Waking Up Wed

by Christy Jeffries

  “I don’t want you to.”

  He groaned before slowing his pace long enough for her to meet his rhythm. She moaned as the pressure built inside her. When she wrapped her legs around him to draw him in even farther, the dark room went brighter. Then the light exploded into a thousand tiny fragments right as he called out her name.

  * * *

  Drew held Kylie close to him even as he cursed himself. He was an animal. A monster. He’d taken his wife’s virginity and hadn’t been able to control himself long enough to ensure she wasn’t hurt.

  “I’m sorry for not being more gentle,” he said, while hoping she wasn’t too sore. He didn’t want to cause her pain, but she felt so perfect in his arms, he didn’t think he could wait to have her again.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to apologize anymore.”

  “That was before I knew you were a... That you’d never done this before.”

  “It was perfect. I wouldn’t have wanted you to change a single thing.” She snuggled in closer to him, and he felt her breath warm against his neck.

  The woman was incredible.

  When their breathing had slowed to a normal pace, she stretched, then sat up on the bed, pulling the quilt in front of her and up under her arms.

  He reached for his glasses on the nightstand but couldn’t find them. “Where are you going?”

  “To get my robe.”

  “Like that? I think it’s still out in the car.” He stroked his hand down her bare back. He knew she’d said otherwise, but he worried her newfound modesty was due to the way he’d just ravished her. When she turned her head toward him, her long auburn curls fell around her creamy shoulders, and she smiled at him. His stomach flipped over.

  At least he thought it was a smile. He couldn’t be sure without his glasses.

  “I guess I’ll have to stay like this until morning.”

  “I don’t mind if you don’t,” Drew said as he tugged on the quilt, using it to pull her back into his arms.

  She came willingly and he tried to command himself to go slow, to be gentle. But any thoughts of her still being tender were a distant memory as his passion once again took over his brain. They made love a second time and then collapsed in each other’s arms. The quilt was nowhere to be found and the sheets were in a tangled heap at the foot of the bed.

  But Drew didn’t care. His body was still burning and he didn’t need anything but Kylie to keep him warm.

  * * *

  He awoke to the sun streaming through the bedroom window and the smell of Kylie’s shampoo tickling his nose. Using his free arm, he tried not to wake her as he reached for his glasses, this time determined to see his wife in all her splendid glory.

  But he couldn’t find the wire frames, or even feel the sturdy oak table that was usually pushed up against the bed. He squinted at the room, and his blurry eyes landed on the nightstand, which had somehow toppled over onto its side, several feet away.

  How in the world had that happened?

  He ran his fingers through his hair, careful not to disturb Kylie, who was sleeping soundly, pressed up against his side. He hadn’t been with a woman since Jessica, and during that time, he’d never experienced the uninhibited reckless abandon he’d felt last night. Honestly, he’d never experienced anything like that before with anyone.

  His cell phone chimed, the low decibels indicating it was coming from the other room. He thought about the possibility of an emergency and gently disengaged his arm from under her shoulders. He almost stepped on his discarded glasses before picking them up off the floor and walking naked into the living room.

  “Hello?” he whispered into the phone, only to realize Kylie’d followed him out. And apparently she’d found the bed cover, because she was wrapped up in it.

  “Hey, Uncle Drew,” one of his nephews responded. “Chief Cooper is making waffles and wants to know if you and Aunt Kylie are coming for breakfast.”

  “I...uh...don’t know.”

  “Is everything okay with the boys?” she asked.

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “They want to know if we’re coming over for waffles.”

  “Are they making the pecan ones where he uses the maple-cream-cheese glaze?”

  He relayed her question to his nephew and waited for the response. But seeing her in the living room, barely covered, her hair all wild and tousled from their lovemaking, Drew suddenly didn’t feel so hungry—at least not for breakfast.

  The little voice came back on the line. “He said yes, although me and Aiden don’t want no nuts, so he’s gonna make ours plain. But he’s also making bacon and scrambled eggs.”

  Drew’s stomach growled and he nodded at Kylie, conveying the information.

  “Tell them we’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said.

  He disconnected the phone, calculating how far downtown was from the cabin. She certainly hadn’t left them very much time. He walked toward her, and it wasn’t until she looked down and then up again that he remembered he was completely nude.

  She bit her lower lip and he asked, “Are you sure you’re in such a hurry to leave?”

  “Well, he did say bacon and...”

  He interrupted her by kissing the column of her neck. Man, she had smooth skin. He traced a finger along her shoulder, then toward the edge of the quilt, right where her breasts were rising above the fabric.

  “Are you terribly hungry?” he asked.

  “Starving.” She dropped the bedding to the floor before rising up on her tiptoes to meet his lips.

  Thirty minutes later, they were still naked and still in the living room, stretched out on the discarded blanket and once again trying to catch their breath.

  “We should probably act like responsible adults and go pick up the children.” She spoke first. She was smiling, but Drew hated the reminder that he had again lost all control and rational sense.

  “You’re right.” He should apologize, but he wasn’t feeling very sorry. In fact, he was feeling quite the opposite. He was glad they’d made love and he was looking forward to doing so again.

