No Excuses

by Nikky Kaye

  “Stop it. You’re being a brat.”

  He was ten years older than me, and it was times like this that we were both reminded of the gap between us. I didn’t want to stand there naked, fighting with him. I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling like I needed to shield myself somehow.

  When arguing with Gage, I always needed more arms.

  “Now I’m a brat. And an ‘amazing mother.’ Which is it?”

  He glared at me. “Right now, both. I don’t believe in corporal punishment for children, but I sure as fuck want to spank you right now.”

  We fell silent, breathing heavily. Angry. Hurt. Waiting for an apology. When none materialized, I pivoted on one heel and stalked into the en suite bathroom. Tears finally spilled down my cheeks. Damn hormones, still making me crazy.

  The sound of the water on the tile in the shower seemed extra loud when I turned it on, but at least it drowned out my crying when I got in. My tears were indistinguishable from the stream of hot water. After a moment I realized that I was no longer feeling butt-hurt, but angry crying—angry with myself for crying.

  Maybe I was a brat.

  But he didn’t listen to me! My husband wasn’t always good at compromising, but we’d gotten better at active listening. Then again, I jumped right down his throat and I didn’t even understand what he was talking ab—

  Shit. I hadn’t listened to him, at all.

  I tilted my head back, letting the water soak my hair and slide down my back. My throat ached with the realization that my own kneejerk insecurities fucked up what was, until then, a very nice evening.

  The shower door opened. Gage stepped in behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, his head bent into my neck.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I nodded but said nothing.

  “Will you listen to what I have to say?” he asked.

  I nodded again.

  “I mentioned a nanny because I thought you might be less tired—thereby more happy and relaxed—if you didn’t have to do things like laundry. If you could take more naps. Especially with another baby, having the extra pair of hands would be really helpful.”

  I spun around in the circle of his arms, blinking against the spray. “Okay, where did that come from? You really want another?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Right now?”

  “I’m not getting any younger. The truth is, I loved it when you were pregnant. And I love watching you be a mom. You’re so good with him; you don’t even know.”

  “You could have stayed home,” I pointed out, then stilled in shock.

  Until that moment I hadn’t realized that I’d resented him for going back to work so quickly. Apparently he was indispensible at Apptitude, and I wasn’t. Part of my desire to go back to work was probably to prove that I was capable at more than one job in my life. At least at work I could hold up an ad or cost-per-click numbers as tangible evidence that I’d done something.

  At home, the day was considered a win if the baby was still alive and I hadn’t burned down the house. The bar was pretty low.

  He stroked my cheekbones. “You don’t want another child with me?”

  Ouch. The hurt look in his blue eyes got me. Right. There.

  I lowered my gaze to his chest. “Of course I do. I love you.” I never expected Jack to be an only child, but I also didn’t expect to start trying again so soon. Then again, we weren’t not trying. There was really no good reason not to have another baby sooner, rather than later. My stomach flipped at the thought of it, but not necessarily in a bad way.

  “I love you.” He kissed me, the heat from his mouth mixing with the warm water until I felt like we would dissolve down the drain together.

  Gage rested his forehead against mine. Were my lips as swollen as his? My eyes as wide and dark? My body flushed and sensitive? He cleared his throat. Then, “How about we compromise?”

  It was a concept that Gage still struggled with at times, so the fact that he was suggesting it meant he was serious about this. “How?”

  He paused. Pulled away from me. Leaned against the cold tile wall, my hands in his.

  He was serious about this.

  “We could hire someone part-time to help out around here so you can spend some time at the office. If that’s what you really want.”

  I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore, but what he was proposing could give me the space to figure it out.

  “If you get pregnant within the next six months, though, then they go to full-time. As long as it’s the right person,” he added. “But god knows we can afford it anyhow. Really, we owe it to the economy.”

  Only Brian “No Excuses” Gage could turn negotiation over having a second child into an argument for job creation. But it was hard to argue with.

  “What if I’m not pregnant in six months, and want to go back to work full-time myself?” The idea both thrilled and scared me.

  His jaw tightened as he considered it. A storm brewed behind his eyes, like he’d never contemplated not getting his way. My husband honestly and sincerely did not expect failure. It wasn’t in his vocabulary.

  I spread my palms over his chest. “How about this?” I reached up and kissed him gently. “If I’m not pregnant again in six months’ time and I want to go back to work, then you stay at home with Jack until baby number two.”

  “No nanny?”

  My head tilted, my lips twitching as I tried not to smirk. “Part-time, if you want to spend some time at the office,” I echoed what he’d outlined moments before. “If that’s what you really want.”

  If he was so gung ho on parenting and thought it was so easy, then maybe he needed to try a more… immersive experience.

  “Deal. No tricks, though.”

  I made a little X over my left breast. “No tricks.” No birth control, no gas-lighting, no interviewing maniacs as housekeepers. “Let the jizz fall where it may.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  GAGE

  At first, I thought Madeline was being a bit picky when she went looking for a part-time nanny slash housekeeper slash marital facilitator. She joined specialty websites, met with local agencies, looked at online ads—both for those needing and providing child care services.

