With my mood easing, it occurred to me that unlike every other day, I didn’t need to just hose myself down and then dash out to make lunch for my husband and breakfast for my little dictator. Since I was committed to leaving Abbie alone until she dropped off to sleep, there was absolutely no reason to hurry.
Then the memory of Bradley’s hand on my hip lit a tiny fuse inside me that even the cascade of water couldn’t douse.
I decided to skip the bar of soap, opting instead for the body gel. Moments like this, nothing should get between my fingers and my skin. Plus the vanilla scent was a temptation I couldn’t refuse.
Just resting my hands against my breasts felt like an indulgence. Treating my body like more than just a changing, feeding, carrying machine—like it was okay to receive as well as give—was absolutely luxurious.
My mind wandered into what felt like the ancient past. Back when Brad and I could spend almost the entire weekend in bed, only crawling out to replenish our fluids. The time he’d spend exploring my body with fingers and tongue.
For a moment I forgot myself and squeezed my nipples, shrieking with pain as Abbie’s handiwork made itself known. Those little teeth of hers were more trouble than I could ever have imagined.
I bit my lip as my fingers dripped southwards, slow as molasses, and warm as regurgitated breast milk.
“Dammit!” I couldn’t even last two minutes before being a mommy interrupted me. I pushed my head back under the stream of hot water, trying to wash out any maternal thoughts so I could focus on sexy ones. God, it’d been so long. I had to mix fantasy with memory. The gush of Bradley’s breath against the back of my neck. His palm on my skin, his teeth in my shoulder. The push of his cock against my ass.
I pressed my clit, sending out a thrill that pulsed through my body like a shockwave. An intense jolt of pleasure that my heart knew was perfect, even as my brain tried to tell me it was wrong. Mommies don’t do this kind of thing. As if I believed my own mother’s crap about childbirth being a miracle, and motherhood being somehow holy. I am Teresa, Goddess of Puke. Like I always told her: people have been making babies a whole lot longer than they’ve been making religions.
If I could only play her game, just drop my own pride for a little while, maybe she’d have more to do with us. Maybe she’d even baby-sit for a couple of hours. But no. Apparently I was a failure as a daughter and a mother.
With a quick switch I turned the water to pulsate, and pounded those worries from my thoughts. There were far better things to get worked up about.
With Bradley’s cock still on my mind, I plunged two fingers inside myself and explored. I’d never been afraid of my own body before, but at that moment, self-love felt more sinful than it ever had.
And I liked it.
As my fingers dipped and swam, it seemed a little like visiting an old friend, only in a new house. So much was still the same, but giving birth had clearly…performed some renovations. I closed my eyes and ground at my clit, trying in vain to suppress my whimpering moans, as though Abbie would somehow hear me. And for just a short time, the pressure gave way to the pleasure.
But the short time was shorter than I’d hoped. The niggling voice of responsibility turned from a whisper to a shout. No matter how wonderful that little selfish luxury felt, I still had so much to do before Bradley came home tonight.
With a few more quick trips around my little nub, I worked myself into a sweet climax that relieved the tension a bit. Okay, so it wasn’t like the earth-shattering ones I got with Bradley, but at least it was something. It reminded me I was a person, with wants and needs of my own.
I shut off the water and listened. Hell. Even over the exhaust fan I could hear she was still screaming. I leaned my head out the bathroom door to check the time. It’d just passed ten o’clock. I hadn’t been even ten minutes in the shower, but to come out and hear Abbie still going made me feel like the biggest heel ever.
I grabbed my towel and pawed at my hair, ready to make a nude wet dash to Abbie’s side, when…she stopped. A gurgle. A giggle. I froze in place. Had someone switched babies on me?
And then something else. Maybe a voice? The fan was loud enough that I couldn’t make it out. Still naked, I sprinted up to her doorway, fingers curled ready to scratch eyes out. And ran straight into the broad, dress-shirt draped back of my husband. A quick glance told me that, once again, all he’d had to do was walk in the room and Abbie was a perfect little pixie again. Damn him. But thank goodness for him as well.
