Marriage of Inconvenience

by Penny Reid

  I saw he was frowning, his eyes searching. “Hey. What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?” I tried to kiss him again and he dodged it, tilting his head to one side.

  “You’re not into this, I can tell.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Kat.” His voice grew firmer and now he held himself completely away. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “I know.”

  He looked confused, but not irritated. “If you don’t want this, just say so.”

  “But I want to.” I reached for him and he evaded me, sitting up on his heels.

  “You don’t.”

  “I want you,” I cried, hearing the edge of desperation in my voice and cringing again at the new outburst.

  He stared at me for a beat, his gaze probing. “Maybe you do, but your body sure as hell doesn’t. Excuse my crassness, but you’re as dry as a fucking desert, and I can tell when your moans are fake and when they’re real.”

  I closed my eyes at his brutal honesty, biting my bottom lip to keep my chin from wobbling. I covered my face with my hands and turned away. Melancholy crushed me, breathing felt impossible let alone any attempt at measuring my inhales.

  I’d been so certain this time would be different because this time I was with Dan. He was magical, and I could hug and snuggle him without having to force myself to relax, and I loved holding his hand, and we’d kissed before with passion and heat and fire.

  And I trusted him. I trusted him completely.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, pressing my lips together so they wouldn’t tremble.

  “Kit-Kat, don’t be sorry,” his tenderness struck me like a blow even as he reached for my shoulder with gentle fingers. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re going through a lot, with everything. I’m being an asshole—”

  “You’re not.” I shook my head vehemently.

  “—and I don’t want you to regret anything that happens between us. We’ll wait.” He kissed my temple, tucking me against him, holding me close. “We’ll wait to fool around until things are better, calmer.”

  “It won’t make any difference,” I said bitterly, shaking my head and rolling my eyes at myself.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t.” Ugh. I hated how I sounded, so small, weak. And I hated how I felt, exposed, like a failure.

  “You . . . can’t?”

  “It’s not the stress. I want to, I want you, but I don’t know how to . . .” I huffed, irritated with myself for how I was basically hiding against his chest. He needed to know, and I should have told him before now, before I’d let him down.

  Pushing away, I forced my eyes to his and blurted the truth of it, “I can’t do this unless I’m drunk.”

  He reared back, his body now tense, as though he’d been shocked by an electric current. Dan’s gorgeous eyes moved between mine and he seemed to be struggling to find words.

  Eventually, he said, “Are you serious?”

  “I’ve never—I’m sorry.” I covered my face with my hands again. A stabbing pain cut through the numbness, almost unbearable, and I choked on a ridiculous sob as I tried to move away.

  “What? No. Don’t apologize.” He encircled me in his arms, not letting me leave.

  I didn’t struggle against him, and I didn’t cry. I held my breath and forced myself to get a grip, to focus, to step away from all the swirling wishes and hopes and desires I’d been carrying around, and surrender to the fact that maybe I was just built this way.

  I wasn’t a sexual person.

  I didn’t like sex.

  And that was that.

  The cold certainty eclipsed the stabbing pain, morphing it into a dull, tight ache. I slowly exhaled through my mouth, relaxing against him, letting go, and swallowed bubbling resentment.

  Yeah, it sucked.

  But what could I do?

  Even the mere idea of trying and failing again with Dan made me want to lock myself in a room made of cheese for all eternity.

  His hand stroked the back of my head and he tugged my braid, bringing my gaze back to his. “Why do you think you need to be drunk?”

  He sounded curious, not concerned, not upset, and some of the bitterness I’d been choking on subsided, making it easier to breathe.

  “It’s just how I am, it’s how I’ve always been. I can’t—I can’t relax. I’m too much in my own head. Even when I . . .”

  “When you?”

  “When I touch myself,” I said on a rush, wincing, my cheeks heating with mortification.

  Why are we even discussing this? Why do I insist on asphyxiating on my own failure?

  “You drink before you touch yourself?”

  “Yes. I used to.” I cleared my throat, forcing calm into my voice. “I have to drink if I want to, you know, get to the end. I used to drink a lot, before I did it. So I don’t drink anymore if there’s a chance I could. . . if I might . . . be physical.” I said this last part quickly and cleared my throat again. “Anyway, my therapist said the drinking was unhealthy, self-medicating. And she said there’s nothing wrong with me physically, I’ve been tested and screened for everything. I even stopped taking birth control just in case it was a hormonal thing.”

  “You’re not on birth control?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  A soft sound rumbled from his chest, then he said, “Now that we’re on the topic, I’m STD free. Just had my summer physical in June.”

  The ferocity of my blush increased; despite my past, I wasn’t used to having these kinds of conversations. “I’m STD free, too,” I said, but had to clear my throat again before speaking. “But, it doesn’t matter anyway because I can’t and it’s all psychological and—oh, dammit! Never mind.” I didn’t want to talk about this, about all the ways I was messed up.

  He made a distracted, thoughtful noise, like huh.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

  “Please stop apologizing.” Dan held me tighter. “I’m thinking here. Give me a minute to think.”