  “I wonder if they’ll have any food left by the time we get there.” She walked toward the bathroom, twisting her hair up into a bun on top of her head, and he was tempted to follow her into the shower.

  But she closed the door behind her and he thought she was already transitioning into modesty mode. Perhaps she already regretted what they’d done. He walked to the bedroom, stripping off the sheets and then remaking the bed with fresh ones. He moved the nightstand back where it belonged and picked up the disheveled linens, including his discarded costume. He found her corset hanging off the dresser and looked at the torn edges. He remembered getting impatient with the tiny hooks last night, but had he really ripped her top off her?

  He shoved the ruined garment in with the rest of the dirty laundry and walked out onto the back porch to start a load of wash quickly, before she saw the evidence of what he’d done last night.

  When she emerged from the bathroom, the towel wrapped around her torso barely covering her damp, warm skin, he tried to avert his eyes. Somehow, the act of getting ready together seemed way more intimate than anything they had already done last night and, until she told him otherwise, he wanted to respect her privacy.

  He took a cold shower, then put on a fresh pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt. When he came out to meet her, she was in the living room, folding up the quilt, a slight blush tinting her cheeks.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  She took a look around the room—probably to ensure they’d left no other trace of their passionate night—and said, “All set.”

  He opened the passenger door of Nana’s Oldsmobile, and she slid inside. “Listen...” he started, but she held up her hand.

  “You’re not going to apologize again, are you?”

  “Actually, I wasn’t. I just wanted to say thank you. For last night and, well, for everything.”

  She tilted her head and smi
led at him. “Do you think they’ll notice anything is different about us?”

  “Who? Our friends or the kids?” He walked to the other side of the car and got in.

  “Ugh, I hope the kids don’t notice.” She slid on her sunglasses, and he could no longer read her expression. “I meant Maxine and Cooper.”

  Instead of answering, he made a big pretense of trying to drive in Reverse and avoiding the potholes as he backed down the driveway. Why didn’t she want the people closest to them to know that things had now changed between them? Drew thought they had changed for the better, but maybe she didn’t feel the same way.

  The plan had been for her to move out at the end of summer, and he’d been fine with that before last night. But now, the thought of her departure left an ache the size of a small hole in his heart.

  Just then, the other growing hole inside his body rumbled again, and she laughed. “Sorry, my stomach is pretty much running on empty.”

  “Drew, I think your stomach is always running on empty.”

  He smiled. He could manage small banter. But it wasn’t like him to avoid an important issue. Hadn’t he been the one last night who insisted on her talking about what had happened between them? He usually liked to address things right off the bat, but now he couldn’t change the subject quickly enough.

  “I’m a growing boy,” he said. “I need my food.”

  “You know, speaking of food, I was doing some research on PTSD.”

  “Really? Why were you doing that?”

  “Because I wanted to learn more about what you do.” Apparently she had taken a definite interest in his job, and maybe, in turn, in him. That hole in his heart began to close up. “Anyway, I came across this article about soldiers taking culinary classes as a sort of therapy, and was curious whether your team offered anything like that at Shadowview Hospital.”

  “Yep, I’ve heard about that. There are so many helpful types of therapy out there. We already have a yoga class, a canine companion group and a creative-art group.” He made a left onto Snowflake Boulevard. “But with so many patients and so many personalities, we were looking into expanding some of the treatment options we provide.”

  “Oh, good. Because I was talking to Freckles the other day when I was having lunch at the Cowgirl Up Café, and she said she’d be more than happy to volunteer to teach you—I mean, your patients—some basics in cooking. If, you know, you’d be interested in offering something like that.”

  “That would be great, actually. Captain Donahue is really into baking and recipes and stuff. I bet she’d like to spearhead a project like that.”

  “Um, Drew, I was thinking that maybe you could lead the group. Or at least take part in it.”

  “Are you saying you don’t like my cooking?” What else didn’t she like about him? He parked the car behind the Sugar Falls Cookie Company and unbuckled his seat belt before he looked at her.

  “Of course not,” she said a little too quickly and then put her hand on his arm, as if to pat him. “You’re a great cook.”

  “Really?” he asked, knowing she was full of it, but wanting her to keep consoling him with her touch.

  “No. Not really. But you’re better than me.” She smiled, and he couldn’t help but lean toward her for another kiss. She met him across the armrest, and he decided that as long as she kept touching him like this, kissing him like this, he’d volunteer to lead any kind of therapy class she wanted.

  He had practically pulled her onto his lap when an eight-year-old hand knocked on the window. “Hey, you guys better hurry. They’re all out of the plain waffles, but Mrs. Maxine says they still have the ones with the nuts.”

  Kylie blushed and scrambled to open her door. She was probably embarrassed that the kids had seen them together. Drew adjusted his jeans, then got out and followed her up the stairs to Cooper and Maxine’s apartment, a little confused by her reaction.

  In fact, weren’t they supposed to be acting all in love, like their marriage was real? In his opinion, making love last night just made their roles that much more believable.