“Bradley? What are you…?”
He turned to face me, his gaze dripping over my body far slower than the water had.
“Hey, Tez. You sounded so strung out on the phone. So I took the rest of the day off.” He pushed my wet hair back from my forehead. “How come you don’t greet me like this every day?”
Those thick fingers caressing my scalp were heaven, and I felt like sinking into his touch. Then the thought of those stretch marks on my Buddha belly, and the cellulite on my ass and thighs, made me whip the towel around myself. Those renovations I’d already known about. Hell, there was no missing them. They were why even on hot days I still wore leggings.
I pushed against his thick chest, dragging my hair from his hands. “Richelle’s not gonna be happy.”
“That’s when she’s happiest.”
“Seriously, though, babe. We can’t afford you to miss work. Or get fired.”
“It’s all cool, Tez. I warned her; if she fires me, I’ll quit.”
“Strong argument.”
He kissed my forehead and the touch of his lips, the smell of his body, made my knees shudder.
“But really, Tez…it’s all cool. No, she’s not happy, but even she could see on my face how important it was for me to go. Despite the fact she thinks parents are idiots for bringing this on themselves.”
“How can someone have such a dislike for kids?”
“She’s barely stopped being one. But it’s okay.” He picked Abbie up, tickling a gorgeous giggle out of her belly as he spun her around. “I’m used to being ordered around by younger women.”
I almost melted as Abbie smacked at Bradley’s cheeks. An enormous grin split her face in two, her teething pain apparently reserved only for her lucky mommy. No matter how jealous their connection made me, I still wouldn’t have it any other way. Though I wouldn’t mind getting a little more of the fun stuff too. Not just the diapers and distress.
Bradley lifted our daughter right up above his head. “So, miss Gabby Abbie…I hear you’re making life tough for your mommy. What can we do about that?”
Abbie squealed and flapped her arms like a chubby flamingo.
“Bradley, don’t rev her up. I’ve been trying to get her down for over an hour.”
“Oh, we don’t want to get her down, maaaaaan…we wanna peace her out.”
“Babe, you’re about four decades late.”
He pulled Abbie back down into a bear hug, then leaned over to me. He curled his strong arm over my shoulder and dragged me around to the other side of our daughter.
“Abbie sandwich!”
I rolled my eyes, but my man could read me so well. In only seconds he’d turned the whole morning around. The silliness of his mood was contagious.
He kissed Abbie on the forehead, then did the same to me. “Mommy, could you please reach into my pocket?”
“Pardon?”
“I have something down there you’ll looo-ooove…”
“Hmph. I’ll be the judge of that.”
I slipped my fingers into the pocket of his pants and felt a little paper bag. Inside it was a tube of teething gel and a six pack of pacifiers.
“And the quart of tequila? That in your other pocket?”
He kissed my cheek and took the items from me. “Go. Sleep. I got this.”
There was a big stubborn streak that told me I shouldn’t go. I should look after this myself. We’d decided—I’d decided, really—that I’d be the stay-at-home parent. Oh, but
the thought of catching up on some sleep was more appealing to me than anything else right now.
“Husband…will you marry me?”
“Any time, wifey.”
I kissed them both and turned to leave, forgetting that I hadn’t wrapped my towel all the way around me.
“Oh, God, Tez. You have a beautiful ass.”
My instinct told me, as always, that I should spin around. To hide my jiggly bits from him. Somehow I managed to resist.
“That’s not mine. I borrowed it from a pink hippo.” For ten years I’d had a great ass. The kind of ass that men crossed against the traffic just to stare at. Pregnancy had left its mark all over me, but that round, tight caboose was the part I missed the most.
So to hear Bradley so honestly praising this dimple-fleshed beast I carried behind me played weird games in my head. I glanced back at him, struggling to remember the last time I’d let him see me naked. I think it was when I was laid up, pushing seven pounds of human out of me. Watching my husband’s eyes as they traced my body, and reading the thoughts he made no effort to hide…it felt as decadent as my shower had.
