“Kiss me,” he growled, and lowered his head to hers.
Eagerly, she met his lips as his cock delved deep between her thighs once more. He ground against her. A spark of utter pleasure flared, and she gasped against his mouth.
“Yes,” she groaned. “More.”
He obliged as he always did, grinding and thrusting, the sound of wet flesh against wet flesh echoing in the silence of their room.
Soon Emma couldn’t take any more; her womb tightened as the bright intense pleasure at her clit exploded, spreading through her pussy.
“Oh God,” she sobbed, convulsing beneath him. She looked up, Rosco’s bottom lip was caught between his teeth and his face was a mask of pleasurable concentration. As her body spasmed with the last remnants of her climax, Rosco continued to plunge into her, seeking his own release.
Then it happened, with one last ferocious lunge that sent his cock hammering into her cervix; he cried out and Emma reciprocated. She closed her eyes and felt his orgasm come, his shaft pumping cum deep into her.
Rosco collapsed, burying his head into her neck, kissing and whispering words of love.
Yet suddenly, despite the pleasure still sparking through her, the moment was gone and reality came steaming back. Emma felt suddenly and totally empty. At that moment she would have given nearly anything to be broke, pregnant, twenty and happy again.
Rosco winced as Emma withdrew into herself. He lifted his head and looked deep into her eyes, only to see the curtains of self-reproach close over the passion and confidence once more.
She lurched for her nightdress.
He’d hoped this time would have been different, that the passionate Emma might linger a while longer.
He reached for her, but she swiftly slipped out of the bed. He’d wanted to hold her still, to stop her from leaving and revel in the warmth of her body against his as they fell asleep.
Like they used to.
No, he’d tried that before, and a night of passion would just turn into another fight, another all bones bared emotional battery of self-loathing. Emma was hell-bent on punishing herself, and subsequently him, for their inability to have another baby. The only time she didn’t withdraw was when his cock was in her and she was mindless with need.
With a heartfelt sigh, he rolled over and stared at the ceiling.
He heard Emma open the door to the bathroom, where she’d wash his cum away.
The insult burned.
“Em,” he called, and he turned to watch her. “Don’t.”
Emma turned and faced him, her chin-length blonde hair swaying. “There’s no point,” she snapped. “I might as well get clean. I’m not going to fall pregnant anyway.”
“I was living in Margaret River and waitressing when I met him,” Emma said, holding the magazine journalist’s vaguely aggressive stare.
They sat in the sunny lounge room of their new Narrabeen home, a wall-length window behind offering uninterrupted views of the swelling surf.
The journalist, Kelly Dalton, offered a serpentine smile in response, flicking her perfect blonde streaked hair as her cool blue eyes crawled up and over Rosco, lingering a moment too long on the bulge in his jeans. Emma recoiled slightly and looked away, trying to quell her irritation. Eventually, she returned her gaze to the journalist and focused on the small tattoo of what could have been Marilyn Monroe gone wrong on Dalton’s shapely ankle.
Creepy.
Seemingly oblivious to Emma’s displeasure, Dalton forged onward, bestowing on Rosco a particularly enormous grin. “Were you from Margaret River originally, Emma?” she asked, angling her iPad to record the next answer.
For a moment Emma gritted her teeth.
Dalton leaned forward, picking up her sparkling mineral water with an exaggerated gesture, giving Rosco a carefully angled view of her perky lace-bordered tits.
Why do they always look at my husband when they’re asking a question directed at me? She couldn’t stem a scowl.
Being married to the world’s Number One Pro Surfer had resulted in many interviews over the years, and they only seemed to be increasing. Emma couldn’t really fathom the fascination. They were, ultimately, just an ordinary couple, except Rosco was the best surfer in the world.
“Uh, no, I’d moved down from Perth—to sketch actually—and just worked as a waitress to pay the bills.”
She shared a glance with Rosco, who brushed a long curl down over his shoulder and grinned. “Yeah, Em did great pictures, she used to sell them door to door. That took guts. Some of her art is still in the galleries down in Margs,” he added.
