3. Jacob
— ? —
Jacob
She’s been gone all afternoon.
I don’t know where she went. She said she had errands in town and she’d be back for dinner, and I didn’t push because I know what she’s doing. She’s avoiding the house. She’s avoiding Daphne. She’s avoiding me because I said yes when she wanted me to say no.
I spent the afternoon showing Daphne to the west wing and laying out the rules.
She pouted about eating alone and she pouted about not being able to use the main living room and she pouted about having to stay on her side of the house, and I let her pout and didn’t budge on any of it.
When I left her in her room, she was already on her phone complaining to someone about the accommodations, and I closed the door and walked away and tried not to think about the look on Ellie’s face when I agreed to let her stay.
When Ellie comes back, she’s got groceries we don’t need and her makeup’s done and she’s wearing that yellow sundress, the one that shows off her shoulders and her legs, the one with the thin straps that slip off when I tug them, the one I told her once I wanted to rip off her with my teeth.
She’s making a point.
“Could you get the door please, Jacob?” she says, and the please is a weapon.
I get the door and hold it open while she walks past me with her arms full of grocery bags.
I look at her legs, tan and bare under the hem of that dress, and I think about pushing her up against the kitchen counter and sliding my hand up her thigh and finding out if she’s wearing anything under there.
I think about dropping to my knees on the tile right there with the groceries on the floor.
I think about bending her over the kitchen island and not letting her up until she’s laughing again.
I don’t do any of it. I know better.
She puts the groceries away without looking at me.
Milk in the fridge. Bread in the basket.
Eggs in the carton on the door. She moves around the kitchen with her back straight and her chin up and she doesn’t touch me, doesn’t brush against me, doesn’t do any of the small things she normally does.
Normally when we’re in the kitchen together she finds excuses to put her hands on me.
She’ll squeeze past me and let her hip drag against mine.
She’ll reach over my shoulder for a glass and press her tits against my back.
She’ll stand on tiptoe to get a bowl from the high shelf and ask me to hand it to her, and when I do she’ll let her fingers brush mine and smile at me.
None of that tonight. Tonight she moves around me and doesn’t touch me once.
“Dinner in twenty minutes,” she says.
“Okay.”
“I made supper. I sent the chef home.”
“Thank you.”
“Could you set the table please, Jacob?”
I set the table. I get out the plates, the nice ones she picked out when we got married, white with a thin gold rim. I get out the napkins, folded the way she likes them. I get out the wine glasses and a bottle of red, and I open it and let it breathe because I know she’ll want me to.
She watches me do all of this without saying a word, and then she brings the food to the table and we sit down across from each other and I’ve got nothing to say.
“This looks great,” I try.
“Thank you, Jacob.”
She passes me the chicken. I take a piece and put it on my plate. I pass her the potatoes. She takes a spoonful and puts them on her plate. I pass her the green beans. She takes a spoonful of those too. Everything is orderly and polite and I’m having dinner with a stranger.
Somewhere in the west wing, a door opens and closes, and Ellie’s fork stops halfway to her mouth. She sets it down and looks at me, and her eyes are hard.
“She’s in her room,” I say. “She’s supposed to be in her room.”
“Mmhmm.”
“I told her the rules. She agreed to them.”
“Did she?”
Ellie picks up her fork and takes a bite of chicken and chews and swallows and doesn’t look at me.
“This is really good,” I say, because it is, and because I don’t know what else to say.
“Thank you, Jacob.”
“Ellie, look at me.”
“Could you pass the salt please, Jacob?”
I pass the salt. She shakes some onto her potatoes, more than she needs, and passes it back without touching my hand.
“How was your day?” I try.
“Fine. How was yours?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
We eat in silence for a while. The chicken is perfect, juicy and tender, the way she always makes it.
The potatoes are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
The green beans are cooked just right. She put a lot of effort into this meal, and I’m eating it in silence because I don’t know how to fix what I broke.
Another door opens and closes in the west wing. Footsteps in the hallway. Daphne’s voice, calling for one of the maids.
Ellie sets down her fork.
“I’m finished,” she says. “Could you clear the table please, Jacob?”
“You barely ate.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Ellie, sit down.”
“I’m going up.” She stands and pushes in her chair. “Don’t wait up.”
She walks out of the kitchen and I sit there with a plate of half-eaten chicken and a glass of wine I haven’t touched and the sound of Daphne’s voice echoing down the hall.
***
After dinner, I find her in our bathroom at the vanity, scrubbing her makeup off too hard.
I’ve been standing in the bedroom for twenty minutes, listening to the water run, trying to figure out what to say. I don’t know what to say. I never know what to say.
“Ellie.”
She doesn’t look at me. “I’m fine, Jacob.”
“Then look at me.”
“I’m processing.” She scrubs at her mascara, black streaks coming off on the cotton pad. “You moved another woman into our house today without asking me first, so I’m allowed to process.”
“Her father asked.”
“I heard what her father asked.” She throws the cotton pad in the trash and finally turns to look at me. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face is bare and she’s still wearing that yellow sundress and she’s beautiful. “I also heard you say yes before you asked me.”
She’s right. She’s always right about things like this. I said yes before Jackson even finished the question because it was Jackson, and I don’t know how to say no to Jackson Long.
“Come here,” I say.
“I’m taking my makeup off.”
“Come here, Ellie.”
She sighs and puts down the cotton pad and turns on the vanity stool to face me.
