Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Daisy
I held on to Alder like this dream was going to vanish and I’d have no one. I’d be left alone again. I’d open my eyes and find out I was still with the wrong man.
His weight was pleasing. I kissed his hairline and ran my hands over his back. His chest heaved against mine as we caught our breaths.
I’d exploded so many times. In one night, or day in this case. That hadn’t happened since… Him. I trailed my fingers over his heated, sweaty skin and along his broad shoulders. The words “I love you” crowded on my tongue. I used to murmur that to him, over and over, in moments just like this. When we were sated and quiet. I love you, I love you, I love you . Toward the end, I had said the words as if I willed them to be enough.
He lifted his head and caught my lips in a slow, tender kiss. He tangled a hand in my hair, and inside me, his dick twitched, coming back to life.
His stamina had not decreased with age.
The heat between us kept everything from getting sticky?—
I gasped as clarity dawned bright and clear despite the storm outside the window. “We didn’t use anything.”
He stiffened before jerking his hips back, then he paused before he fully pulled out like he wasn’t sure if he was making it better or worse. Alarm beat against my temples. No protection. I might be married, but I was a single woman.
“Are you on anything?” he asked, his tone cautious.
“Yes.” I rifled through my brain. Had I been taking my pill every day? I’d been on it for so long that it was rote. Wake up, take the pill with my first glass of water. “I think I’ve been regular with it. Laila came about because I had the stomach flu for a week.”
He was still taut. “I’ve been checked. I hope you’re not worried about… I’ve always used protection.”
“Except for now?” My gentle tease was supposed to hide how pleased I was he’d been out of his mind with me to even think about it.
“It just felt natural. It’s us.”
We hadn’t tried for kids when we’d been married, but we hadn’t done everything possible to prevent them. If I had gotten pregnant, we’d just have been parents earlier than expected.
I couldn’t fault Alder. I hadn’t thought of it either. It had felt natural. “I always used protection too.”
He rolled to my side, propping his head on his hand. “And you still had Laila?”
“Yeah. Talk about a perfect storm. Thrown-up doses of pills and faulty condoms.”
He traced his fingers over my abdomen. Shivers cropped up where he touched. I was still warm from him, and he was an oven next to me, but without his heat blanketing me, the chill was back. I didn’t believe in signs, but it was like I could only be warm and full with him. “I can grab my condoms from upstairs,” he finally said.
I huffed out a laugh. Of course, he’d have condoms. Women probably threw themselves at him. Alder 2.0 was always prepared.
Why the hell was I annoyed? Why the sense of betrayal? I’d been engaged to another man! I’d had a baby with him.
He placed a kiss at the corner of my mouth. “I got them for us. Just in case.”
Thoughtful Alder struck again. Worse, an Alder who had hoped to get with me, and I had thought the worst of him. “Sorry.” I tilted my face toward him. “It’s weird, right? Having this talk? Kind of a sign of how things are different. How we moved on.”
“I didn’t move on. Not at all.” He continued to swirl his fingers across my skin. “I didn’t even try.”
I barked out a laugh. “I tried.” That made me so much worse. “I finally had to admit it was pointless.”
“Fuck, Daze. I didn’t want you to be unhappy, but I’m sure as hell thrilled to hear that you couldn’t bring yourself to marry another guy.”
“I did, actually.” I held my hand out. The wedding ring caught what little light filtered through the shades. “I married this rich prick who drives a big truck. I think he’s compensating.”
“They always are.”
I brushed my fingers down his cheek. “He doesn’t relax though. Like he’s trying to atone for the sins of the past.”
He didn’t respond but his hand went still on my stomach. Only his thumb twitched.
“Sometimes I wonder if he’s overcorrected,” I said.
A moment went by. Two. “He hasn’t,” he finally said. “He can’t overcorrect when it’s impossible to go back and correct what he broke.”
“Oh, Alder.” I rolled to my side. In the dark, we faced each other. Buck naked and exposed in so many more ways.
“Don’t apologize.” He skipped his finger down my nose. “I’m the one who should never quit saying sorry.” He curled me into his chest. “I haven’t yet, have I? Truly apologized.”
“I wasn’t keeping track.”
“That’s not the Daisy I know.”
