"That is the fun part," Jenny admitted. "If we eat them, we make more."
"I like this plan," Josh admitted. "Where's Mila?"
"She's in the library sorting and packing books. She says there are only two types of reading there, classics and garbage. We will donate the classics to libraries or churches. She doesn't know what you want to do with the garbage books."
"What does she consider garbage?" Josh asked.
"Books such as Confessions of a Werewolf, The Book of Tractors, and Current Decorating Tips 1982," Jenny quoted.
"Those definitely sound like charity giveaways," Josh agreed. "Do you need help here, or is it okay if I go to my office to get online with our boss to discuss your latest decorating and furnishing decisions."
"I have my assistant cookie decorator," Jenny declared. "Yes, try to get some decisions from him if you can. I will come over to work on my latest piece as soon as Mila gets back. You do realize most of the weekend will be a bust, right? Tomorrow we decorate the tree. We might be able to squeeze in a bit of Christmas shopping. I hope to get to Julia's place to look for unique gifts for your Mom and sister."
"There is a big tree-lighting ceremony and snow festival in town on Saturday afternoon and evening," Josh said. "I saw the banners strung across the road this morning. We should take Emmie and Adam."
"If it's not snowing," Jenny said, slipping over to kiss her husband.
"What was that for?"
"I love living here," Jenny exclaimed. "This is the best thing that could have happened to us."
Josh was smiling to himself as he entered the main house. He swung by the library to say hello to Mila and tell her he agreed with her sorting decisions. He saw she had set aside only a small pile of books she thought worthy of keeping. He and Jenny had loads of books in storage, but not enough to populate all the available shelves. It looked as if they would have to buy more.
"What about those?" Josh asked, looking upward to the second-level walkway.
"More of the same, but Kevin wants to give the balcony and metal work a structural inspection before we climb on it," Mila answered.
"Thanks for pitching in. You being here makes our lives a lot less hectic."
"Thank you," Mila said in return. "I return the sentiment. I have no idea how I would have managed a newborn without the support and advice I get from you and Jen. At the same time, it is nice when I can get away by myself for a few minutes now and then."
"Don't hesitate to ask for or talk to us about anything," Josh said sternly. "Babies are tough, we are here to help. The babysitting goes both ways, too. If you need to get out, we will watch Little Kevin. Did Jenny tell you the good news?"
"What news?"
"Emmie's psychologist says she doesn't need to come in any longer," Josh said proudly. "With our marriage and relationship back on track, she thinks Emmie's trust issues with us are over. That is why she is talking more and more."
Josh went into his office and downloaded files from the Peak Designs server. He worked several hours on design changes and issues pointed out by Brice. Jenny popped her head in the door to say Mila was with the kids, she was working across the hall, and then she disappeared.
Josh moved on to Jenny's sheets of color layouts for the rooms and her furniture selections. Pretending someone else had to approve the designs was devious since he had veto power over anything he did not like. For the most part, though, he trusted and agreed with his wife's decorating skills. She could have been a professional interior designer. She was that good. Only occasionally did he dislike what she had decided on. If she knew she was decorating for herself and him, she would have been able to argue some of her choices. Pretending to be the mysterious friend/owner might be unfair, but he got veto power without a debate or argument.
As he logged off his computer, he walked over to his wife's workspace where he quietly watched her from the doorway. She was absorbed in busily tying knots and weaving yarns and materials. When she stepped down from the scaffolding, she stepped backward to view what she had completed. He put his arms around her, and she jumped and screamed.
"You scared me," she complained.
"You were to keep the door locked," Josh said firmly, giving her bottom a smack, taking her hand, and pulling her across the room. She flipped the lock.
"You were across the hall," she teased. "You would have saved me from a scary boogeyman trying to get me."
"What if I am the Boogeyman?"
"I might like you getting to me," Jenny teased.
"Good," he breathed in her ear. He spread his hands across her buttocks, gripped them, pulled her to him tightly, and ground her hips against his rising need. "I want you, here, now."
Jenny felt a sudden surge of moist eagerness, as her eyes darted around. There was only one exterior window in this room and she had covered it with black paper so the direct sunlight would not fade her art pieces. They had also removed most of the furniture.
"How? On what?"
"We'll make do," Josh growled as his hands went under her shirt to pull it over her head and toss it aside, with her bra quickly following. He impatiently unbuttoned her jeans sliding his hands inside between her skin and the tight denim, where he cupped her ass and squeezed hard.
Jenny kicked out of her jeans while unbuttoning his and unzipping his fly. It was a frantic battle to remove the unwelcomed items between them. They never wanted anything between them.
As soon as she was naked, he lifted her while her legs hooked around his hips, then he immediately impaled her against the wall. Once pinned, he devoured her lips and throat as he pounded into her using the solidness of the wall to brace her against his battering. Gripping her ass with one hand, he lifted his other hand to spank her bottom repeatedly in time with his powerful thrusts.
Jenny reveled in the sting of his hands and the heat of his cock inside her. She arched her back, exposing her breasts to him. He latched onto one with his mouth, his tongue encircling the rigid nipple. Josh's multiple sensual onslaughts made her pulsate and tremble with need. She couldn't think, she was beyond thought. She only wanted to feel as he continued driving into her, suckling her.
