Husband Sit (Husband #1)

by Louise Cusack

  “Where are you?” I called, trying to sound normal, as if my fuck-wittery had never occurred.

  “In here,” Finn answered, so I followed his voice into a bedroom that housed another king-sized bed my gaze skidded off, but not before I noticed black satin sheets and lots of cushions. “This way,” he said, and I kept moving past the bed, trying not to drip on the black Flokati rug, into an ensuite that was twice the size of the main bathroom. These guys had their priorities right. The double shower took up all of one wall and had a big opening in the middle and two glass partitions at each end. Finn was sitting on the edge of a giant spa bath that was filling with water and bubbles.

  “I hope you like sandalwood,” he said. “It’s supposed to be soothing.”

  I shrugged. “Who doesn’t?” In truth, I usually found it overpowering. I was more of a tea rose and ylang ylang girl myself. “I appreciate this,” I said, starting to feel uncomfortable standing in his bathroom. There were men’s toiletries on one side of the double-wide vanity and bottles of expensive perfume on the other. I recognized Dior and Chanel on her side and Morrissey on his, which I liked. He wasn’t a boring Hugo Boss type.

  “Nice aftershave,” I said, nodding at the Morrissey.

  “Katinka doesn’t like it.”

  That made me smile. “Well you’ve got a month where that doesn’t matter,” I told him and he nodded, but I could see awkwardness creeping in now. While I’d been in trouble, he’d been relaxed. Now that I was firing again, he was getting defensive.

  “I’ll be good with this now,” I said and held up a hand. He looked relieved as he stood. “Thanks for getting it started,” I added, “and for sharing the bathroom.” He nodded and left, then I was alone—just me and my sunburn.

  I soaked in the tub until the tepid water chilled, then I dabbed myself dry on a fluffy black towel and padded back into my own bathroom where I spread coconut butter from my ankles to the back of my neck. There was a part in the middle of my back I couldn’t reach but with a bit of ingenuity and the end of a back-scrubber, I managed to spread the moisturizer around, even if I couldn’t rub it in.

  “Are you okay in there?” Finn asked from outside my door, sounding seriously reluctant. “With the…cream, I mean.”

  “Fine,” I called back. “I’m a contortionist. No problems.”

  “Good!” Even through a closed door, I could feel the relief in his voice. It was only when I heard him mutter, “Contortionist,” as he walked away that I realized I’d inadvertently slipped innuendo into the conversation.

  The only thing Katinka would thank me for that day.

  Finally, I’d rubbed in as much of the cream as I could. The rest clung to my tee-shirt when I put it on, but there was nothing I could do about that so I headed out to the kitchen looking for water, knowing hydration was important. It was growing dark outside the windows, but still an hour off our appointed dinner time of seven pm. I saw Finn in the adjoining lounge area, sprawled on a giant leather recliner with his feet up and a pair of headphones on, watching cricket on the largest television screen I’d ever seen.

  “Is that Hilfenhaus bowling?” I called across the breakfast bar. He turned to me in surprise. “Who’s bowling?” I asked him again.

  He pulled off his headphones. “Watson,” he said. “Do you like cricket?”

  “Shane or Mark?”

  He grinned. “Guess you do.” He hit volume on the remote so the commentators came on softly. Finn talked over them, “It’s Shane and we’re behind. We need the kiwis all out in the next twenty overs or they win.”

  “Easy,” I said and opened the fridge to grab the bottle of sav blanc I’d put there earlier. “Want one?” I unscrewed the lid.

  “Sure.” He put his headphones down on the coffee table and came into the kitchen to get glasses. He’d taken off his boots somewhere along the line and his feet were bare, like mine.

  That warmed me down low. I liked guys barefoot in jeans, especially this guy, but I kept that to myself.

  “Wine glasses are in here,” he said, and opened a high cupboard beside me.

  “Great.” I waggled the bottle and waited for him to get the glasses, but a second later as he reached up I caught my breath, checking out the strip of skin he’d exposed between the low-slung band on his jeans and his rising tee-shirt. It was tanned, and I had a sudden terrible urge to push him back against the counter top and lick it.

