“No,” he said, still a little chilly.
It was barely nine, and I wasn’t tired, but I thought he might need some time alone.
For at least an hour, I lay on top of my covers completely clothed. If he’d decided to check on me, he would have known that I didn’t go to sleep. All of the lights were even on. But he didn’t. He stayed in the living room. I could hear the television playing, but not a peep from him.
This was just as new for me as it was for him. I didn’t do serious. I ran from it. But he was different.
Is this what it felt like to put yourself out there? I was nervous. Maybe even a little afraid. Wally cared deeply for me. I was certain of it. But was I the one who cared more? I’d never been that in a relationship, and it freaked me out.
I heard movement in my hallway and knew that he’d stepped into the bathroom. After a few minutes, he appeared in the doorway, his eyes telling me that he was sorry.
He had a power over me that I resented but couldn’t deny. Just like that, one look, and all of my insecurities drifted away.
Wanting to exert a power of my own, I slowly undid my pants, pushing them and my panties down my legs. My shirt and bra came next and I laid there, naked, waiting for him.
Still dressed he came to me, kneeling between my legs. Pleasured moans, deep in his throat, pushed out of his mouth as he ran his hands along my body, starting at my feet and moving upwards. My body heated as he gripped his favorite parts, squeezing them extra-long. Everywhere his mouth touched tingled, an aftershock of his tongue and lips. We hadn’t even started and my body was already moving—my hips rising and falling on the mattress trying to reach him, soft breaths and murmurs of encouragement leaving my mouth.
There was no rush as he removed his shirt and pants. He moved languidly, undressing gradually as he kissed and touched me. The slowness of it, the steady progression of what was to come, had my legs quaking. I needed to feel connected to him and murmured a tortured, “Please.”
He didn’t make me wait, moving his hands to my knees and spreading them. Placing his body flush with mine, he glided inside, his warm breath sending shivers down my neck.
Immediately, I felt the burn, a satisfying ache between my legs. All of me arched and tensed, toes curling, fingers digging. My hands tangled in his hair and I brought his mouth to mine, kissing him as he moved. He was silent—the only sound his labored breaths. His touches were soft, squeezing my thighs in long, drawn out pulls.
Time slowed, each roll of his hips sending me closer and closer. I didn’t want it to end. He kept me there, right at the peak of an orgasm. A hot rhythm, never leaving me.
“I love this, Wally,” I whispered, needing him to know how much I cared for him. With a shaky breath, he moved to his knees, pulling my legs up and resting my feet on his shoulders. My hands gripped the comforter as he held my thighs and thrust into me forcefully, our flesh slapping. It was too much and my head thrashed on the pillow. I loved it when he made my body just react, taking away all my control of it. It responded to him, moving and shifting on its own, allowing me to experience everything. All thought left me. Only him and me. The two of us and how incredible he felt.
“God you feel good,” he said, the words leaving him on a painful exhale, like he couldn’t keep them in any longer.
I went to him then, wrapping my legs around his waist, and sitting up. Both of us were upright in the bed, and I used my feet to propel me up and down. He held me close, burying his face in my chest. His arms wrapped around me, his blunt nails digging into my skin.
I felt his mouth open on the swell of my breast, rasping for air. He was coming undone, his eyes closed tight, forehead creased, his lips pulling on my skin as I moved. My moan was loud, a desperate sound forcing itself out of me.
With a sense of urgency, he pushed me back to the bed, hooking one of my legs with his arm, losing himself to the thrusts.
Suddenly, he was fast, chaotic, unable to hold back. Heavy, deep groans were falling out of his mouth, growing louder, more out of control. My orgasm burst from me as I heard his choked gasp, knowing that he was finishing inside me. It lasted and lasted, both of us pushing into each other, drawing it out.
For minutes, we lay on the damp sheets, sweaty and out of breath. Our fingers grazing each other, our hearts slowing from the loud thump, thump, thumps, to a steady beat. When we finally moved, it was sluggish, on shaky limbs.