"Oh!" Jenny panted. It became a mantra. "Oh! Oh!" Then the miraculous happened as they both rose to a peak and fell over the cliff at the same time. As their cries of pleasure died away, their bodies slowly stopped trembling.
Josh still had her pinned against the wall, this time because he did not want to drop her, afraid his knees would give out. Getting his second wind, he lifted and set her down on a small worktable. They held each other, their skin coated with dampness, breathing deeply.
"Sometimes I feel like a crazed man," Josh whispered. "I react to you the same way as I did on the first day I met you. I still have not lost my need for you. You are mine, Jenny."
"I like being yours."
"What time does Mila expect you back?"
"Whenever I come back," she laughed.
"Good, because it is going to be much later," Josh warned.
Jenny shivered in anticipation from his words of warning. Her husband was always attentive to her needs, but when he was fierce like this, it was magnificent. He became a wild stallion and she reaped the rewards of his raging hormones. She had no idea what triggered these bouts. Sometimes they lasted a few hours, sometimes several days or even weeks. She could only hope she was in for a long duration this time.
* * *
Mila was observing her sister and brother-in-law closely. It was as if they were on a second honeymoon. Whatever was happening between them had been going on for over a week. They slipped off together whenever they thought no one noticed. It was hard for Mila not to notice, as she was the current en-suite babysitter.
Jenny had a permanent orgasmic glow. Josh often walked around with an impressive package in his jeans. In the evenings, when they were supposedly working in the main house, they returned smelling of sweat and sex. Mila was not imagining it, and she couldn't help it, but she envied her si
ster. Whatever her sister had going in her marriage, it was working.
Mila had not had sex for nine long months and her last time had not been enjoyable, to say the least. After John returned from his fourteen-month deployment, they only lived together for a few short weeks. Those weeks were full of fights, and him hanging around bars and going home with other women until she moved out. When she calculated backward, it had been two years since she enjoyed sex—two long years. Kevin was looking better and better.
Mila had researched domestic discipline relationships, reading everything she could find online. There was no clear-cut definition of what D/D involved, except the negotiation of specific terms between a dominant HOH and a submissive wife.
She had not had the nerve to raise the subject with Kevin. He still came around a lot. Nevertheless, it was the Christmas season and his shop was inundated with rush orders. Their relationship had progressed to the heavy necking stage. She wanted to go further but had to wait for her doctor to clear her for sex. Kevin was not getting lucky for Christmas, but she was sure it would not be long after.
* * *
Jenny's Christmas shopping list was much shorter than usual this year. She and Josh had discussed the six gift tradition in his family. At first, she had been against it. However, after further reflection, she eventually agreed and even talked it over with Mila.
Looking back on their childhood holidays, they agreed, while the overall look of the day had been of generosity, most of the day had not been particularly happy for them. A nanny or housekeeper woke them early to dress them in photo-ready outfits. They had raced downstairs to a beautiful and perfect Marsden Christmas tree; a tree they could never touch much less help decorate. Dozens of gifts surrounded the tree, but the gifts were rarely what they wanted. Denise usually deemed toys they had dreamed about as inappropriate. Instead, she gave them designer dolls they could not play with, and fancy dresses for them to wear at her society functions. As they grew older, even their musical tastes were subjected to what their mother thought was best for them, or what was recommended by their schools.
Jenny thought of Fuzzy, Emmie's beloved little dog. They had given Fuzzy to her when she was fifteen months old. The ragged stuffed Beagle had recently lost an ear. Jenny had carefully sewn it back on while Emmie watched her and cried because she did not want Fuzzy hurt. So many of the toys Emmie and Adam had before the move were gone. They had given them to charities or they were in storage. Her children did not miss them at all. Emmie preferred playing with the few toys she had carefully chosen to bring with her. Adam was happiest scooting around the house in his little red Radio Flyer Steer n' Stroll ride-on sports car, or sitting in his high chair playing with and eating Oaties.
She and Josh agreed their children were happy because of the attention and care they were receiving from their parents, rather than things they had accumulated. Jenny agreed to the six gift rule with one given away to a needy child, but only if the idea was open to change as Emmie and Adam grew older.
Josh thought it was time to give Emmie a real 'Fuzzy' since she adored Kevin's dog, Buddy. Jenny vetoed the idea until Emmie's birthday in June. Housetraining a puppy would be a lot easier in the summer, and Josh reluctantly agreed. Then he insisted they get a rescue puppy, saying there had to be a Beagle adoption organization they could contact. He also thought they should get a second one for Adam at the same time so the puppies could be pals.
Mila laughed about their on-going negotiations because giving gifts to her one-month-old was more about the giver wanting to give him something. Little Kevin had no idea what was happening. However, presents were already under her small tree. She had thought to forego a tree this year, since her baby was too young to know the difference, and they would celebrate Christmas at her sister's house, anyway.
However, Kevin had taken the decision out of her hands. He had brought her a pitiful excuse for a tree reminiscent of a Charlie Brown tree. He also brought a bag of ornaments made by first and second graders from the Durango Elementary Holiday Bazaar.
