by Ali Parker
28
I felt as though I was going to blow my fucking lid at any moment. It had been a week since she’d come back, and she’d stuck to her word. No emotion, no romance, and certainly no sex. And it was starting to drive me up the fucking wall.
Life before she had left hadn’t been this way. I knew that for damn sure. It hadn’t always been easy, fair enough, but it had been interesting and fun and the two of us had actually shared something together. I still wasn’t sure what it was. She seemed to think it was love, but I wasn’t certain it could be categorized that easily. Whatever it was, it had to be better than the shit we were dragging ourselves through right now.
She would come home from work and just sit there. I was pretty sure that was the hardest part. It was the look on her face, unreadable and impossible, and the fact that she would just plonk herself down in the seat opposite mine and nod and smile and be polite. Where was the Amaya who would tease me, would call me an asshole, would remind me I didn’t need to play the big man when I was at home? Where was the woman I had married, the one I had wanted to stick around and play the part for a year? I had only gotten into this because I thought I could bear to put up with her for the next ten months, and now she seemed to have shut down, playing robotic, nothing but the barest minimum of anything escaping her mouth. She would retreat to her room as soon as we’d eaten, and I would have to fight the urge to take the door off its hinges and storm in there and ask what the hell was going on.
But then again, I’d agreed to this. That was nagging away at the back of my mind. But I had imagined it was going to be the same kind of agreement we’d come to before, where we’d ended up giving in and accepting there was something more. I didn’t need a wife, but I needed Amaya, the Amaya who had existed when we’d started with this whole thing in the first place, not the shadow of her I got these days.
It had been the sex before. That was what had unlocked things for us. It was what had landed us married in the first place, in case she’d forgotten, but it was also what had pushed us into something different before. It had changed things and it seemed like from then on out she had barely been able to look me in the eye, but I knew that sex was our way of finding each other.
It was how we’d connected for the first time at that gala when we’d locked eyes across the room, and I’d known for damn certain that I was going to get that woman right there into bed, no matter what it took. And it was there now when I glanced at her as she passed through the living room on the way to work and I felt that familiar zing of desire. But I had agreed to let her set the pace, and even though it was driving me crazy, I'd stick to it. For as long as I could.
But it was only a matter of time before I bubbled over. I wasn’t great at keeping my emotions in check. When it came to anything other than love, I found myself rocking out of control quicker than I would have cared to admit to. And I was frustrated. I had wanted this woman back in my life on the assumption that she was going to be the same woman I had invited into it before, but this Amaya had nothing on the one who drank beer and watched movies and helped me hang up pictures all over the place to defuse an argument. If this was how it was going to be, I wasn’t sure I wanted it in the first place.
She came home from work that evening, and she floated into the apartment the same way she always did, with a polite “Evening, Kristo,” in my direction before she went to her room to get changed and take a shower.
“Evening, Amaya,” I called back as she made her way into her room, but she had closed the door behind her, and I couldn’t tell whether she was choosing to ignore me or if she just didn’t hear me. Either way, I felt that flurry of annoyance once more. She had been this way since that trip to visit my family, like she could barely get through this unless she kept her mouth firmly shut and pretended none of it was happening. Was she already dreaming of being back in her tiny condo, all by herself? Was that life preferable to this one? I had suggested the two of us take a trip out to see her sister, but she had been vague and dismissive and didn’t seem that interested in following up on the suggestion. I was at my wit’s end, trying to work out what I could do to get her to react to me, some way, any way.
“Dinner’s nearly ready,” I raised my voice. I was making a curry, nothing fancy, just something I could throw together to show her I still gave a shit, that at least one of us still did.
She emerged about five minutes later, face scrubbed clean and in a pair of jeans and a shirt. She took her seat opposite me at the breakfast bar and watched silently as I finished up dinner. I wanted to turn around and grab her by the shoulders and see if that would be enough to get a reaction out of her, but I had to keep my cool. She was playing me, that much was obvious, pushing me away for some reason, maybe in the hopes that I would figure out I had feelings for her after all this time. I did have feelings for her. I just had no idea what the hell they were or what the fuck they meant.
I served up and took my seat opposite her, grabbing myself a water from the fridge.
“You want a drink?” I asked, and she shook her head and took a spoonful of the curry, blowing on it softly.
“No, I’m fine,” she replied calmly. That tone of voice was the thing that was driving me the wildest because it seemed so removed, so uninterested, so bored. Like she couldn’t wait for me to shut up and stop talking already. I sat down slowly, letting out a long breath as I did so, trying to get a hold on my annoyance. It had been a long day at work, that was all. I could handle myself.
“How was your day?” I asked carefully, and she shrugged.
“It was fine,” she replied. “And yours?”
“It was kind of stressful,” I replied, eyeing her, waiting for her to respond with something, anything. But she just nodded.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied mildly. She took a bite of her food.