For a brief second, Emma’s heart gave a tug, but she ignored it.
“Can you tell us how you met each other?” The journalist completely ignored the opening to discuss Emma’s art and refocused her attention on Rosco.
“Not much to say, really.” He shrugged, “I was in Margaret River for the Masters and met her at the café. We got talking and the rest is history.”
“You won the surfing competition?” Dalton asked inanely.
“Yeah, it was my first big win.” He leaned over and caught Emma’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “In more ways than just one.”
Emma wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw the journalist roll her eyes. Another flare of irritation flickered to life.
Is it so hard to believe that a man like Lachlan Ross would fall in love with me?
Dalton leaned back on the couch and recrossed her legs, the creepy image of Marilyn Monroe contorting as she moved.
“How old were you?” Dalton continued.
Emma tightened her grip on Rosco’s hand. Their fingers entwined.
“I’d just turned eighteen,” he replied, tossing another blond curl from his face as he did. It was a gesture Emma knew and loved, and at that moment she wanted to take the curl and twist it in her finger and kiss him.
“That’s very young,” Dalton murmured, her eyes flashing between them. “And how old was Emma?”
“She was twenty—a real cradle-snatcher.”
It was meant to be a joke, she knew, but she’d never found it particularly funny. Emma’s body flushed with unwelcome heat. The desire to kiss her husband vanished instantly. Rosco turned his sparkling blue gaze on her and winked.
Emma’s jaw tightened to control an outright snarl.
She pulled away her hand.
The journalist raised an over-plucked eyebrow and laughed.
“She’s like my very own pet cougar or something,” Rosco added obliviously, and they both laughed again.
The heat flushed over Emma and she looked away, fearful sweat was beginning to bead on her top lip. She took a deep breath before levelling her gaze at the journalist again.
“You also have an eleven-year-old son,” Dalton prompted, referring to her sheet of scrawled notes.
Emma answered before he could embarrass her more. “Yes we do.”
The journalist’s eyes narrowed and she looked pointedly at Rosco. “What was it like being a teenage dad? You were still only eighteen when your son was born. How did you handle the fame of pro-surfing and fatherhood?”
Rosco offered the journalist one of his iconic shrugs and smiled, his teeth bright in his tanned face. “You get through it.” He smiled, then rested his hand on Emma’s thigh and gave it a warm squeeze. “Emma is amazing.”
She smiled triumphantly at Dalton, whose lips were contorted in a parody of a smile.
“How nice,” she said insincerely. She hesitated a moment, the pink tip of her tongue sliming its way over ruby stained lips. “Do you think you would have married had you not fallen pregnant?”
Emma stiffened. It was a question she hated. It was the question she couldn’t really answer, because although Rosco always said the right thing, and their marriage had lasted, she still had doubts.
Rosco was the first to recover, he was always the better showman. “Of course,” he said easily. “Like I said, Emma is amazing.”
It seemed to Emma that Dalt
on’s smile turned carnivorous. Like some journalistic piranha, she came in for the kill. “In your eleven years of marriage, have you thought about having more kids?”
Emma couldn’t restrain a grimace and the stab of panic that followed.
Rosco’s hand found hers once more, his fingers curling reassuringly about her own. She should have been thankful—the gesture should have made her feel better—but instead it made her feel strangely guilty.
“Maybe,” he gave a shrug. “But that’s not really anyone’s business but ours.”
There was little else that Emma heard for a moment, the words of a doctor spoken a little over a week ago resounding in her head.
“Non-specific infertility. I’m sorry, there is no point continuing IVF at this stage.”
The pain was still utterly raw.
“Is there anything you’d like to add, Emma?” Dalton offered a victorious smile.
Emma croaked an answer in the negative, and true to form Rosco took over the remainder of the interview.
She listened half-heartedly, her mind whirring and her belly gripping with anxiety.
