Maples, Strawberries and Fairy Tales (Leaves of a Maple Book 4)

by Haley Jenner

  “Jesus. Is everything sex with you? We’re gonna be late,” she pushes me back.

  “Just wanted to let you know you look beautiful, China. No need to cut my jugular.”

  Her pretty grey eyes blink softly in affection at the endearment, but she swallows uncomfortably. Every time I compliment my wife of late, she’s awkward as fuck. Like she’s uncomfortable in her own skin. Or at least, around me. I have no idea what is happening. Our relationship was rock fucking solid. We weren’t just lovers we were best fucking friends. Now we barely touch, but worse, we’re becoming strangers, she doesn’t confide in me, she doesn’t talk to me.

  My insides feel hollow and I feel as though a part of me is dying a slow and painful death. I’m struggling with not only losing my lover, someone who craved touch and intimacy just as much as I did once upon a time. But my best friend is building this massive wall between us and I’m not exactly sure how I join her on the other side. She’s pulling away and I can’t get her to tell me why.

  “Lily settle okay with your folks?” I pick up her bag, moving through the door without waiting for her answer.

  “Yeah,” her voice travels softly, regret lacing the apologetic tone.

  “Good.” I yank open my car door, falling into the driver’s seat with an irritated sigh as I wait for her.

  She takes a moment to lock the front door, sliding into the passenger seat without noise, her sympathetic eyes glancing over me in uncertainty.

  “You haven’t called me China in forever,” she finally breaks the silence as I pull from our driveway and I glance over at her.

  “Huh?”

  “China,” she repeats. “You stopped calling me that after Lily was born.”

  I consider her words, my bottom lip tipping out in thought. “I guess I didn’t want to confuse Lily. Do you miss it?”

  She shrugs slightly, letting me grab hold of her hand. Her skin is warm to touch, and I brush a knuckle over the smooth skin of her knuckles.

  “You’ve never told me why you actually call me it anyway. Maybe it’s silly to miss something that you’re not certain of its meaning.”

  I contemplate her words, smiling to myself. Fuck, my sixteen-year-old self was such a sap.

  “I knew I’d marry you the moment I saw you,” I tell her for the millionth time, and she coughs out a quiet laugh. “It took me seven days to work up the courage to even say hello,” I admit and a tender look of shock skates across her features.

  I shrug. “I researched everything I fuckin’ could about Willow trees in that seven days,” I confess, a little embarrassed. I guess I’ve never told her this when we were younger because I didn’t want her to know what a love-struck fool I was. As I got older, it became a game, my own personal little secret.

  Her eyes burn into my profile, and I swallow deeply. “I had this ultimate plan.” I finally look over at her. Her eyes are glistening with unshed tears, completely unblinking as she takes in every word I speak. “I’d impress you so much with my epic knowledge, it’d be impossible for you to refute my advances.” I wink over at her and her low giggle filters through the car.

  “It didn’t exactly go as planned, you have this way of makin’ me lose coherent thought, Willow Mathews.”

  She squeezes my hand. “I remember, you walked up to me, yelled, “CHINA! I’m gonna marry you one day.”

  We share a warm laugh, remembering the awkwardness I radiated the very first moment I worked up the courage to speak to her. I was certain I’d blown it, that I’d scared her away for good.

  “You replied…”

  “You gonna buy me a coffee first, Mathews?” She cuts me off, her free hand playing with the wedding band decorating her ring finger. “Still doesn’t explain...”

  “Willow trees originated in China,” I admit quietly. “It was the only thing I really found out through countless hours of research.”

  She goes quiet and my eyes leave the road for a brief second to look at her. Her face is turned away, her hand covering her mouth, eyes closed tightly, her thick eyelashes resting on her cheeks.

  “Hey.” I lift her entwined hands to my lips, kissing her knuckles.

  “You are literally the sweetest human being to exist on planet earth.”

  “I don’t think human beings inhabit any other planet, so you could probably just say the universe.”

  She laughs around her soft cries. “Toby.”

  I smile, but she misses the gesture, her eyes now focused on our linked hands as she pulls them into her lap.

