by Amy Faye
He tightened his fist and loosened it again. There was still a little spark in the back of his mind, an ember that refused to burn all the way out.
That alone was a testament to how angry he'd been. Absolutely seeing red. And now, he was on Rob Greer's bad side, and that meant that anyone who was in close with the Greer clan was going to be in the exact same boat.
The mistake he'd made in hiring Sarah was obvious, but only in hindsight. He should have vetted her better, should have put some serious thought into what he was doing. The same way that he had put that thought into every other step of the operation. But he hadn't.
He reacted on emotion with her, the same way that he'd reacted when he saw Cole Greer upsetting her. Emotion had never gotten him into anything but trouble. It got in the way of making smart, conscious decisions. He let out a long breath, closed his eyes, and opened them again.
"That's the problem, isn't it?" He said, to the empty room. It was dark in there. No computer open to illuminate the room. The desk lamp turned off. The only lights were the natural ones, flooding in through the windows behind him. "Emotions. Tying me up in knots."
He would have rather had none at all, if only because it would be easier. But that wasn't an option, and he knew it wasn't. For better or worse, he was fond of Sarah. He was fond of the girls. Protective, even. It might not have been love, but it was enough to put strings on him.
He let out a long breath and closed his eyes. He wasn't going to get rid of her. He could, probably, if he had to. A verbal agreement not to dump her wasn't the same thing as finding some legal hook to hang his hat on. He could find some proof that she'd done something that gave him the right to divorce.
Even if he had to completely trump up the proof, it didn't much matter. It could be done, the right people could be paid. The way that he went through the whole thing, to prove to himself that it could be done, was a little bit chilling and more than a little bit upsetting. It didn't change that he did it all the same, though.
Plant a few photos on her phone, maybe, that suggested she'd been having an illicit relationship with someone. It wouldn't be that hard. If anything, it was all too easy.
And yet, no matter how easy it would be, he wasn't going to do it. He should cut ties, because having a wife he didn't care at all about, one that helped him make rational choices rather than putting emotional strings on him, was what he'd wanted.
What he'd gotten was a woman he was fond of. Protective of. A woman with two little girls, who he was equally fond of. At least, as fond as someone can be of a pair of giggling, gurgling little babies small enough that with careful planning, he could carry them both on one arm.
He smiled, and then hated himself for smiling. Those two were the linchpin of the whole affair. He couldn't refuse them, no matter how much he might have wanted to. He couldn't imagine how Cole Greer had walked away from them.
The ember of anger stoked itself back to a low burn and he tried to manage it again back down to nothing at all if he could. Tight and relax. Count down. But it stayed there, even as he started to feel a little bit less panicked about the whole thing. A feeling of weight in the back of his mind. The sure knowledge that if he ran into Cole again, and the boy was anything less than absolutely contrite, he wasn't going to let him off as easy as a little hard words to his father.
He was going to let him know exactly how sore Dan and his new wife were about the father of her children being such a worthless piece of garbage. If he managed to get away without being put in the hospital, Dan wasn't sure how it was going to be done.
Oh, it would be a mistake. He knew that. The smart decision was to be political, to extend the olive branch, to let Robert deal with it if there was something that he couldn't abide.
The trouble was that he didn't care if it was a mistake, because he'd already decided that he was going to make it. And the worst part was, no matter how bad the decision was, he didn't feel a bit bad about it.
19
Sarah Bryant's eyes closed, but she wasn't going to sleep. She still couldn't, in spite of her best efforts. It wasn't late yet, but the girls still weren't sleeping through the night. Tonight, they were hungry at three in the morning, and so she was feeding them at three in the morning, in spite of the fact that she'd been out late and wanted nothing more than to sleep.
There was a noise from the other side of the house. She thought it was the door opening and closing. Dan, maybe. Sarah thought, for a moment, about going to meet him. Then she thought better of it. She was tired. If he had a lick of sense in his head, he would come to bed. She could see him then. There was no reason to rush off to make sure that she saw him the exact moment that he walked through the door.
True to her expectations, after a minute, feet fell on the steps, up, up, up. They came down the hall, slow and soft. Not soft enough to avoid her hearing, though. The bedroom door opened and a slit of light flooded into the room and lit up the whole thing. For eyes adjusted to seeing in the dark of the bedroom, the lights looked blinding.
"Oh, you're up," Dan said. He looked bleary-eyed and tired. He wasn't wearing a tie, and his jacket was folded over one arm. If he'd fallen into bed just like that, it wouldn't have been a complete surprise for anyone.
"The girls decided that they wanted me up to kiss you goodnight before you slept," she said with a tired smile.
"They should let their mama sleep," he said. She thought she detected a hint of amusement in his tone, but if it was there, then he'd hidden it well.
"They should, but they don't always listen to good advice, no matter who it comes from."
He let out a long sigh and slipped onto the bed, bending down to take his shoes off, and undressed beside her.
"How was work?"
"It was fine, I guess. Same as always."
