Cherry Blossoms: A Losing His Wife Novel

by KT Morrison

  She said, “Why did you bring him?”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “He followed me.”

  His cold body against hers tightened her nipples, robbed her of her sunny heat. “Baby, you’re so cold,” she said, and she pushed herself to him.

  “I know,” he said, and he pressed back, his forearms folding at the small of her back.

  “Why did he follow you?”

  “He wanted to find you. No one knew where you were. No one. Rocco had you prisoner out here...he didn’t even tell his brother...”

  “I wasn’t a prisoner. I was here alone for a while. I liked that. I wanted to be alone. I was hurting. Inside and out.” His hands went over her back as he listened. “It was so wrong. So selfish. I wished I hadn’t...I wish I’d gone home. I was so...so out of my mind that night.”

  “Did you see a doctor yet?”

  “Yeah. Rocco took me to a doctor. To a doctor’s house.”

  “He did?”

  “Geoff,” she said, her voice curling up with stress, knowing what she had to say. She couldn’t avoid her husband anymore. She could leave him, make his life easier, or stop lying to him. He deserved better. She saw his face transform—this man who knew her better than anyone sensing in her rising inflection an oncoming peril. “Geoff...Rocco loves me.”

  He gasped, his brow turning to sorrow. “What? He loves you? Nia...his family, his wife...”

  “He’s leaving her. He’s separating...”

  “Oh, Nia. Do you...love him?” He gripped her waist and pleaded with his eyes.

  She turned away, her bottom lip pinched under her teeth.

  “Nia, do you? Fuck, Nia, do you love him?”

  “I don’t know, Geoff.”

  He cried, “You might?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t feel any less love for you. I love you more than ever. I love you more than myself.”

  His hands came away from her and slid between them and covered his face.

  “Right now, I just...I have to be honest with you. I want you to know what’s happening. I’m not sure what I feel, but I know that I like how he feels about me. I like feeling him love me.”

  “He can’t, Nia. He can’t love you like I do,” he said into his palms.

  She peeled his hands away from his face, looked in his eyes. “There’s no competition, Geoff. It’s not a competition. I know how you feel and I know what we have. Please don't think I’m not thinking about you.”

  “You want to spend time with him?”

  “Away from you? No...I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I’m just being honest right now. I’m not trying to tell you how I want things to be...”

  “You want things to continue?”

  She wasn't ready to answer him. She knew she did, but she wasn’t ready to see his face if she told him that.

  He frowned, said, “Maria didn’t scare you?”

  “No, she did. She scared me.”

  “Not enough.”

  “Why didn’t you help me?”

  “Hey,” he said, and he pulled her to him and she kissed his neck. “I don’t know, Nia. I really don’t. There wasn’t any choice that night that would have been right. Anything I did would be analysed. Why didn’t I save Odie first? Why didn’t I push Maria away? Why would I let Odie see me assault a woman? I don’t know what made me do what I did...do you really think I’m a coward?”

  “No, baby. You're the strongest man I know. I mean it. You have the heart of ten men.”

  “I thought, Nia...I thought you were a better fighter...”

  He made her laugh. Her sweet man could always make her feel so good.

  “I did,” he said.

  “Sorry I let you down, baby.”

  “Do you think I wanted to see you hurt?”

  “Oh, Geoff,” she said, raising up. “Did you? Did you think I deserved it?”

  “I wasn’t surprised, I guess. But you're crazy if you think I wanted to see that. How much I love you, and I had to clean up your blood and hold our daughter...”

  “Oh fuck,” she said, falling forward and letting her hair fall over him. She could picture it. She’d left them. Left him to clean up her mess. Her man on his hands and knees with a scrub brush, hiding her horror from their daughter.

  “Am I a bad mother?”

  “No,” he said, rubbing her back. “That’s ridiculous, Nia. You know how much that little girl loves you? She said yesterday she wants you to buy her makeup, teach her.”

  “Uh-oh,” she said, feeling a warmth spreading through her. Picturing her returning to her family and being accepted.

  “What?”

  “Oh. It’s starting. She’s growing up.”