  We lay like that for several minutes, during which his hold loosened, but his hands began moving in absentminded circles on my hip. His touch felt good, the friction and heat on my bare skin and over the thin fabric of my pajamas. Intermittently, I told myself to relax while also cursing myself for being this way.

  “So, it’s like you can’t stop thinking? Or what?” His voice was infinitely gentle and still laced with curiosity, giving me the impression he really wanted to understand.

  “That’s right. Or something like that.” I sniffed, now more in control and no longer in danger of breaking down. “My therapist suspects it’s because I don’t feel like I’m, uh . . .”

  “What?”

  “Desirable.”

  His eyes came to mine and held, a look of complete disbelief claimed his features. “Are you fucking with me?”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “You don’t think you’re beautiful?”

  “It’s not really about that.” My voice was much smaller than I would have liked, so I lifted my chin. “I don’t know what it’s about. If I knew what the problem was, I would fix it. But I don’t. I don’t know how to fix myself. And I’m so, so sorry I’m this way. But, I want you to know, I still want to be with you.”

  Dan was full-on scowling now. “You want to be with me even when it doesn’t feel good for you?”

  I nodded, laying a tentative hand on his stomach. “I’d like to make you feel good.”

  He breathed out, like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said, and two severe lines of discontent appeared between his eyebrows. “No. No way. I can’t do that.”

  I removed my hand from him, balling it into a fist, and shifting away. “Okay. I understand.”

  “No, I don’t think you do.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, and as though unable to resist, he placed a light, teasing kiss on my lips, licking the bottom one to taste me before pulling away, his eyes
conducting a cherishing sweep of my face. “Thank you for telling me.”

  Some combination of emotions made the use of my voice impossible, so I nodded.

  “Tell me one more thing.” He brushed several strands of hair that had come loose from my braid away from my face, tucking them tenderly behind my ear.

  “Okay.”

  “What do you want?” Once again, he sounded merely curious.

  I frowned at him, seeking to unravel the question’s meaning.

  What did I want? Wasn’t it obvious? I wanted to be normal.

  Certain I didn’t understand what he was after, I asked, “What do you mean?”

  “You said you want to be with me.”

  “I do.”

  “Even if it doesn’t feel good for you.”

  My eyes dropped, I couldn’t look at the patient warmth in his eyes and have this conversation. “Yes.”

  “That’s not what I want,” he said firmly.

  I nodded, feeling heartsick.

  “So, since that’s off the table, what do you want?”

  “To not be this way.”

  I felt his eyes move over me. “You said you’re in therapy and this has been brought up.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think, if we talked to her together, she could help?”

  I wouldn’t cry over this, I refused. So I swallowed and nodded.

  “Would you be willing to try again? Not—I mean, we don’t have to go all the way, and I didn’t plan to tonight, I just wanted to fool around a little—it’s just, I’d like to—not that it’s about me, but I’d like to try to help you—” he made a low sound of frustration. “That’s not right, not help, but—”

  I cut him off with a kiss, each word more painful than the last—not because he was hurting me, but because I could hear the self-doubt in his voice, and I hated that I’d put it there.

  So I kissed him. I pushed him onto his back and kissed him with all the tangled emotions in my mind and in my heart. His hands framed my face and didn’t move, didn’t wander, giving me the sense he wasn’t sure what he was allowed to do, or where he was allowed to touch me, making my heart splinter all over again.

  I broke the kiss, lying on top of him and squeezing his big chest as tightly as I could.

  Bending to his ear, I whispered, “Please, please, please don’t ever think you are less than perfect. My issues aren’t a reflection of you, they’re a reflection of me, and it was wrong of me to not tell you.”

  “I’m not perfect, Kit-Kat. Far from it.” Dan’s hands hovered on my shoulders and I felt him take a deep breath before saying plainly, “Let me help.”

  “Dan—”

  “I’m not going to take it personally if I can’t get your engine running—you’re right, that’s on you—but not trying again seems like a waste of an opportunity.” His hands slid down to my bottom, stroking and then squeezing me shamelessly. Then moaning, “Holy fuck, you’ve got a great ass.”

  I huffed a small laugh, something in me relaxing, and I allowed him to roll me away. He settled next to me, grabbing my hand and bringing it to his lips while he continued conversationally, “Let me be clear, I consider this an opportunity for me. Sure, I hope you get something out of it. But think about this from my perspective.”

  “Your perspective?”

  His gaze swept over my body and he licked his lips. “I’m guessing we’ll be spending a lot of time naked?” Dan drew his bottom lip into his mouth as his eyes met mine again, held, and smoldered.

  Try as I might, faced with his smolder, I was having difficulty holding on to my worry for him. I was also having trouble remembering why I’d been determined to give up and accept defeat just moments ago.

  So, in an attempt to refocus myself and the conversation, I asked, “What if I’m never able to enjoy sex? What if I can’t? What if I try, we try, and I always fail?”

  His mouth tugged upward. “I think you’re asking the wrong questions.”

  “Really?” A note of desperation bled into my voice, and I didn’t even try to hide it. “What questions should I be asking?”

