A Wife for One Year

by Brenda Harlen

  He stepped closer, brushed his fingertips over the pulse point fluttering below her ear. His lips curved. “Really?”

  She swatted his hand away. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Want me to wash your back?”

  Her only response was to close and lock the bathroom door.

  * * *

  He found the remote control and turned on the TV. He needed to focus on something other than the sound of water running and the knowledge that Kenna was naked and wet on the other side of a door secured by a flimsy lock that he could probably open in two seconds. Because along with the thoughts naked and wet came a whole kaleidoscope of incredibly vivid and arousing mental images.

  He wondered if there was something lacking in his moral character that he didn’t even feel guilty for having prurient fantasies about his best friend. Or maybe Kenna was right—maybe the fact that they’d been living in close proximity was messing with his mind as well as his libido. Or maybe he was only just acknowledging feelings that he’d denied for too long.

  He scrolled through the channels until he found a West Coast baseball game on one of the sports channels. Since it was there, he opened the bottle of champagne and took the plate of strawberries over to the chair. He popped one of the berries into his mouth and washed it down with a mouthful of the bubbly wine. It probably wasn’t what his parents had in mind when they’d sent the tray to their room, but Daniel didn’t see any point in letting it go to waste.

  And then, because the gift had been for both of them, he set a couple of strawberries aside on a napkin and poured a glass of champagne for Kenna, too.

  He tried to focus on the game, but when he heard the water shut off, his attention wandered behind that closed door again. It was easy to imagine her tugging a towel from the rack...rubbing it over her body...wiping away all traces of moisture from the slick, glistening skin of her shoulders...her arms...her breasts.... He could picture the towel stroking down her torso...over the curve of her hip...between her thighs....

  He picked up his glass and gulped down another mouthful of champagne.

  A few minutes later, he heard the hair dryer start up, and he punched up the volume on the television.

  When she finally came out of the bathroom, she was dressed in her pajamas—a pair of silky red boxer-style shorts and an old MIT T-shirt. He did a double take.

  “Is that my shirt?”

  “It was,” she corrected. “Now it’s mine.”

  “You stole it out of my closet?”

  “No. Out of your laundry basket...six years ago.”

  “Six years ago?” he echoed.

  She nodded. “The weekend I came to Boston to visit you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I missed you,” she admitted.

  He considered telling her that she could have him wrapped around her instead of his old shirt, but it probably wasn’t smart to go down that road again, not while the taste of her kiss still lingered on his lips and his desire for her continued to pulse in his blood. And especially not when she’d made it clear that anything more than the few kisses they’d already shared wasn’t ever going to happen.

  He might not like her decision or completely agree with the rationale, but he respected that it was her choice. And maybe she was right. Maybe his desire was more about how long it had been since he’d had sex than it was about wanting Kenna. But looking at her now, sitting cross-legged on top of the covers in those ridiculous pj’s with her face bare of makeup and a smudge of chocolate on her lower lip from the strawberry she held in one hand, the surge of lust through his system suggested otherwise.

  Yeah, it had been a long time since he’d had sex, but right now, he didn’t want anyone but her.

  When the ball game went into extra innings, Kenna returned to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Then she slipped under the covers of the bed, taking the side farther away from the chair where he was sitting.

  “You don’t have to cling to the edge of the mattress,” he told her. “I’ll sleep in this chair.”

  “You won’t be comfortable in that,” she protested.

  “I’ve slept in worse places.” And it would be infinitely more comfortable than the prospect of sharing a bed with her and not being able to touch her.

  “The bed’s big enough that I’m sure neither of us will even notice the other one is in it,” she said, without releasing her grip on the edge.

  He didn’t believe that for a second. Yes, the bed was big, but every inch of his body was so closely attuned to hers now that he knew if she so much as shifted her head on her pillow, he’d notice. If he wanted to get any shut-eye, the chair was his best option.

  He did fall asleep where he was, but his plans to stay in the chair through the night didn’t last. He woke at 2:00 a.m., then again at two-thirty, and at three-twenty. Finally, around four o’clock, he crawled into bed with his wife.

  There had been a time—and not too long ago—when the idea of settling down with one woman would have made him break out in hives. But being married to Kenna didn’t feel like settling at all. Somehow, it just felt right.

  * * *

  He woke up several hours later with Kenna in his arms.

  He had no idea how she got there. Even at 4:00 a.m., she’d been on the far side of the bed, clinging to the edge of the mattress when he’d finally eased beneath the covers on the opposite side. But sometime during the night, they’d moved toward one another.

  Actually, he realized with surprise and amusement, he hadn’t moved at all. He was still clearly on his side of the bed while hers was empty. Her one knee was between his, and his arm was around her, his hand splayed on her back beneath the hem of her/his T-shirt.

  Through the thin cotton of that old shirt, he could see the pointy outline of her nipples, and his mouth went dry. As if of its own volition, his hand slid upward, stroking the smooth bare skin of her back. She murmured something indecipherable and snuggled closer to him. The action brought their bodies more fully into contact, and a certain part of his anatomy, known for being much more awake in the morning than the rest of him, was standing at attention.