A laugh escaped. “Okay, fine. No, you haven’t.”
I felt his smile from where he rested his face against my head. “There she is.” He held me tighter. “I’m so sorry, Daisy. You were right about everything. I was a shit. I invited the guys over and never checked with you, never bothered to think about how it affected you and your studying. Or that, fuck, you felt like your safe space was violated.”
I shrank into him. We’d argued about that once, and he’d said he had a right to act like he wanted. He’d lived in a house with seven other people, and he wasn’t going to let one person dictate his living space.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I did kick Colton’s ass when he busted your grandma’s vase.”
It had been my great-great-aunt’s vase. Grandma had passed it down and my mom’s mom had not been a sentimental lady. The fact I had anything from her other than the albums was a miracle, and some drunk coworker of Alder’s had knocked it down when he’d gone in our bedroom looking for an extra bathroom.
Then there’d been the dirty dishes all over. The muddy boots and the dirt tracks across the apartment. “Remember when what’s his name smoked a cigar and the place stunk for weeks?”
“I was too afraid to admit that I had shared it with him.”
“Oh, I could tell you had.” I had gone nuclear. It hadn’t been about the cigar or that Alder had smoked it with his buddy. I’d come home from a long day of school and working the early morning shift, to come home to a place that made me sneeze and caused my chest to feel tight.
After that fight, he’d taken to going out more and hanging out at bars and crashing at his coworkers’ places.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not listening to you. For being a selfish prick. For regressing instead of being the husband you wanted.”
The side of my face was pressed against his chest. I flattened my hand on one of his hard pecs. “I understand why you did it, you know. Big family. You finally had freedom. But thank you. For the apology.”
“Sometimes, I can’t even explain why I morphed into that guy. I take full accountability, but I wish I had some other excuse than that I was an entitled dick.”
“Aliens took over.”
“There was a body snatcher.”
“Oh, that’s who gave me four orgasms.”
His chuckle was deep against my cheek. “I’m going to keep taking credit for it.” He gently rolled me to my stomach and brushed a kiss against the back of my shoulders. “In fact, that means I have to prove I can do it too.”
Smiling, I stretched and arched into the light scrapes of his stubble. We’d reached a new understanding between us. The past was over. Done. But we had now. That was all I would concentrate on. If I looked any further ahead, that would only get me into trouble. If Alder 2.0 let me down, I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to leave him, and I already had a strong history of staying too long.
Four orgasms. He’d done it. I could barely move today. It had been like a marathon. Alder must’ve been tired too because we’d stayed on the couch all morning and watched movies.
This time we weren’t on opposite sides of the couch. I spent the day burrowed next to him. His feet were kicked up on the recliner part of the couch and his arm was on me. The movie we’d been watching was done.
Alder flipped through the options. “Have you seen the one about murders in the building?”
“Yes.”
He slid his gaze toward me.
I shrugged. “If it’s streaming, then I’ve probably watched it. Unless it’s a movie older than five years ago.”
“Having a kid kept you homebound?”
“Jason used to work a lot of overtime, and neither of us had family in the area. Our parents love Laila, but they like being grandparents on their schedules, when it’s fun for them. Not when I needed the help.”
My phone buzzed from the end table. I grabbed it, but I didn’t sink back into Alder. I pushed the blanket off me and twisted until I was facing him and my back was to the wall. “It’s a video call. From Laila.”
His brows drew together, but he nodded. Was he bothered that I was trying to hide how close we were? He knew the deal. We weren’t together together, and I wouldn’t confuse Laila with that concept. She had accepted the whole married-roommate thing.
I hit the answer button. Laila’s face came into view. Jason was right behind her like she was sitting on his lap. “Hey, sweet pea.”
“Hi, Mommy!” She made a face into the screen. Her gaze was on the little window with her image.
“How’s the storm going for you two?”
“Good! We had popcorn.”
“Fun. Everything’s okay?” I looked at Jason when I asked. He nodded.
“Yup,” Laila said. She peered around me. “Where’s Alder?”
“Oh, uh…” A moment of panic clutched my heart tight in its fist. I wasn’t a kid sneaking around, and I couldn’t act like it. Then she’d sense something was wrong. And from the grinding of Alder’s teeth, I’d hurt his feelings more than it had. “He’s here.”
