A Winter Moon

by S. J. Smith

  Danika looked at the time on her phone. “Can’t. Swimming tonight.” She waved the cell to indicate she was in a time crunch.

  The woman gave her a thumb’s up. “I can bring them home tonight.”

  God bless her. Danika mouthed the words, thank you, before jogging back to her van. Man, she loved those women. Never any pressure. Never judgmental. They were just what she needed after coming out on the other side of her depression fog. SEAL wives were great. They were supportive and knew the life, but inadvertently put on another type of pressure. With these women, she started fresh. She was just Dani. Not Mrs. Jacob Sanders, SEAL wife, or Danika Washington, Professor Edmund Washington and Sherice Dunn’s only daughter. Not even, Nika, Jacob’s pampered wife who should enjoy being on his shelf, princess with no real purpose other than cranking out his babies. She was Dani who took back control of her life. Part-time plus model, and the Sanders boys’ mother with a regular rotation in the car pool and snack roster. It was what she wanted, and where she wanted to be right now.

  She smiled as she climbed back into the minivan, her eyes going right to the clock. She had just enough time to fight traffic back to the house, get the twins, and onto swimming before dinner.

  ***

  Jacob watched Danika herd the boys onto the soccer field before she spoke briefly with the group of women standing on the sidelines. He didn’t recognize any of them. His wife was an avid member of the officer-wives club, both a written and unwritten section of the Navy, and those women lived and breathed to support each other, not unlike any other SEAL team. SEAL brothers were always there for each other; so were their wives. He knew his brothers’ wives well. They knew Danika equally as much. He’d heard something a while back about her not being around much, but he had not paid attention. He had taken his eyes off the ball. Now the ball had slammed into his head.

  Jacob studied the women on the soccer practice sidelines. He did not recognize a single one of them and they were not military wives. He set down his field glasses and stared as Danika drove out of the lot. He started his truck and followed her, staying at least five cars behind. Her driving routes made absolutely no sense. Though he shouldn’t be surprised. So far everything he’d seen Danika do today, after he finished his meeting at base, was completely unfamiliar, sometimes downright foreign to him, starting with that photoshoot that had him semi hard all fucking day, his hand job had done nothing but take off the edge. Every time he thought about her wiggling and swaying around in that damned bikini, his dick jumped to life, wanted immediate attention. He felt like a horny thirteen-year-old all fucking day.

  He turned onto Danika’s street and parked behind another truck. He watched her pull up to the townhouse and get out. Minutes later, he smiled when his twins came flying out of the door and jumped into the van. Danika soon followed with Daniella in a car seat carrier in one hand, and a knapsack in the other. Max strolled out behind them all with matching knapsacks in each hand. He tossed the bags into the van and pulled the sliding door closed as a white sports car pulled up to the house. Danika waved out the window at the driver and pulled away.

  Jacob waited as the sports car driver got out. It was another young guy, tall and lanky, with jeans that held onto his narrow hips like someone clinging to a bridge before falling. Jacob winced when the men held each other’s hips and kissed before getting into the car.

  Guess he was telling the truth. Jacob shook his head and pulled out from his spot to pursue Danika down the street. There were only a few ways out of this neighbourhood, so picking up her tail wasn’t hard. He caught up to her as she pulled into the Tall Pines Country Club and got out. He scanned the familiar private members’ establishment and grounds. He knew the layout well. Not only had the club been around for the last hundred years, but his family had a lifetime membership as one of the founding members. He studied the people and staff milling around the outdoor Olympic size pool and surrounding deck.

  He didn’t need his field glasses to see Danika emerge — thank fuck now dressed in a modest one-piece swimsuit — with the boys from the dressing cabanas to the crowded deck. Daniella wriggled in her arms, his daughter completely adorable in her matching swim suit to her mama’s. Jacob tracked a buff Baywatch type of teenager gather up Dexter and Daniel along with five other three year olds and get into the water. Danika leaned over the side and spoke to the boys before she went with Daniella to the other side of the pool and joined a group of parents with babies in the water.