  I distracted myself from that by wondering if they sunbathed naked. Not that I wanted to add a burnt ass to my problems, but I belatedly realized I could have done that myself. The pool area was private. Oh well, next time.

  “Thanks,” I said as he put the elegant flutes down. I filled them to the top because I can’t be bothered getting up every five minutes to refill. “Ice bucket?”

  “I’ll bring it.” He went hunting in another cupboard so I took a slurp out of each glass because I’d overfilled them, and then walked them to the coffee table and plunked them on coasters. A minute later, I’d deciphered the remote and hiked up the volume. Then I settled in for a night of barracking.

  “Out! Goddamn it that was out!” I shouted at the teev an hour later, dinner completely forgotten. “Bloody third umpire.”

  “Come on!” Finn teased. “It hit the bat. You saw the hotspot.”

  “Bullshit,” I said, but I was laughing.

  He grinned back. “You just want it out because you’ve got a crush on the bowler.”

  “Oh you liar!” I said, but he was on a roll.

  “I bet you’ve got that Men of Cricket calendar, and you keep it open on April even though it’s only February.”

  “He’s on the September page, actually,” I said. “But that’s beside the point.”

  “Jill loves Hilfenhaus,” he sang, pointing at me until I slapped at his finger.

  “Shut up and watch the cricket,” I said, mock-grumpy. “You’re distracting me from the game.” I turned back to pick up my wine, but the glass was empty. “Were we planning to eat tonight?” I asked him. “Or just get pissed?”

  He poured the last of the bottle into my glass and got up to grab another, giving me an up-close-and-personal view of his very nice ass encased in low-slung jeans. “I’ll ring for a pizza.” He headed for the kitchen.

  “I’m a vegetarian!” I called over the voices of the commentators.

  “Liar,” he said, pulling pizza menus out of a drawer.

  “No bullshit. I really am.”

  He stopped what he was doing. “You don’t eat meat at all?”

  The cricket cut to an ad break then and there were three long seconds of silence, enough time for us both to register what he’d just said.

  I looked across at him standing in the kitchen, with an embarrassed look on his face.

  “Lucky I didn’t tell Katinka that before she hired me,” I said, and we stared at each other for another two seconds before we both cracked up. I mean really. Big laughs. I had tears in my eyes and I couldn’t stop. The cricket restarted and I was hiccupping breaths, waving at him to shut up, even when he came back with a new bottle of wine, but we just had to look at each other and we’d laugh. It was terrible.

  Then he tried to order the pizza, “We’d like one thin and crispy vegetarian—” and it started all over again. I swear, I’ve never laughed so much in my life.

  In fact, I wished it would go on forever. But eventually the cricket finished—we won, yay!—the pizza box was full of crumbs and the second bottle of sav blanc was empty.

  “Bed time,” he said, standing up, looking sexy and demanding all of a sudden. “I’ve got work tomorrow.”

  We’d stopped laughing by then, but I was pissed and likely to say anything. “I think the pillow is broken on my bed. Can I sleep in yours?”

  He grabbed my hands and pulled me onto my wobbly legs. “Only if I’m not in it.”

  “S’fine,” I replied, letting myself be led down the hallway. “I had a scary experience in that other bathroom and I think
I’ve got post trauma … thingie … about it. What if I need to pee in the night?”

  “The toilet is in a separate room.” He stopped there on the way, holding me up while he leant in and switched on the light. “See. I’ll leave the light on so you can find it.”

  “I need a visa to go that far.” I frowned at the long, narrow toilet room with its pedestal at the other end. Stupid swanky houses. I looked back up into his face with its patient expression. “That second bottle of wine was your idea.”

  “We’ll argue about that in the morning.”

  “Will we?” I bumbled along beside him. “I was hoping you’d be too pissed to remember any of this. Me being a fuckwit and all.”

  He smiled at that, showing off white teeth I suddenly wanted to slide my tongue over. “Here we are.” He stopped outside my bedroom. “Can you find your way in?”

