by Anthology
I haven’t even thought about the baby thing in weeks. “No.”
She doesn’t look as if she believes me. I watch Liv as she examines a table filled with Christmas wreaths. Her hair is pulled back in a messy knot, her cheeks flushed from the outside cold and inside warmth. She’s talking with one of the vendors, gesturing to a wreath, smelling some sort of flower.
“She’d be an amazing mother,” Kelsey remarks.
“Yeah.”
I feel her looking at me. “And you would be an amazing father.”
I don’t reply. She pulls me to a halt and turns to face me.
“You would, Dean,” she insists. “I know it.”
“No one knows that.”
“Liv does. She wouldn’t have thought about children if she didn’t know that about you.”
That has never occurred to me before.
“What do you think of this one?” Liv comes toward us, holding up a wreath about the size of a tire. “It’s made of noble fir, cedar, juniper, and I just love these little frosted pinecones.”
“Looks great,” I say.
Liv beams. “She’ll throw in a snowman ornament and a garland too. I’ll pay now and she’ll hold it for us to pick up later.”
She heads back to the wreath table. Kelsey and I look around at some of the other arts and crafts, and before we’ve gone halfway through the room Kelsey has a basket full of star-shaped glass ornaments, Christmas cards, handmade earrings, nutcracker stocking holders, and scented candles.
“For gifts,” she tells me defensively when she catches me grinning.
“Uh huh.”
“Come on, I’m hungry. That quiche wasn’t enough for me.” Kelsey hooks her basket over her arm. “Let’s find the fudge. Where’s Liv?”
We wind through the crowd to the section where vendors sell gourmet food items and gift baskets. I catch sight of Liv and point her out to Kelsey. We head toward her.
Then I stop.
He’s there. The chef who taught Liv’s cooking class. The man who kissed her.
He’s standing behind a vendor’s table. And he’s looking at my wife. Liv is a short distance away, her expression guarded but polite as she talks to him.
Rage boils so fast, so hard, that it propels me forward. I shove Kelsey aside and plow through the crowd to get to Liv. The other guy jerks his gaze to me, alarmed.
“Dean!” Sensing danger, Liv whirls around before I reach her. Her eyes widen. She holds out a hand to prevent me from crashing over the table and strangling the chef.
Which I’m this close to doing.
“Dean.” Liv spreads her hands across my chest and tries to push me away from the table. “It’s okay. Dean, it’s nothing.”
The chef—whatever the hell his name is—stares at me, his face white. Good. Let the little bastard be scared.
“What were you saying to him?” I’m half-aware that people are glancing in our direction, but I don’t care.
“Nothing. Just hello. He’s selling spice mixes.” Her fingers tighten on my shirt. “Dean, please.”
“Really… really, man, it was nothing,” the chef stammers.
I point a finger at him. “Stay the fuck away from her.”
Another hand closes on my arm. Kelsey. She yanks hard enough to catch me off-guard. “Come on, Rambo. Take a seat.”
She manages to pull me to an eating area and shoves me onto a bench. Liv stays where she is, watching me warily. The crowd resumes its normal movement.
Kelsey bends to look me in the eye. She looks pissed. “What the hell was that?”
I pull in a breath, my anger still hot. “She kissed him.”
“What?” Kelsey steps back, blinking in confusion.
“That asshole was her cooking teacher. He walked her to her car one night and kissed her. She kissed back.”
Kelsey shakes her head. “I don’t get it. Liv kissed him?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But why…” She glances back at Liv in disbelief. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not. Ask her. Then ask her if it was good.”
“Oh, Dean.”
“Fuck, Kelsey.” I drag a hand down my face. “I can’t get rid of it.”
She doesn’t say anything. I’m grateful. There’s nothing she can say that would make it any easier.
“Dean?” Liv’s voice is tentative as she appears behind Kelsey. She glances from me to Kelsey and back again. “Please don’t be mad.”