  Jacob sat back in his seat. Eight hours of recon on Danika and he was exhausted. Following her life, trying to figure out what was going on, what had maybe happened, had been an eye opener to what she did in a day. He thought the military ran people ragged. Danika hadn’t stopped the entire time he’d been watching. Grocery store, lunch drop-off to the boys’ school, back home to get Daniella, then back out again. She’d gone to the library, the pet store and back to the beach before going home and coming back out with the twins. She took them to a shoe store, then for some bizarre reason, ran into the organic food depot before going back home.

  She came out of the house a half hour later, no kids, and headed north out of the city. When she stopped at an outdoor coffee shop and sat down with her tablet, he breathed an exhausted sigh for her. At least until he tracked some man go up to her table, take her coffee and dump the contents in the sand. He was in the middle of pushing open his truck door, but halted when Danika bolted up from the table and ran down the beach, the guy running behind her barking out orders like a Navy drill sergeant. That was when Jacob noticed the running gear the man wore, the whistle around his neck and the clipboard tucked under his arm. Danika’s ipad squished up there, too.

  Jacob watched his wife and her trainer jog on the beach for fifteen minutes before they moved to the grass to do a series of muscle-strengthening exercises. Jacob couldn’t help smiling when the man yelled, five more for that coffee and his wife glared at him sideways in silent response.

  Jacob closed his eyes, but visions of his wife shaking and swaying her ass in that bikini made him open them again. This was not the time to get rock hard and wanting again. He sat up and stared at the country club grounds, forcing his mind to combat, his grandmother’s underwear, anything to keep his thoughts from his wife brazenly strutting around the beach half naked in front of some man with a camera. She’d never even worn a bikini for him, let alone strutted around like that. Images of her doing a get-naked striptease for him bombarded his mind.

  His wife had changed, or more like evolved … without him, away from him and the Navy. She wasn’t doing anything she used to, not that he really knew what she used to do all day, but it never felt like this. She was a stay-at-home mother and military wife so he supposed she did … mother military wife stuff, right? He watched the swimming lessons come to an end. He was going to have to find a way to resolve all this, pull all these pieces together so they still fit together as a family. Jacob grit his teeth and started the truck, trailing after his wife as she hopefully headed back home.

  *****

  Danika inhaled and stretched toward the wonderfully tingly heavy feeling in her lower belly. She didn’t dare open her eyes. That would mean waking up and it was only so often that she was granted a vivid night time dream about Jacob. Usually when she was exhausted, too exhausted to think herself out of the vulnerability. So, on nights like tonight, after she’d fallen into bed totally body exhausted, she knew better than to think too much about her dreams, just delight and feel. Indulge. Thinking always work her up, pulled her out of the dream, faded the delicious pulls and tugs that slid below her navel, moved over her awful C-section scar, and spread heat down to her apex. She loved that she didn’t need to hide, be embarrassed, or feel any shame. Just enjoy the blissful moments where she knew she dreamed, just dreamed and could suspend reality and revel in the raw sensuality still in her body.

  This was not the touch of her dildo. The plastic manufactured sensations that normally vibrated and shook her b
ody. This was soft, heavy and smooth. Ripples. Crests. Lines of pleasure that dragged warm washes of waves to her core. Over her clit. Tingled her flesh. Surrounded and lifted her nub with raised sensations.

  Jacob. She knew his touch, even in her dreams, and could sigh his name, whisper her need, admit and confess to whatever she wanted. She wanted him. Needed him. Yearned for him. It was her dream. Her moment. Her time to luxuriate in whatever she wanted. Whatever her dreams gave her. She inhaled and stretched her back, lifted her hips and moved with the waves of pleasure rolling through her body.

  Jacob. She could feel him. Scent him. Hear his low growls. His stubbled cheek on her naked tummy. His calloused palm on her hip. His warm breath on her skin … on her scar … she flinched and opened her eyes.