  * * *

  “Drew, my mom just called,” Kylie said to her husband as he helped the boys finish stacking their Jenga pieces into a tower. It had been only three weeks since they’d started sleeping together, and already she was getting used to thinking of him that way. “She said my dad is on his way to Boise State this evening to scout one of their pitchers, and he plans on stopping by my condo to check in on Kane and then swinging by here to say hi.”

  “Just to say hi?” Drew lifted a brow at her but continued to stack wooden blocks, his crooked right pinkie at risk of knocking down the tower.

  He was so cute when he played with the boys, and even cuter after they put the twins to bed. Without either of them saying a word, he had easily transitioned into the master bedroom with her and, although they’d stuck to the same daily routine with the kids, their evenings alone had become much more entertaining.

  “Well, she says that, but I think we all know he’s dropping in to size up the situation and see if everything’s going well. He’s always checking in on me unannounced like this. But at least my brother is getting one this time, too. Surprise inspections, Dad calls them.”

  “I thought your dad was drafted into the major leagues straight out of college. Was he actually ever in the military?”

  How sweet that Drew had taken the time to do research on her family. Maybe he wanted to investigate how deep the craziness ran before he got himself in too deep with her. It probably hadn’t taken him much work to figure it out, though. Her family might be a little quirky, but she loved them to pieces. Especially her dad. “Nope. He just likes to remind his kids that he runs the ship.”

  “So,” he said, standing up and walking toward her. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her neck. She commanded herself to breathe and wondered if she would ever get used to the feeling of his large hands splayed around her waist. Or his lips on her sensitive flesh. “Have any of your previous boyfriends failed a surprise inspection?”

  “Are you kidding? As if I wasn’t smart enough to keep my dates as far away from my father as possible. Not that I really kept men around long enough to get to the meet-my-parents stage.” She blushed, still apprehensive about the fact that Drew was the first man she’d slept with and her lack of sexual experience.

  “Your mom’s personality is way lower key. They have an interesting dynamic.”

  “Oh, trust me, my mom just allows my dad to think he’s running the show.”

  Drew started pulling items out of the fridge. Thank goodness he hadn’t taken offense at her therapy-cooking suggestion. Things had definitely improved in the bedroom and in the kitchen. Kylie dreaded the day it would all end.

  “He’s not one of those antifeminists, is he?”

  “Actually, he’s the opposite. He always told me that if his sons could do something, his daughter could do it ten times better. But he doesn’t get all the fuss with women’s fashion or what he calls ‘female flash and glitz.’ He couldn’t understand why I would want to go out for the cheerleading squad when there was a perfectly good softball team at my high school. In fact, he raised a big fuss with the league about trying to get me on the boys’ baseball team. When I told him I didn’t want to play, he asked me why I would want to cheer for a team when I could be a star player. I’m the only girl, yet he’s always acted as though he wants me to be one of the guys.”

  “Well, there is definitely nothing masculine about you.”

  “Pshh. I think I overdid it on my rebellion because I went completely opposite. It doesn’t get much more girlie than me.”

  “I like all your girlie parts,” he said with a wink. The Jenga tower collapsed with a deafening bang and they were reminded the boys were nearby. “So what time will he be here?”

  “Less than an hour.”

  “Wow. That definitely is a surprise inspection.”

  “I think my mom felt sorry for us and decided to blow
his cover at the last minute. Like I said, she’s the one who really runs things. Can I help you with dinner?” She picked up a box of pasta and he practically tore it out of her hands. Was he that afraid of her cooking?

  “How about you make the salad?” He pointed to the head of romaine sitting on the counter.

  Hmm. Salad duty.

  Lately, she’d been hoping things would keep progressing between them. She didn’t know if she was ready for anything permanent, but she felt a sudden need to prove to Drew that she was capable of so much more than assisting him around the house and with the kids and the groceries.

  * * *

  “Well, Doc, if that psychology career doesn’t work out for you, I’m sure they could find a place for you in the mess hall,” Bobby Chatterson said after finishing his second helping of chicken cacciatore.

  Drew was impressed with how easy it was to follow some of the recipes Freckles had been writing down for the PTSD cooking group. But thank goodness he’d gone to Duncan’s Market yesterday and stocked their pantry. His new father-in-law could eat like a bear.

  He’d also witnessed a softer side to the man, who, during the meal took the time to explain patiently to Aiden and Caden why it was important for them to go to college first instead of trying to get drafted into the major leagues straight out of high school. By the time he’d finished, he had the boys convinced they would have no problem becoming both Harvard scholars and professional athletes. The man had high expectations not just of his daughter but of everyone.

  “So, Jellybean, does this husband of yours know his way around a dishwasher, too?”

  “Dad, knock it off. I’m more than capable of cleaning up a kitchen. Maybe you should go check out Drew’s workout equipment in the boat shed. Did you know he’s a great boxer?”

  Other than the punching bag he’d been using with less frequency lately, Drew wasn’t exactly sure how Kylie knew about his boxing ability. But judging by the defensive way she’d just squared her shoulders, his wife was apparently trying to prove his masculinity to her father.

  “Well, I’ll believe that when I see it.” Mr. Chatterson winked at him before getting up from the table. He held the back door open, and Drew followed him out of the cabin, feeling like a lamb being led to slaughter.