  “You’re not happy, Willow. Baby, you gotta talk to me. You setting up to bail on me? 'Cuz I don’t think I’d survive it.” My voice cracks and a soft stutter crawls up her throat.

  “No. Never. God. I can’t even handle the amount of love I have inside my heart for you. I feel it choking me.”

  “Willow,” I implore, “you gotta tell me what the fuck is goin’ on. I’m struggling here. Every time I try to touch you, I’d swear you’re fuckin’ repulsed by me. Then you shut off and won’t fuckin’ speak to me. I’m swimming in the depths of hell, my best friend is hurtin’ and I don’t know how to make her feel better.”

  Rolling her lips between her teeth, she closes her eyes, her body shaking in time with her hiccupped breathing. “It’s silly. You’ll think I’m stupid.”

  My head jerks back as though I’ve been struck. “When the fuck have I ever made you feel stupid for expressing yourself? That’s not what we’re about. That’s not how we play things in our marriage. Honesty. Communication.”

  Fiddling with the air conditioner, she reaches up to switch off the radio. Clearing her throat, she looks at me, then back at her hands.

  “I feel undesirable. Ever since I had Lily, my body, I just, ugh…”

  Tipping her head back, she growls at the ceiling of the car. “My body’s changed, Toby. And not for the better.”

  “Says fuckin’ who?” I snap.

  She sighs loudly. “Let me finish, you said you wanted honesty. I’m giving you that,” she argues and I shut my mouth, biting my bottom lip to stop any words from tumbling out.

  “You can’t deny my body is different,” she rephrases her statement, and I lift an eyebrow in her direction, requesting permission to speak.

  Rolling her eyes, she lifts a palm in a less than enthusiastic show of encouragement.

  “Of course it’s fuckin’ different. You carried our baby. You can’t expect your figure to bounce back to its sixteen-year-old self.”

  “See,” she lifts her hands, pointing at me in an accusatory fashion, “you just admitted it, you don’t find me as attractive as you did when we were younger.”

  My eyes widen in shock. “Don’t you dare do that. Put words in my mouth. No. You are not fucking allowed to do that.”

  Shaking my head, I struggle for words. I’m caught between my need to shake her, to make her see sense and to pull over and hug her to my body, reassure her that she’s the most beautiful person in the world to me. Inside and fucking out.

  “You just said...”

  “Again, I didn’t say that. Frankly, I’m fuckin’ hurt that you think my love for you is based on your fuckin’ appearance.” My voice cracks as I speak and I inhale heavily through my nose, working to calm the emotion pulsing thickly through my veins. “None of us look like we did when we were sixteen, Willow. Jesus. I’ve got more greys than Gorgeous George and far more wrinkles than I care for, creasin’ around my eyes.”

  “I think you’re more handsome today than you were at sixteen,” she admits quietly.

  “I feel the same about you,” I implore, my voice rising, working to make her listen. “You’re fireworks, Willow. You light me up. My breath catches every time I look at you. My heart beats in my chest just as fast as the first time I laid eyes on you, every time I look at you. I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you and I fall that little bit harder every morning when I see your face. I love you as deeply as I’ve always done, more, and I lust after you in t
he same way.” The fight in my words isn’t lost in the quiet way I speak them. If anything, the soft tone of my voice adds to the conviction.

  “How though?” She wants to believe me, I can hear it in her voice. She’s never doubted my love for her. Not in eighteen years, so she knows I’m being truthful, but still, she fights it. “God. My tits are nowhere near as perky as they used to be. I’ve got stretchmarks up my ass and fucked if I can get rid of the little pouch from my stomach.”

  I’m so annoyed that we’re having this conversation here, in the car, on the way to Adam and Will’s wedding. Fuck. I’ve been trying to get her to open up for months and she chooses now. Giving me only ten, maybe fifteen minutes to allay her fears, every doubt that’s poisoning her mind.

