Chapter 20
Evan
A s I get out of the car, I hear Jane say, “My husband is home.”
It stops me in my tracks.
It’s the first time I’ve heard her refer to me like that, and the words fall so easily—so naturally—from her lips. I like how it sounds, and I can’t help smiling.
Yes, that’s me. Her husband.
Eventually, I manage to make myself move, and I head next door. I received her text, so I’m not surprised she’s outside with Skylar.
“Hi, Evan,” Skylar says. “Look what I can do.” She skips backward a few times, and as I watch her, I also watch Jane out of the corner of my eye. She looks pleased…and proud.
“Wow,” I say.
“Jane taught me. Can you do it?”
Jane hands her rope to me, and when her fingers brush mine, I feel a prickle of awareness. It puts me off-balance, and perhaps that’s why the rope hits my shoes when I try to skip backward. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t done this in many, many years.
I succeed on my next attempt, and I do it a few times before stopping. These shoes are not made for such activity. As my wife take the rope from me, Gordon parks on the bottom half of the driveway.
“Daddy!” Skylar drops her rope and rushes toward him, and he lifts her up as he gets out of the car. “Is Zaidy okay? Is he out of the hospital? Can I go see him?”
“He’ll probably be there for a few days, but maybe you can visit him after school tomorrow. We’ll see how he’s doing.”
“I made him a card.”
“Yeah? You can show me.”
But first, she wants to show off her skipping skills.
“Thank you so much for looking after her,” Gordon says to Jane. “Deena didn’t want to bring her to the hospital in an emergency.”
“No problem,” she says. “We had a good time together. I’m glad I could help.”
A wave of fondness washes over me. I know this situation might not have been the easiest for Jane, and it happened to coincide with when of the rare times I wasn’t home during the day.
We speak for a few more minutes, and then I take my wife’s hand and lead her into our house. She’s a little sweaty, and her hair is tied up in a messy bun.
“How was it?” I ask.
“It was a bit awkward at first, and I didn’t know how to answer her questions about her grandfather, but it went well.”
“Do you have any work left to finish?”
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
I go for my usual walk, then return home and have a shower. When I come downstairs, Jane is crouched on the floor by the back door.
“Now stay still,” she murmurs—to Watson? “You can do it.”
I chuckle and wonder if this is how she was encouraging Skylar.
The sound of my laughter draws her attention, and Jane whips her head toward me, looking slightly embarrassed that I’ve caught her speaking to a giant plushie.
“What’s Watson doing?” I ask.
“Wearing a clip-on bowtie.” She shifts to the side so I can see the red bowtie. Is that hers? I don’t think I own one like that. “But it wasn’t clipping well to his fluff.”
“It looks good. Apparently, a chonky penguin can pull off a crooked bowtie.”
She turns back to Watson and adjusts the bow so it’s straight. I’m not sure why, but the fact that my rather serious wife is on the floor next to a large plush penguin, after skipping with the little girl next door…
I can’t help sitting down next to Jane and planting a kiss on her mouth. She winds her arms around my back and returns the kiss, and I smile against her lips.
Jane climbs into my bed that night wearing a white T-shirt and navy shorts. There’s something tantalizing about her loose clothes—and the fact that I know what’s underneath. When she sets aside her phone, I kiss her again. I want her, and today’s events have reminded me of how fleeting life can be. But when I settle on top of her, she freezes. I immediately roll onto my back.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m not in the mood tonight.”
“That’s fine.”
“I can still get you off.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you owe me.”
I think of my last relationship, when I was definitely the one with the lower libido, thanks to my meds. I’d put out even when I didn’t want it; I felt I had to, in order to save what we had.
He broke up with me anyway.
“I’m not feeling pressured, don’t worry,” she says. “Even if I’m not in the mood for sexual gratification”—for some reason, the fact that she’s using a five-syllable word turns me on—“I’ll enjoy bringing you pleasure.”
Many years ago, I dated someone who was very much a giver in the bedroom and got off on that, without me doing anything in return. I don’t think this is quite the same, though.
“I mean it,” she continues. “I want to be close to you. I want to see how you get yourself off…and help you. But no oral sex, and don’t remove my shorts. And this isn’t something I’m going to want all the time.”
Her clear boundaries ease my mind.
I strip off my shirt, followed by hers, and roll back on top of her. She kisses me eagerly, but without the desperation that she sometimes has.
“Do you…” she begins. “Do you think of me when you touch yourself?”
“Yeah, but before we slept together, I was trying really hard not to.”
“Same,” she says, and my cock jerks in response.
She slips her hand into my underwear and touches me. I wish I could touch her too, but that’s okay. I’ll enjoy it all the more next time.
