I blink. “Whoa, wait—really?”
He nods. “We held hands, and that’s it.”
“But you weren’t a virgin?”
He huffs a somewhat bitter laugh. “Nope. I’d had a few girlfriends before her, and had lost my virginity at…seventeen? Eighteen? Somewhere in there. Which was very late, in the context of my social circle, actually.”
“But with your ex, you didn’t even kiss?”
He nods. “Yeah. It was her beliefs, and I wasn’t going to try to push her out of them. I loved her. I was willing to wait.”
I shake my head. “That’s…amazing.”
“It sucked, to be honest,” he says, laughing. “I was so damned horny all the time I was going nuts.”
“I bet.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but…I was, um…raw, by the time we got married.”
I laugh, hand over my mouth. “I can only imagine.”
He sighs again. “So, we dated, and we had a chaperone for every date—usually her older sister or her aunt. We were allowed to hold hands, and hug, but not too close.”
“Jeez.”
“Then we got married, and we kissed for the first time at the wedding. Her first kiss, ever.” He rubs his face with both hands. “We went on our honeymoon, and our first night together was…” He swallows hard, looking away, struggling with the memory. “It was awful. No other way to put it. She was scared out of her mind. Tense, awkward, frightened, and not at all ready. I told her we could wait, but she insisted. I think she felt it was part of her…duty, or something. I don’t know. Her mom probably had some kind of talk about marital duties, or something like that. Like she was obligated to have sex with me, but that she shouldn’t expect to enjoy it.”
I wince, shake my head. “I can’t imagine growing up with such a limited view on it.”
“Anyway, I wanted to wait a few days, but it almost became an argument. I wanted to ease into it. Kiss, touch, just sort of…learn each other. Take our time getting her ready for sex rather than just jumping right into it.”
I watch him, seeing the remembered pain on his face. “God, Jamie.”
“She wasn’t having it. She tried to convince me she wanted it, but that she was just scared. But, I could tell she wasn’t ready, you know? So, we had this super awkward, super short foreplay. And then…she was like, okay, let’s do this. Like, with an air of let’s get this over with.”
I touch his shoulder in sympathy. “That’s just…sad and terrible for both of you.”
“I was…I don’t want to say pissed, or disappointed, just… I don’t know. Upset.”
“Um, yeah, I can see how you would be.”
“I mean, I’d been waiting and looking forward to being with her for almost three years. We met when we were twenty, and got married when we were both just short of turning twenty-three. That’s a long, long time to wait. And then when the moment finally comes, she was tense, scared, and not into it at all. It was just…hard. Upsetting.”
“Did it ever get better?”
He shrugs. “Not really. Which is the point of me telling you this. I hoped that with time and experience, she’d loosen up and learn to enjoy it—learn to enjoy our relationship. But she just…never did. She wasn’t…cold, not at all. She was a kind, warm, amazing, sweet, affectionate, wonderful woman. She just wasn’t interested in sex at all. She never got past seeing sex as a duty. Once a month, on Sunday evening. She would brush her hair out, put on some makeup, take her clothes off, and just sort of sit on the bed waiting for me. After a while, I sort of stopped trying to involve her, to make it feel good for her, any of that. She just wanted me to finish as quickly as possible and get it over with.”
I shake my head. “Wow. Just…wow.”
“That’s how it was, for a long time.” He sighs. “For our whole marriage.”
“Once a month? Get it over with, good night?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah. Pretty much. Once, a friend of mine got married and I was in the wedding party. Open bar, and she got a little tipsy. That night was the one and only time she ever loosened up and seemed like she had an inkling of what it could be. But she felt so awful the next day about drinking that she vowed to never drink again, and she didn’t.”
I groan on his behalf. “Ugh.”
He laughs. “Yeah, ugh. So, my point in all this is that I really have no experience with a woman who desires and enjoys sex. Up until my wife—my ex—my only experiences were the frantic, hurried, fumbling experiences of a teenage boy.”