  A month went by, and we were no closer to finding some help. I’d asked my mother to come over once a week, so I could have a date night with my wife, but my mom was not a big one for consistency. Or reliability. After she texted at the last minute to bail—for the third week in a row—I gave up.

  “I think she filled her grandma quota with Lily,” Maddie said, rolling her eyes when she looked at my phone. She didn’t seem that surprised, or even disappointed. Frankly, I suspected that she was just as happy staying home for Valentine’s Day with Jack. And me. Couldn’t forget about me.

  Was I becoming an afterthought? I wanted to be her forethought. Hell, I wanted to be her only thought, but I knew that was impossible.

  We had an agreement, though—part-time help, and try for another baby. I was keeping up my end of the bargain. In fact, I was keeping up a lot of things—my dick being one of them and, occasionally, holding up my wife against the wall of the shower.

  I was all in. But that was just the way I was.

  To my credit, I wasn’t counting her cycle days or anything like that. No, that would be creepy. I just made love to my wife every chance I could get—every opportunity, every way. She said I was insatiable.

  But after three months, we were no further along. Shark week had just finished—again—and we still had no child care to give Maddie a break.

  When I pointed this out to her, she muttered something about needing a different kind of break.

  So I booked us a ski weekend at the mountain resort where Bobbie and Aaron worked and lived until a few months ago. Madeline and I had a lot of fond memories of that hotel. The ski season was just ending, with fresh powder and clear blue skies.

  Seventy-two hours of grown-up time.

  It was going to be fan
tastic. I was so excited when I told her about it over dinner that my spaghetti swung from my fork. Jack, sitting in his high chair next to us, thought flinging his noodles was a great idea.

  Madeline got up to get some paper towel. Looked back at me, puzzled. “You can’t ski with an infant, Gage!”

  I imagined Jack in his puffball snowsuit, somersaulting down the bunny hill and picking up snow along the way. “I know that, babe. I’ve arranged for him to go to Bobbie and Aaron’s for the weekend.”

  “You did what?” My wife had gone past confused to horrified.

  “They know how to take care of a baby, Maddie.”

  “But he’s never been away from me like that before.”

  “For a child to form a healthy attachment, they need to understand object permanence.”

  “You’ve been reading my bedside books again, haven’t you?”

  I shrugged. We were talking about a baby with whom playing peekaboo was pointless, as he never expected anyone to actually go away. Sometimes I worried that he was a little too secure.

  “I don’t know…” She looked from me to Jack and back to me again, an agonized look on her face.

  Our son began moving his head from side to side as well in mimicry. It looked like a tennis match at the dinner table.

  “It will be good for all of us,” I said. “We need to have some adult time.”

  “We have adult time every day, Gage.”

  “Fucking—”

  Madeline gasped and clapped her hands over Jack’s ears. “Modeling, Gage!”

  I rolled my eyes. He couldn’t even say dada yet. I didn’t think he’d start off his foray into speech by swearing like a sailor. “Fine. Making love is not the end all and be all of adult time.”

  “Can I get that in writing, sir?”

  “Smartass. There’s also talking,” I added, holding up my hand to forestall her comeback, “which doesn’t include spaghetti fights.”

  Her eyebrow lifted. “If I recall correctly, it was a spaghetti dinner that brought us together.”

  “No, baby. Fate and Human Resources brought us together. The spaghetti dinner at the lodge just made it messier.” I reached across the table to hold her hand. “I miss you, Madeline. I miss us.”

  “Oh, hell. You had to pull out the big guns, didn’t you?” Her eyes were watery as I lifted her palm to my mouth.

  Victory.

  In the end, I got her to agree to thirty-six hours—of which approximately ten would be used up by driving to and from the mountains.

  That left twenty-six hours (twenty-four, to be on the safe side) of skiing, sexing, and serious conversations. I was prepared to split the time between all three activities.

  “What about sleeping?” Madeline asked, as I told her the schedule and dropped our bags beside the couch.

  Damn. I’d forgotten about the sleeping.

  She looked around Suite 203 with bemusement. No, we didn’t need a two-bedroom suite, but I got it for the sake of nostalgia. This was where we’d first made love. Where I’d first tied her up. Where I’d first made her come.

  “Well, we’d better get on with it, then.”

  It was closing in on ten at night, so skiing was ou—oh. My wife had efficiently begun stripping, so apparently serious conversation was not the first item on the agenda.

  She finished unbuttoning her plaid flannel shirt, her black bra peeking through like a shadow. “We should discuss our goals, sir.”

  Or maybe, I was wrong. It did happen occasionally. “What do you mean?”

  Maddie strutted over to me and slipped her fingers under the hem of my sweater. She brushed against my belly with her knuckles as she lifted it up and over my head. When she put her hands on my chest, all the blood in my body rushed to my groin.

  “Fuck, yes. Lower,” I urged her.

  Her lips curved into a coy smile as she unbuttoned my slacks and teased at the waistband of my boxer briefs. My cock leaped at her nearness, heavy and hard.

  “My goal to go back to work.”

  I tilted my head back and closed my eyes as she wrapped her hot little hand around me. It felt so damn good.