"Yeah?" When he'd gone out, it had made perfect sense. It was the same thing he did three or four nights a week. Probably, he'd done it more than that before she came along, so it wasn't the least bit sinister.
But he'd been angry before he left, and that painted things in a strange light, in spite of the fact that she did, in fact, know better.
"Could've probably done it in the morning," he confessed as he slipped under the covers. He put a hand on her thigh that Sarah knew wasn't intended to mean anything. So she ignored the little flare of arousal that shot up as he did it, because she was too tired, and he was probably too tired.
A voice in her head answered for her, in spite of her better knowledge. If it could have been done in the morning, then why not do it in the morning? Why leave your wife alone all night? She had better sense than to ask it.
"But you got good work done anyways, right?"
"I guess so," he said. He lay back in bed. "What have you been up to?"
"Well, I was sleeping," she said. It was true. She'd been asleep. There was a lot strange about the house; it was big. Too big, uncomfortably big. But it was cold enough for her to sleep, and the bed was comfortable.
"And then the girls woke you?"
"And then the girls woke me," she confirmed. "And then my husband came home."
"Just pretend I'm not even here," he said. "I'll leave you be."
"If you want me to do something, I mean... they're still gonna be a little while, but I'm not exactly telling you no, either."
He thought about it for a while. Part of her hoped that he decided that there was something that she could take care of for him. It still felt inappropriate as all hell, openly wanting sex. She reminded herself again that there wasn't anything wrong with it.
They were married, and marriages were essentially for the sole purpose of creating children. The fact that she happened to enjoy the path along the way was a pure coincidence.
He ran his hand up her thigh, and then back down. Gentle. Thoughtful. He was considering it. She willed him to choose the right way, to make sure that he knew exactly which way she wanted to go. That was, at least, if he could read minds.
"Do you want to
talk about what happened earlier?"
His hand stopped tracing the line on her thigh, and then a moment later he pulled away and laid back, his hands lacing behind his head.
"I was just thinking," he said.
"What about?"
"I was thinking about how good you are to me," he said. She heard the lie in his voice. There was something else there, and then she decided not to pursue it.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," he said. It might have been a lie, but she liked believing it.
"You seemed pretty upset for a minute there."
There was a long silence. Long. His hand found her thigh again and started to trace up and down it again, in the same long, slow strokes that he'd been using, from her knee to the crease of her hip and back down again.
"I was," he finally said.
"Not with me, though."
"Not with you," he said. She wished she could believe it, so she decided to, and then she did. It was surprisingly easy, all told. Maybe it should have been harder. Maybe she should have looked at it more deeply. Maybe if she'd looked at Cole more deeply, she wouldn't be in the situation that she was in right now.
At the same time, for a while, she'd dared to think that she was happy with him. Dared to think that he was happy with her. And she wasn't ready to find out that there was something to look for with Dan. He was good to her, and if she wanted to be happy, for as long as she could manage at least, she needed to ignore things. The alternative wasn't going to help her, and she was essentially at her husband's mercy for better or worse.
"Well, I'm sorry if I did something wrong."
His hand stopped again, an inch above her knee, and she could feel him working his hand in a circle under the blanket, keeping the tip exactly where it was while he circled at the wrist.
"I know you are," he said. "But you didn't do anything wrong."
"Okay." Chelsea wasn't the fussy one, usually, but apparently today she was the hungry one. Allison relaxed and stopped drinking, slipping into drowsiness that would turn to sleep in a moment. "Can you take Allison to lie down?"
"Yeah." Dan took the girl from her arms and left Sarah with her breast bared to cross the room. Some of her milk still dribbled out, the last remnants, and she closed her eyes in exasperation. Then she hefted Chelsea in her arms again and rocked her gently as Dan slipped back into bed.
"You should go to sleep," she told him. "No reason we both have to stay up."
He looked up at her from where his head lay in her lap, leaned his head down to press a kiss into the flesh of her thigh, and looked back up again.
"No?"
"No. This little girl will be done in a few minutes and then we can both get back to sleep."
"Are you sure? There's no reason at all?"
He pressed another kiss against her leg and she smiled down at him.
"Oh."
"I can think of one," he said, unnecessarily. "Unless you're too tired?"
"I'm never too tired for that," she said. It was a lie. There were plenty of times that she was too tired for it. But it was at least true that right now, her motor was starting to get started, and she would have very little trouble finding the energy for another lovemaking session.
Dan pushed himself up from her lap and kissed the underside of her breast. Then he kissed a little higher, and a little higher than that. She considered pushing him away. After thirty minutes of feeding, they hurt. But he continued his line of kisses past her nipple, up her chest. Sarah could feel her breath starting to speed up.
"Not yet," she told him. "Another few minutes."
"Or now," he offered.
She swatted at him playfully. "Not yet," she repeated. "Give Chelsea a few more minutes."
His fingers traced a line up between her thighs, and as they passed over her entrance, she gasped. "A few more minutes?"
"Well, I mean, if you're insistent," she said. Then he pulled away from her and left Sarah wanting more.
"A few more minutes," he confirmed. "Just to let Chelsea finish up."