  “She is,” he said. “She surprises me every day.”

  She lay on him, her ear pressed to his neck, watching the waves. The sun was hot on her back and she was pulling the cold out of her sweet husband, making him warm again. After the days without him, every second pressed to him made her heart beat happiness through her.

  “You had sex with him?”

  “One time,” she whispered past his ear, out towards the water. “It was a...it was brutal what happened. I needed him that way. It made all of it go away for a few hours.”

  “Nia,” he sighed, touching her lightly with his gentle hands.

  “Is that okay? No, I know it’s not.” She touched her forehead to his chin. “I’m...maybe I don’t know the rules.”

  “Are there rules?”

  “You said—”

  “No. Do we still need rules?”

  “You want to stop?”

  “Are you saying you want to keep doing this?”

  She raised up to look him in the eye. She wouldn’t lie anymore. He knew the answer by the look on her face—her serious gaze, her firm mouth. She showed him concern. “I do.”

  He sagged underneath her. “After all that’s happened?”

  “I love you, Geoff. If you want to stop I swear on my life, I will never be with another man. Ever. I mean that with every bit of me. If you’re asking me...if you want the truth about what I want, I am telling you I want to make this work. For both of us.”

  “With both of them?”

  “With you. Whatever way makes it okay in your heart.” She kept his eyes still, held them.

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled, his voice tinged with frustration. “Everything is so fucking upside down.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it—”

  “Yes, we do. We have to talk about it.”

  “Right now, Geoff. We don’t have to talk about it right now.”

  “Tell me. Tell me what you want. I want to know. I want us to be so close.”

  “The truth is...Geoff, I don’t feel like myself when I’m with you. I never have. I love my time with you but I was someone else. I didn’t entirely like who I was.”

  His eyes widened, his expression changing, like he thought she was kidding and now he saw she was serious. “What? Holy fuck, I mean, what?”

  “I’m sorry. You made me a better person. You did,” she shrugged. “This is me, Geoff. You wanted to see the dark corners of me, to know it all. It took me three months of getting out of the house and being myself before I destroyed everything. I’m no good.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you the real me is no good.”

  “The real you is good. Nia, let me take care of you,” he said, his eyes pleading.

  “You can’t. I can’t. I can’t do it to you anymore.”

  “Nia, I can take it forever. Please don’t leave me.”

  “Whoa, Geoff...I’m not leaving you. I’m...it’s me...what happened to me...everything is gone...we’ll never be the same...it’s all lost.”

  “Nothing is lost Nia, we can get it all back...all of it...”

  She shrugged, her own face twisting up with a sadness.

  “You don’t want it back? Nia?”

  “It’s so hard, Geoff...was it ever me? This is
who I am...”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  “I can’t stay in the house and pretend I’m someone else. Am I doing it just for you?”

  “You don’t have to stay in the house. You can work. Do whatever. I’m your best friend. No one loves you like I do. We can work this out.”

  “I want that. I want for us to be happy. These last three months made me happy. Except when I blew it all up. I want us to be somewhere in the middle. Your good and my bad. My danger and your safety. You have to watch out for me.”

  “I was...”

  “You let me get away with too much.”

  He smirked, thinking and looking in her eyes. “I want your badness in my life. I always did.”

  “If you give I will take, and take too much. I can be your bad girl, Geoff. I want to. I still want to. I just...I need discipline.”

  “Like spanking?” he said.

  She squeezed him tight with her legs and arms, laughing. “No. Rules. I respect you. I need you to tell me what you don’t want.”

  He said, “Rule number one—”

  “Wait, baby, wait. Rule number one is honesty. I know. Listen. I said I don’t know if I love Rocco. I do. I do love Rocco...”

  “Aw Nia,” he winced, his brow pinching in the middle.

  “No, but wait, baby,” she said. “Wait. I don’t know what that means. It means nothing to you. Don’t worry, I mean it. It means nothing to you. You’re my husband, I love you, I live with you, you’re my one and only everything.”

  “And Dino?”

  “I guess, yeah. In a way. Sure. He’s my first love. I don’t know what happened to those feelings, but they’re in me somewhere, hiding.”