  Her head was against his shoulder, and he could feel the soft whisper of her breath against his throat as she exhaled. The slow and regular rhythm of her breathing confirmed that she was still asleep, and he wondered if it was possible to extricate himself without waking her. Not that he wanted to give up the undeniable pleasure of her soft curves pressed against him, but after his repeated assurances that he would sleep in the chair, he didn’t know what she’d think if she woke up and found herself plastered against him.

  He removed his hand from inside her shirt first, albeit with great reluctance. She didn’t stir. He held his breath for another half a minute, then he shifted his top leg, just a fraction. The soft, sharp intake of her breath warned him that she’d awakened.

  “Good morning,” he said softly.

  She tilted her head to look at him, her deep blue eyes clouded with sleep and an array of emotions he couldn’t begin to decipher. “I thought you were going to sleep in the chair.”

  “I tried. But it wasn’t very comfortable.”

  She just nodded.

  “I did, however, stay on my side of the bed.”

  She opened her mouth as if to argue the point, then closed it again when she realized he was speaking the truth—that she was snuggled up to him on his side of the bed.

  “Sorry.” She tried to scoot away, but he tightened his arm before she could do so. “I’m used to sleeping in the middle.”

  “No need to apologize or explain,” he assured. “I’ve never objected to waking up with a sexy woman in my arms.”

  “I’m not a sexy woman—I’m your temporary wife.”

  He smiled at that. “You’re my incredibly sexy and un
deniably argumentative wife.”

  “And I’m hungry,” she told him.

  He suspected she wasn’t nearly as hungry as she was anxious to get out of the bed where they were intimately entwined, but he followed her lead. “I suppose that’s your way of telling me that you want to get up so we can go for breakfast?”

  “Breakfast would be good.”

  “Give me ten minutes to shower.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kenna breathed a sigh of relief when Daniel slipped out of bed and disappeared into the bathroom. For just a minute there, she’d been tempted to ignore all of the reasons and logic she’d enumerated the night before and throw herself into his arms.

  Except that she’d already been in his arms. And waking up in the warm shelter of his embrace had been...indescribable. During those moments when she’d balanced on the edge between asleep and awake, she’d felt safe and warm and normal. For a few seconds before reality intruded, she hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else but exactly where she was.

  Then she remembered that their marriage was only a temporary arrangement, and that allowing herself to believe differently, if only for a few seconds, could ruin everything. She’d meant what she’d said to him the night they got married—she didn’t want their marriage to ruin their friendship. What she didn’t tell him was that she was afraid of so much more than losing her best friend—she was afraid that she would never have a normal relationship with any man because of the emotional scars she still carried from high school.

  Kenna and Libby had known each other since sixth grade, but she hadn’t seen her friend at all since she’d transferred to Hillfield. However, she knew that Libby always worked Friday afternoons at Mossimo’s, so when she said goodbye to Daniel, she went back to the kitchen and found her friend up to her elbows in sudsy water, scrubbing pots and pans and pizza trays.

  “Hey, Libby.”

  Her friend looked up for half a second before she resumed her scrubbing. “What are you doing here?”

  “I haven’t seen you in a while. I wanted to say ‘hi.’”

  “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  The fierceness in her tone surprised Kenna as much as the question. “What?”

  “Blake said you came in here with some guy.”

  Blake was Libby’s brother, older by almost two years. He hadn’t paid much attention to his sister or any of her friends when they were kids, but when Kenna’s body started to develop curves, right around her thirteenth birthday, he’d taken notice. She wanted to believe he was mostly harmless, but she didn’t like the way he looked at her, and his crude language made her uncomfortable.

  “So Blake saw me come in with some guy and he raced back here to tell you?”

  Libby shrugged. “He was pissed because you’ve never given him the time of day.”

  “Aside from the fact that I don’t date, going out with your brother would be a little too weird.”

  “Is that really why—or were you just waiting for someone better, maybe someone richer, to come along?”

  “I can’t believe you would even ask that.”

  “I can’t believe you abandoned all your friends to go to Hillfield.” Libby spit out the name of the school as if it was distasteful.

  “I’m sorry you see it that way.”

  “That’s the way it is.”

  Kenna didn’t argue, because it was obvious that Libby wouldn’t listen to her. “I’ll see you around,” she said, and headed out the back door, as she usually did after visiting Libby in the kitchen.

  She jolted when she found Blake waiting for her.

  “Who is he?” he demanded.

  She sighed. “Just a guy I know from school.”

  “So he’s rich.”

  “I’m not dating him, Blake.”

  “Did he buy your dinner?”

  “It was just a pizza.” She started to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh, making her wince. “Ow. Stop it, Blake.”

  “Stop it?” He pushed her up against the wall, and pressed against her. “I bet you don’t tell him to stop it.”

  What had begun as mild irritation quickly escalated to genuine fear as she realized he wasn’t just bigger and stronger, but completely irrational. “It’s not like that.”

