by June Gray
At night, he slept on Henry’s side of the room on a huge cushioned bed, his face always pointed toward the door. His ears would perk up at any noise, and each time Henry walked in through the front door, Law bounded downstairs like a kid on Christmas morning. When Henry was home, Law followed him around without fail. I almost wanted to change his name to Shadow.
I first agreed to take in Law because I saw in him a version of Henry, a lonely soul abandoned by his family, but I only needed to spend one night with the dog to realize that he was actually more like me. We were just two pitiful creatures madly in love with a man who was hardly ever there.
—
One night, I awoke to the sound of large dog paws thumping down the stairs. A few minutes later, I heard Henry’s footsteps coming up the stairs and continuing down the hall. “Stay,” he whispered and entered the bedroom, closing the door on Law.
I rolled over and even though my eyes were heavy with sleep, I was unable to keep them off Henry as he undressed. As if sensing me, he stilled and turned his head, finding my gaze in the darkness. The bright moon slipped through the blinds and cut across his face, illuminating the deep ruts between his eyebrows.
He climbed onto the bed and crawled over to me, his gaze never once leaving my face. He paused for a moment before he stooped over me, sliding his arms under my back and bending his head to my chest.
Something about the tender way he held me put a vice around my lungs, making it hard to breathe. I lifted my hand to touch the back of his head and said, “You okay?”
He shook his head, his face still pressed to the thin fabric of my T-shirt.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes were closed and his eyebrows furrowed when he pulled away. He sat back on his haunches, straddling me between his legs, and opened his eyes. “Nothing. Everything.” With his palms flat against my stomach, he slid his hands underneath my shirt and worked upward, skimming the sides of my breasts, then pulled the fabric over my head. He did the same to my panties, pulling them off me in equal measures of gentleness and need.
My body came alive with his touch, my every nerve standing at attention for him. I didn’t know what was going through his mind, but his light, almost reverent touch was starting to undo me.
“Henry . . .”
With a haunted look on his face, he dragged his fingertips up my thighs, along the ticklish parts of my hips, and onto the planes of my stomach. “I just want to look at you and touch you. To make sure that you’re really here,” he whispered, crouching over me. I felt him sigh into my skin as he pressed his lips to the valley between my breasts, then he tenderly kissed a path down to my stomach where he stopped and laid his stubbled cheek.
“I love you, Elsie,” he said against my trembling skin. “I’m not going to let a day go by without telling you that.”
Tears stung my eyes as desire transformed into something else: a frightened, helpless feeling I couldn’t name. I didn’t know what was making him hurt, but I could sense it in the air around him, feel it in the way he moved. So I held him to me, rubbing my palm against the wavy hair on his head, and hoped that it was enough.
“Do you . . . do you want to talk about it?” I asked after some time.
“No. I just need to be with you,” he rasped. He moved once again, rolling off to the side and slipping a hand between my knees, sliding it upward until it reached the point where I was already throbbing with want. He lifted my legs apart and suddenly his mouth was breathing on my folds.
I arched my back, the worry momentarily forgotten when his tongue slid inside my cleft, finding the sensitive spot and massaging it. His hands cupped my ass and lifted me up as he deepened the kiss, enveloping my mound with his mouth, increasing the pressure.
The orgasm was quick and acute, racing through my entire body like an electric current. Henry groaned as my muscles throbbed around his tongue, which continued to lap at my clit to sustain the pleasure.
Then he was gone, leaving me cold. He sat up to lean against the headboard and pulled me up. He grabbed the sides of my face and kissed me, his mouth still saturated with my juices as he devoured me. He grabbed my hair and pulled me away, his eyes blazing across my face. “I can’t live without you, Elsie.”
Every word he said was like a hot knife through my chest, scalding the places it sliced. I wanted to know what had made him so desperately needy but knew that if I asked again, I would only get silence. So to ease his anguish—and mine—I straddled him and positioned his cock at my entrance.
He was breathing hard when I wrapped my hand around his shaft and lowered myself onto its tip. “Fuck yes,” he groaned, his eyebrows drawing together as he closed his eyes. “I need to be inside you.”
I slowly sank onto his hard length, moaning as a part of him connected to the deepest part of me. With my hand splayed on his stomach, I began to rock my hips, watching his expression darken, the agony and the pleasure etching deep lines into his forehead and bracketing his mouth.
He bent his neck and crushed his forehead to my chest, his hands on my back as he held me close. “I can’t lose you ever again,” he said in a near whisper. “You’re everything to me.”
I leaned back, my hips still swaying, and grasped his head. “Look at me, Henry,” I said, tilting his face up to mine. I bent down and touched my forehead to his, willing him to open his eyes and just see. “I’m here right now.”
He opened his eyes the same moment he began to move beneath me, thrusting his hips up into mine. He held me close as we made love, Henry afraid to lose me and I afraid that he actually could.
—
Henry awoke with me the next morning, nuzzling into my neck at around eleven in the morning. The sunlight seemed to have brightened his mood as he took a shower and dressed in running shoes, shorts, and a light blue shirt that set off his eyes.