  “Maybe you don’t know what love means.”

  “Maybe I don’t. Maybe what it means to you is not the same. Maybe we have different words. True love? Do-anything-true-love? That’s what I feel for you.”

  “Tell me again,” he said.

  She leaned her head back in the neck hole to get a good look at this man. She caressed his chest under the shirt they were sharing. Felt his hardened nipples under the palms of her hands. He looked in her eyes and she had a soaring in her heart. If you could measure love, what she felt for her husband would be a universe. She showed him with her eyes. “You are everything, Geoff.”

  She kissed him then, dragged her nails up to his neck and held his face, twisted her mouth on him and felt his familiar lips. “God, Geoff, I missed you. I missed you so much.”

  “Rule number one, Nia? Rule number one...”

  “Yes...”

  “Rule number one, don’t ever, ever, ever leave me for six days again without calling.”

  “I know. Can you forgive me for that? I didn’t want to call. At first. I was so scared and hurt and...one day became two, and then it was like I was afraid to call because I hadn’t already called.”

  “You killed me. Nia, that tore me apart...”

  “Geoff,” she moaned, “Oh Geoff, please forgive me baby, I—”

  “It’s okay, it's crazy, but it's okay...I have you now. It was torture, the things I thought, the pain, it...it made me love you more...you crazy...you make me feel so alive...if I didn’t have you...God...”

  His eyes had filled with tears but she could see a happiness there under his pain. They were made for each other. The nice boy who loved his bad girl. Needed her badness. He squeezed her tight again.

  She held his furry cheeks, pressed them, and kissed his pouted mouth, sucked on his lips. She rolled her mouth on his, careful of her nose, her heart starting to pound, feeling his love. Her tongue parted his lips and he took it. His tongue sliding around hers. She hadn’t felt his tongue in so long, and the absence being extinguished like this—the passion she felt for him, their reunion—made a tear squeeze from her own eye and onto him. Her breaths hissed through her sore nose.

  She cried, “Geoff, Geoff, God, baby, I missed you so much...”

  “I love you, Nia...”

  She kissed him again, “I love you so much...”

  They made out like two kids. Her arms on his chest, her hands caressing his face, his hands exploring her back and swooping up and down from her shoulder blades to the panty curve of her rump. She pumped her hips against him, feeling a rising excitement. Their twisting and moving slid Rocco's shirt high up her shoulders, hooped around both their necks like a scarf. Her breasts were bare and the warm air passed between them and she could feel her nipples tighten with the chill it brought to their wet.

  Between her legs there was a rising hardness. Her Geoff growing aroused. His dry white briefs tenting as his cock inched higher and higher. Bumping her now, their two aroused sexes touching between two layers of cotton. She got a surge of wildness, thinking how it would feel for their bare sexes to rub together.

  “Oh Geoff,” she whispered in his ear. “I feel you, baby, I feel you.” She rolled her hips and let herself press firm against his erection.

  Geoff breathed lustily against her mouth, his hands coming up her sides and he held her hanging breasts. She gasped at his touch, let her breath whisper past his ear, let him know how amazing his hands felt, how much she loved him.

  “Do you really want to? Here? Now, Geoff?”

  “I’ve fucking missed you so much, Nia.”

  She threw a look over her shoulders. Nothing around them forever, blue sky and water and heat. There were two guys below, but they were given privacy.

  “We’re so bad, Geoff,” she laughed.

  “We are. We’re...is something wrong with us?”

  “Oh, definitely,” she laughed before she took his tongue again and got his prominent erection right between the cleft of her mound and stroked up its belly.

  “Oh Nia,” he sighed, his head falling back while his hands cradled her breasts, and she sat, taking the shirt from around his neck and up and over herself. Threw it to the side and sat on him. He pumped himself against her, pushed himself into her hungry sex.

  “Stay,” she whispered to him and put a finger on his lower lip. Stood then, and hooked her hands in the front of his briefs and she pulled them down, freed his cock, watched it pull down then slap up and wag. She ran her palm up it and Geoff hissed and reeled, his body squirmed for her.