I blink, suck in a breath, and try to sort through and filter the wild tumult of thoughts and feelings inside me. It takes me so long to figure what to say, where to start, that Jamie eyes me with confusion and amusement in his eyes.
“What, Elyse?” he asks. “Say something.”
“I’m trying. I have so many thoughts and feelings right now that I don’t know where to start.”
“Anywhere. Say anything.”
“Anything?”
He nods. “At this point, Elyse, I just need you to…I don’t know—open up to me, whatever that looks like, even a little bit.”
I wince at the pained, strained, hurt desperation in his voice. “Jamie, I—”
He cuts in. “I know, Elyse. I get why you’ve been pushing me away. I really do. I don’t like it, it hurts, but I get it. But at this point, considering…? I think you need to trust me at least a little bit. Even if it’s just a response to everything I just shared.”
I owe him that much, don’t I? A response, at least.
I blow out a long slow tense breath. “Okay. Okay.” I shake my head, as if the movement could dislodge my thoughts and turn them into words. “I think—when you and I had sex, I would never have guessed that your sex life was so…shitty, for lack of a better word. You were attentive, responsive, and…and you made me feel beautiful. Desired. You were focused on me in a way I wasn’t used to.” Now that I’ve started talking, words begin tumbling out in a flood. “My experience was with a husband who was…well, your ex would’ve been happy with him, I think. He was interested in very little other than getting to the finish as quickly as possible, and he never gave a single thought about how that may have felt for me, or for what I wanted.”
“Yeah, she’d have been cool with that,” Jamie says, bitterness ripe in his voice.
“After he and I split up, I was…lonely. And…needy. But with Aiden being so young and so messed up from Daniel leaving that I couldn’t spare the time or attention to even think about dating. Before Daniel, I’d been…not exactly adventurous, but I did have enough fun to discover that I really liked sex.” I feel things emerging that I’ve never talked about, even with Cora. “I, um…things with Daniel were so crappy that I bought those toys to make myself feel good, because I needed it and I wasn’t getting it with him.” I blush. “I was also sort of ashamed. Or, not really ashamed, just…I don’t know.”
“Of needing to take for yourself what you should’ve been getting from your spouse?” He laughs ruefully. “I understand that more than you know. I did the same thing. I didn’t dare look at porn, because she’d have sussed that out faster than you can say sin, but I had to find relief more than once a month somehow, you know?”
I nod. “Yeah. For me, it was books. I read romance books on my Kindle, and that provided the mental stimulation I needed to get myself there.” I blushed harder, hiding my embarrassed grin behind a hand. “I hid the toys. I had a little purse I never used in my closet, and I knew Daniel would never look in any of my purses, so I’d hide them in there. I would tell Daniel I needed a few minutes for a shower, and I’d turn on the water and sit on the toilet and…” I shrug, blushing harder than ever, giggling. “You know. Then, when we split, I didn’t have to hide them.”
“Why did you hide them in the first place?”
“It would’ve caused issues,” I say. “It’d have made him feel…emasculated. He wouldn’t have understood. And we were having enough issues as it w
as. I just wanted some kind of status quo, some kind of peace. But things just got progressively worse between us, and the crappy sex we did have started tapering off. And then I got pregnant and it became even less frequent, like not even once a week. And then I had a late-term miscarriage, and it just messed us both up. I went into this horrible depression and stopped trying. Like, totally. The only thing that kept me going at all was Aiden needing me. I gained weight, quit taking care of myself, and I ate crap, didn’t exercise, even hygiene was a struggle, I was so depressed.”
Jamie frowns. “Damn, Elyse. That sounds awful.”
“It was utter hell. Daniel was clueless. He was upset himself over the miscarriage—I was supposed to have a little girl, which was something he’d said he wanted. He retreated emotionally and physically from me, and from Aiden. Eventually he just left, and ironically, once he was gone I started to get over it. Aiden needed me more than ever, and I knew I had to get better for him. So, I did. Slowly, but I got there. Mostly.” I laugh. “Cora would say I’m not totally over it still, though.”