  “No. Don’t move.” His strong fingers contracted on her hip, forcing her to be still.

  She looked down to find him just as she imagined, exactly as she dreamed. His head on her lower belly, his cheek near her scar, his big hand on her hip. Her nightgown was raised to reveal her naked sex, her thighs slightly parted, her husband leaning over and kissing her lower tummy, running his tongue along her scar, his hard lips gentle on her skin.

  “I’m not done enjoying you.”

  She tightened all over. He had seen her scar. That horrible mark on her. She moved her hand to cover it but he snared her wrist and pressed it against her side.

  “Don’t cover it. I want to see.” He looked up at her and she closed her eyes. Her insides shaking. “Aw, baby. Don’t. It’s just you and me.” He kissed her scar again. And again until she stopped shaking. “Is this the change you talked about? What you didn’t want me to know?” He ran his thumb along the red horizontal length.

  She swallowed and squeezed her eyes tighter. “Yes.”

  He replaced his thumb with his lips. “Battle scars. You got a battle scar … giving her to me.”

  “It’s …” She stared at the ceiling, wanting to put her hand over it.

  “Fucking beautiful.”

  She inhaled a shaking breath. “I went to Althea’s salon to see what she could do. She got me into a photoshoot. It was the craziest thing. They were doing a piece on post-pregnant bodies. Wanting to show women they didn’t need to hide. Helping other women with these scars was the only thing that helped me stop crying at seeing mine.”

  Jacob ran his thumb along the length again. “When I see it, I think of the daughter you gave me. And I’m no stranger to scars. You know I have them all over my body.”

  She did know that. Of course she did. She just wasn’t used to having them on her.

  “Come here.” Jacob lifted her hip toward his mouth and slid his tongue down over her scar and down to her clit.

  “Jacob —” She moved.

  “No.” He held her wrist more firmly to her side.

  “We … ahhhh … have to … Oh God … talk.” He repeatedly pulled at her bundle of nerves, sucking and pulling her clit between his lips. The moment he added his tongue she was lost. “Oh … God — Jac … Jacob!” She bowed her body toward his hard lips, groaning a chuckle as she pulsed against him and rubbed her skin over his mouth.

  “Talk?” He ran his thumb over his own lips to where her clit still pulsed in his mouth. “We can talk after I’m inside of you. Deep … inside here and coming.” He slid his thumb through her wetness as he crawled over her replete body. “We can talk all night, about anything you want, as long as it’s after I’m inside you.” He spread her legs with his knees and settled his hard muscled body over top of hers. “We can discuss whatever you like after I’m balls deep inside of you.”

  She reached up and held onto his shoulders. She loved his shoulders and never got tired of holding them this way. But — she parted her lips to warn him but he threaded his hands around her neck and pinned her with that intense stare.

  “Will this hurt you?” He rolled his hard length into her folds. “Is it too soon?”

  Her body instinctively opened for him, enticed him to come in. “No. Yes.” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I haven’t … done anything since …” She thought of her decommissioned dildo and how she used to use it first, to test herself after every birth before giving Jacob the green light.

  Jacob gripped her hair tight until she opened her eyes. “You fucking better not have been doing anything with any other other man.”

  Her eyes widened. “What? No. That’s not what I meant.” She held her breath and gripped his shoulders tighter. “This’ll be the first time. I’ve never had a C-section before. You know I’ve never had one. I don’t know what to expect.” She looked away.

  He leaned down and smiled before rubbing his lips over hers. “It’s our wedding night again. Think back to this moment. This exact same moment. What did I tell you then?” He moved his hot length through her core until he was poised at her entrance.

  Her tummy quivered against his hard one. He held himself so still. So completely in control. She knew from experience that he could stay like that forever, or until she nodded her head and said it was okay. “Jacob, I —”

  “Trust me.” He used the exact words from this moment on their wedding night. She was terrified it would hurt. He made love to her until she was calm.