After I showered, I found him on the couch, passed out with the television on. I wasn’t going to wake him, but I wanted to be near him, so I squeezed in between the cushion and his side and fell asleep, too.
Chapter 25
My neck ached. Moving it caused me to take a sharp inhale. “Ow,” I said,” working it out. I was alone on the couch. The sun was shining, casting shadows across my living and dining room.
I realized what had woken me—the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen. Wally was up and he was cooking for me. I smiled, hoping last night’s tension had passed. I extended my limbs, giving them a good, long stretch. Quietly, I made my way to him, peeking around the corner. Two skillets were on the stove, one with bacon, the other, eggs.
Some grease came up and popped him, making him clutched his hand. He clamped his mouth shut, trying not to make a sound. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, shaking the hand out.
“Need some ice?” I asked, making him jump.
“You’re awake. Good,” he said. “It’s hard as shit for me to keep quiet. Feel like I need to go yell in the backyard or something.”
I chuckled and stepped up to the stove. “I can finish this,” I said. “Go. Yell. Slam doors. Make some good racket.”
“Thanks, babe,” he said, kissing my temple. A sigh of relief left me as he walked away. He was back to his normal self.
We ate on the back porch, the air still damp from morning. “What do you have to do today?” I asked him.
“Nothing really,” he said. “We’re going into the slow months. Not many jumps.”
“Are you going to get another job?” I asked, and saw it—the defensive set of his jaw. This was a question I’m sure he was asked often, and it irked him. Immediately, I wanted to take it back. “You don’t have to,” I said. “I don’t care. Just curious.”
He hesitated, looking away from me, thinking it over. “Maybe,” he said. “But I make enough to get by. Don’t really need to.”
His iciness returned for the rest of the morning. We hardly spoke. After he took a shower, he left to handle something, but didn’t tell me what it was. His agitation was palpable as he stuffed his feet into his shoes. “See you later,” he said and stepped through my door.
Why did I have to ask that? Given how he’d reacted to my offer last night, I should have known better. But talking about these things had never been a problem before. Something had changed. No matter how long I searched my brain, I couldn’t determine what it was.
Maybe he was just being overly sensitive. I’d asked it. I hadn’t meant anything by it. He didn’t have any reason to feel defensive.
Even so, I wanted to make it right. When he’d been gone most of the afternoon, I texted him. Am I gonna get to see you again today?
It was a whole hour before he responded. I’d assumed that I’d pissed him off good, but then he said, Of course, babe! Just taking care of some stuff with Pawpaw. See you in a few.
I blew out a breath, and busied myself with cleaning the house. The sheets on my bed were bunched. I could see the outline of where we had ended our lovemaking. All lopsided, deep indents where our heads and feet had been.
Over the last few months, he’d been staying with me more and more. We had better privacy at my house, and even though it was much more intimate to sleep in his twin bed, mine allowed us some comfort.
I didn’t mind him being there all the time. And if I had a night without him, I felt strange, constantly wondering if he was going to come back over to keep me company. A thought occurred to me then, and I stilled in my laund
ry sorting, wondering if he would go for it. It would certainly make it easier financially. On both of us.
Maybe, I thought. Maybe he will. I’d never lived with a man, but I could. I thought I was ready. But was he? It was hard to know. Yesterday, I would have put money on him saying yes. Today…I wasn’t so sure. He might love the idea, or it might offend him. I’d need to wait for just the right moment to ask.
As I stuffed the sheets in my washing machine, I heard a knock at my front door, and made a mental note to give Wally a key.
That could be the start. A good way to ease him into it.
With a smile, I opened the front door, but frowned when I saw Trey standing on my doorstep. “Wh-wh—”
“Hey,” he said, stepping inside. “Look, I’m sorry for just showing up—”
“Why are you here?” I asked, sounding distressed.