I exhale hard. “I’m not mad.”
“You look mad.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
She doesn’t seem convinced. I’m not either.
“Okay.” Kelsey takes Liv’s arm and backs her up a few steps. “Dean, Liv and I are going to finish looking around. You stay here and chill out. We’ll come back when we’re ready to leave.”
I watch them disappear into the crowd. Liv turns once to look at me, and then she’s gone. I wait all of ten seconds before I leave the center and walk back out into the cold.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Olivia
Dean is still not home when I get back to our apartment this evening. He called Kelsey earlier to tell her he’d left the art fair, but he didn’t answer his cell when I tried to call him. I spent the rest of the afternoon working mindlessly at the bookstore. My stomach is a knot of anger and regret.
I stare at the Christmas tree in the corner, the twinkling lights reflected in the windows. I think of the first Christmas Dean and I spent together, four months after we first met. A fairy tale—dark woods, tangled vines, handsome princes and all.
I press my hands to my eyes and try to breathe. I don’t know how we will ever fix this. If we ever will.
At eight, I change into my nightgown and crawl into bed, staring at the pattern of light and shadows on the ceiling.
Dean is the only man I’ve ever wanted. The only man I’ve allowed into my body, into my heart. The love of my life, who taught me more about happiness and pleasure than anyone else ever has.
So I don’t understand why I felt the way I did for Tyler Wilkes. I don’t understand why it was easy to kiss him, why I gave in to the pull of attraction. Had I wanted Dean to find out?
The thought stops my breath.
Dean has never been threatened before. He’s never had reason to be. I have always been the starry-eyed girl who melted at his touch. I let him into places even I didn’t want to go.
He knows he has all of me. And yet when he told me about his first marriage, I discovered I hadn’t had all of him.
When I kissed Tyler, had I wanted to shift the balance between me and Dean? Warn my husband that I could keep part of myself separate from him too?
Except that I didn’t. I could never have kept that kiss a secret from Dean, no matter what he kept secret from me. Even now, he has all of me.
I hear Dean close the front door and toss his keys onto the counter. Then he appears at the bedroom door. He looks windswept, his cheeks ruddy from the cold, his hair messy, as if he’s been running.
The sight of him—this man I still love with everything I am—makes my whole body ache with longing and sorrow.
Tension falls like a curtain. We stare at each other. When he moves closer, I can see the anger edging his muscles, the planes of his face.
He stops by the bed. His hand drops to the button of his jeans.
“Don’t say no,” he says. His voice is rough.
I can’t tell if it’s an order or a request. I don’t care. I shake my head.
I won’t say no. I don’t want to say no.
He works the buttons of his shirt and yanks it off his shoulders, then unfastens his jeans. His erection is already pushing against the fly, and arousal curls through my despair at the sight of the long, thick length.
He grabs a fistful of the comforter and pulls it away from me, his dark gaze skimming my body beneath my nightgown. Aside from
a pair of cotton panties, I’m naked underneath the thin cotton, and his scrutiny alone makes my nipples peak. I suppress the sudden urge to cross my arms, to hide.
He kneels beside me on the bed and runs his hand over the front of my body, his fingers sliding beneath my breasts and tracing a path to my belly. Although his touch is achingly familiar, the intensity of his expression, the edge of lingering anger, creates a flare of both apprehension and excitement in me. My heart pounds, my blood heating.
Curving his hand around the back of my neck, he pulls me forward, his mouth locking against mine. His kiss is hard and insistent. He smells like night, like the wind. He thrusts his tongue past my lips, a deep invasion that incites a spear of lust.
I grasp his arms, urging him closer, wanting his weight on top of me. He straddles my hips, his erection pressing against my belly.
“Did he get this close to you?” His question is an accusation.
I should say no. No. The word screams inside my head.
Instead, I look up at him and whisper, “What would you do if he did?”