  “Willz. Baby. The love I have for you, the all-consuming obsession I have for you, has nothin’ to do with what you look like. You’re my best friend. The love I feel for you is all about what we share. You’re the person I feel most connected to in this world. You make me feel worthy. You brighten my day without doin’ a single fucking thing, just knowin’ you’re there, it makes me the happiest asshole on the planet. You keep me calm in the same way you make me crazy. You keep me focused in the same way you sidetrack my every thought. You make me smile and laugh like no one else. You look at me with love in your eyes and I feel that no matter what happens in life, I got this right. I found the person I was supposed to love forever, and I’m lucky enough that I found her at sixteen so I get all the fucking time in the world to love her the way I want to. Hard. Wild.”

  She’s crying, salty tears dropping down her cheeks as I speak. But I need her to hear me, so I keep going.

  “As for the other stuff, China, to me, you’re the sexiest thing in the universe. Jesus. I look at you and my dick gets hard. You see stretchmarks, I see the way your body made certain our baby girl was healthy, growing safe and warm inside of you. You see softness around your stomach? Fuck, Willow, I ain’t ever noticed that. Trust me, I’m too busy letting myself get lost in your tits, your ass, your sweet pussy. And your TITS,” I growl, long and rough. “Your tits are just as pretty, just as delicious, full and as fucking juicy as they were when we first met.”

  “To me, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” I add softly. “Inside and out. Even if you don’t believe me, I’ll spend the rest of my life happily proving you wrong.”

  She stares at my profile, and I break my gaze from the road to meet her eyes briefly, trying to convey the sincerity in my words.

  “Sometimes I think I don’t deserve you,” she whispers.

  “I hate that. When people say one person is more deserving in a relationship than the other. Wanna know why we deserve each other?” I glance at her again, making certain she’s listening. Her eyes are still glued to my face, so I continue, “Because we make each other happy. That’s all that fucking matters. I deserve you and you deserve me because it’s the only place either of us wanna be in the world, together.”

  The click of her seatbelt resonates through the car as we pull into the underground parking lot of the hotel. Sliding across the bench seat, she straddles my lap, her face burying into my neck as I slowly, and with great difficulty, pull into the first available parking spot.

  She’s crying; the soft sobs and stuttered movements of her body giving her away and I rub her back gently as she let’s go of all the negative shit that’s been clouding her mind.

  Sitting upright, her glassy grey eyes meet mine and my hands move up to wipe away the smudge of mascara from under her eye. “Sometimes I think I wanted you so bad that I dreamt you up. That you’re not real. How could you be? How did I find someone so fucking perfect to be mine?”

  Unfastening my seatbelt, I let it retract before leaning forward to grab her face. “Think the same thing every fucking day, China. I love you, Angel-Tits.”

  Her muted cries morph into a bark of laughter, and my heart warms knowing I put that smile on her face. Her grey eyes twinkle and I pull her face down to mine, needing my lips on hers.

  Our kiss starts off slow, our lips touching in a soft caress as we pull away and draw back in. Drawing closer to my body, she presses her entire front against mine and I groan heavily into her mouth, deepening our kiss with a tilt of my head. She meets my eagerness head-on and I know I’ve broken through the reservations in her mind. Maybe not completely, but enough to let her get lost in our intimacy the way we once did. The rest will come with time. With persistence. With me reminding her that she’s the most beautiful fucking creature ever created.

  Not wanting to push her further than she wants to go, my palms skate up her thighs, pushing the material of her dress up tentatively. Her skin is as silky as the material covering her body; smooth like satin. Edging my hips up ever-so-slightly, I work to feel myself against the warm apex of her thighs. She bites her lip on a moan, her hips rolling to find the pressure she craves.

  “God. I need you, Willow. So fucking bad.” I break our kiss to taste her neck, to bite down on the delicate skin of her collarbone.

  Her head tips back, the bite of my teeth giving her the pleasured pain she longs for. “Yessss.”

  I yank at her dress, pulling her bra down in the same movement to expose the heaviness of her perfect boobs. Heaven on earth; lost in Willow’s tits. They’re full, round and heavy in my hands. Perfect pink, pierced nipples, always hard, begging to be licked, sucked, bitten. Fucking paradise.