  “You expect me to believe that you’re not screwing him?”

  At another time, she might have told him it was none of his business, but right now, fear was giving way to panic. She pushed against his chest, but she couldn’t move him. And she couldn’t ignore the hard bulge at the front of his pants, grinding against her. “No, I’m not screwing him.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  The pizza she’d eaten churned in her stomach, threatened to rise up. “Blake, please—”

  He crushed his mouth against hers so hard her head rapped back against the brick, making her see stars. Then his tongue was in her mouth, so deep she nearly gagged, and his hands were on her breasts, squeezing hard.

  She’d never seen him like this. His eyes were wild and unfocused, and she knew he had something in his system that was fueling his meanness and his fury. He continued to grind against her, as his hands moved from her breasts to her skirt, then beneath. She struggled against him, but to no avail. He yanked her panties down to her knees and, in that moment, she was certain he would rape her if she didn’t get away.

  He shifted to unfasten his jeans, and she knew this might be her only chance. She brought up her knee and slammed it into his groin as hard as she could. He staggered back two steps before dropping to the ground, swearing.

  She didn’t wait to see if he was okay. She didn’t care. She turned and ran—and collided with Daniel Garrett.

  His gaze skimmed over her, taking in her swollen mouth and torn shirt, then shifted to Blake, still gasping and swearing on the ground.

  “Are you okay?”

  The gentleness of his tone made her want to cry, but she nodded. “What— Why are you still here?”

  “You forgot your leftover pizza,” he said.

  “Oh.” She accepted the take-out container he offered. She was suddenly cold and shaky, and it was an effort to keep her teeth from chattering. “Thanks.”

  “Can I give you a ride home now?”

  She nodded again, then took an instinctive step back when she saw that Blake had managed to stagger to his feet.

  Daniel started toward him, but she reached for his arm. “Don’t. P-please. Just let it go.”

  He touched a gentle finger to her puffy lip. “I’m sorry—I can’t do that.”

  In half a dozen strides, he was beside Blake, holding him by the front of the shirt. He kept his voice low enough that she couldn’t hear what he said, but she had no trouble hearing Blake’s crude reply.

  Daniel’s response was a quick and powerful uppercut to the jaw that knocked Blake to the ground again.

  Then he calmly led her back to his car and drove her home.

  The apartment was empty, because her mother was at work and Becca was at after-school day care. He dampened a cloth and carefully dabbed at her bloody lip, and he talked to her, about all kinds of things that had nothing to do with what had happened at the restaurant. He didn’t seem to care that it was an entirely one-sided conversation. He just talked and talked until she finally stopped shaking. And he stayed with her until her mother got home.

  Was it any wonder she felt safe with him, secure in his arms without even a hint of the familiar panic rearing its ugly head, as it often did at the most inopportune times?

  She’d seen a counselor, had been reassured that all of her feelings were perfectly normal and that she would eventually overcome her struggles with physical intimacy. But more than ten years later, Kenna continued to find it difficult to open up and
share her body.

  She wanted that intimacy, she wanted to be normal, but there were still occasions when a man’s touch made her freeze up. Not every time, but often enough that she’d started to expect it, and to dread it. She hated that feeling of vulnerability, because along with the powerlessness came panic. Sometimes she managed to talk herself through it, and sometimes she didn’t.

  She’d felt none of that helplessness or fear with Daniel the night before. She’d felt nothing but pleasure—sometimes shockingly fierce and intense, but still only pleasure. Even when she’d registered the press of his erection against her belly, she hadn’t felt afraid, only aroused. She’d wanted to tear away their clothes and feel the hard length of him pushing deep inside her.

  And when she’d awakened in his arms, with the evidence of his arousal between them, her nipples had pebbled and she’d experienced an unmistakable throbbing between her thighs, a desperate yearning unlike anything she’d ever known before.

  The realization caused a thought to stir along with her hormones: Was it possible that Daniel might be the man who could help her overcome her residual fears and move forward with her life?

  She knew that having sex with her husband wouldn’t change any of the terms of their agreement. He’d been clear from the start that he didn’t want a permanent wife. As he’d explained it to her, he had to get married to satisfy the terms of the trust, but he didn’t have the time or the emotional energy to put into a real relationship while he was focused on making Garrett/Slater Racing a legitimate contender on the stock car circuit. Which was why he believed she was the perfect candidate for his plan.

  His proposal might not have been romantic, but at least it was honest. She wasn’t bothered by his statement that he didn’t want to be tied down, because she had no interest in tying him down. She only wanted to make sure that Becca would have the surgery and rehab she needed to walk normally again.

  But now she wanted something more. She wanted to be his wife in every sense of the word for the duration of their agreement—or at least for as long as he wanted her.

  She knew that sharing physical intimacy wouldn’t change anything for them—but it could change everything for her. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life alone, but she’d had trouble opening up with other men and she was weary of being dismissed as clumsy or frigid or simply not worth the effort.