How could he answer that question so easily? How can he be nice to her when she’s so obviously trying to flirt, she wondered? Rosco reclined on the couch, his legs apart, one knee casually resting against hers.
She struggled to regain composure, aware that Dalton was now pulling out all the moves now. She was leaning forward, virtually dangling her titties on a stick.
That’s obscene.
Emma swallowed and glared at the photographer. Couldn’t he see Dalton’s disgraceful behaviour either?
Apparently not. The photographer turned and snapped a few images of the view instead.
“Well, I think that’s it.” Dalton beamed, flicking her hair over her shoulder with her free hand. “Oh, if you’d like to come and do a one-on-one with me, here’s my card. We’ve got a spot open in May—after the Brazil Pro, which I just know you’ll win.” She pulled a card from her jacket pocket, leaned over—thrusting her bosoms out once more—and handed it to Rosco.
Rosco laughed. “Hope so.”
Emma watched, her teeth gritted, as Rosco’s eyes flickered over the pert mounds of Dalton’s breasts and then landed on the card. Deftly, he reached forward to grasp it.
Dalton’s red-nailed fingers brushed over her husband’s tanned hand like a vulture’s talons.
“I look forward to it,” she purred.
Rosco’s smile faltered, and he looked at her perplexedly before retracting his hand quickly, her card tight in his grip.
“I think that’s enough now,” Emma heard herself snap, briskly removing the card from Rosco’s hand and slipping it in her own pocket. “You can speak with my husband’s agent if you require anything more.”
“That was fucking rude, Emma,” Rosco growled when the journalist and photographer had left. “You can’t dismiss a reporter like that. It embarrasses me. Please fucking remember that interviews are part of my job and I don’t appreciate you getting all narky in them. If you can’t control yourself, just leave them to me!”
“She was fucking rude,” Emma snapped in return. “And you embarrassed me. Oh, ‘a real cradle-snatcher’.” She mimicked his deep voice.
Rosco’s brow furrowed deeply, and he swept his hair over his shoulder. “I was joking. You know being two years older doesn’t really make you a cradle-snatcher, I was trying to be funny.”
“It wasn’t funny,” Emma exploded, “When you say that, it makes me feel old and that it’s some kind of miracle you’d waste your time on a nobody who can’t even have another baby!”
Rosco’s face contorted, “Not this again! This has nothing to do with having another baby!”
Anger, raw and painful, rushed through Emma’s body like a wave. “I can’t believe you just said that! Everything is about babies! That bitch comes into our house, makes me feel like shit for not having more kids, shoves her tits in your face, all while you make fun of me? I’m supposed to be okay with it?”
Rosco stared at her, disbelieving. “You’ve taken it all wrong. No one was making fun of you.”
“You were,” Emma howled.
Rosco let out a growl of frustration. “Fuck this, I’m going for a surf.” With an angry grimace, he turned and began to walk up the stairs to get his stuff, his feet falling heavily as he went.
Emma watched him go, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his Surf Hunter t-shirt.
Their marriage was falling apart; something had to be done. She just didn’t know what.
“Mum?”
Startled, Emma turned towards the voice.
Bodhi, their eleven year old, was standing in the hallway, his blond riot of hair sticking out in every possible way. His blue eyes, so like his father’s, were wide.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Of course.” She smiled, plastering a look of motherly affection over her stricken expression. “Have you unpacked yet?” she asked, knowing full well he had not, and that half his dirty clothes from the Hawaii trip would be still in his suitcase. “Your tutor will be here in an hour and a half and she won’t want to work in a room with your smelly clothes.”
Bodhi gave an exaggerated sigh. “I hate Ms Samson. I’m glad she’ll have to sit near my stinky jocks. Why can’t I just go to school like normal people?”
Emma reeled, “That’s not nice. You know we have to travel with Dad to keep the family together. The surfing comps are his job. It would be too disruptive for you to go to a normal school.”
“But we don’t always have to go with him!” Bodhi growled. “Why can’t I just stay here with you and go to school?”