“Where are you going?” I asked, pulling the covers tighter around me.
“Taking the dog to the park.” He crouched down at the foot of the bed; a second later, his hands encircled my ankles and the next thing I knew I was being tugged through the covers until I emerged on the other side. “You didn’t think I was going to leave you, did you?” he asked with a grin.
I sat up, pushing the sheets off my head, and laughed. “There are other ways to get a girl out of bed.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“Coffee. Morning sex. Chocolate,” I said, counting them off on my fingers. “Any number of those would have sufficed.”
“Ah, but where is the fun in chocolate and coffee?” he asked, then suddenly bent down and rested his hands on either side of my lap, his face inches from mine. “As for the sex . . .”
—
So we left for the park an hour later, completely sexed out. Whatever had happened last night not only made Henry deathly afraid of losing me, it apparently made him horny as hell. Not that I was complaining about the latter.
“So are we going to talk about last night?” I asked him as we walked in the sunshine. We were nearing the park as Law was starting to get antsy and tugging on the leash a little more.
His mood changed, just a tiny shift in his body that I was able to pick up. “It was nothing.”
I’d thought perhaps the sunshine would seep into his skin and light up some of his dark crevasses, allowing him to talk about what was hidden there. I guess I was wrong. “So you coming home freaking out about losing me, that was nothing?” I asked, unable to keep from pushing. If I stopped now, if I just gave up, we would be lost.
He tugged on Law’s leash, keeping him at his side. “I just had a rough day.”
“You saw someone die, didn’t you?”
Henry stopped and turned to me, his face completely still. Finally, after the longest moment, as even the dog strained for motion, he nodded.
“Ah.”
“The first on
e I’ve seen.” We arrived at the park then, and whatever communication I’d opened up sealed shut again as Henry took the opportunity to change the subject. He bent down and unclipped Law from the leash then pulled a tennis ball from his pocket. “Okay, boy, let’s see how socialized you are.”
To say that Law was excited to see the ball was an understatement. He jumped with glee, literally bowling Henry over with his excitement. The two tumbled to the ground, Henry lying on the grass laughing as the dog licked his face.
My irritation melted away as I watched them play, feeling a warm tickle in my chest. Henry would be an incredible dad.
If he were ever at home, a voice in the back of my head niggled, cooling my insides with the reality of it all.
“Go get her!” Henry yelled and I turned in time to see a ball flying at me, followed closely by sixty pounds of brown fur. I caught the ball and dodged out of the way in time. “Fetch,” I said and threw the ball to the middle of the park. Law was immediately on it.
Henry was laughing when he got back to his feet and dusted himself off.
“Nice try,” I told him as Law came bounding back with the ball in his mouth. “Good boy,” I said, scratching the back of his head.
Suddenly, a little girl came running up to us, stopping a foot shy of Law. She couldn’t have been more than three, but she wrapped her little arms around his neck without hesitation and gave him a hug. Law, incredibly, sat still and allowed the child to fawn over him. I’d even go so far as to say he was enjoying it.
It’s incredibly cliché, but at that moment, my heart flipped over on itself. I looked at Henry and saw in his face the same awareness, as if we were both watching our future playing before our eyes.
The child’s parents came walking up a few seconds later and almost had to pry her off Law, who sat patiently while his fur was being manhandled by chubby little fingers. I was so proud of him in that moment, and I knew that he would be just as patient with our own baby.
—
Henry and I held hands as we walked back home feeling as if the world was in its rightful place, Law trotting ahead of us. Out here, bathed in sunshine and fresh air, it was almost as if we were back to being the newlyweds who were once full of hope and promise.
“I’ll do it,” I said as we stepped onto our porch.
Henry froze, the key in his hand poised above the lock. He turned and pinned me with his gaze.
“I’ll call Dr. Harmon about the surgery,” I said, reaching out to touch his shirt, my fingers closing around the soft fabric. “I’m ready to try again.”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t really have to. The reverence in his eyes as he gazed at me said it all. And when he picked me up and carried me upstairs to make love to me once more, his silence spoke a thousand truths about the man I had married, the man who’d seen firsthand the ugliness of the world but never stopped believing.
5
“At least fourteen days?” Conor’s auburn eyebrows drew together and his lips pursed. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hair absently. “I don’t know.”
“It’s important,” I said, shifting my stance so that my legs were apart, readying myself for a battle.
“What’s it for?”
“Surgery.”
His eyes flickered with concern. “Life threatening?”
I sighed. “No,” I said, unable to lie and unwilling to tell the truth. I didn’t need one more man looking at me with pity. “But it’s important.”
“Can it wait?” he asked. He looked down at the calendar covering his glass desk. “Can you put it off for two weeks? At least until after we secure the Lombart account?”
I chewed on it for a moment before I began to nod. Two weeks was nothing in the grand scheme of things. “I’ll have to double-check with Henry’s schedule, but I think that will work.”
I turned to leave and was almost at the door when he called my name.