And the smile he was barely wearing was the sexiest thing I’d seen in ages.
“Sorry, Tez. With you, I can’t help myself. But please, go. You need the sleep.”
I settled on the bed, just as Bradley’s voice came sing-songing through the door.
“By the way…I heard you in the shower.”
“Huh? Oh, that. I was…cleaning it.”
“I bet you were.”
The bed was comfortable and the morning was warm. With the blinds closed, the room had a twilight feel about it. The night had been awful, and my handsome husband was tending our beautiful baby. The house was quiet and the bedroom was toasty. Conditions were perfect for a long and well-deserved sleep.
So it was sweet torture to realize I was horny like I couldn’t believe. Damn Bradley and his hand on my hip. Damn his words of praise. And most of all, damn those beautiful eyes of his, roaming all over me.
My shower interlude had done less than nothing. It was like killing one ant, only to awaken the entire colony. The tickling want in my pussy had only one cure, and, after four months of discomfort, 19 hours of agony, and seven months of parenthood, it was the one that scared me the most.
My husband’s cock. No matter how much I’d missed the feel of him inside me, the way he’d rock his hips against me and pin me to the bed and draw long moans from within me, I’d let fear block me. And fear had become a habit. A habit that needed breaking as soon as possible.
Everything was quiet in the house. Either Bradley had left with Abbie, or he’d done the impossible, and actually gotten her to sleep.
“Babe?” I remembered my sister using that voice. The one you try to project three rooms away without actually making any noise.
He nudged the door open. Abbie was still in his arms, but with a pacifier in her mouth she was finally, blissfully asleep. Or maybe it was the warmth and strong pounding of her daddy’s chest. Hell, I’d long ago lost count of the times I’d fallen asleep listening to Brad’s heartbeat.
“Babe, why don’t you put her down?”
“Aw, I don’t get to hold her like this all that often.”
I drew the covers slowly down and showed him where my hand was. “Oh. okay. Please yourself. And I’ll just have to do the same.”
Bradley moaned as he once again studied my naked body. “Oh, god. I’ll be right back.”
Abbie stirred as he placed her in the crib. She let out a plaintive little moaning cry and I felt my belly tense up. That was it. She was back awake. I knew it.
There was a little bleating, and I could hear Bradley cooing at her, and then…silence. I held my breath as if the sound of it would wake her. Then, there he was. My knight in shining drool. The sexiest thing I’d seen in…forever.
“You did it. I don’t know how, but you actually did it.”
He made short work of his messed-up shirt and started on his belt. “Nah. You made the play. I just scored the touchdown.”
Unable to resist any longer, I rolled up off the bed and threw myself into him. He curled those big arms around me and slipped his hands down to cup my huge ass.
“Oh, god, Tez. I’ve missed this so much.”
With my head resting on his chest, right against his “Abigail” tattoo, his deep voice boomed in my ear. Funny, it wasn’t making me sleepy, though.
I stripped his belt out from his pants and pulled him free of them. His cock felt like a soldier returning from war, hot and hard and oh-so-ready. “Oh, babe…” I slipped free of his arms and fell to my knees. The warmth of the day had given him a sheen of manly sweat that spiced up the taste of his cock.
“Tez…Tez…” Just that. It was like he had no other words. His body trembled as I worked my mouth all over him. I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to stop. This was the most powerful, and capable, I’d felt since Abbie was born. This, I could do.
Brad cupped my head and squeezed my hair, my scalp blooming to life at his touch. It was exquisite the way he knew all my buttons. He wasn’t directing me, or controlling me; he was just holding on and enjoying the ride. His moans were music and I played every inch of him. When I squeezed his fat head against the roof of my mouth I thought his knees might give way.
With all that beautiful upper-body strength of his, he slid my mouth off him and picked me up. He did it so easily, I felt like I was the baby. But the kiss he gave me was decidedly adults-only.