Her legs are bare beneath the dress and her blonde hair is falling loose around her shoulders.
She looks exhausted and angry and beautiful, and I want to put my mouth on every inch of her.
I want to push that dress up around her waist and spread her legs and eat her pussy until she forgets why she’s mad at me. I want her loud.
I cross the bathroom and pull her up off the stool and into my arms. She resists for half a second, her hands flat on my chest, and then her fingers curl into my shirt and she’s dragging me closer.
I lift her onto the vanity and step between her thighs and kiss her until neither of us can breathe.
“I’m sorry,” I say against her mouth. “I should’ve asked you first.”
“Yes.” She bites my lower lip hard enough to sting. “You should have.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“You keep saying that.” Her legs wrap around my waist and I can feel the heat of her through my jeans. “You never do.”
“Don’t,” she says before I can speak. “Don’t apologize again. I’m tired of apologies. I want you to show me that I matter, that I’m not just some woman who lives in your house and waits around for scraps.”
I kiss her again, harder this time, and I pull the sundress over her head and drop it on the floor. She’s wearing yellow underwear that matches, tiny and lacy, barely covering anything, and I hook my fingers in the waistband and drag it down her legs and drop to my knees on the cold tile.
“Jacob, wait.”
“Let me show you.”
I bury my face between her thighs and she gasps and her hand fists in my hair.
She’s already wet, wet for me, and I lick her slow and deep, tasting her, savoring her.
She’s not shy about it, never has been. She spreads her legs wider and rocks against my face and makes sounds that go straight to my cock.
I look up at her while I eat her out and I can see us in the mirror behind her.
I can see her head falling back, her mouth opening, her chest heaving.
I can see my hands gripping her hips, her fingers twisted in my hair.
I use my tongue and my fingers, curling them inside her while I suck on her clit, and she’s getting louder now, saying my name, saying yes, saying right there.
The lotion bottle falls off the vanity and rolls across the tile and neither of us cares.
She comes with a cry that echoes off the bathroom walls, her thighs clamping around my head, her whole body shaking.
I don’t stop. I keep going, keep licking, keep fucking her with my fingers.
The toothbrush cup falls next, clattering into the sink, and I hear her laugh, breathless and surprised, and then she’s moaning again because I’m not letting up.
She comes again, harder this time, her heels digging into my back, her knuckles white where she grips the edge of the marble. I can see her in the mirror, see her face twisted with pleasure, see her tits heaving with every breath, and I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life.
I stand and strip off my clothes and she watches me, her eyes dropping to my cock, hard and leaking. She licks her lips and I almost lose it right there.
“Come here,” she says.
I pull her to the edge of the vanity and line myself up and push into her in one long stroke, and we both groan. She’s tight and hot and perfect and I have to hold still for a second, my forehead against hers, my hands gripping the marble on either side of her.
“Mine,” I say against her ear. “You hear me? Mine.”
“Prove it.”
I fuck her hard, watching us in the mirror, watching my cock disappear into her over and over, watching her tits bounce with every thrust. She’s saying my name, saying fuck, saying harder, and I give her harder.
I grip her hips and drive into her until the whole vanity is shaking, until I’m pretty sure we’re going to break it, until she’s screaming and I don’t care if Daphne hears, I want her to hear, I want everyone to hear.
“Jacob, fuck, right there.”
I reach between us and rub her clit and she comes a third time with her teeth in my shoulder and her pussy clenching around me so hard it pulls me over the edge with her. I come inside her with a groan, my hips stuttering, my hands gripping her so tight there will be bruises tomorrow.
After, both of us breathing hard, still tangled together on the vanity with my softening cock still inside her, she puts her hand on my face. Her fingers trace my jaw, my cheekbone, the bridge of my nose. She’s memorizing me.
“Jacob.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever think about kids?”
I go still.
She must feel it because she pushes on, her voice quiet but determined. “I know the ranch is everything right now. I know you’re building this place. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I want a family. A baby. A thing that’s just ours.”
There’s a reason I don’t go near this, and I’m not looking at it tonight.
“I never figured I’d have a wife,” I say.
“That’s not an answer.”
She waits. I can feel her waiting, and I want to give her what she wants. I want to say yes, let’s do it, let’s have a baby, let’s build a family. But the words won’t come. They stick in my throat the way they always stick, and I don’t know how to get them out.
“We’ll talk about it,” I say.
Her face closes. “Same as everything else.”
She pushes at my chest and I pull out of her and step back. She slides off the vanity and walks past me to the bed without looking at me and gets under the covers and turns to face the wall.
“Daphne eats in the west wing from now on,” I say into the silence. “I told the chef.”
“Thank you, Jacob.”
I clean myself up and pull on sweats and get into bed beside her. I put my hand on her hip, the way I do every night, the way I’ve done every night since we got married.
She takes my hand and moves it back to my side of the bed.
“Good night, Jacob.”
I lie in the dark and listen to her breathe. She falls asleep eventually, her breathing evening out, and I should be asleep too but I can’t stop thinking about what she said. About kids. About families. About the thing I can’t say.
Around midnight, when I’m almost under, she speaks.
“I love you,” she whispers, so quiet I almost don’t hear it. “I love you, Jacob.”
I open my mouth and the words are right there, three syllables, the easiest sentence in the world.
Nothing comes out.
I lie there in the dark and I feel her waiting, and then her breathing changes and gets slower and steadier, and I know she’s fallen asleep without me saying a single goddamn word back.