by Cara North
***
Frankie was still a bit woozy from the anesthesia. She was also trying to process how this had happened to her. She reached for her phone on the seat between them. He grabbed it and moved it to the dashboard on his side of the car. They had not spoken since the discharge directions where they both agreed they understood everything.
The silence was deafening. Her ears rang with unsaid words. Unexpressed agony from a loss of something she didn’t even know she had, or wanted right now. In a deep dark place, some part of her felt like a failure.
Frankie had to practically force her mother to let Jonas take her home with him. She was relieved when her father arrived. Jonas was not backing down about it, and neither was her mom. The honeymoon of that relationship was officially over. She understood why her mom wanted to be with her. Ever since Frankie started working for him, her mother had been worried. Then the relationship, the moving in before marriage, the press, the stress…yeah, her mom was at capacity for tolerating the situation. Her father, on the other hand, somehow knew Jonas was the one for her. He consoled them both equally, brought calm to the situation, and then tugged her mom out of the room with a ‘one day you will understand’ look on his face.
Once they entered the house, she was faced with his mother. Mrs. Gunner did not fuss, she did not show sorrow, she smiled at them and began getting the soup she prepared into bowls. She said in her friendly way, “Jonas, dear, take her to the recliner and then fetch her some comfy pajamas to change into.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. Frankie was tired. The recliner was a lot closer than the bedroom. Not to mention the fact she wasn’t sure if he wanted to sleep in the same bed with her. He was being weird, or maybe the meds had made her feel weird. At any rate, she found the seat more comfortable than any other in the world once she sat in it. Jonas looked her over with a frown on his face, “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded.
Mrs. Gunner was there a moment later. “Here, dear. Have some soup. It will make you feel better. It’s very light. My mother made it for me when I was sick, sad, or in need of comfort. She made it for me when I had my miscarriage.”
Frankie looked up at her and accepted the soup.
“Yes,” she smiled. “Between Jed and Janice, Jed was too young to remember, so we just made those pictures disappear. I was four months. They usually happen before three and most women don’t know it happens if they don’t know they are pregnant to start off with. I think its best you know. I think it matters no matter how far along. It certainly doesn’t make the pain any less easy to bear.”
Frankie tilted the cup to her mouth and tasted the soup. It was good. It was comforting. It promised everything would be okay. This too shall pass.
Jonas returned with her favorite pair of pajamas and some slippers. He studied her from the doorway. She focused on the soup.
“I made you a bowl. It’s in the kitchen. Leave those here for her, dear and come with me a moment.” Mrs. Gunner patted Frankie on the leg and then went to her youngest child, her son, her baby. She looked up at him and nodded, “Go on.”
Jonas put the pajamas on the arm of the chair and the slippers next to it. He still looked at her in that melancholy expression she couldn’t really read. Unsure what to say she squeaked out, “Thank you.”
His jaw ticked. She frowned. He left for the kitchen and his mother. Frankie waited a moment, her fingers touched the soft material of the pajamas. Then she heard it. It sounded like a man’s sob. A woman crying. Then…
Frankie found him holding on to his mother and sobbing as she did her best to rock him side to side and tell him it was going to be okay through her own tears.
Everything inside of her suddenly processed the details of what had happened. His mom saw her and let go of his back long enough to motion for her to come towards them. Frankie began to feel with each step. She had shut it down the moment the doctor spoke the words. Her heart was sealed up and protected again. No hurt allowed inside. This, she could not hold off anymore. Each sound of his grief, raw, unrestrained, drew her deeper into the room until her hand touched his back and everything flooded through her then out of her. She knew Mrs. Gunner wasn’t exactly a large woman, but she made room for her somehow and eventually she cried and hugged, and then with one easy move, she shifted Jonas from her arms to Frankie’s and stepped back.
“Call me if you need me, sweet boy.” Mrs. Gunner placed a kiss on Jonas’s forehead and then Frankie’s. “Take care of each other.”
Then she was gone.
They remained like that for what felt like an eternity. Until her back ached, until she needed to sit down. “Jonas.”
He had stopped crying. So had she. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She sniffed.
“Not…knowing what to do…I…”
She stroked his check, pushed her hand into his hair. “I’m sorry for not knowing I was…”
“No, it…that method obviously doesn’t work for us. We…I don’t care if you don’t want to…later, we can talk about it later. Let’s get you in some more comfortable clothes and into bed. I’ll call and tell them I can’t be there…”
“No,” she said louder than she intended. “I’m fine. The doctor said I should rest, but I am fine. I can rest here, alone. You have to go to work. You have to or everyone will want to know why and everyone will ask and…wait, how did you know I was in the hospital?”
“Let’s just take one thing at a time,” he said as he pulled her in close to him. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Fourteen
Four weeks later…
Frankie rarely visited him on set. She didn’t know why she was stopping by unannounced. She just couldn’t help herself. Both her mother and Jonas had told her about Shay. Frankie learned that her mother had never stopped talking to Shay. After getting past that betrayal, though Frankie knew her mother never really betrayed her because this was something they had been through before, she couldn’t stop thinking about her. Their fights in the past were never this severe, never as adults, but Frankie and Shay always ended up friends again after a falling out. Jonas made no attempt to defend Shay or put his two cents into the arena.
