his wife. The man wished him the best of luck.
Luke’s heart was beating fast as he got behind the wheel of his vintage mustang. He was only fifteen minutes away from home. He’d wanted to make sure that he was close enough that if Kimber needed him, he could be there quickly. It had also been close to both Alexis’s school and her favorite local park.
He parked in his driveway, feeling like a man walking inside of a dream. He used his key to open the door and walked up the stairs. He thought that he could hear the pounding of his heart in his ears, beating like a drum to the tune of the love he felt for his wife.
Their bedroom door was cracked open. He pushed it the rest of the way open and drank in the sight of Kimber. She gave him a half smile. She was lying on the bed in panties and a bra; her cheeks flushed, looking so beautiful he could hardly stand it.
“Hello handsome.”
“Hi gorgeous.”
Kimber wrinkled her nose at him. “Six months pregnant and gorgeous? My husband is a little crazy.”
He quickly rid himself of his clothes and crossed to the bed. “My wife is the crazy one if she thinks that she could ever be anything but gorgeous to me.”
He kissed her, trying to communicate without words what he felt for her. Luke knew that if their marriage did end up in divorce that there would never be another woman for him. He had fooled himself into thinking for a while that if Sierra divorced Paul and he divorced Kimber, that he and Sierra could turn back time and rekindle their love. But he knew that it would have been a lie, and it would be a disservice to all four of them too. That’s what had cemented his decision that if he got divorced, no other woman would carry his last name or have his child.
Luke figured that some people would probably think his decision was crazy, because he was still young and many people had been married more than once and men had certainly loved many more than two women. But Luke knew in his heart that he had already loved the women that he was meant to love. He didn’t like to think of growing old alone, but that was the future he saw for himself without Kimber.
Kimber pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Luke are you okay?”
He smiled, though his mind still tended to dwell in darker spots that he didn’t like to think about it. The songs he had written lately had been so full of pain that he had thrown them all out. He didn’t want to share his pain with anyone, let alone hear the voice of another release it to the world since he couldn’t sing himself.
“I’m sorry baby. I’m good. Having you in my arms again is enough to make all the darkness start to disappear. But I think that it might be a good idea if we went to counseling at least for a little while.”
She nodded, and then she grinned. “I think that a lot of sexual therapy is in order too.”
“That’s my wife. Oh how I love you Kimber. How I’ve missed you.”
She put her finger to his lips. “I love you too. Now how about you show me?”
He grinned. “That I can always handle darlin’.”
She sat up so that he could remove her underclothes. He noticed that his hands shook a little. He could tell that Kimber hid a smile.
Once she was nude, he let his eyes caress her body. Her face was red, but he had always loved the sight of her body, pregnant or not. It still bugged him that the child nestled in her womb might not be his, but he put it out of his mind. He laid a gentle hand and then a gentle kiss on her stomach and then kissed a trail back up to her mouth, stopping for a moment to savor both of her breasts.
She moaned into his mouth. He brought his hand between her legs. She opened for him readily and he let out a quiet moan of his own. He inserted a finger inside her wetness and probed her gently, then a little harder.
“Oh Luke.” Her eyes had drifted closed.
He probed her mouth open gently with his tongue. She gave herself to him readily and openly, no longer a bit shy about her want for him.
Luke didn’t think that he could ever get enough of kissing her, but several minutes later he pulled back. “Kimber.”
She opened her eyes. “Yes?” Her blue eyes were full of unbridled passion.
“I know that even though we’ve been together for a while, that it still feels strange to you to look at me during foreplay or when we make love. I need you to look at me. It’s not that I believe you want another man, or even that what you did with Paul was anything other than sex. I don’t think I can really explain to you the way that I feel. But when we make love, I need you to try to keep your eyes open. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. The expression on your face when I make you come is breathtaking.”
“I’ll try. It just feels strange to keep my eyes open.”
“I know baby. Thank you for trying for me.”
He kissed her slowly and softly and then returned his attention to her breasts. Kimber’s breasts were super sensitive when she was pregnant. They had had lots and lots of incredible foreplay and sex when she’d been pregnant with Alexis.
He sucked and nipped at her breasts, while keeping the steady massage of his fingers going between her legs. He wanted to taste her on his tongue but Kimber wasn’t comfortable with any form of oral sex during pregnancy. She had given him a look that could kill when he had brought it up to the doctor when she’d been pregnant with their daughter, because he’d thought that her concerns were for the safety of the baby. They were, but she had other concerns as well, concerns that she hadn’t wanted to discuss in front of her doctor.
When he felt her tighten around his fingers, he slowed their movement down a bit and moved to her side so that he could look into her eyes. He could see that she was fighting with herself to keep her eyes locked on his, but she gave him a slight smile and offered him her beautiful blue gaze.
When he brought her to orgasm, she took his mouth with hers. She bit his tongue a little when the peak of her climax hit, but he didn’t mind.
She pulled back slightly and sighed. “Oh Luke. I love you.”
“I love you.”
He brought his mouth back to hers. Since they were both on their sides and that was her preferred sexual position when she was further into pregnancy, he entered her when he could no longer stand not to be inside of her.
She let out a quiet moan and then smiled at him. “Perfec
tion as usual.”
“Mmm, oh yes. My beautiful, beautiful Kimber.”
He made love to her slow and easy, only quickening his thrusts when he felt the onrush of orgasm. He took her hand and twined their fingers together. His eyes were a bit moist when he reached climax, and his voice was hoarse when he cried out her name.
She touched his face, never taking her eyes off of his until his movements had stilled. She turned her head long enough to brush something off of her face and then returned her gaze to his. Luke believed that it was a tear. He gently withdrew from her, already missing the feel of their intimacy. He felt like he could make love to her over and over and never get enough.
He put his arms around her and held her for a few quiet moments, then drew back, took her hand and led her to the shower. They made love three more times that day. It was a record even for Luke and he was afraid that he would leave her feeling sore and uncomfortable the next day, but Kimber assured him that she was fine and that he had been as good to her in bed as always.
When he went to sleep that night with his wife in his arms, Lucas Stone was more content than he had been since the day of Kimber’s confession.
Kimber
Kimber sat up in bed and stretched. She looked over at her husband and a smile brightened her face. It was so good to have him beside her again. Then her smile faded a little. She was deathly afraid that even if he pretended to love the baby the way he loved Alexis if he was Paul’s, that he would never really love her son the way he loved their daughter. She was sure that the child she carried was a boy.
Luke opened his eyes and looked at her. He smiled. “Good morning beautiful.”
“Good morning. I love you.”
“I love you too.” He squeezed her hand. “Alexis is coming home after school right?”
Kimber nodded. “Yes. She’ll be so glad to see that Daddy is home.”
Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set Page 21