A firestorm of anger flares behind his eyes. I suck in a breath as a riotous combination of arousal and anxiety rises in me. Dean lowers his face so close to mine I can feel his breath on my cheek.
“I’d fucking kill him,” he mutters.
He yanks my nightgown up and presses his hand between my legs, one finger probing beneath the elastic of my panties into the cleft of my sex. I gasp, bucking my hips upward, seeking his entry.
He whispers something low against my mouth, then captures my lower lip between his teeth and bites. A twinge of pain spurs my arousal higher.
I pull away from him and stare into his eyes. “You never thought I could be attracted to another man, did you?”
“Goddammit, Liv.”
“You thought I’d always be the good girl who couldn’t possibly—”
His lips bruise mine with the ferocity of a kiss, forcing me open, pressing me down. I dig my fingers into his arms and wrench my mouth from his. Our breath mingles hot and heavy between us. My blood throbs. His eyes are almost black. Something feral flares in his expression, a sense of possession I’ve never seen before.
You are mine, Olivia. Mine.
He doesn’t have to say it. Even through the storm of emotions, the heat swamping us both, I still know the truth.
Yes. Yours. Always.
His mouth crashes against mine again, and I open for him, melting, gasping under the delicious onslaught. He grabs a fistful of my hair and angles my head to deepen the kiss. My hands find his jeans—unfastened, but still on—and I shove at the waistband, writhing beneath the increasing pressure of his fingers between my legs.
“Dean. Take them off.”
He shifts to rid himself of his jeans and boxers, and then he moves naked over me, all hot, tense muscles and damp skin. He pushes my nightgown up past my waist, rips the panties off my legs, and spreads my thighs. His first hard thrust jars my entire body, filling me with sweet, aching pressure. I close my thighs around his hips and scrape his back with my fingernails.
Wild urgency spirals through me. Sweat pools on my throat, drops rolling down between my breasts. Dean pauses for a second to tug my nightgown over my head, and then he groans low in his throat at the sight of my bare breasts.
That reaction alone almost makes me come, but I don’t want it to be over, not yet, don’t want this exquisite pounding rhythm to end.
I don’t want him to let me go.
I close my eyes and wrap my arms around his back, moan as he pushes deeper, faster. He grips my hair again and tugs hard enough to make me open my eyes on a gasp.
“Look at me.” His order is low, rigid.
I stare at him, his face glistening with sweat, the burn of his eyes. I’m aroused by his anger, by his unyielding control.
It’s both an apology and a punishment, this frantic, desperate fucking. My breasts jostle against him, his chest hairs abrading my nipples. Tension builds tight and fast, the pressure almost unbearable.
I thrust up against him, sink my teeth into his shoulder, taste the salt of his skin. Tears spill from the corners of my eyes.
He shoves his hands beneath me, grips my bottom to haul me closer. His breath is harsh, hot against my throat, his groans vibrating into my blood.
I open my mouth to draw in a lungful of air. My veins sear with heat. Pleas fall from my lips in an endless stream.
“Dean… oh, God… harder, please… make me come… please, please…”
I writhe beneath him, shifting and pushing and rubbing. Aching. He eases back far enough to edge a hand between us and splays his fingers over my clit. One touch and I fly apart with a broken cry, convulsing around his hardness, digging my fingers into his shoulders.
As shudders rack my body, he thrusts deep again and comes inside me. My name wrenches from his throat on a growl of pleasure.
He collapses on top of me, his weight delicious against my sweaty skin, his chest heaving. I press my face against his shoulder, my cheeks still wet with tears. He puts his hand on my neck and turns my head for another hard, possessive kiss.
I’m trembling, gasping. He eases to the side, slides a hand down to my sex again and rubs, as if he knows I’m not finished, that I need more. His fingers are so adept, so familiar, that I come again within seconds, sobbing his name, clutching at him.
He wraps one arm tight around me, stroking the sensations from me until I start to calm. My heart slows, the pulsing ebbs.
