27. Ellie
Chapter twenty-seven
Ellie
W ith one hand on my chest and one on my stomach, I slow my breathing. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.
The steam from the shower billows around me and I do my best to keep focused on my breaths alone. In, two, three, four… Frustration takes over and I scrub my hands down my face, letting out an annoyed huff.
“Ellie, you okay in here?” Dom calls out.
Fuck, I don’t want him to know I’m upset.
“Uh, yeah. All good. What’s up, babe?” I fight to keep my voice even.
“I just thought I heard something. Hey, can you leave the water on? I want to hop in when you’re done.”
My body reacts immediately at the thought of him joining me. Sure, we’re not having sex right now, but my thoughts go there regardless.
I’m grateful that Dom suggested we take a break, removing the pressure of sex from our relationship entirely. Slowly, I’ve been feeling this growing pull toward him physically. As if by taking the expectation for sex away, I could finally breathe. This desire I’ve been feeling now continues to build naturally instead of forcing it where I thought I needed to .
It really has done more than I thought it would to know that there’s no expectation for any affection to go any further. Not that he’s ever pressured me to. But I think I was pressuring myself, trying to force myself to feel what I thought I should.
Months. It’s been months since we’ve had each other.
Guilt threatens to climb up my throat, but I shove it down. Maybe intimacy has to look different for us right now, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe building up all these other pieces of our relationship has allowed for some of my sex drive to return.
Well, holy shit. Dom was actually onto something with this plan.
“Or you could…come in here? With me?” I offer hesitantly.
Dom doesn’t say anything for a while. Long enough for me to wonder if he left the bathroom before I hear him say, “I don’t want to intrude on your space.”
I squeeze my eyes shut in a wince and drop my head back. Dom has seen every inch of my body, up close and personal . But things feel so awkward between us now.
I haven’t asked Dom if he wants to put sex back on the table yet, but maybe we could slowly make our way back to…that.
Lately, every touch, every lingering look makes me feel…maybe a little sexy. And after today, when dress sizes and ugly comparisons I made up in my mind shredded my self-esteem, I want to feel sexy again. I want to feel beautiful and desirable.
Fuck, just because I’m a mom doesn’t mean I don’t want to feel good. Feel wanted.
Dom and I used to have great sex. I don’t want that to be another thing my brain and never-ending anxiety steal from me. I miss my husband.
“You’re not intruding, Dom. Please?”
Another pause.
I don’t say anything—the cloud of rejection starting to swirl around my mind—but a moment later, Dom slides the shower curtain to the side, stepping in .
Dom’s tall, but I’m not short either. He leans in close, still inches between our naked bodies, and presses a light kiss to my lips, pulling back quickly. He runs his palms from my elbows to my shoulders before turning me around so my back is to his chest, the spray from the shower head running down the front of my body. He steps into me, allowing our bodies to finally connect, and I close my eyes, resting my head back on his shoulder, turning my nose to tuck under his chin.
He wraps his arms around my middle, just above where the residual numbness from my c-section scar begins, and I do my best to tamp down the insecurities and dark memories that come roaring to the surface.
The skin on my breasts is softer after more than a year of nursing. My skin is painted with stretch marks regardless of how much oil and lotion I used during my pregnancy. My skin dips where they cut me, and my stomach hangs over the scar—the “c-section shelf.” I’m sure there are exercises and things I could do to improve the appearance, but my scar is already difficult to look at without triggering more flashbacks. Touching it is too much for me to deal with right now. Once my body healed from the surgery, I left it alone and now I ignore it as much as possible.
What if I didn’t? my mind screams at me. What if I could learn to love my body as it is now? What if I could someday accept, and even embrace, the fact that while it’ll never look like it once did, it’s still a damn good body?
I’ve tried to will away my resentment and bitterness. I’ve tried to be grateful , like everyone says.
You should start a gratitude journal…You’ll bounce back…Your body knows what to do…At least you’re both okay now…At least you didn’t have to give birth naturally…At least…At least…At least…
I assume every comment was said with good intentions, but anything anyone said to me after Luca was born that started with the phrase at least was the kind of toxic positivity I had to block out to hold on to the last shred of my sanity.
I don’t want an at least kind of life. I want the most out of every piece of it.
Including right now. With a man who loves me at my back. A man who does cute shit for me even when I don’t do anything to deserve it. A man who sacrifices. A man who loves with no regard for what it can bring him but only for what he wants to give.