He finally came up for air. “Now, Teresa Ross. It’s ‘you-time’. I’m putting you on the bed, and then I’ll be putting my mouth on you in a very carnal way. You will not argue. You will not stop me. And you will not—repeat not—hide your beautiful body from me.”
“Oh, no, I don’t–”
“Was I not clear?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He draped me across the bed and curled his fingers around my knees, dragging me open, revealing to him all the changes that childbirth had wrought.
“My God, you’re beautiful, Tez.”
“You can’t possibly–”
He silenced me with a look. “Please, Tez. Don’t lump me in with all the men you women say ‘Men!’ about, okay?” He curled his fingertips into my wild bush. “You think because models and porn stars look a certain way, then that’s the only thing men find attractive? That all men want the same thing?”
“No, of course not.” I wasn’t sure if I was lying.
His fingers described wider and wider arcs, flicking across the tender flesh of my lips and making me jump in delight.
“I’m a strong man, Tez, but you make me so weak.”
He traced the jagged lines on my belly, a look of utter reverence on his face. I tried to roll away, or to slip my hand beneath his. To hide from him all the vandalism of pregnancy. He blocked every attempt.
“Babe, how can you look at those?”
Again, it was his eyes and nothing more that stilled my tongue. There was a shining heat in them that would almost have scared me, if not for the sexy smile on his lips.
“How could I not? I could trace every millimeter of these beauties. They’re badges of honor.” He caught my eye and smiled again. “I know, I sound like a dude. I can’t help that.” He drew his fingers down from my navel to my bush. “You carried our baby. How could I not love these marks? I helped make them.”
“But I used to be beautiful.”
“You used to be single. You used to be in grade school. You used to be a lot of things.” He held up his hand, showing the tiny moon-sliver scars my nails had marked him with as Abbie came out of me. “And now, you’re a mother. And Teresa…you are more beautiful to me than you’ve ever been.”
I could barely speak. “And you to me.”
He kissed the softness at the inside of my knee. “And this–” He pointed at me and back at himself. “This works. Because you do what I can’t. And I do…what you can’t.”
He closed his eye
s and ran his tongue up the length of my thigh, stopping only when he had my pussy in his mouth.
And he was right. Oh, fuck, was he right. He always did what I couldn’t. His tongue was magical in a way that my fingers had never been. Quakes of pleasure erupted from the heart of my clit and pulsed through my body. It felt as if my limbs were stretching, though they were barely moving.
Brad’s low-level moans buzzed against my pussy. He dug his fingers into my belly, really sinking them into the flesh that hadn’t yet returned to pre-motherhood tautness, and maybe never would. I grabbed at his hand and pulled it away, still embarrassed at the rippled texture and the oceanic waves despite his praise.
Without missing a beat, he replaced his hand with his mouth, planting deep, open kisses all over the breadth of my stretch-marked stomach.
“Babe, what…?”
He said nothing, just slipped a couple of fingers inside me while he made love to my skin. With his thumb on my clit I lost the power of speech. And in truth, the adoration he clearly felt for my big belly worked a magic on me that no words had.
I felt his mouth inching higher, traipsing wide paths over my skin. He massaged my breasts with slow kisses while his hands became acquainted with all parts of the new me. He kissed around my nipples with a tenderness that bordered on reverence.
“Oh boy, Tez. Our little girl’s been working you hard, huh?”
“She could be a butcher, the way she tenderizes me. Please be gentle. Oh, and watch out for letdown.”
He brushed his lips across each nipple, just the barest hint of a kiss. “Aw, I’m not gonna steal from Abbie. I’d have to share my beer with her to make it fair.”
“Turkey.”
He silenced me with a deep kiss that curled my toes. I devoured him, every part of him, from the remnants of his aftershave to the scratching of his already-there stubble. From the weight of his body on me to the lightness of his touch inside me.
He pulled back and just looked at me for a moment. There were tears in my eyes, and I was surprised to see them in his, too. I slipped my hand against his neck. “I’m sorry, babe.”
I Love It: 10 Intense Stories to Keep the Passion Alive (Shameless Book Bundles 6) Page 39