“Because we can’t!” Emma snapped, images of slinky surf-bunnies and serpentine journalists confirming her fears. “Go and sort your clothes out, now.”
Rosco frowned as he overheard the conversation, and rubbed his chin. He knew the pro-surfing circuit was hard on his boy. Bodhi had friends, but they were mostly kids of the other surfers on tour. At home in Sydney, however, their son was becoming increasingly isolated. It worried him, and he knew it worried Emma too.
The fact was, Bodhi and Emma didn’t have to come on tour with him at all. The tour events went for ten days maximum—he’d be absent for less than a fortnight. Fly-in-Fly-Out and military workers had worse rosters than he did.
He knew why they travelled with him.
Once a laid-back surf artist, Emma had become insecure and jealous, unfortunate character traits that had merely intensified with each failed IVF attempt.
Of course, surfie groupie girls were a trap for some guys. They hung around the comps, eager and ready should any surfer show them the slightest bit of attention. Rosco knew several guys who’d fallen off the monogamy wave for them.
Emma knew it too.
The girls who hung around the comps were tanned, beautiful and easy; in that sense, eleven years ago, Emma had been similar. Yet something had been different about her, right from the beginning.
Pretty, a slightly upturned nose dusted with freckles and her blonde hair salt-stiffened. Rosco could even remember what Emma had been wearing the day they met—Nailed brand shorts and a hot pink bikini top. She’d been sitting sketching at the beach, watching the competition when he’d won the Margaret River Masters. They’d just cracked open the champagne when he’d caught her eye. She’d grinned at him, given the thumbs up and gone on sketching.
Something about her had caught his attention and made it linger. Maybe it was the grin, the cheesy thumbs up, or maybe it was the fact she was sketching when everyone else was madly crowing about his success—he wasn’t sure—but later that evening he’d sought her out.
He’d finally found her at a local café and she’d been speechless for a good moment or two. He’d swiftly learned that behind that the cheeky, beach babe exterior was a woman of art and wit. That night, Rosco forwent the celebratory drinks with his sponsors and instead snuck off to the beach with Emma and a carto
n of beers.
She’d taken her sketchpad, and had sketched the cloudscape over the ocean. He’d been fascinated to see her draw. He’d admired the picture so much that she’d bemusedly given it to him. He still had it in fact, eleven years later, in a box in the cupboard.
As she’d handed over the sketch, the light had glistened in her hazel eyes; she spoke of her dream to exhibit her work, and amused him for hours with tales of her door to door art sales job. Emma was so different from the girls he’d known before. She was interesting, funny and lively, but deep in a thoughtful and almost spiritual way. Rosco had wanted her more than anything he’d ever wanted before.
They’d had sex that night, on the beach. It had been wild, exciting and short-lived sex, complete with sand in awkward places and a broken condom. They’d laughed about it, neither ever suspecting that from that first magical night, their son had been created.
For Rosco’s remaining few days in Margaret River, they’d been inseparable, and on his return to the east coast they’d spoken every day, making plans for Emma to come to Sydney and enrol in art college.
It was about a week before she was due to fly to Sydney when Emma had phoned in tears.
She was pregnant.
It was his.
What were they going to do?
Far from being horrified about his pending fatherhood, Rosco had been stoked. It was, in his mind, a celestial confirmation of their rightness for each other. He eased her concerns, and throwing aside the horror of both their parents, they’d married when Emma was seven months pregnant and had never parted since.
So Rosco could understand that Emma was concerned about predatory women at the comps, but he’d tried to reassure her. He wasn’t interested in other women. He never had been. Hell, Emma was amazing in bed, and there wasn’t a thing she wasn’t willing to try. He’d always considered himself the luckiest bloke alive to have found a wife like her.
That was, until the latest IVF fail in Hawaii.
When Emma’s period had arrived after the Pipeline win, she’d broken down. Didn’t she realise the travel upset her cycles, and if she just stayed at home the baby might have stayed?
Secret Confessions: Sydney Housewives - Extended Edition Page 25