  Her hand fists in my hair, pulling my face from her chest to kiss my lips again. This time it’s desperate. Feral. Her teeth bite into my bottom lip. I suck on her tongue. We’re fighting to get closer. The intensity of our volcanic need heightening with every second that passes. Life has forced a disconnect and our bodies are moving to rid the uncertainty through our fired passion.

  Hands on her upper thighs, I skate my thumbs up the center of her panties, letting myself feel how bad she wants this, wants me. I growl. Loudly. Her dampness soaking through the material. Slipping a thumb under the delicate line of lace, I don’t hesitate in gliding it along the velvet feel of her cunt.

  “Fuck, she’s pretty, Willow. To touch. To feel. So pretty.”

  Willow’s groan works its way down the entire length of my body, causing my cock to twitch on an upward roll of her hips and our simultaneous moans fill the sex drenched cabin of the car.

  “I need more.” She pushes her body forward on my thumb, searching for more pressure against her swollen clit. Her hand moves to my pants, pulling at my belt and I continue my torturously slow assault on the tightly coiled nub throbbing against my thumb.

  Fuck. I’ve missed touching her like this. Unrestrained. No fucking chains. Her body craving my touch as much as I am hers.

  Sliding more of my hand into her panties, I pinch her clit. The sweet bite forces her hands to drop away from my pants, flying up to massage her nipples with a needy whimper.

  “Toby. Baby. Help me.”

  Licking along her neck, a wicked grin breaks onto my face and I feel like a fucking King.

  “Tell me what you need,” I demand quietly against the delicate skin of her neck, two long fingers entering her tight, wet heat without warning.

  “Cock,” she chokes out, riding my fingers like a woman possessed, searching for her peak. “Let me come on your cock. Please.”

  My fingers leave her body instantly, slick from her juices and letting myself taste her, I suck them clean with a growl. Unfastening my pants without another second of hesitation, I free my straining dick in record time. “Since you asked so nicely,” I smile, lining my angry head to the greedy opening of her drenched channel.

  She falls down on it in haste, needing my thick line to stretch her. I hit the back of her pussy on a shout, the veins in my neck protruding with the strain forced by my broken roar.

  Her mouth falls open, a tortured moan harsh in its escape, her body pausing, back arched as she lets herself feel me invading her body.

  Finally, after what feels like an eternity
, she rolls her hips gently, once, twice, her cunt throbbing with every graze of her clit against my pelvis.

  She echoes the rough growl of her name from my throat with a breathy moan of mine from hers.

  Letting her set the pace, she fucks me slowly, straddling my waist in unhurried waves. Pretty grey eyes latch onto mine and our gaze communicates what we can’t vocalize while her body loves mine.

  The apologies.

  The regret.

  The need and connection.

  The love.

  I pinch at the piercing in her left nipple, a sharp snarl of pleasure bursting from my lips on the falter of her movements, the jerk of her hips contracting around my cock in delicious torment. I repeat the action with the right nipple, smiling wide when she falters again on a long, satisfied moan.

  “So close,” she breathes out, her body moving faster to bring her to her peak.

  Holding her hips, I yank her forward, pushing her as deep onto my cock as I can force her. She hisses out in shocked gratification, her pussy walls clamping down, suffocating my dick. She’s so wet I can feel her dripping all over my balls and I’m so fucking turned on, I am ready to blow.

  “Willow,” I groan, long and hard, squeezing the soft flesh of her hips.

  “To-by,” she begs, for what I’m not sure, but I attempt to give it to her anyway. I thrust up with every roll of her hips and she whimpers right before she screams to high hell, forcing the front of her body against mine. I startle at the sound, afraid I’ve hurt her,

  “Hey,” I breathe out, my breath strained with unreleased need. A loud bang echoes at the side of my head as I speak, causing my body to jump involuntarily. Willow and I groan simultaneously, strung out with the need to come.

  Turning, I bring Archer’s cold green eyes into focus and my only coherent thought is kill. Kill. That motherfucker.

  Fuck. Off. I mouth, promising bloody murder with the fury in my stare. So close. She was so close. I was so close.