  Dan trailed a barely there touch down my arm, along the bare skin of my stomach where my shirt had lifted, leaving a veil of goosebumps in its wake.

  I shivered.

  “The only question, as far as I’m concerned, isn’t whether you’ll fail, that doesn’t matter. It’s whether you’ll enjoy the trying.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  USA Median Value of Annual CEO Compensation, n= 300 sample, large U.S.-traded public companies

  2016: $13 million

  —The Associated Press (AP)

  USA Average Value of Annual CEO Compensation, n= 248,760 comprehensive, all US companies (small, medium, and large), some private, some publically traded.

  2016: $178,400

  —US Bureau of Labor Statistics

  **Dan**

  I made Kat breakfast—pancakes, bacon, eggs—the whole nine yards. She’d made me cake to welcome me home, the least I could do was make her the breakfast of champions after what happened last night.

  Plus, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about her “problem.”

  She had a problem.

  She thought it was a big problem.

  However, as I thought about it, sipping my coffee as the sun rose over Lake Michigan, it didn’t seem like much of a problem to me.

  Some couples go hiking.

  Some cook together.

  We’d be making out and giving each other sexy massages all in the name of mental health.

  For the life of me, I couldn’t see a problem.

  Granted, I wouldn’t tell her that. Early in my life, my four sisters had taught me the last thing I ever wanted to do was trivialize a lady’s emotions. Kat was tied up in knots about the whole thing. Okay, I could see that. Kat might’ve been tough, but I would validate the shit out of her feelings insomuch as she needed me to.

  Meanwhile, I would look forward to untying those knots, then tying her in different knots.

  What I was tripping over was as follows: did this mean I was exploiting her problems for my personal gain?

  . . . I had no idea.

  Maybe.

  Probably.

  In order to cauterize potential guilt, I reminded myself it would be a symbiotic relationship. And like all symbiotic relationships, this would be to the advantage for each person involved.

  See? Everybody wins!

  You just win the most.

  When Kat emerged from her room, she was already dressed and ready for work. Her hair was meticulous, her makeup like something out of a magazine. Her pants even had those creases down the front. Her shirt was ironed and starched to such an extreme degree, her collar looked dangerous, so stiff the points could be used as a knife or a weapon.

  “How’d you sleep?” I asked, moving to intercept her for a light kiss, and fighting the urge to mess her up a little, smudge her lipstick, run my fingers through her hair, and wrinkle her starchy shirt.

  I didn’t. But I wanted to.

  She gave me a stiff smile as we separated and held out a slip of paper, her eyes distant in a way that had me frowning. “It’s Dr. Kasai’s number, my therapist. I’ve emailed her your phone number and asked about setting up a time for us to talk.”

  I took the slip from her, noticing it was folded so precisely none of the edges overlapped. “Thanks.” I glanced between her and the paper. “Do you want me to call her this morning?”

  “Yes,” she blurted, then sighed wretchedly, her façade of calm cracking as her face crumpled. “I’m so so—”

  “Nope. None of that.” I swept her into my arms, crushing her to me and kissing her again.

  This time I did smudge her lipstick, and I pushed my fingers into her hair, grabbing a fistful to angle and open her mouth like I wanted as I backed her against the kitchen counter. And I grabbed her ass, because I wanted to.

  She moaned into my mouth, scrambling to get closer, her nails digg
ing into my back through my suit shirt as I teased her tongue, ending the kiss with a frisky bite of her lip. I leaned away, admiring my handiwork.

  Her mouth was pink, devoid of paint, and a little swollen; her hair was disheveled; her eyes dazed.

  Her shirt wasn’t wrinkled.

  But mine was, and that was even better.

  We drove into work together and made plans to meet up after. She reminded me that the gang was scheduled to go to Fiona and Greg’s to clean the place, do laundry, and watch the kiddos so Fiona and Greg could catch a nap.

  The day went as planned. I printed out a copy of the postnup to review with Kat when we had a chance. I’d made some changes, nothing huge, but I still wanted her to see them just in case she wanted something different. I thought about calling Kat’s Dr. Kasai, but decided to wait until she was around, so we could do it together.

  Work was work, but to Betty’s astonishment, I was mostly caught up, having managed a good deal of backlog while on the flight back from Down Under. So, around 11:00 AM, I took a nap on the couch in my office, unbearable exhaustion hitting me like a bat upside the head.

  Refreshed, I stopped by Kat’s floor around 4:30 PM and we left the Fairbanks building together, making small talk about our days while I tried to get over the fact that this—being with her, talking over her day, telling her about mine, holding her hand and stealing kisses when no one was looking—was my life.

  We were taking things slow, but still. I felt like the luckiest fucking bastard in the world, and a part of me thought about sending Tiny Satan a thank you note for being such a dickweasel. Not to worry, most of me still wanted to kick him in the nuts.

  Later—much later—as we left Greg and Fiona’s, it finally sunk in: we would be going home together. It seemed to hit her at approximately the same time because the interior of the car grew quiet, and I could almost hear her thinking.

  I was debating whether or not to raise the privacy window when I heard Stan say, “Uh oh.” His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. They looked alert and concerned. “I think we got trouble, boss.”