  “Oh, Geoff, baby, I need you,” she said, and she stepped back and hiked her own panties down and stepped out of them while her husband kicked his briefs away. She came to him, sat on his hips like she had been, straddling him. She held his face again, said, “Careful of my nose, all right?” He nodded, an excited desperation widening his eyes.

  “God, I need this, Geoff, I need you,” she told him, reached between them and found his hardness, stroked it with her fingers while she moved it in place. Sat on him then. Found his cock with her wetness. Didn't penetrate, slipped on him instead, her head rolling back to the sun and concentrating on the feeling of her husband’s cock moving up and down her ever dampening folds.

  “Please, Nia,” he croaked.

  She raised, aligned him with her hand, and slipped him inside her, sitting and taking him deep, all the way to his balls in one glorious, heart-pounding stroke. “Oh Geoff,” she sighed.

  GEOFF

  He was going to fuck her. Fuck her so good. Enjoy her feel. Touch every bit of her. He was going to kiss her, suck her tongue. He was going to make her come. He was going to come inside her. They were getting on a boat afterward and getting the fuck home. They would pick up Odie. They would go to the bakery. He would put her on the couch and make her something sweet, put an ice pack on her face, let her sit in the ‘V’ between his legs. They would watch TV. Then they would go to bed and he would fuck her all over again.

  The skin of her back was so hot to the touch. He felt it, felt all her muscles moving, could imagine what they looked like, her bronze skin rippling in the sunlight. Her front was cold. Her breasts damp from the wet he’d brought off the jet ski. Her nipples were so hard they pebbled. He pressed them with the palm of his hands made
warm by the skin of her back. Back to front, over and over, giving her heat while they made love. She was hot inside, hot around his cock. Wet. Wet and she made soft suction noises as he penetrated her. She was becoming restored. Made living and warm and his. His wife. They kissed. He was careful of her nose, careful not to bump his poor injured wife. Her hands caressed his chest. Her nails lightly dragging over his skin. He made her breaths come fast. His matched hers. The sun was hot on his balls. This was not how he pictured his day. It was better. It was a thousand times better.

  He held her ass, parted her, made her squeak as she was exposed and she bounced hungrily on his cock. Dino came up.

  He didn't stop. He could see Dino watching from the ladder. Saw him in the framed space by Nia’s swinging breast, her belly and thigh, and her outstretched arm. Dino met his gaze. Geoff took Nia by her neck and he pulled her tighter for a kiss and she sighed, her hips dancing and wiggling and taking him all the way. He closed his eyes and felt her lips and thought only of where they connected.

  They made love like that. His wife riding him, her thighs bouncing against his hips, his cock thrusting in and out of her, under her control. She rode him, enjoying him, taking her time and not just racing to the finish line. Varying her pace, drawing out their passion, fiddling with its edges, not wanting this to be over quickly. When she raised herself to sit and rest, her hands on his chest, look down at him and deep into his eyes, he saw that Dino had not left. Had come to the roof and sat on the bench a few feet away, ninety degrees to them. Watching them fuck.

  Nia followed his gaze, looking slowly over her shoulder and then jumping when she saw her ex-boyfriend sitting so close. She smiled at him, then returned her gaze to Geoff, falling forward, her long black hair covering his face.

  “Oh baby,” she whispered, picking up the pace of her thrusts, giving Dino a show. Their conjoined sexes were exposed to Dino. He could see where Geoff had entered her, could see Geoff’s human-sized cock and balls, saw it go into the woman Dino once loved. Geoff looked and saw a strange warm smile creep one corner of Dino's mouth towards his cheek. Geoff held her rump and he pulled her part again, showed Dino Nia’s beautiful pussy. Showed him what she looked like when she fucked. Dino knew Nia. Knew her a long time, and knew her better than any other man except Geoff, but he had never seen this. He'd never seen his Nia fucked by another man. He showed him, showed him her prettiest part being skewered. Dino watched, unblinking, his elbows on his knees, his hands together gripping some dry clothes he'd brought up for Geoff. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of Rocco’s swim trunks.