His actions had melted her heart. That a man who had no children would take the time to go to an elementary school function surprised her. He had bought clumsy, gaudy, handmade ornaments from the six- and seven-year-old students. Among the ornaments were tin foil stars, empty thread spools with faces drawn on them, and antlers or earmuffs made from pipe cleaners. There were felt trees with sequins, and snowflakes made with macaroni glued to cardboard and covered with fake snow. She knew none of the children, but they had proudly inscribed their creations with their names and the year. He had also bought her a little kit she could use to stamp David Kevin's hands and feet into clay to make ornaments for his first tree. She would have them forever to remember his first Christmas. Kevin brought a gift to put under her tree nearly every time he stopped by. The pile was growing exponentially.
Chapter 16
Three days before Christmas, Kevin parked his truck and entered the main house. He wanted to finish the trim in one of the bedrooms this morning, long before either family was awake. He was in his typical holiday rush. It was beyond his comprehension why people thought renovating kitchens and bathrooms, or installing bars, or various and sundry carpentry work, were good ideas for Christmas gifts. He tried to talk his customers down from such ideas, but every year he had a few who resisted common sense.
His crews were good, but with three installs due at the same time, his customers were paying top dollar for the inconvenience of completing jobs during the Christmas rush. He liked to be involved in his projects. As it was, his cousins thought he had lost his mind because he insisted on personally working on the Bentley house.
Originally, Kevin had wanted the job because he had worked on the Bentley house when he was a kid. After seeing the damage, he knew he had to restore it himself. The Bentley house had been a source of pride for his father and it was hard to see so much of his Dad's work destroyed. His Dad's hands were not capable of restoring the work himself because of his crippling arthritis. Kevin would do it for him.
He enjoyed working with and being around the Grayson family. Besides, the more time he spent at the Bentley place, the more time he spent with Mila. What were the chances he would fall head over heels for a woman five-months pregnant at their first meeting? He would not have bet on it, yet it happened.
He was treading softly to determine if she was interested. With her recent widowhood, he traversed a bit of a rocky path. Although Mila and her husband had problems before John left for his second tour of duty, his death had still hit her hard. Thankfully, she had not tried to make him a saint afterward as so many people did when they lost someone they loved. In Mila's own words, John had returned from war a different man—a man she did not particularly like. Still, she had been willing to try to save their marriage until the night before he shipped out.
One evening, she told him what John had done to her. She had cried on Kevin's shoulder while he did his best to offer comfort. She admitted her early doubts about keeping a child conceived under such circumstances. He promised to carry her secret to his grave, and he meant it. Even so, she wanted to preserve memories of John, as he was when she married him, not for her sake but for her son.
In Kevin's mind, Mila was one hell of a woman—strong and smart. Yet, even though she had been married several years, he felt she had no idea what a real marriage was like. She and her husband had been in different branches of the military, separated by various geographic postings, and then by him being sent into combat. Of the three years they were married, they had lived together for only eleven months.
Kevin had no personal experience since he had never made it all the way to the altar. However, he had a stable family structure in his background, as well as two long-term relationships under his belt, even if they had not gone the distance. Neither woman understood his love of craft or family. The first had seen his college degree as her way out of a small town, not as an enhancement to what he wanted to do with his life. The second
viewed his devotion to his extensive family as competition. Selfishness was not a particularly redeeming quality in his mind. Either way, he regarded those years and women as learning experiences and narrow escapes. He simply had not found the right lady.
Kevin had lived in Miami during his college years and stayed on for one more year after. However, he finally realized he liked his rural roots and returned to Durango. Now, he had devoted himself to winning another woman, a beautiful and giving person with a stubborn streak to match his.
* * *
Josh was not surprised to see Kevin's truck already parked in his driveway. The man was keeping early hours lately. As Josh went into the main house, he heard the distant thump, thump of a nail gun. There was a lot happening. The fencing contractor was working hard, trying to accomplish as much as possible between snowfalls. The security company was also hard at work, although they were a lot less intrusive or visible. They assured him their crew would install the surveillance cameras when the fencing workers were not around. They would also camouflage and hide the cameras. The whole point of high-tech spyware was no one should know it was there. It was all worth it to keep his family safe.
Josh was trying to complete last minute details on the Richfield Towers designs before their December 28 deadline. He ensconced himself in his office and managed to get a good three hours' work done before 8:30 a.m. when Kevin rapped on his open office door.
"Hey, I'm leaving for now. I might be back later, depending on my schedule. I have this arrogant rich dude who thinks nothing is correct unless I am on the job personally. He is a major pain, walking around telling my crew how to do things even though he doesn't know crap. So far, he is batting zero. I have to deal with it though, mostly to keep my crew from busting my nuts and walking out."
"Good luck," Josh said. "If you want, you can shut down operations here over Christmas. We can't accomplish much between now and the New Year. We are leaving on the 26th, my presentation is on the 28th, and we won't return until the 30th. My partners and I will use the extra time to work out last minute details while our wives get to know each other."
Broken Vows (Domestic Discipline Romance) Page 25