  She tensed below him. “But it could be a disaster.”

  He reached between them and circled her still damp entrance. He circled her and circled until she covered his fingers with more wetness. He leaned down and kissed her again. “Trust me.”

  She kept her eyes on his as she nodded, then dug her fingers into his shoulders as he carefully slid his full length deep inside of her. “I’m not the same anymore.” He didn’t stop until she felt his tight balls against her delicate nether skin.

  “Fuck, baby, no you’re not. Your body is now shaped to mine.” He rested his forehead on hers. “And it’s so fucking hot. The only disaster is how long it’s been since you’ve let me in.”

  A long ripple of pleasure washed through her body.

  “Fucking feel that. I don’t give a fuck about anything else but this right here.” He shifted onto one elbow and entangled her thigh between his, holding them into an impossibly intimate swirled embrace before he looked down at her again.

  “But now, now that we’re here, I promised that you could talk about or tell me anything you want.”

  She inhaled and knew she had to, she could tell him everything right now. It was just them and they were so intimate, the best time to tell him the most intimate thing between them. “I can’t have any more children.”

  His length twitched inside her. “Explain, can’t.”

  “Daniella’s birth was difficult. I know it’s my fault but she came early. Too early at seven months. I almost lost her. They had to do an emergency C-section. And tie my tubes to stop the bleeding.”

  “Fuck, honey.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be fucking sorry. I’m the fucking sorry one. This is all on me. You fought through it to bring her into this world. Alone. I should have been here. I never should have let things get so out of control.”

  “I know you wanted more kids.”

  “Fuck that. I want you. This. Them.” He nodded toward the closed bedroom door. “They’re all I’ve ever wanted. You are all I want.” He leaned down and inhaled, his forehead back against hers. “This is all I need.”

  She inhaled back the tears that threatened to come again.

  “But...” He raised himself to look down at her again, that focused stare back in his eyes. “Make no mistake that this does make a difference between us. A big fucking difference now that I know I’m the only one who will ever have knocked up this body.” He moved inside her. “No other man will ever impregnate you. You will never be fertilized by another man’s seed.” He held her eyes as he moved faster and deeper inside. “Just mine. My babies will be the only ones you’ll ever make. Ever have carried. No one else’s but mine.” He stroked her insides with every word, his
hard length surging until he growled down into her ear. “And that fucking satisfies me to no fucking end.”

  Hours later, as the sun lightened the bedroom window, Jacob reached over and opened Danika’s side table drawer.

  She rolled over in the sheets and frowned at him. “What are you doing?”

  He dug around in the deep bottom drawer until he found the case he was looking for. “Looking for this.”

  “Oh God,” she shook her head and fell back onto the bed. “I should have known. Just because you didn’t say anything at the time, doesn’t mean that you didn’t miss it.”

  He shook the case and smiled. “Nope.” He closed the drawer and rolled over to face her. “Did you think about me when you used this?” He withdrew her dildo from the plush case and ran it between her thighs. “It’s not quite my size, but did you imagine it was me? Miss me? Driving into you?”

  “Jacob.” She squirmed as he dragged it through her intimate folds.

  “Tell me.” He smiled like a mischievous ten-year-old. “I want to know.”

  “Okay, yes,” she admitted. “I would think of you, dream of you. I’d take that time to imagine and remember what it was like.”

  “Is like.” His eyes flared with a flash of intensity before he slid it out and took off the end. “After your declaration speech, I went out and got these.” He opened a package of batteries he’d pulled from his pants on the floor and put them into the sex toy. “I put an extra supply stock in your kitchen.” He turned it on and off. “My wife in a sex shop. I wish I could have been there.”

  Danika groaned. “No you don’t. It was a lesson in unadulterated embarrassment. Not only did I have to drive to the other side of town, I had to endure some hipster selling me on the merits of each one. Like he’d know.”

  “The fucker was imagining you using it.”

  She scoffed. “He was half my age and just wanted the sale. I heard they all work on commission.”