Laila looked around. “Where?”
“We’re watching a show.”
Jason’s expression fell, and he looked away.
Guilt built higher inside me like the snowdrifts outside. I’d told him this was nothing but a marriage of convenience, yet here I was, cozy with Alder not even a quarter of the way through the arrangement.
“You know, with the storm, there’s nothing else to do but watch some shows.” Geez, I sounded like I was hiding a body I didn’t want them to know about.
The muscle in Alder’s jaw jumped.
“Lemme see him,” Laila said, bobbing and ducking her head like she was going to glimpse him hiding next to the couch.
“You mind?” I asked him.
His features were neutral. “Not at all.”
I did. He was in a loose black T-shirt, and while that wasn’t out of the ordinary, his hair was ruffled, standing on end from having my fingers through it all night. To anyone who didn’t know him, they’d think nothing of it. But they might. Especially since it was past lunchtime, and I was wearing my pajama top with yellow duckies all over it.
We looked like two people who had rolled out of bed together and went straight for the couch. Because we had.
If I delayed any longer, then we really would look like we were hiding something. As much as I hated hurting Jason, I didn’t want him to feel like I was hiding something on top of it.
I turned the phone around.
Alder flashed a kind smile. “Howdy, Laila. How’s the weekend with your dad?”
“What show are you watching? We’re watching Inside Out .”
“Isn’t there more than one?” he asked.
“Yup.”
My mouth twitched.
“We’re watching a murder mystery series,” he said. “They don’t scare your mom, but I might have nightmares tonight.”
Her giggles carried through the phone. “Hey, Mommy, guess what.”
I flashed a smile of appreciation toward Alder, but his face was back to being a blank canvas.
I chatted with Laila about how she planned to help her dad dig out, then I answered her questions about what would happen if she couldn’t get home on Monday. Jason planned to take her to daycare that morning, and I’d pick her up after work. That’d change until Tuesday if the roads were still bad.
After the call was disconnected, I held the phone in my lap, trying to gauge Alder’s reaction to the call.
Alder stared at the TV as he paged through options for us to watch. “What should we watch next?”
“Were you okay with that?”
He frowned. “Talking to Laila? Of course. I thought maybe she was hoping I froze out in the snow.”
“She actually worries about you. She was going to color you a picture last weekend. Hadn’t seen you for a while and wondered if you were okay.”
He perked up. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” His astonishment touched me. He’d given Laila the distance she needed, and not many people did that with kids. Strangers got frustrated when she didn’t want to talk to them. She was another man’s kid, but Alder respected her.
At the same time, a tiny pit of anxiety formed. If my kid started to like him, that’d only add another tangle to this web we were creating.
I could leave this distance between us, but that didn’t feel right. “I wasn’t hiding you exactly. I don’t want Laila confused, and I still feel guilty about Jason. I’d rather talk to him first and set the example for when he starts to date.”
“It won’t bother you when he does?”
“No.” I had absolutely no reservations. “The only thing I’m worried about is how who he ends up with will treat Laila.” I set my phone on the end table and rose. There was zero jealousy when it came to Jason. All that was reserved for Alder. I tried to stay in the present, but what about the future? What about when Alder moved on? More images of him and beautiful women would devastate me. “I need to take a shower, then I’ll make some spaghetti.”
I swept into the bathroom, grateful to put some distance between me and the cozy domesticity Alder and I were creating. Being married to him wasn’t supposed to be like this. So damn perfect my chest ached.
I started the water and undressed. By the time I was naked, the water had warmed. I stepped under the spray and let it pelt me in the face.
Not even twenty-four hours after having sex and I wanted it all. I could have it all.
But…
The pain of our arguments echoed in my head. The fear of failure.
Warm water worked into my muscles. I turned so it’d hit my tight shoulders. After a few minutes, the door squeaked open.
I froze. I was behind the daisy-covered shower curtain, but I felt like I was behind a pane of glass. Exposed. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“I’d like to think I take longer than that.” Through the curtain, I could see his shirt was off already, leaving nothing but a swath of sculpted chest. He shucked his sweats down, and my mouth went dry.