Jamie’s eyes search me. “I’d say I would agree with her.”
I frown. “Really?”
He nods. “You don’t trust me. You don’t trust yourself. You’re not willing to let yourself have something you know would be good, because you’re still hurt and scared of being hurt.”
“I just don’t want—”
He interrupts me. “Aiden to get attached. I know—you’ve told me a million times. But he’s already attached to me. And I’m attached to him.” He slides off the bed and paces away, a hand raking through his hair. “I’m attached to him, Elyse. I care about him more than I should as a principal and coach. I…” He sighs heavily. “I love that kid.”
I choke. “Jamie…”
He whirls, eyes blazing. “I can’t pretend anymore, Elyse. I won’t.” His jaw clenches, tightens, and his chest expands as he sucks in a breath. Paces back to stand in front of me, where I sit cross-legged on the bed. He takes my knees and spins me so I’m facing the side of the bed, touches my chin so I’m looking up at him. “I won’t pretend anymore that I’m not in love with you.”
I shake my head. “Jamie, you’re just saying that because—”
“No,” he snaps, more short-tempered than I’ve ever seen him, than I thought he was even capable of being. “No, I’m not just saying that because you’re pregnant with my child. I’m saying it because it’s true, and it was true before we found out. I’ve been hiding it and pretending it’s not true, but it is. I think I fell in love with you the first day we met.”
I swallow hard. “Jamie—”
“I’m not done. I’ve held this in for months, and I’m not doing it anymore. I’m sorry if you’re not ready, but I can’t and won’t keep shoving it down. I don’t know what’s going to happen, now. I don’t know how you feel. I know you may not be able, ready, or willing to get into anything with me. If not—I won’t say it’s fine, because I think it’d be bullshit, but I’d understand as well as I can, and I’d survive it.”
“Jamie, I—”
“No, not yet. You can say what you want—or not say anything, if that’s where you are —once I’m done.” He cups my face in his strong, warm hands. His eyes blaze and gleam, hot and deeply brown and intense. “I am in love with you, Elyse Thomas. I want you. The one night we had wasn’t anywhere near enough. It felt like a dream, and I want more. I want to be with you with both of us totally sober. In the daylight. Eyes open. I want to know what it can really be like with a woman who’s in touch with her body and with her sexuality, the way you are. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to be smart or responsible or sensible. I want to give in to being…wild. I want—I want to know you want me, that you need me the way I need you.” He indicates the bottom drawer of my nightstand. “I want to play with those, with you. I want to explore things, try things, with you. I want to love you. I want to love Aiden. I want to be a dad to him.” He pauses, swallowing hard. “I…my ex and I—the one thing she wanted, and I think the only reason she kept having sex with me at all was because she wanted a baby. But she couldn’t conceive. We were talking about getting tested to see which of us was sterile or whatever, but then this whole thing with my job started happening and that conversation got shelved because we were having so many other issues. But I—I wanted a baby. I wanted—I…I desperately wanted to be a father. I think us not being able to conceive created as many problems as her lack of sexuality, if not more. I don’t know. I just know that…”
He turns away, tilting his head back, blinking hard, breathing hoarsely. “I won’t be stepping aside, Elyse. Even if you don’t want a relationship with me, I’m going to be here for that child.” He turns back, and his eyes shine, shimmer. Meet mine. “For you. Like it or not.”
I can’t breathe. I’m crying. Shaking all over. “Jamie.”
He holds his arms out to the side, palms up in a broad, helpless shrug. “That’s it. I’m done.” He lets out a sad sigh. “Your turn.”
I’d speak, but I can’t. I’m crying too hard.
Sobbing. Broken, shattered, utterly.
Breathless, snot-streaming, can’t-see, ugly crying.
Jamie watches for a moment, and then comes to sit on the bed beside me. His arms go around me, wrap me up.