We’re silent for several long minutes. Breathing. I can’t look at him. I’m sore everywhere, inside and out.
He moves away from me, and then we’re no longer touching.
“Christ, Liv,” he whispers. “What the hell are we doing to each other?”
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
I press my hands against my eyes to try and stem the tears that will not stop. After a few minutes, he gets off the bed and goes into the bathroom.
I lower my hands and stare at the ceiling through blurry eyes. Moonlight eases past the curtains, painting the ceiling with a broken pattern.
We can’t do this anymore. Can’t keep hurting each other. Our marriage has always been an island, a safe place where sea-dragons and monstrous creatures can’t reach us. Now we’re letting them in, gnashing teeth and all, and we are failing to protect each other.
I wipe my eyes, climb out of bed, and dress in jeans and a sweatshirt. The sound of the shower comes from the bathroom.
Trying not to think, not to feel anything, I take a duffle bag from the back of the closet and throw in a few changes of clothes and underwear. I open the bathroom door, refusing to look toward the shower where I know I’ll see Dean’s body outlined against the fogged glass. I toss a few other toiletries into the duffle and hurry to the kitchen.
Halfway out the door, I remember that my car is very low on gas. The shower is still running when I toss my key-ring on the counter, grab Dean’s car keys, and leave our apartment.
*
Thank God there is a light on in Kelsey’s house. I tried to call her on my cell phone first, but her machine picked up. I didn’t think I could explain without bursting into tears again, so I just drove over. I grab my bag and head up the steps to her tidy bungalow nestled on a quiet street called Mousehole Lane.
Shivering, I ring the bell and wait. She pulls open the door.
“Liv? What are you doing here?”
“Sorry, Kels, I tried to call.” Part of me notices that she’s wearing some expensive silk pants and a flowy tunic kind of thing.
She looks at my duffle bag and frowns. I don’t have to say anything else. At least, not now. She knows.
“Get in here.” She gestures me into the foyer.
I drop my bag on the floor and unbutton my coat, then stop. I sniff. “Is that incense?”
To my shock—and unexpected but welcome amusement—Kelsey actually flushes
a little. I peer around her shoulder at the living room, where the lights are low and several sticks of incense glow in a special holder. Classical music drifts from the speakers. Then I see a guy sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine in his hand.
I duck back into the foyer and whisper, “Oh shit, Kelsey, I’m sorry. You’re on a date.”
She waves her hand in dismissal. “Never mind. He’s been after me for months. He can wait a little longer.”
“I’m not going to ruin your evening.” I reach for the door handle, but she snaps the lock shut and gives me a stern look.
“No, you are not,” she replies, then grabs my arm and marches me into the kitchen. “But you are going to tell me what the hell happened. Wait here.”
She shoves me onto a barstool at the counter and disappears into the living room. The front door closes. When she returns, she’s carrying two glasses of wine.
“What about your date?” I ask.
“I sent him home. I’ll deal with him later.” She deposits a glass of wine in front of me. “Now talk.”
I can’t talk because the tears are choking my throat again. I swallow some wine. “You first. Who is he? Why didn’t you tell me you had a date tonight?”
“His name is Adam, he’s an engineer at SciTech, and we met when I went over to talk to them about a new computer modeling program. He’s totally not my type, but like I said, the guy’s persistent so finally I agreed to give him a chance. And he did bring good wine.”
She takes a sip and nods in approval.
“Why is he not your type?” I ask.
“Oh, you know.” She waves a hand like she’s swatting at a fly. “Conservative, conventional. But this is not about—”
She stops as a loud banging rattles the front door.
“And here comes the Incredible Hunk.” Kelsey rolls her eyes and indicates I should stay seated as she slides off the stool. “He sounds pissed.”
Although I feel like a coward for letting her contend with Dean alone, I know she can handle him better than I can right now. His angry voice comes through the door, which I assume Kelsey has wisely not opened with the expectation that he would crash through.