“It’ll just take a minute,” he calmly said, not caring about my obvious unease. “I’ve got something for you.”
Without an invitation, like always, with his sense of entitlement and superiority, he walked over to my dining room table, and pulled two envelopes out of his messenger bag.
“If this is about what I owe you…” I said, ready to tell him that I had the balance. He needed to leave. Now.
“It is,” he said. “But not how you think.”
From the smaller envelope he pulled out a check for $1900 and handed it to me. “Here,” he said. “I shouldn’t have acted that way. This is the money you gave me less the agreed settlement with Nathaniel.”
I started to protest. Now that it was done with, I felt better knowing that I’d paid him, but he held up a finger. “No,” he said. “Really. Handling all of that took no time. Sorry I was such an ass.”
“Umm…okay,” I said. “Thank you, but it’s alright. I don’t mind paying you. I want to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Sweetie, I was a straight up jerk.” His hand went to my shoulder and he smiled down at me. This is who Trey was. It hadn’t occurred to him that I’d moved on. It hadn’t even occurred to him to ask. He thought that he could come over, say I’m sorry, and that we could just go back to how it was before. Or how he thought it was before—which I guaranteed wasn’t the same as what I did. I was about to push his hand off when the front door opened.
Wally called to me as he walked in. “Baby,” he said. “Lucas just told me about a movie playing…”
He stopped dead when he saw Trey, his eyes flashing towards his hand at my shoulder. “What are you doing here?” they asked at the same time.
My thoughts went into panic mode. I should have told Wally about Trey helping me. Now it was too late, and it would sound deceitful and rehearsed coming out of my mouth. I moved out from under Trey’s hand, and put some distance between us.
Wally’s steps were slow as he approached me, but the arm going around my waist was deliberate, a show of possessiveness.
Trey’s smile was tightlipped and mean. “So you two are together now?”
“Yes,” I quietly said.
He laughed, a quick bark and sharp jerk of chin. “How long?”
“A while,” Wally said, the words hard and forceful.
“But not too long,” Trey said, squinting his eyes at me. “Right Kristen?”
Mentally, I tried to calculate and may have over shot it when I said, “Four months.”
“Really?” he asked, with a cocky grin. “You cool with this man?” he asked Wally. “Getting my sloppy seconds?”
“Oh, please,” I said under my breath. Wally said nothing, and I knew that this was getting to him. “You should leave,” I told Trey.
“Yeah, whatever,” Trey said and stormed off towards the door, but stopped as he stepped through. “Can I talk to you a second?” he asked Wally.
Wally hadn’t turned towards him yet, his jaw hard as he stared at the wall. “You don’t have to,” I whispered to him, giving his belly an affectionate rub.
“Nah, it’s cool,” he said, not looking at me, and followed after him.
I stayed where I was, biting my nails as I waited for him to return. The seconds of my wall clock ticked by slowly until ten whole minutes had passed and Wally flung the door open.
He went straight to the table and opened the remaining envelope. I couldn’t see what he found inside, but then he took a hard breath through his nostrils, and went to the bathroom.
I walked over to the table and saw it, a picture of Trey and I at the charity event. His arm was around my waist, pulling me into his side. I was smiling, we both were, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think that the two of us were just another happy couple. Along the bottom of the picture in white scrolling script were the words, Trey Thomas, Kristen Wakely, April 17, 2015.
“That’s the weekend we went camping,” he said, out of the bathroom and standing in the hallway.
“Yes,” I said.
“Were you still seeing him?”
“No.”
“But you went there with him?” His words weren’t angry. They were calm, like he was trying to make sense of it.
“He was helping me, Wally. I got into some legal trouble a while ago, and he helped. He asked me to go as a favor, so I went. That was it.”
“So you were still sleeping with him?”