“You have toys, don’t you?” she says. “I’ve seen them when you reach for the condoms.”
I open the drawer, and after a moment of debate, I select a small butt plug and lube. “If it’s okay with you…”
She nods. “I’ve always been curious.”
“For use on yourself, or someone else?”
“Someone else.” She slides off my underwear and leisurely strokes my cock while I hold myself above her. “Could you wear it while you fuck me?”
In addition to multisyllabic words, curse words are also really doing it for me right now, as long as they fall from her lips.
“I could.” I’ve done it before, but not in a long time.
“You like how it makes you feel nice and full?”
I hiss out a breath. “Yeah.”
Her lips curve into a smile, and I like that she’s enjoying my reaction. I push into her hand. The fingertips of her other hand dig into my ass as I rut against her.
When she slides out from underneath me and grabs the plug that I’ve set on the bedside table, I tense in anticipation. She takes her time slicking it with lube. I focus on my breathing as she eases the tip of the plug inside.
“Like this?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I exhale roughly.
Gently, she works the tip in and out before pushing the fattest part inside me. When I groan, she spanks me. Then she rolls me onto my back; I bend my legs. She plays with my ass for a little longer before turning her attention to my cock. After a few strokes, I’m rock hard. As she slowly jerks me off, she leans forward, her breasts swinging above my chest, and kisses me on the mouth. Again, her kisses feel a little different from when she’s really turned on, but then she slides her hand lower, and I forget about what we’re not doing; I’m focused on what she’s doing to me.
I put my hand on top of hers and show her the exact rhythm I like. When she replicates it, it’s way better than anything I could do by myself. Her warmth, her concentration, her legs on either side of my chest… She’s looking after me, and I let her. She tugs my hair, pulling my head back to gain access to my neck, nibbling and licking my sensitive skin.
“I…not long,” I bite out.
She rolls onto her side and picks up her pace.
“That’s it,” she says. “Yes, Evan…”
I hardly need encouragement, but I like it all the same.
I grunt as I spend on my stomach, and we lie there for a minute before she starts cleaning me up, taking a break every few seconds to press a kiss in one place or another.
“That was okay?” she asks me.
“More than okay,” I tell her. “What about for you?”
“It was fun,” she says, and I believe her. I can’t imagine she’d lie about such things. At least not to me, not now.
Maybe I shouldn’t feel special, but I do.
Jane falls asleep in my bed, but when I wake up at 6:45 the next morning—without the help of my alarm—I bolt up, feeling like something’s not right. Instinctively, I look next to me.
I’m alone.
Terror seizes me, even as I tell myself to calm down. She’s probably elsewhere in the house. It’s not a big deal.
But even the idea of Jane being in her own bed fills me with worry. Did I do something wrong, and is that why she didn’t want to sleep next to me?
I pad down the hall to her room. The door is ajar, and I carefully push it open. She’s curled up on her side, the sheets around her waist.
I release the breath I was holding, then climb into bed behind her—her alarm will go off in a few minutes anyway. I wrap my arms around her, and she settles against me with a soft moan.
I love how she relaxes into me. How she looked so fucking studious while jerking me off last night. How she murmured to Watson when his bowtie wouldn’t stay put.
I’m good at finding things to love about a person, but I’m not good at endings. With every breakup, I felt like I lost a little part of myself, no matter how hard I tried to paste a smile on my face and move forward.
With this marriage, I was supposed to put that behind me, all the ups and downs of falling in and out of love. It was supposed to be a steady relationship with a friend, someone whose quirks I already knew. But once again, I was wrong about a relationship.
Because I love my wife, and I’m too chickenshit to tell her.
I think back to our wedding night, when I was foolishly sad that I hadn’t married for love. When I wondered if I should have waited until it happened to me again, then hoped against reason that it wouldn’t end like it had so many times before.
I got what I wanted after all, but it doesn’t feel good. I’m unsure of her exact feelings toward me, even as she releases a sigh of satisfaction in my arms.
Her alarm beeps. She turns it off, then rolls over.
“Did I snore last night?” I ask. “Is that why you came in here?”
“No,” she says. “I just didn’t want to disturb you as I read negative reviews online. Finally fell asleep around three.”
There were times in my life when four hours would have been an average night’s sleep, but it’s not ideal. I will care for her the way she cared for me last night.
“Was something in particular keeping you up?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Just happens sometimes.”
I know what that’s like. Still, it doesn’t assuage my fears that I am, somehow, the one to blame, but I’m not going to push it.
“Were you worried when I wasn’t in bed?” she asks.
“A little.”
She pulls me close, like she can’t help touching me, which is the same way I feel about her. It’s often not sexual; I just want to hold her, reassure myself with her presence.
But I wonder how long this can last.