He holds me as I weep—for my past, for the miscarriage, for my divorce, for my awful marriage, for my son, for the long lonely years of being a single mother, for my pent-up sexuality, for my broken heart, for my fears that I can’t shake, for Jamie and all he went through…I’m crying for so many things, and it’s a cry that won’t stop.
And he just holds me through it. Doesn’t shush me. Doesn’t tell me it’s going be okay. Doesn’t try to fix it. Just holds me, stroking my hair away from my eyes. I snatch a Kleenex from the nightstand and he takes it when I’m done without a hint of disgust, and offers me another.
How long I cry, I don’t even know.
Slowly, I feel the flood of emotions begin to…not subside, but kind of sort themselves out, at least a little bit.
What settles into place, then, is need.
Raw, furious, unquenchable need.
It’s mixed with fear, but leavened with a nascent, burgeoning, swelling sensation of a nebulous, boiling thing I know will become love, once I allow myself to examine it—once I can feel anything but a need for Jamie.
For comfort.
For his arms. His lips.
Jamie feels my tears end, and pulls away to look at me, gauging where I am, trying to parse what I may be feeling.
“Elyse, I hope you don’t think I—”
My lips slash across his, and I feel our teeth clack together and our noses bump, and then he tilts his head and cups my face and tilts mine so that our lips align and his breath is my breath and, just like that, I’m lost in him, kissing him in a futile attempt to express the sudden, white-hot explosion of need I feel.
There is no expressing it. No encapsulating it. No containing it.
All I can do is kiss him and let the fire consume me.
18
My heart is aflame, and my body is boiling with need; my mind is whirling, and my soul is a maelstrom.
All I know, in this moment, is Jamie. His hands scrape across my cheeks, and his lips seek mine with ravenous fervor. His body is hard and close, but not close enough. Yet, still within me is an awareness of all that’s coiled and tangled between us.
I can’t process it—the pregnancy, his declaration of love.
I’ve put off this hunger for him for too long, pushing it away and tamping it down again and again, ignoring it, pretending it’s not there—and now the bill is due.
I NEED HIM. I can’t deny it any longer. I need his kiss, his mouth, his hands, his skin. His heat, his body. Him. Just him. Whatever else may happen or not happen, I need this. I’m sober and aware, and no longer numb.
The pendulum has swung to the other extreme—I’m awash with emotions, and they’re consumi
ng me. They require expression. I can’t put this aside, I can’t pretend it’s not happening.
I have no choice but to give over to it.
Everything.
Myself, my needs and desires.
Jamie pulls away, staring into my eyes. “Elyse…”
Tears still slip and stream down my cheeks, but I can’t stop them. And I don’t even try. “Jamie, I’m just—I’m…” I shake my head and whisper, “Kiss me. And don’t stop.”
“I’m not going to use sex as a way of avoiding talking about feelings, Elyse,” Jamie murmurs.
I laugh through tears. “I have too many feelings right now, Jamie. I need physical feelings. I need you, I need—this. Please. I have a million things to say to you, and I swear I’ll say them. I just need…I need to connect with you like this first.”
His eyes search me. “I just told you I love you.”
“And now I’m asking you to make love to me,” I whisper, although it’s nearly more of a hiss than a whisper. “I’m begging you, too. I’m too—overwhelmed by everything to know what to say. All I can do right now is—is try to show you.”
“You’re not saying no, though?” His voice is low, as if he’s holding back powerful emotions from flooding over him.
I shake my head, pass my hand through his hair and scrape the other hand up his back, under his button-down shirt. “No, I’m not saying no.”
“You can’t say it back, though.”
I laugh again. “I’m saying I—” I burst into laughter, and then fumble and rip at his button-down, get it off, and throw it aside and rake my hands over his chest. “I’m saying I need this before I can figure out what I want to say or how to say it.”
He captures my wrists in his hands and holds them between us, his lips grazing mine, his eyes hot and wild. “One last thing, Elyse.”
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