“I want you to go to Atlanta for the pitch.”
I spun around, my eyebrows rising in surprise. “You want me to go with you?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and flashed dimples. “No, I want you to make the presentation in my place.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s your baby, isn’t it? You know the campaign inside and out. Who better to make the presentation?”
“But that’s your job.”
He laughed. “It normally is. But I think you would make a more compelling argument.”
“One condition,” I said, raising a finger. “If we get Lombart, I want a raise.”
He grinned, unsurprised. “That was the plan all along.”
“A big one.”
“We’ll discuss the specifics later.” He looked at me expectantly. “Well?”
What could I say? This was a huge opportunity. There was no other answer than “Yes.”
—
Henry had the late shift for the rest of the week, so I continued to go out after work with Kari and a few others. I figured that if I had two weeks to live it up before I was forced to give up alcohol and partying, I might as well enjoy it now instead of sitting home alone. We went out to dinner, watched movies, and hung out at someone’s house and drank. I felt a little like I’d reverted to my early twenties, when partying was almost a necessity, but it felt good to cut loose a little and have some fun. I wasn’t hurting anybody and goodness knows I needed to relax.
I came home that Saturday at nearly four in the morning to find Henry’s car already parked in the driveway. I closed the front door behind me without any noise and winced when Law came bounding down the stairs. “Hey, boy,” I said, fielding his kisses then setting him back down. “Quiet or you’ll get me busted.”
I went upstairs but didn’t find Henry in the master or any of the spare bedrooms. I searched downstairs and found no trace of my husband. Then I heard a metallic clink and walked out to the garage, where he was working on his motorcycle in workout pants and a white shirt.
“Hi,” I said softly, taking note of the hard squeeze of his jaws.
He continued to twist a monkey wrench for the longest time, pretending not to hear me.
“When did you get home?” I asked.
Finally, he looked up at me but the ice in his stare stole the breath from my lungs. “Two,” he said tersely. “Where have you been?”
“Just out with some friends,” I said, stepping into the garage and walking closer. “I was buzzing so I slept on Kari’s couch until I was sober.”
He looked away again, his nostrils flaring. “Check your phone.”
I dug through my purse and found my phone. “Shit,” I whispered under my breath at finding several missed calls and numerous unanswered messages. “Sorry. It was on silent.”
He stood up then, the anger emanating from him. “Is this what you do every night when I’m working? You go out and get drunk?”
I bristled. Oh hell no. “Excuse me? Isn’t that what you do every night after work?”
“This is different,” he said in a much louder voice. “You shouldn’t be out there this late at night. It’s not safe for you out there.”
“Where exactly do you think I go?” I asked, dropping my purse on the floor. I almost pushed my sleeves up my arms and put my dukes up but decided that was too much.
He glared at me, his jaw muscles still working. “If you only knew what I see every night, all the shit people do when the sun goes down, then you would understand where I’m coming from.”
“I’d understand where you’re coming from if you ever told me any of the shit you see at night,” I spat out. God, I was so tired of this same old argument, of my same old plea. “You just need to open that mouth of yours and talk to me.”
“Talk to you? Isn’t that what we do every day?”
I shook my head sadly. “You just don’t g
et it, do you?” When he said nothing, I continued. “What happened to you after Afghanistan, all of that shit that ate away at you, it’s happening again.”
He scrubbed his face with his palm. “Elsie . . .”
“I feel so closed off from you. Like there’s this huge brick wall that’s between us and I can’t climb it.” When his jaw hardened once more, I said, “You’ve got to help me out here, Henry.”
His nostrils flared. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“What happened the other night, when you told me you couldn’t lose me again?”
He looked down at the wrench in his hand.
“For fuck’s sake, tell me. Talk to me.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“No wonder I have to turn to someone else.” I spun around to leave when he grabbed my arm.
“What the hell does that mean?” he growled.
“That means I’m going to talk to someone who will actually communicate back.” And I don’t know why I said it, but suddenly, I wanted to take a sledgehammer to that hard facade. “Like Conor.”
His face turned an ugly shade of red, his nostrils flared, and his jaw muscles clenched. “What did you say?” he asked, his fingers tightening around my arm.
I tried to pull away. “Let me go.”
He pulled me against his body. “No. You’re mine, Elsie.”
I fortified my gaze, pretending my eyes were made of diamonds. “I’m not some object you can lay claim to.”
He grabbed my left hand and fingered the metal band there. “No, you’re my wife. You agree to be mine every day you put on this ring.”
I never let my gaze waver. “Then that means you belong to me. And I demand to know what happened the other night.”
He walked into me, forcing me backward a few steps. Still, I held my ground, even if my heart was thumping wildly in my chest. “Fine, I’ll tell you what happened,” he said in a low rasp. “I answered a hit-and-run call on East Sixth. Dispatch described the victim as a woman in her late twenties dressed in jogging clothes.”
I gulped as an expression flew across his features, a shadow of the pain he wore the other night. “You thought it was me,” I said.