“This is nice,” she remarked. Everything had suddenly become so bland with her, as though she had shaved the rough edges off herself in the hopes that she could keep herself safe.
“I’m glad you like it,” I replied, and I leaned back and eyed her for a moment. I needed more than that. She glanced up at me, chewing slowly.
“What?” she asked, and then, I couldn’t hold it back anymore. Suddenly, the feelings I had been doing my best to keep down all this time welled up and over, and I got to my feet, appetite forgotten.
“What the fuck is going on with you?” I slapped a hand down on the counter, sending the dishes shaking and clattering in front of us. She furrowed her brow but didn’t react.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you can barely even look me in the fucking eye,” I snapped. “About the fact that this is the most conversation we’ve shared since you came back.”
“And?” she asked, infuriating me further.
“And it’s not what I wanted this to be,” I shot back. “I just want some emotion, Amaya, anything. You’ve just been sitting there or in your room, pretending nothing is happening, but it has and it is and—”
I stopped myself as she reached to place her fork carefully back down on the table, and I noticed that her hands were shaking. I felt fucking awful right away. I had never intended to scare her, but I couldn’t stop myself, not when she drove me up the wall like this.
She got to her feet slowly, taking a deep breath and letting it out again. Her body was tense, almost painfully so, as though it was taking every single part of her not to lash out against me at that moment. I found myself craving that, despite myself. It was stupid, and it was childish, but I wanted her to yell back at me. I wanted her to lash out. I wanted her to come screaming at me, telling me that I was wrong and that she hated me or she loved me or something.
Instead, she made her way toward me, walking around the counter until she was a few inches from me. I was heaving in breath sharply, my body tensed from top to bottom as I waited for her to say something to me.
“You remember our deal, don’t yo
u?” she snapped at me, her voice sharp as a whip as it cracked through the air. I nodded.
“Of course, I do,” I shot back, running my hand through my hair.
“Then you know that I’m not doing this to piss you off,” she went on. “I’m doing this to look after myself, Kristo. I’m doing this because I need to.”
I fell silent. I hated the thought that she was here because it was the only thing she could do. Sure, I was being naïve in letting myself think she had come to this place out of choice, that she would have stuck things out with me if she didn’t need the money, but I had let myself believe it, even just for a while.
“You’re the one who wanted to draw up the contract,” she reminded me. “You’re the one who wanted this to be a business relationship. I’m just honoring your wishes, that’s all. Isn’t that what you wanted from me?”
She glared at me, deeply into my eyes, as though daring me to contradict her. Her eyes were burning, as though they were moments from catching fire and sending this whole apartment down in flames. I looked for as long as I could and then tore my gaze away. I couldn’t help but remember the way I’d felt when she had first walked out of the apartment, when I’d called after her and she had paused in the doorway and looked back at me, as though daring me to say something to her, to confirm that her feelings weren’t lost on me. But I had had nothing to say then, and I had nothing to say now. I didn’t know how I was supposed to keep myself together in the face of what she was doing to me, but I knew she was right. This was what we had agreed on.
“This is what a contracted wife does,” she told me and then turned and stalked off toward the bedroom. And that was when I realized I couldn’t let her walk away again. Not after last time. As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, I strode across the room toward her, ignoring the voice in my head telling me this was crazy, that I was going to get hurt or that she was. I wanted her, needed her, and there was no way I was going to let her walk out of my life all over again.
29
As soon as the door was shut behind me, he pushed through it. I let out a yelp of annoyance as the door busted open and swiveled on my heel to see what the fuck he wanted.
“How can I help you?” I demanded, furious that he was coming into this place like this. My room was meant to be my space. That was how I understood it. And I had worked so hard keeping him out of here, keeping him at arm’s length, keeping him so far from me emotionally that I could begin to convince myself there was nothing going on, not really. I planted my hands on my hips as he stood there, chest rising and falling quickly, trying to think of something to say.
“Well?” I prompted him.
“You need to talk to me,” he shot back finally. He was never much good at coming up with what he needed to say at the time he needed to say it, but he seemed to be filling in the blanks a little with everything else, piecing things together slowly but surely. I could see it in his eyes, those feelings for me beginning to swell and grow, whether he liked it or not. And it scared me as much as it clearly scared him.
“What about?” I fired back. “Seriously? What do you want to talk to me about?”
“You can’t just leave what you said to me hanging,” he replied, incredulous. “That night, when you left, you told me you …”
He trailed off. He didn’t need to remind me. As if I didn’t go over what I’d said to him that night every single chance I got, as if I didn’t wish I could reel those words back inside me and pretend I’d never even thought them, let alone said them out loud to him.
“You need to get out of my room.” I pointed to the door. Just having him this close to the bed, when emotions were running as high as they were in that moment, was dangerous. He backed out, and I followed him to the door, watching him go.