  “And, uh, my goal to have another baby,” I added—although, at that moment my boys were considering another destination. Her hand wasn’t tight enough, wasn’t hot enough. I opened my eyes, taking in her flushed cheeks and the way she licked her lips.

  Bending over, I kissed her. Open mouth, open heart, open soul. I felt it all the way down to my toes, like it was the first time.

  “Suck my cock, Madeline.”

  “Yes, sir.” She dropped to her knees, her shirt still open and jeans still on, and took me in her mouth.

  I groaned loudly. “Always so good,” I murmured. My wife gave amazing head. She made me feel invincible and human all at the same time, and not just when her lips were circling my cock.

  The pressure in my body rose as she tugged down my pants and briefs, her head still bobbing over me.

  “Deeper, baby?”

  She hummed her assent, making me grow impossibly harder. Slowly, she worked me further into her mouth, her nose nudging its way toward the base of my erection. The softness of the back of her palate met my weeping slit.

  “Jesus fuck!” I shouted. Shook my head. Goals. Our goals. “SMART goals,” I managed to get out. “What you’re doing right now is SMART, baby.”

  I gulped as she nodded slightly. “I love your beautiful mouth, Madeline. You want my cock, don’t you? You need it.”

  Her chin jerked subtly, and then I was all the way there. Her hands were on my ass, pulling me toward her as I thrust gently into her throat.

  I looked down at her with amazement. Her eyes watered, her lashes glossy and her lips spread thin around my base. What a sight.

  “I can’t stop, baby.” A warning was only fair.

  She blinked up at me, unable to smile or speak or do anything, as I grunted through my release and shot ribbons of come down her throat.

  Once I’d softened in her mouth a little, she raised her head and backed up a little. I fell out of her mouth with a tender pop.

  “Was that good?” She looked up me almost bashfully, like a student trying to please a teacher.

  “Good isn’t the right word. Fucking out of this world is more accurate,” I panted.

  My heart still raced from the intense orgasm and the sight of my wife on her knees before me. If I hadn’t just come like a freight train, I might have gotten it up again.

  “Smart goals?” she asked.

  Brain clunk. Whir. Rewind. Play. “Right.” I led her into one of the bedrooms, pulling off her flannel shirt at the same time and dropping it to the floor. “All our goals should be SMART goals, Madeline. You remember—specific, measurable, attainable—”

  “Relevant and timely.”

  Off came her jeans, and my pants. Soon we were naked but for the shadows on our skin from the bedside lamp.

  “Right now, my specific goal is to fuck you until you pass out from pleasure,” I told her, spreading her naked body out on the bed before me.

  Her nipples puckered in the cool air at my words. Moisture gleamed from between her open legs.

  “Measurable?” She moaned as I drew my fingers through her wetness.

  I tilted my head to the side, considering it. “I think three orgasms should do it.”

  “Oh, god.”

  “For now.” Lifting my hand to my mouth, I tasted her arousal. My cock twitched again in recovery. “That’s eminently doable,” I reminded her, “and highly relevant to my other main goal.”

  I kneeled on the bed between her thighs and took one luscious, distended nipple into my mouth. The sweet tang of her milk began to rise, and I laved her gently so as not to be greedy or overwhelming.

  My hand went to her core again, my first two fingers finding their way into her snug center. She rippled around me, gasping.

  “Oh yes, Gage. Fuck me, please.”

  “I’m going to put a baby in you, Madeli
ne. That’s my goal.” The idea of it brought me to full power again, my cock straining to thrust into her. “I love it when you’re pregnant, swollen with my seed. It’s so fucking sexy,” I told her.

  My fingers moved within her, curling to find the spongy patch of nerves on the other side of her clit. Her breathing changed yet again, this time almost to a state of keening hyperventilation.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “No, you can’t come yet, Maddie. Not until my cock is seated deep inside your pussy, and you can pull all my come deep inside you.”

  “I can’t—oh, fuck!” Her walls clamped down on my hand as her hips jerked. “Can’t help it!” she gasped, throwing her head back as she came.

  My dick ached, but I leaned back and watched her ride out her climax on my hand. She was so beautiful—almost as beautiful as when she came on my cock.

  “That wasn’t very SMART of you, Madeline.”

  She opened one eye at me. “Timely for me,” she said, running her tongue around her dry lips.

  Now, I’d just have to start all over again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MADDIE

  “What the hell happened?” Bobbie’s laugh didn’t ever seem to give her laugh lines, which was unfair on a cosmic level. Especially, I thought, as she’d just been taking care of my child.

  How to sum up the past twenty-four hours? We came, we saw, we did not conquer?

  I shrugged. “He fell.”

  “On what run?”

  I stared at her for a few seconds before it occurred to me that she assumed Gage’s injury was of the skiing kind. “How was Jack?”

  “Oh, he’s a breeze. No problems whatsoever.” She waved her hand, still more interested about the full-leg brace on her brother, my husband.

  Whereas, I wanted to know what my son ate, what hours he slept, how many diapers he filled, what activities she did with him…

  “The Brain is usually a pretty good skier,” she remarked. “I guess it’s been a couple of years, but still… it’s like riding a bike.”