What if I just let him hold me for a minute, and I spent that minute enjoying the way it felt for the man I love to keep me close instead of worrying about what my body looks and feels like?
“I love you,” he whispers into my neck. The words blanket my body with warmth and quiet my racing thoughts.
I hum, running my hands over his forearms, which are still wrapped around my waist. “And I love you.” I melt into him further.
I feel his dick hardening against my ass, and he pulls his hips back. Clearing his throat, he apologizes. “Trying to be on my best behavior here,” he says with a laugh. “Downstairs isn’t getting the message.”
I take a small step back into him, closing the space between us, his erection hitting me in the lower back. I grip him behind his neck, pulling him closer. “It’s been a long time…” I say.
Dom clears his throat as hands tighten around my waist, before he releases me and grabs the body wash off the shelf.
“Did you already wash up?” he asks.
“Not yet,” I lie, curious to see where he’s going with this.
“You’ve never been a good liar, Ellie. I can smell it on you.”
I smirk, grateful he can’t see my face.
“Humor me,” I say, looking over my shoulder to catch his heated stare.
“Can I help?” he asks, voice rough as he lathers soap into a washcloth. I nod.
Dom spends the next few minutes cleaning every inch of my body, his movements slow and languid, steady and sure. When he reaches my shoulders, he ditches the washcloth and massages my neck, working at the knots he finds deep in my muscles, before he lathers my hair with shampoo.
“Turn around,” he says, voice low.
In doing so, I realize how relaxed every muscle in my body has become. A drunk haze of blissful calm has my mind drifting, a nice break from its usual race .
When I steal a glance at Dom, his face is pulled tight in concentration as he rinses the suds from my hair, careful not to get any in my eyes. He pulls my body flush with his so that my hair is out of the water. He runs his fingers, coated with conditioner, through the ends.
As he finishes rinsing the product away, I close my eyes, enjoying the way his hands tug on the strands and the growing tension on my scalp.
I open my eyes to find his gaze locked on my lips.
“My turn?” I ask.
He smiles and nods. I wash his hair and then lather his body with soap, taking my time. Afterward, I use the handheld showerhead to rinse the suds from his skin.
While we’re both tall, I’m more soft curves and he’s more hard lines, though in the last year, he’s let himself live a little more than he used to. He’s less focused on hitting the gym and never says no when I suggest takeout because we’re both too tired to cook.
It’s moments like this that make me feel silly for worrying so much about my body and how it’s changed. Because Dom’s has, too, and there isn’t an inch of him that I don’t want to lick. He’s as sexy, if not sexier, now. I don’t want him to doubt my attraction to him for a single second.
Is that how he feels about me?
“Are you going to be okay with, uh…that whole situation?” I ask, gesturing to his erection, which hasn’t gone down at all. If anything, he’s harder.
He flashes me a smile, before saying, “I’ll be fine.”
Disappointment floods me, surprising me.
Dom’s not one to change his mind once he commits to something. But I wonder where this might have gone if we decided to try being physical again. I want to know where this would lead.
“Don’t you want better than fine?” I ask.
Don’t you want a better than fine sex life?
Don’t you want a better than fine marriage ?
Because I do.
“Ellie,” he says with a sigh. “Really, it’s okay. You don’t have to worry about me.”
I decide on a different approach. We agreed to no sex, but we didn’t say anything about…other things.
Did Dom plan this? Did he know my stupid ass would want what I can’t have just because we agreed not to have it and now I’m in my fucked-up head trying to figure out how to seduce my husband and partner of years ?
Goddamn it, that’s genius.
“I am worried. About you and…about me,” I say. I close my eyes before taking a step back under the spray of the water, trying my best to shut down the voices that scream at me to stop embarrassing myself and that there’s no way anyone could find me attractive like this.
But when I bring one hand to my breast, gripping firmly while trailing the other toward my center, the focused stare Dom lays on me tells me I should shut my own fucking mind up because he’s into this. He’s really into this.
“I miss you,” I say, my voice going a bit breathless as I explore the area surrounding my clit with growing pressure.
“Ellie,” Dom says, voice tortured. He slowly moves his hand to the base of his cock, tugging roughly from base to tip.
“This isn’t sex,” I say. His eyes roam from my hand between my thighs, to the one tugging on my nipple, to my eyes.
“No, it’s not,” he says with a smirk as his eyes darken.
Fuck, yes. I’ve got him.
If there’s one thing my husband likes, it’s a good game.