by Noelle Adams
She still remembered what it had felt like in the backseat of the SUV, fumbling around like eager teenagers. He’d brought her to climax with his hand and then he’d pulled her over on his lap, helping her move over him. He’d been muttering out hoarse endearments, telling her how beautiful she was, how much he loved her. She hadn’t come again, but the second part of their lovemaking had been just as mind-blowing to her as the first.
Recalling it now, Abigail felt her body react as well as her heart. She’d done her best not to think about sex much since the separation, but she wasn’t always successful.
She forced her mind to something else, anything else as she scrubbed her hair down with shampoo, but she felt frustrated and jittery when she got out the shower, still thinking about the look in Thomas’s eyes earlier.
She wondered if he still thought about having sex with her too. Sometimes.
Glancing at the time, she realized she had to hurry now. So she dried her hair, applied careful make-up, and got dressed without dallying. When she put on her jewelry, she stared into the mirror to assess the result.
She looked perfectly nice for dinner and the symphony—and nothing like the self-conscious girl she used to be—so she grabbed her purse and headed to the living room.
“Ooh!” Mia squealed at her arrival. “Mommy looks beautiful!”
“Thank you, Mia.” Abigail ran her hands down her skirt absently, feeling suddenly self-conscious at Thomas’s steady gaze. His face showed no expression, but she knew he missed no detail of her appearance.
“Just in time,” Thomas said, glancing at his watch. “Seven o’clock. I didn’t know you took such long showers.”
Abigail felt her cheeks burning, but she managed not to react in any other way. There was absolutely no way Thomas could know what she’d been thinking about in the shower. “Thanks for coming over early to sit with Mia while I got ready,” she said, pleased when her voice sounded natural. “It was a huge help.”
“Of course.”
“I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but it will be late since we’re going to Dalton.” She glanced outside and saw headlights turning into the driveway of her little bungalow. “That’s Jim. He’s picking me up, and then we’ll pick up the Seymours.”
“I see.” Thomas’s voice was strange, but she didn’t know why.
“All right,” Abigail said in a rush, feeling anxious and self-conscious and at loose ends. “You be good, Mia. Obey your daddy and go to bed when he says. Eight o’clock. And you can read until nine-thirty.”
“I know, Mommy.”
“There are snacks in the kitchen,” Abigail went on, looking at Thomas now. “And I’ll have my phone on vibrate the whole time, so just call me any time if you need me.”
“I know, Abigail,” he said, his mouth twitching up a little.
“Okay.” She glanced down at herself to make sure she had everything she needed. Then she told Mia, “I’ll give you your goodnight kiss now, since you’ll be asleep when I get back.”
She leaned down to kiss Mia, and she was about to leave when Mia said, “You didn’t give Baxter his kiss!”
Abigail hurried back over, flustered by the way Thomas’s eyes never left her face. She kissed Baxter. “All right. You be good and have fun.”
Then she kissed Mia again. “Mommy loves you.”
“I love you, Mommy.”
Rushed and thoughtless, Abigail moved to give Thomas a quick kiss on the lips in sequence. “I’ll be back after midnight probably.”
With a last wave, she left the living room. As she was reaching for the handle of the front door, she heard Mia’s giggle rippling out from the other room.
She paused, wondering what had prompted her daughter to laugh like that.
Then Abigail realized.
She’d just kissed Thomas. On the lips. Without even thinking about it.
With a gasp, Abigail whirled around and took a few steps back, with some sort of half-formed notion to try to explain.
But she caught sight of Thomas and Mia on the couch.
Mia was shaking with merriment, her hands covering her mouth. And Thomas had one finger to his lips as he smiled at his daughter, in the universal signal to keep quiet.
Overwhelmed with confusion, Abigail fled.
It was no big deal. She’d just been in a rush and hadn’t been thinking. She’d been feeling closer to him than she had in a long time. Mia obviously thought it was funny.
Maybe things were getting better. There were a lot of very positive signs.
Maybe soon kissing Thomas would be natural again.
***
Jim Foster, her boss, walked Abigail to her door when he dropped her off after midnight.
The evening had gone well. They had their spiel down to a science now, and the Seymours had been impressed and inspired to donate. Their gift would be a huge help to the estate and the projects they were hoping to begin in the house and grounds.
Jim looked very pleased as he walked her up the path, and he was laughing at something she’d said.
He was an attractive man in his early forties—divorced with no children. Abigail liked him and liked working with him.
“Thanks for driving,” she said, pulling out her keys. “I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
“Sounds good.” Jim lingered, which seemed kind of strange. Like he had something to say.
Abigail waited, having no idea what he wanted to say now that couldn’t have been said at any point in the evening.
His expression changed slightly, and he seemed to move a little closer to her. She suddenly recognized the look in his eyes.
Her breath hitched, and she ducked her head, her cheeks burning in a familiar way. “Yes, well, thanks. Have a good night.”
She hurriedly unlocked the door and closed it behind her, before Jim could say anything.
Surely he wasn’t thinking about her romantically. That was just crazy. She wasn’t single. She was still married, even if she wasn’t currently living with her husband.