Her mom was not so silent. She reminded Frankie of all the good things after Frankie told her about all the bad things. From her mother’s point of view, Shay had always been on a downward spiral of self-loathing disguised as self-love but it was all actually just self-preservation. Shay’s parents were not really role models. They prized her beauty, they were hard on her when she lost roles, didn’t make money right away as a model or actress, and to Frankie’s surprise had spent Shay’s college fund on a trip to Hawaii they never returned from. It meant leaving her with no choice but to drop out and, well, Frankie knew the rest of that story.
“Hey,” Jonas called and waved to her. He was surprised, but pleasantly. They hadn’t really been touching each other in the weeks after the miscarriage. Her doctor had given her the all clear and Frankie opted not to use another form of birth control. She could no longer trust medical science with her hormones. He pulled her into a gentle hug and kissed her cheek. “This is a nice surprise.”
Frankie smiled up at him. He handled her with kid gloves as if he touched her too hard she would break. It was beginning to get annoying, but she understood he needed time to process everything too. “You look hot.”
“Yeah, it’s like a million degrees in that thing,” he said as he pointed over to the set.
“I meant…never mind.” She looped her arm in his and said, “Talk to me like Sir Hamilton would.”
Later…
“I’ll see you tonight,” he leaned in and Frankie took advantage of the moment and caught his lips for a kiss. He brought his arms around her, slowly, gently, but he revealed just how much he had missed her with his lips and tongue. She let him go and took a step back. He looked stunned. He cleared his throat and said, “I miss you.”
�
��I miss you, too.”
She knew they were not talking about the lack of time they spent together during the course of a day. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to discuss a few things and to get back to normal.
Jonas looked past her shoulder. He pulled his arm up and grabbed the back of his own neck. “Uhh…yeah. I’m going to get back to work. My break is over.”
Frankie turned to see what he was looking at. Her gut did a flip flop in that anxious way it does before something was about to happen. Shay was standing across the street in front of a building. Frankie looked to Jonas and smiled, “I’ll see you tonight.”
“If you need me…”
“I’m fine.”
She watched him start walking towards his entrance and she turned to see Shay walking down the street in the opposite direction.
Frankie crossed the street and stood there. She watched her walk away. Shay topped, turned, stood there for a long moment then waved a timid wave. Frankie held up her hand and waved back. Her belly relaxed. It wasn’t a perfect reunion. Things had changed. A lot of things had changed. Yet, it was a start. Shay slowly turned away and walked on.
***
“Ivy!” Frankie was so glad to see someone who she could just talk to it was unreal. After another two weeks of Jonas just kissing her, and Shay just waving, Frankie was about to go nuts! “Hey. How’s it going?”
“Do you really want to know?” Ivy asked with a hopeful expression.
“Yes!” Frankie wanted to know. She wanted to get lost in someone else’s problems for a while to avoid thinking of her own.
“I think I am having an identity crisis,” Ivy started walking and Frankie followed. “Do you have plans this afternoon?”
Frankie thought about it. She could go visit the two people making her the most crazy as planned, or she could text Jonas, and let Shay figure it out on her own that she was not coming to the set today. “No. I do not.”
***
One month later…
He was home. She was sure he was home. She made her way through the house, into the bedroom where his clothes were strewn across the floor. Nothing in her inner alert system was going off, but her brain was processing the noise coming from the bathroom. She didn’t see anyone else’s clothes on the floor. She got to the bathroom and heard another “fuck” escape his lips.
She was jealous. Jealous and angry that he was in there alone. “Jonas.”
He groaned at the sound of his name.
“Jonas,” she said it louder and stepped to the shower door. Another soft moan had her insides liquid despite her resolve to be mad at him for this. She pulled the door open and said, “Jonas!”
He came. Instantly, jerking his hips forward as his hand milked his cock instinctively. He was flushed from the exertion. He breathed heavily, looked at her longingly and said, “I thought I was imagining you calling my name.”
Frankie crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “What about me?”
“You?” He arched a brow. “I’ve been waiting for you to make some move to let me know…I don’t want to hurt…”
“Are you kidding me?” she practically shouted at him. He leaned back as though she had reached forward to smack him.
“Kidding you? Frankie I have been spanking it on the regular for weeks waiting for you to give me the all clear. You have to be the one to initiate sex Frankie. I can’t tell if you are okay. I don’t know.” He pushed his hands up over his face and through his hair. He propped his hands on his hips. The shower sprayed on keeping him wet.
She let the gravity of his words sink in. Of course he would wait for her to initiate sex. She was a bit insecure, a bit nervous since he said it was her choice to use birth control or not. He would wear a condom is she asked him to. He left a lot on her shoulders to deal with.
