Chapter Thirty-One
Belle
I woke to lips trailing down the back of my neck and a hand squeezing my breast. Five minutes later he was cursing the promises he made himself not to allow himself to sink into my warmth until we were spiritually married. I was stroking him as he made me orgasm to his fingers again. I didn’t understand why he was so determined not to be inside me. We did everything else, so why not? His reply was always the same. He said I would soon understand. I concluded that it had nothing to do with his need for a real wedding, and it wasn’t about me. I thought it was possible it had to do with Natalie. I heard the story about the night they slept together, and I heard a lot of regret in his voice. He explained that he grew up with a mother that didn’t have much respect for her own body. He laid in bed at night trying to drown out the sounds of his mother giving herself to random men, and when Natalie took his virginity he felt like she made it about something physical that meant nothing, just like his mother. He spent years in love with the girl next door and would day dream about their first time. I believed with every part of me that Michael was truly in love with Natalie, even at that young of an age. She crushed his dreams of their lives together that night, and from that day on he treated sex like a physical act, and he felt no emotion toward anyone he shared a bed with again. He was disconnected emotionally. He didn’t want that with us, he was doing the same thing with me as he did with her, daydreaming about the first time he came inside me. He needed to feel security in the ultimate commitment, and he felt I would eventually regret not waiting for a spiritual wedding. Like somehow it would be a spiritual connection between us. That might have been my fault. When he first came to me with the idea of marriage for the sole purpose of stopping Jeremy, I did say a legal marriage wasn’t a real one and I could walk away from it. I made it sound easy to leave, but now I was in love with him, and I wanted our legal marriage to be as real as a spiritual one. I didn’t know I would distance myself so much from our practices and beliefs back home. I ultimately believed that Michael was grasping back onto the boy he once was because his hopes and dreams were coming to life again.
His lips were on mine as he laid on top me and I rocked my hips to rub against his hardness. He came on my stomach then recovered for a moment before carrying me to the shower.
He was saying goodbye. The night before, he told me he thought he found my mother’s location and would be heading out with a large group of operatives in the morning. Magnus, Granger, and Irons were heading out with them. I was scared for him and my mama as he kissed my tears. His hands clasped my face as the warm water of the shower ran down our naked bodies. My fear for him and my mama only grew the closer it came to his time to leave. My stuff was packed, and I was going to Wrenly’s house to stay with her while they were gone.
“I’m going to do everything I can to bring her back safe.” He promised.
“I’m not just scared for her, Michael. I love you.”
He pulled me into him and held me in his arms. “I love you too. Are you sure you’re going to be okay here without me?”
“I’m not scared of the boogie man anymore, Michael. I don’t need a dark room to feel safe. I have Creed, Wrenly, Baros, Drakos, and Addie.”
He chuckled when he kissed the top of my head. “I’d say close to Addie, she’s the toughest one of all.”
An hour later, I was standing with Wrenly as all the trucks pulled away in a convoy. He said he would probably be gone a few days at most, but maybe not even that long. They needed to do some of what he called recon before they made any moves. He left his personal cell at home and only took his business phone with him, but he would be in contact with the command center.
Wrenly and I made our way to Morgan’s house to pick up Addie. She said she had enough of the crying and daddy was suffocating her. He was wanting too much cuddle time, and it was getting gross. I guess he wanted her right beside him and Morgan at all times, so she didn’t feel left out, but it was getting to be too much for a little girl that liked some independence.
I gushed over the twins when Wrenly and I held them. They were so adorable, and already looked like their daddy. They didn’t have Morgan’s intensely light blue eyes, they had Creed’s. They had so much fuzzy black hair it was almost too cute. Creed hovered like a protective daddy that thought nobody ever held a baby before, and that was just as cute. He also hovered over Morgan, barely letting her do much of anything. He was even changing diapers, which never would have happened back home. My dad had nearly fifty babies and never changed one diaper. I even wondered if he held every single one of us. I was sure it wasn’t easy keeping all of our names straight too.
“Which one am I holding?” I asked as I placed his tiny little hat back over his fuzzy black hair.
“That’s Cole.” Addie said. “He doesn’t cry as much as Colton.”
I smiled, but didn’t point out that Addie said all that without a hint of a speech problem.