Plus, the man was her boss.
She felt rattled and breathless and deeply confused, and she desperately hoped it was just a passing thing. She would be crushed if the career she’d been working so hard on was affected by something crazy like this.
Maybe it was just a fluke, a result of the evening, which had been set up almost like a double-date. She would be careful from now on. Give him none of that kind of encouragement.
She liked to think of herself as mature and worldly now, but maybe she was still as sheltered and naïve as the girl who had married Thomas. She’d been so blind. She should have noticed this before and nipped it in the bud.
She found Thomas working on a laptop at the dining room table.
“Hi,” she said, wishing the blush would fade from her cheeks. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah.” Thomas closed the laptop and stood up. “Did you have a good time?”
Abigail peered at him closely and thought he looked kind of bristly. His features were a little stiff, and his shoulders were tense. “What’s wrong? Is Mia all right?”
“I said,” he murmured, in low voice that she recognized as suppressed impatience, “everything is fine. She turned off the light at nine-thirty. She’s asleep.”
“Then what’s wrong with you?” Giving him an annoyed look—since she’d always hated the snide tone he’d just used—she walked past him and into the kitchen, where she pulled out a glass to pour herself some filtered water from the refrigerator. She still felt too hot.
Thomas followed her. “Nothing is wrong with me. I had asked you a question you completely ignored.”
Abigail thought back. “Oh. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be rude. Yes, it was fine. I think we’ll be getting a sizeable gift from them.”
“And Jim Foster?”
She was leaning back against the counter, and Thomas was standing far too close to her. Once again invading her personal space. And once again his tone was sni
de. “What is wrong with you?”
Thomas had one hand on the counter beside her, bracing himself as he stood just a few inches away from her. His green eyes were intent on her face, and she saw his nostrils flare just a little. “You smell like him.”
Abigail gasped, mostly from shock and outrage but also with the faintest trace of arousal at the intimacy of the words. “What?”
“I said,” he gritted out, edging even closer until the fabric of his shirt brushed against her arm and one of her breasts, “you smell like him.”
“Well, what do you expect? I spent the evening with the man.”
Something grew even tenser in his expression. “Did you?”
She knew him well enough to understand the resonance in his words. “What are you thinking, Thomas?” she asked in a hushed voice, making sure her voice didn’t carry past the kitchen. “What are you possibly thinking?”
Clearly Thomas too was conscious of not waking Mia, since his murmur was thick, rough, and soft. “I’d like to remind you of the fact that you’re still my wife.”
“And you really think I need to be reminded of that?”
His lips tightened into white. “I saw him walk you to the door.”
She sucked in an indignant breath and clenched her fists at her sides. Thomas was still far too close. She could feel the heat radiating off his body, sense the leashed tension in his stance, hear the fast, uneven breaths he was taking. She was angry and defensive and hurt and excited—and she felt strangely close to him—all at once. “So someone isn’t allowed to be polite to me now, because I’m still your wife?”
Thomas made a guttural sound and braced his other hand on the counter, imprisoning her in between his arms. He leaned forward, pushing her back against the counter, and he rasped against her ear. “That man wasn’t just being polite. You know it as well as I do.”
She knew he was right about that. She’d been foolish in not recognizing what Jim was thinking long before now. But he didn’t have to act like he thought she would actually respond to it.
Beneath her tumultuous emotions was a familiar feeling building beneath her belly. She knew how to recognize it. Knew it was triggered by the proximity of Thomas’s lean, hard body, his familiar scent flooding her senses, his piercing eyes and thick voice.
She wanted him so much. She’d never stopped wanting him. No matter what happened between them.
“Why are you acting this way?” She stiffened her back and tried to ease her groin away from Thomas’s hip, since she was fighting the temptation to grind herself against it.
Thomas seemed to suddenly pull himself together, and he jerked away from her. He turned around so his back was towards her, and she saw him take a few long breaths.
Abigail was trembling helplessly.
When he turned around, he seemed to have gotten himself under control. His forehead was damp and his back was still stiff, but his hands were relaxed at his side. He spoke in his natural voice, “You have to acknowledge that, right now, it is my concern whether or not you date other men.”
“Of course it is. But I’m not dating Jim. How can you think that? He’s my boss. You and I have been doing really well lately. I mean, I’ve thought things were going well. Surely you trust me enough to know I’m not going to date other men.” She paused, swallowing hard. “Don’t you?”
He let out a thick breath. “Of course, I do.”
“Okay.”
They stood in the kitchen awkwardly. Abigail shifted from foot to foot, wishing she could hug him. Or something.
But things still felt too uncertain between them, and they were supposed to be on their break.
“I’ll get going,” Thomas said at last.
They both went back into the living room, where Thomas slid his laptop into his case.
“Don’t forget Mia’s going to be staying at your parents’ tomorrow,” Abigail said, trying to summon back their normal interaction. “Since I have to be at Milbourne House all day, and you’re at work.”
“Yeah,” he said, straightening up and looking deeply exhausted, kind of the way she felt. “I remember. Hope tomorrow goes well for you.”