20
The waiting was tense, but Dan waited nonetheless. When Sarah finally decided that Chelsea had drank her fill, there was a moment of awkward shuffling, a moment that Dan imagined would end with resuming where he'd left off. He laid back, only able to make out general shapes in the darkness, one hand behind his head.
His cock was already starting to join the party, which hadn't happened for years before he'd gotten married. Somewhere during the marriage, it had apparently decided to get with the program after all, and now it was almost a Pavlovian response; getting into bed with Sarah? Doesn't matter that she's asleep, time to start getting hard.
The dark shape that he'd watched get out of bed, and now was watching lean over the crib on the far side of the bed, moved suddenly. Quickly. And apparently, that shape was quite light on her feet. She landed halfway onto his lap in that one leap, materializing from a vague lump of blackness in the dark into the form of his wife.
She looked at him with her eyes wide and climbed up onto his lap, already digging her womanhood against him, through the fabric of the boxers he wore to bed.
"Did you miss me?"
He pulled her down into a kiss that would leave a bruise and bucked his hips up against her. "You know I did, baby."
"I know exactly what you need, though," she offered. Her hips moved to meet his as he continued the rhythm, her breath starting to speed up as their humping started to become more and more serious.
He let her set the pace, then. She slipped down and pulled the elastic down, freeing up his cock, and took it in her mouth. Part of him thought that she enjoyed sucking him, just a bit. That part of him shut up as he felt her engulf his cock with her warm, wet mouth and swirl her tongue.
She was working hard from the very beginning, then. He worked his fingers into her hair, not to guide her but because he couldn't have stopped himself from trying to force her head if he wanted to. He knew better than to even make the attempt now. She would do what she wanted, and part of what she wanted was to make him lose control.
His breath quickened. He had to stay quiet, of course. He had to force himself not to make too much noise. The girls had just gone back down to sleep, and if he or Sarah wanted a bit of sleep tonight, then he had to make sure that they stayed that way. She wasn't exactly committed to making that easy for him, particularly as she went deeper still, and nestled her nose into his wiry pubic hair.
"God damn," he sighed. "That's too much."
She pulled off and sucked in air hard; her hand, though, didn't stop working his shaft, drawing him closer and closer to orgasm.
"You like that, don't you?"
"Come up here and I'll show you exactly how much I liked it."
She crawled up his body until her hips pressed down on his hardness. He pushed her panties aside with one hand and found her already moist, ready for him. There was a time for foreplay. He enjoyed it, and he knew that she enjoyed it too. Hell, she enjoyed the part that he was supposed to be enjoying.
But that time wasn't three thirty in the morning.
"Ready?"
"You know I am, Daddy," she said. He bit into her throat hard and pushed up and into her. When her weight settled down onto his cock he started to move, and she moved with him. His hips pushed down and back, away from her, and she moved back as well, until there wasn't much of him left inside, and then they both moved, almost exactly in sync.
He could feel himself starting to lose that control that he'd had, starting to lose his ability to keep absolutely, perfectly silent. He bit down harder, on the other side, to muffle a groan.
It didn't hurt him any more to fuck her this deep. That, at least, was a blessing. It was a delicious pain, one that he enjoyed more than he let it bother him, but it was painful nonetheless. And the fact that she was still so tight he could barely see straight...
"How you doing, babe?"
"Fuck me harder," she said. She punctuated each word with another roll
forward of her hips, sharp and hard and rough.
"You want it harder?"
"Give it to me, Daddy," she purred again.
He shifted his weight, and she tipped over easily. There was no way she could have stopped him if she wanted to, not with the size difference between them. But she helped him, kept him inside as they turned and rolled her onto her back.
"You sure?"
"Shut up and fuck me, old man," she told him. Her voice was hard and maybe just a little bit mean, for an instant, not that he minded.
"Your wish is my command." He hooked one arm under her knee and pulled it up, and then the other, until her ankles were sitting on his shoulders and her ass was pulled tight from the stretch. His hands found the crease of her hips, like natural handles, and then he started to move.
Before, things had moved quickly enough that he was more than just enjoying himself a little bit. He was enjoying himself a hell of a lot, in fact. But in some ways it was gentle, too. Having their whole bodies pressed together, from top to bottom, made it hard to really get rough.
He didn't have that problem, now. His hips moved hard and fast, taking whatever he could get, whatever he wanted. Taking her. He could feel her start to lose whatever self-control she might have had, however tenuous. It slipped and she started to let her voice out with every thrust, her hands grabbing at his arms and wrists, grabbing at the bed sheets, grabbing at whatever she could reach.
He didn't let up. His body started to hurt from the tenseness, but he was so close. He could almost taste the orgasm, and he needed it more than he needed not to hurt. He needed it so bad he couldn't think straight, and the harder he fucked her, the louder her voice got, so he knew that she wasn't going to be voicing any complaints either.
Then he abandoned rhythm altogether in favor of pulling her hips to his as hard as he could, as fast as he could. If he wasn't moving, then it was because he couldn't move any faster. He was so close. He needed it so bad.