“Not then,” I said. Immediately, questions raised in my mind. Hadn’t he probably been sleeping with other people at that time? What did it matter? It was in the past. I never asked about his, because it bared no reference to my feelings for him. “You knew he and I had a history,” I said. “I guess I should have told you that I was still talking to him, but by the time we were officially together, it was done. I hadn’t planned to speak to him anymore.”
He was silent, staring at my carpet.
“Does this matter?” I asked.
“I guess not,” he said with a sigh. “Just a little weird to see him here. Today of all days.”
What did that mean? Did he think it was suspect because we’d been in a tiff? “I’m just as surprised as you are,” I said. “I haven’t heard from him since the night this picture was taken.”
He said something under his breath, but I wasn’t sure what. It sounded like I bet.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, looking away from me. “Do you wanna go see that movie?”
“I guess so,” I said, shrugging.
We went, and even though he held my hand, I could feel the stiffness and apprehension. Trey had unnerved him. I just hoped that with time, this would leave him.
But I was wrong.
Chapter 26
I didn’t know what would have been worse; Wally pulling away completely, fast like ripping off a Band-Aid—it would hurt like hell for a while, but then, with time, the pain would cease—or this. This slow, gradual descent. Every day he was a little less…there.
It took me a while to notice the extent of his distance. I, of course, expected him to be agitated after Trey had randomly stopped by, and kept waiting for him to bring it up with me, ask me questions, yell, accuse even, but he never did. He was simply quiet.
Maybe I should have been the one to broach the subject, maybe that’s what he was waiting for. But I didn’t. I thought that he was trying to work it out, get over it. Bringing it up might have made everything worse. Instead, I tried to act as if we were normal, like Trey hadn’t stopped by and made everything weirder.
I showered him with affection, let his moodiness go, or told him how wonderful I thought he was. At first, he’d give me a sweet smile and say something like, “I know, babe,” or “Thank you, Punks.”
I thought that he was just working through this, feeling odd about the situation, but attempting to let it go. It seemed plausible, understandable even, but then I realized how close he would hold me at night, an arm wrapped tightly around my stomach. Always restless. Sleep came later than usual for both of us.
When a week had passed and none of his behavior had improved,
I rolled over in the bed, and looked at him. It was dark, so his features were barely visible to me.
“Tell me what’s bothering you,” I said, soothingly. “I can make it better if I know.”
“It’s nothing,” he said. When I continued to look at him, not speaking, he followed up with, “Really. It’s fine. Get some sleep.”
I rolled back over but couldn’t relax. He sensed my tension, and pulled my back to his stomach so he could kiss my neck. My body eased under his touch, the muscles letting go, as he pushed himself inside and quietly fucked me.
It wasn’t until the next morning when he and his car were gone that I realized he’d used sex to create a false sense of intimacy so that he could lull me to sleep feeling secure.
After that, I started seeing him less and less. He stopped staying at my house, and always had some reason for me not to go to his. And then, when I did see him, he was distracted, on his phone, or disinterested in our conversations.
I’d seen these patterns before.
I’d used them all. In every relationship I’d been in. And it sucked being on the receiving end of this icy affection.
His smiles were forced, never reaching his eyes. I knew those smiles. Those were my Yeah, this is done. I’m just waiting for the right moment smiles. His touches were stiff, as if he was playing at being in a relationship with me. I felt myself beginning to cringe every time his hand settled on my back, knowing that there’d be no warmth in it for me.
It was heartbreaking. But he wouldn’t talk to me! He wouldn’t. No matter how much I tried, it was always the same thing. “Babe, I’m fine. Stop worrying,” followed by a forced smile and a cold touch.
If this was any other relationship, I’d have already been gone. But this was different. This was Wally. My Wally. This was what I’d been looking for. What I’d been needing. Wanting. We were so great together. He’d forgotten that and let someone else come in and fuck with his head.
The rare days that I was graced with his presence, I tried so hard, but it was becoming exhausting. Why did I want to waste all this energy for nothing? It was beginning to make me resentful.
Free Falling Page 11