  “Sure. Put my hands on the walls and I’ll feel my way in.” I waved my arms around in front of me.

  “I’ll walk you in.” He turned on the light. I stumbled in beside him, then leant my head on his chest while he pulled back the covers. “In you hop,” he said, so I tried to bounce but I landed with a flop.

  “You really are a fuckwit,” he said, smiling as he pulled the covers up to my chin.

  I lay there grinning stupidly up at him. “That’s the nicest thing any man’s ever said to me.”

  “Sweet dreams,” he said, and he leant down to kiss me on the forehead. That seemed like the perfect way to end the evening, so I closed my eyes and caught my breath up as if I was going to sigh. But somehow while I was concentrating on the niceness of being tucked in, I missed the moment of decision he must have had, because the next thing I felt were his lips on mine. And they were every bit as dreamy and soft as I’d imagined they’d be. Before I could stop myself, I let out that held breath and slipped my tongue out to brush against his.

  “Jesus,” he whispered, but I didn’t want the kissing to stop so I grabbed his shoulders and pulled, which he could have resisted. He was bigger than me, but he let himself be dragged down onto the bed and then my fingers were in his dreadlocks, cupping his head, holding it still so I could keep on kissing him gently and wetly and oh so sweetly.

  He groaned after that, and I couldn’t feel his body through the quilt but I figured I was turning him on. “This is wrong,” he whispered, but I knew he wanted to, and that purely feminine part of me that he’d dented with I’m not going to sleep with you, felt smugly satisfied.

  “You’re not fucking me, you’re just kissing me,” I whispered back. “I’ve had pain today. It’s my turn for pleasure,” and I kissed him some more, long dreamy kisses that lulled me into forgetting my sunburned back and my aching wrist, kisses that relaxed my body so completely that they got softer and softer, and then without realizing what was happening, I drifted into a deep and blissful slumber.

  The next morning my head was full of hammers and my tongue felt like the bottom of a cold porridge bowl. But there was no one lying beside me and my pink pajamas hadn’t moved in the night so I was reasonably sure Finn hadn’t taken advantage of my convenient drunkenness.

  “Blah,” I said and dragged myself out, looking to rinse and spit. After a bumpy trip down the hallway, I found the toilet again and relieved myself, wondering why on earth anyone needed a toilet room to be ten feet long. It was ridiculous, and I scowled at the length of shiny tiled floor while I peed, thinking it was just as well I wasn’t cleaning this place. Then I got myself organized and staggered from the toilet into the bathroom to wash my hands. Immediately that was done I grabbed my toothbrush out of my toiletries bag and loaded it up with way too much toothpaste before shoving it in my mouth and poking around in an uncoordinated effort to get rid of the porridge sensation.

  Bad idea. That made me gag, and it was only my complete aversion to vomiting that stopped half a pizza being regurgitated. Instead, a mouthful of foamy toothpaste exited on a “Yah,” to land on my foot. I stood looking at it, thinking I should just go back to bed.

  “You okay?”

  I looked up at the doorway and saw Finn in a red tee-shirt and jeans, trying not to smile at my rabid dog impersonation. I spat into the sink and wiped the worst of the froth off my face onto a hand towel which I then used to clean my foot. When I’d straightened again, I shot him my best imperious glance and said, “How are you so perky?” And not only perky, but totally scrumptious from the top of those butterscotch dreads to the bare toes poking out of his jeans, not to mention every lickable inch in between. It hurt my head to look at him.

  “Two aspirin and a glass of milk before bed. Works every time.”

  I pulled a face but made a mental note to try it sometime. Then I remembered he should be looking guilty, not perky. “Aha!” I said and pointed a wobbly finger at him. “You kissed me last night, Mr. I’ll Be Faithful To My Wife.”

  “True,” he said with a very sexy smirk, “But kissing isn’t fucking,” throwing my own line back at me.