As her eyes moved over him from head to toe and back again, she remembered all of the things she loved about touching him. She thought about that first night. “Get out of the shower.”
The water was off and he was out in a flash.
***
Jonas dried off as she watched with renewed interest. He knew the look in her eye and he was glad to see it was back. She had kissed him a few times like she meant it, but for the most part he couldn’t tell if she was really feeling it or trying to do it for his sake. He wouldn’t have it. She had to want him as much as he wanted her or it wasn’t going to happen.
She extended her hand and let a finger trace the place she had once written her name on him. He closed his eyes and opened them to find her smiling at him. She said, “Mine”
He could feel his mouth curl into a smile, a fresh heat creep over his body, new blood pushed through his veins in response to her claim. “Always.”
“Come,” she said as she slid her fingers into his and tugged him towards the bedroom. “Do you remember the first time I came into your bedroom and took your clothes off?”
“One of the best nights of my life,” he admitted.
“I want you to stand here, like that again.” She stopped him in front of the bed. A sizzle of excitement rolled through him. She had touched him everywhere that night, in slow torturous fashion.
Her fingers began tracing the lines of his back, pressing into the muscles, relaxing them for a moment until she moved on to the next. Her tongue slipped down his spine and everything in his body tightened.
“Flex.” She touched the cheek of his ass.
“This?”
“Yes,” she nipped it.
It stung and he made a tisking sound.
“Sorry,” she nipped lighter this time. “I wish you could just see how amazing your ass is.”
“I’m not really afforded that view from here,” he chuckled.
“It’s just muscles, not an ounce of fat, not a dimple or a line, I’m envious,” she slowly let the nails on her fingers softly caress from top to bottom and then they moved down the back of his thighs. “Turn around.”
“I remember this going a little slower last time,” he teased as he complied. He looked down at her on her knees in front of him, he liked her in glasses, she looked smart, authoritative, and naughty all in one. She was wearing a button down, crisp, short sleeved navy blue blouse, a printed navy and white skirt, and…stockings. His entire body shivered. She only wore stockings if she was wearing thigh highs, and those were always attached to a garter. “Pull the hem of your skirt up a little.”
She shook her head no and kissed his kneecap instead. She continued to crawl up his body using her fingers to map the way.
“You’re much bigger now than you were before,” she said as she slid her hand around the base of his shaft.
He let out a moan and disagreed, “I think he’s the same size, but maybe two months has changed your perception.”
“No,” she licked the tip. He twitched. Pushed a hand through her hair and encouraged her to come closer and do that again. “I mean your body. You’ve bulked up.”
“You prefer me this way?”
“I prefer you naked, yes.” She took him into her mouth and the heat, the wetness, the feel of her tongue had him breathless. It had been too long. After a few precious moments she let him loose and looked up at him mischievously and asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me to get on the bed? Isn’t this less comfortable for me at this angle?”
“Oh yeah,” he tried not to laugh. “I forgot.”
She stood and pushed at his chest. He sat back on the bed and then moved farther as she climbed on top of him. He made his way to her skirt hem and she grabbed his hands and said, “Not yet.”
“If not now, then when?” He easily broke her grip and then put his hands over her skirt, but onto her ass. He knew from the feel of lines under the fabric she was wearing it. “You did this on purpose didn’t you?”
“I’ve been wearing all sorts of things lately, but you haven’t seemed to notice. I thought this might do the trick, but then you started without me.” She pouted. He wanted to kiss that pout, but he had anot
her thought.
“Have you been masturbating, Frankie?” he looked pointedly at her. She nodded. “With my competition?”
She nodded again. His eyes rounded. He was a bit pissed, but it was partly his fault. “How long?”
“Three weeks,” she bit into her lower lip.
“To who?” Now he arched his brow and pinned her gaze.
“To you of course,” she smiled and sat up to look down at him. She straddled his cock, the silky fabric of the panties made him lift against her though he wanted to stay unaffected.
“Which me?” He glared at her and dared her to lie to him.
“Hmmm,” she laughed. “Now wouldn’t you like to know? But wait which me were you in there masturbating to, or was it me at all? Huh? You think I didn’t notice the swimsuit issue had made it from one location to another?”
Oops. “Always you, usually, you in the bathroom at the Italian restaurant. Sometimes, you in the apartment because you admitted your undying love for me.”
“There is that…”
“Unfasten the shirt, Frankie. I want to see what you are wearing underneath.” He was tired of discussing it. He wanted her. Now.
She slid the buttons free, slowly, purposefully until the front was unfastened and he could slip it down her shoulders. He enjoyed the creamy white flesh of her breasts contrasting against the navy blue silk and lace bra. It held her closer together and lifted her ample bosom. “I knew you were wearing this one.”
She moved to unfasten the bra strap and he said, “No. Leave it on for now.”
“I have to get the skirt off if you want to see the rest.”
“I want to watch you pull it off, and then I want you to bend over those pillows and show me what you’ve been doing to yourself.”
“I haven’t been doing it from that angle,” she said as she moved to his side to remove the skirt.