She knew his last comment and the quirk of a smile that went with it was a kind of peace offering. She returned his smile sincerely before they said goodnight.
Although she was glad they’d basically come to terms, she was still shaky and overly emotional when she closed and locked the door.
She peeked into Mia’s room to make sure the girl was still sleeping. When that was confirmed, she went to get ready for bed.
It wasn’t long before she crawled under the covers, but she didn’t feel sleepy.
She felt wired.
Arguing with Thomas had always done this to her—left her feeling jittery and at loose ends.
Abigail found herself remembering one occasion, on their third anniversary, when they’d come home after what was supposed to be a romantic evening.
They’d seen one of the nurses at the hospital when they’d stopped in a bakery for dessert, and that was what had prompted the fight.
The nurse was obviously close to Thomas—they spent a lot of time together at the hospital—and Abigail had been horribly jealous of the gorgeous, sexy brunette who could have been a model and who made her feel like a dumpy, dowdy plebian.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Thomas had snapped, as he closed their bedroom door to make sure their voices didn’t carry to where two-year-old Mia was sleeping down the hall. “You can’t possibly think I’m having an affair with her.”
“That’s not the point! You know how it makes me feel when you have all these beautiful female friends, and yet you still hang out with them all the time.”
“That’s where I work. I can’t help but hang around with them. Besides, I can’t always dance around your insecurities. You need to learn to trust me.”
“This isn’t about trust. It’s about your surrounding yourself with gorgeous women. How do you think that makes me feel?”
Thomas had been shaking with frustration. “You’re my wife. I love you. I married you. That’s how I expect you to feel!”
They’d been arguing for more than a half-hour—all the way home from the bakery—and the fight had basically run its course. Thomas’s words were the last straw for Abigail. She’d thrown herself on him with urgent passion, clutching at his head as she kissed him, grinding her body against his.
He’d responded immediately, lifting her by the hips until she wrapped her legs around him and then carrying her over to the bed. She wouldn’t release him, even after he eased her down, and they didn’t take the time to remove their clothes. Thomas just unfastened his pants and Abigail pushed up her skirt.
They rutted like animals, Thomas half off the bed and Abigail beneath him. They grunted and panted and shook the bed hard.
Shaking and sweating, Abigail had still wanted more. “Harder. I need it harder.” He'd given her a pendant necklace for their anniversary, and she had felt the weight of it against her throat.
Thomas pushed into her fiercely, forcing her body backward on each thrust. “Tell me you trust me,” he’d rasped.
“I trust you.”
Thomas thrust hard.
Her head tossing restlessly, she gasped it out again. “I trust you.”
Another powerful thrust.
“I trust you.”
They kept it up until they both reached climax.
Remembering that evening, Abigail’s body pulsed with arousal, but a few tears burned in her eyes as she tried to process the memory.
And there was one truth she kept going back to, feeling like she was seeing it—seeing herself—anew for the first time.
When she’d told Thomas she trusted him, over and over again that evening so long ago, she hadn’t entirely believed it.
***
It was after nine o’clock on Saturday evening when Abigail returned from working the function at Milbourne House.
Everything ha
d gone fine, but now she was tired and didn’t feel much like doing anything.
Mia was still with Thomas’s parents. It was after bedtime now, so Abigail would go pick her up first thing in the morning. She should probably try to go to bed early and catch up on her sleep, but Abigail felt restless and bored.
And a little lonely.
The small house seemed vast and empty without Mia’s presence. Abigail changed into a tank and a pair of yoga pants and decided she might as well be a coach potato all evening. She called to get an update on how Mia was doing. Then she flipped on the television.
A knock at the door startled her.
Jumping to her feet, she went to peer out the peephole.
Saw Thomas.
She swung open the door. “Hi,” she said, feeling a jump of pleasure in her heart at the sight of him.
“Hi.” He smiled at her ruefully. He was dressed fairly casually in a crew-necked shirt and gray trousers. “How was the thing today?”
“Fine. I thought you were working.”
“I just got off.”
“Oh.” Then she noticed he was holding something behind his back. “What’s that?”
With an almost sheepish expression, Thomas showed her a bottle of wine. “That is an apology.”
Abigail looked from the wine to Thomas’s face and back again. It was Merlot. Her favorite kind. She was so overwhelmed she couldn’t think for a moment.
He shifted slightly at her hesitation. “I’m assuming it’s still your favorite. I feel bad about last night.”
She met his eyes and recognized that he looked slightly embarrassed.
She smiled, affection flooding her cheeks and rising to her throat. The understated gesture was so much like Thomas, and there was no one in the world like him.
“Thank you. I don’t have anything to do this evening. If you want, you can come in and we’ll open the bottle.”
***
Abigail was laughing so hard she could barely speak. The living room was warm and just a little blurred at the edges, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so relaxed.
Choking on her hilarity, she managed to finish her story. “And then...and then she looked up at that crass teenager through her little glasses and said...and said he should be ashamed of himself. Whistling at ladies was a rude and dem—...demean—...” Abigail had to gasp for air between her cackles before she finished, “Demeaning!”