  It was far too early to come up with a clever response so I harrumphed my way past him and tottered off to the kitchen where I rinsed and spat with cold water from the fridge until my mouth felt frozen. “I’m going to die,” I announced, and poured another glass which I planned to try sipping.

  “You might have heatstroke,” he said, “but you’re probably just hungover.”

  “There is no such thing as just hungover,” I told him, and headed out of the kitchen, slurping water everywhere.

  He took the glass out of my hand and walked it to the coffee table. Then he put it on a coaster for me while I stood obediently behind.

  “I’m going to die,” I announced again, just to be sure he understood. Then I laid back on the black leather lounge and put my good arm over my eyes. I couldn’t have looked more melodramatic if I’d tried.

  “Do you want me to stay home from work?” he asked.

  I lifted my arm and looked at him through one eye. “Can you?”

  He nodded. “My study is set up for it. I can work here if I need to.”

  I stopped being a princess for five minutes to think about that. I felt dreadful, and I didn’t want to be left alone in a strange house. I might drown in my own vomit—which is exactly the reason I hate vomiting. It’s so unpredictable!

  “I’d like that,” I said, feeling a surge of warm gratitude.

  He pointed back the way we’d walked. “I’ll be on the other side of the kitchen. Call out if you need me.”

  “You don’t have a bell?” I made a tiny bell-ringer motion with my fingers.

  “No.” He laughed. “Drink water and sleep. I’ll check on you in an hour.”

  “Thank you, nursie!” I called as he walked away, but all joking aside, I felt loved in that moment. Finn was a stranger. Well, a stranger I’d kissed. But he cared enough about my wellbeing to stay home from work and that meant something.

  Of course, what it probably meant was that I was needy and would take any sliver of affection and blow it out of all proportion. But in my hungover, and possibly heatstroked condition, I was happy to lie there focusing on feeling loved instead of wondering when the room was going to stop spinning.

  I slept. Thank God. When I woke up it was lunchtime and I could smell something delicious. I wriggled on the lounge, trying to sit up.

  “You didn’t drink your water.” He was bossy nurse now, stirring something on the stove, looking hunky and completely at ease in the kitchen.

  “Drinking,” I replied and sipped the tepid water until I was sure it would stay down. Then I guzzled the rest. “Peeing,” I added, and lurched up to head for the bathroom. Now that my body was starting to feel like I owned it again, my back was stinging and my wrist hurt. Burns sucked.

  When I came back into the kitchen he said, “I don’t need a running commentary, you know.”

  “I know. It’s just an additional extra you don’t need to pay for.” I leant around his broad shoulders and looked into the saucepan. “Soup?”

>   “Potato and leek.”

  “From scratch?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m impressed. Can you cook other stuff?”

  “I do all the cooking,” he said, and something about his proximity and the sexiness of a man who knows what to do in the kitchen warmed me down low, as if we were somehow involved in foreplay. Even my nipples tingled as I imagined standing behind him and rubbing them against his back while he stirred the soup.

  He distracted me from my fantasy by adding, “I haven’t done a lot of vegetarian meals. I’m liking it.”

  “Who needs chicken stock,” I replied airily and helped myself to a fresh glass of fridged water. We were companionably silent then until I said, “So do you work at home often, or is this my rare privilege?”

  “Not during the day,” he replied and there was something different in his tone. “Kat likes the house to herself.”

  Right. No prizes for guessing that would be to facilitate her adultery. Did I want to go there? I was just thinking I was too fuzzy for a deep and meaningful when he said, “I know what she’s doing on this holiday with her girlfriend.”

  Shit.

  I had to say something. “Sex in the City tour of New York?”

  He put the wooden spoon onto the side of the sink and turned to face me. “If it was a man I’d go ballistic, but it’s a girl. I can cope with that. I have coped with that.”

  “But now you can’t?”

  His gorgeous eyes looked so tormented I wanted to say Fuck her, she doesn’t deserve you. No wait. Even better, fuck me!

  Luckily, he was oblivious to my mental chatter. “I don’t understand this,” he said and waved a hand back and forth between us. “What is she trying to achieve?”