I glanced at Wrenly, and I saw something in her eyes that was different. She was sad and I could tell she was uncomfortable holding Colton. I wondered if she maybe never held a baby before or maybe she knew a baby that died, because the expression I caught told me looking at him was painful. Colton began crying and she quickly handed him off to Creed. The baby looked so tiny in his arms, and I imagined Michael holding his own child. Creed was hands on with his children, like nothing I had ever seen before, and I wondered if Michael would be the same. I had a feeling he would, especially after I learned how he was always taking care of others. He was the problem solver, the one everyone relied on when things didn’t go as planned.
After gushing over the twins, Wrenly and I took Addie ice skating, then I watched a movie in a theater for the first time. It was fun and Addie was very well behaved. We had dinner at the mess hall, then we went bowling with Stephanie and her kids, which was a blast.
I stayed in Wrenly and Travis’s guest room, and Addie begged to sleep with me. We read some of the books she packed. When she finally fell asleep, I gently took her glasses off then covered her up. She looked like an angel as she slept, a very harmless angel that had every man at Creed’s Lake wrapped around her little pinky.
The next evening, Wrenly was called out to a situation with the SWAT team. Kayla picked me up and demanded we have a girls night. It was getting late, so I was surprised she wanted to get all dolled up for a night out. We went home and I took a shower in our bathroom while Kayla took one in my old bathroom.
I had just walked out of the bathroom in a towel when I heard a phone ringing. It wasn’t mine, it was Michael’s. I walked over to it out of curiosity, and saw a profile picture of a woman. I didn’t know what possessed me to do it, but I picked it up and a new feeling came over me. I didn’t answer it, but saw the woman’s name, Faye.
I knew his password to get into the phone because I used it a few times when I needed to call Kayla or Morgan before I got my phone. Reluctantly, I typed in the password then went to his contacts and found the name Faye. There were a ton of texts, and my emotions came to the surface as I read them.
Michael: I’ll call you when I get time.
Faye: I miss your cock.
Michael: It’s not a good time to talk.
I kept scrolling up and seeing something about a canceled trip, but before that, they talked every single day.
Faye: You looked so hot fucking his wife, as I sucked him off. I knew I needed you inside me to finish.
Michael: She wasn’t all that great.
What was he doing with another man’s wife?
Michael: She tasted sweet but not as sweet as you.
Faye: I don’t know what got into you last night, but my pussy is still watering for you even though it’s so sore.
Michael: Let me know when you’re done at the spa, I’m coming back down to our room to tear that pussy up again.
What was my husband doing?
Michael: See that woman in pink at the bar? I want her to choke on my cock as I eat your pussy.
Faye: I think she’s married to the woman in blue. I bet her pussy will taste just as sweet.
I began crying.
Faye: I miss you.
Michael: I miss your tight pussy.
Faye: No, I mean, I miss you, your cock too, but I miss your touch more.
Michael: Need some help falling asleep tonight? I’m out of town but I could use a little attention even if it’s on screen. I’m alone in my hotel room.
Faye: Call me on video. I want to see your face.
I reached up and wiped my tears away as I read one text after another.
Faye: Ever just want it to be us? Nobody else, just dinner, dancing, and making love all night?
Michael: I like a little vanilla, you know that, Faye.
Faye: I dream of you way too much.
Michael: I’ll come to New York next weekend. I miss you too.
The phone dinged and I ignored it for just a moment and read on. Scrolled up to go further back in time. There were texts going back months and months but then I stumbled on one that caught my attention.
Faye: I met you a decade ago today. You were just joining Delta Force, and I was still working in D.C. Can you believe it’s been that long?
Michael: I can believe it, we connect well, and we want the same things.
Faye: It’s been a decade, Michael. I need to see you more. Can I please come to Creed’s Lake?
Michael: I’ll come to New York instead.
I had to set the phone down for a moment. A decade, they were twenty one when they met. That meant it was only four years after Natalie. I scrolled down to the latest texts.
Faye: Are you ending us, Mike?
I scrolled up to read what he sent her In the last few days, and it was nothing but telling her they needed to talk when he had time. I set the phone down and cried. Michael wasn’t cheating on me, his wife, he was cheating on her with me.