I’d seen his chest. It’d been clear in my mind even in the shadows. But his cock was different. I hadn’t seen that in years. Last night, I’d felt it. A lot. It’d been in me. In the light of the bathroom, his entire body was on display. Powerful thighs with quads that bulged to his knees. Calves could be sexy, and Alder proved it.
The sex was really good. That was all it was, all it needed to be. I let the rest of my anxiety wash down the drain.
My self-consciousness didn’t get whisked away. I kept the curtain as a privacy drape as he prowled to the edge of the tub. “There’s not much room. We can sprawl on the bed.”
“We can.” He propped an arm on the wall, nearly caging me in the tub. He dropped his gaze to where my body was hidden behind daisies on an opaque white background. “You’re in your head.”
He knew me too well. “Maybe.” When he kicked a brow up, I sighed. “I’m not the same.” I waved a hand down my body. I’d been scared for the future, for the end of our year together, but I’d share these fears. “You’ve aged like—geez. Like fine wine is too delicate of a description. You’re bigger.”
He smirked, and his gaze dipped to his proud erection.
“Yes. I swear even that.” My knuckles turned white on the curtain. “I have stretch marks. The perky boobs of my early twenties might be bigger now, but they’re just a little tired from fighting gravity. There’s more of me, but it didn’t turn into muscle like you.”
“Ah, Daisy.” His lazy chuckle caressed over my wet skin. “You think I find this version of you any less sexy than I did fifteen years ago?”
I feared that he could find better versions. I was scared he’d come to his senses and find out that maybe I wasn’t such a big loss. We were in a snow bubble. A snow globe. An idyllic setting that was getting shook, but the excitement would only last until the snow settled.
He gently pried the curtain away. Across from us, I saw myself in the mirror behind his broad back. My stringy hair stuck to my face, but my cheeks were tinged with pink and my eyes were bright. I might fear what he’d think of me in the unflattering light of the bathroom, but it was my overwhelming feelings that were terrifying. A love that had never died.
He set a hot hand on my hip and maneuvered me to the back of the tub. Desire heated his eyes when he studied my body. That beautiful erection of his strained between us. It was millimeters from the water sluicing down my abdomen.
“You want to know what I think when I see you now?” He ran a finger over my collarbone and trailed it farther down, skimming over a breast. “Fucking finally. That’s what I think. I get to finally see you without a stitch of clothing again. I get to finally touch you. To be with you.” He circled my nipple with his fingertip, then cupped my whole breast in his palm. He did the same with the other one. “I think these tits are more amazing than before, and I thought they were pretty fabulous back then.”
Shivers danced over my skin. I wasn’t cold, not with him acting like my personal furnace.
“And those stretch marks?” His low groan sounded more like a growl. He traced over silvery squiggles on my hips. “They’re a part of you. A badass part. It makes you even more unique. I don’t give a shit about your size, Daisy, but trust me when I say I don’t mind having more of you to hold on to.”
He could be telling me what I wanted to hear to get laid, but he didn’t have to do that. I was his regardless. If he didn’t want to see me, he could haul me to the bedroom and keep the lights off. But he was standing with me in the shower.
Slowly, the stress inside of me washed out and circled the drain. Be in the moment. Savor this.
He gripped each side of my hips before sliding his hands back to palm my ass cheeks. We were pressed together now, and his erection was pinned between us. His cock twitched and pulsed against my stomach.
He placed a kiss at my jawline and nibbled his way to my ear. “Do you mind my bigger size?”
“God, no.”
His hot breath gusted across my ear with his soft laugh. “Then, my sweet flower, I don’t fucking mind every extra inch you have. It’s more for me to get my hands and mouth on.”
“You always say the right things.”
“I said the wrong ones for too long.” He laved kisses down my neck. I tilted my head to the side to give him more room.
He was more than making up for it. When we were in high school, I hadn’t thought I could find a better man. He was proving that he got better each day as he strove for perfection. I just wish he knew that I’d be more comfortable around him if he had a few flaws.
But he did what he’d always done best. As he worked his way down my body with his mouth, lowering himself to his knees, I was coaxed out of my head and into this moment. It was only sex between us. So his perfection didn’t matter.