“I need my space, Kristo,” I called out after him, and he came to a halt. Even though I knew I should have just let him walk away from me, I didn’t want him to leave. I craved that emotion, that communication, even when it came in the form of us screaming at each other like a pair of moody teenagers.
“I’m happy to give that to you.” He rounded on me once more. “But I can’t handle you treating me like I don’t exist. Just go back to your condo, and I’ll pick you up when we need to go see my family if you don’t want to be around me.”
I fell silent once more. He must have known how little I wanted that. I could have thrown that out there when he’d come back for me the week before, but I didn’t want to be in that condo all by myself, not when I had tasted how sweet it was to be with Kristo, to share my home and my life with him.
“I don’t want that,” I finally mumbled.
“What did you say?” He took a step toward me. Suddenly, the space between us had closed significantly, and he was standing just a few feet away from me. I could smell his aftershave, the memory of it imprinted on my brain after that night we spent together. It was making me stupid. Well, stupider.
“I said I don’t want that.” I raised my gaze, narrowed my eyes, and looked him in the face. “I don’t want to go. I’m not moving all my stuff back down again. I’m staying. You’re just going to have to get used to giving me some space.”
“Fine,” he snapped back, and there was a moment between us, a moment where neither of us said anything. His eyes flicked down to my lips, and before I knew it, my stomach was flipping, and my body was screaming at me to do something about this, about the chemistry that seemed to light the air in this room on fire.
He moved toward me and kissed me, a forbidden kiss, exactly the kind of thing I had been trying to avoid since I had come back. That was what all the coldness had been, an attempt to ignore how impossible it was to fight my feelings for him. It was a brief kiss, and he swiftly pulled himself away from me, shaking his head and turning his back.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, and he began to walk away from me. But I could feel the pressure of his mouth on mine, the warmth of it, and I reached up to touch my lips, to trace the shape of him against me. Even though I knew this was the dumbest idea I’d had in a long time, I walked toward him. He turned just as I reached him, and I moved against him, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him hungrily.
It felt so right. That was what I couldn’t get over. It just felt so right, so good, so obvious for the two of us to be together in this way. I was surprised I’d been able to fight it for as long as I had because I felt a relief being in his arms again that I’d never felt with anyone else I’d been with. As though I had been craving a dose of him, my body silently reaching out and aching for him. That was how it felt as we kissed for the first time in what felt like forever, as we found that connection that had been so sorely missing.
He pulled back from me for a moment and pushed me away from him. For a brief second, I thought he was turning me down, and my brain kicked into high-panic mode. Instead, he caught my face between his hands and looked me dead in the eyes.
“Do you want this?” he demanded, forceful.
“Yes,” I breathed, but that wasn’t enough for him.
“Do you really want this?” he asked again. “I need you to tell me you’re sure about this, Amaya.”
“I’m sure,” I promised him. “I’m certain. Please, Kristo.”
And with that, he kissed me again, this time scooping me off the ground and heading directly toward my bedroom. I held on to him tight, any panic in the back of my head about whether this was a bad idea or if I was making some kind of spectacularly huge mistake falling away as he laid me down on the bed. After tugging my jeans down my legs, he moved on top of me, stroking my hair back from my face as he slipped his hand between my legs, cupping my pussy through my panties.
“Oh.” I groaned as he moved down my neck, baring his teeth for a moment as he hovered over my throat. I wondered how long he’d been thinking about this, planning this, going over the details in his head, figuring out precisely how he was going to torment me and make a meal out of me. I could barely think straight as he slip
ped his fingers inside my panties and pushed them into my core. He let out the softest moan against my neck as he fingered me for the first time like this was what he’d been waiting for.
“You need to be completely naked,” he breathed in my ear. “Right. Now.”
“You too,” I replied as the two of us undressed each other. My hands were shaking as I plucked at his shirt and unbuckled his jeans, and there was still some part of me, paranoid, that was reminding me this wasn’t going to make getting over him any easier. But I didn’t care. After how distant we’d been, I craved the connection to him, that way of pulling ourselves back to each other the way I needed right now.
Once he had me fully naked and I had stripped him down, he pushed me back on the bed and ran his hands all over my body. I traced the muscles on his shoulders, wondering once again what the hell a man like this was doing interested in someone like me. He could have had his pick of supermodels with a body like that, yet he touched me like I was fine velvet, expensive, precious, rare.
He was already hard, his cock pressed against my inner thigh with an eagerness, and I just wanted to feel him inside me. He was kissing me as he reached over to the bedside cabinet, making out with me deeply, and I knew he felt the same kind of urgency I did. As though, if we didn’t move fast enough, the reality of the situation would begin to set in and we would both think better of it. But for the time being, both lost to the passion of the moment, we could convince ourselves this was a good idea, that it was the only good idea.