Chapter 6
Robert’s hand is on the small of my back in the produce section at Kroger, and my eyes sting.
It’s been four days since the couch. Four days of both of us being way too careful. Talking about groceries and the weather like I didn’t just almost blow up our entire marriage. He moved back into the bedroom two nights ago. I counted that as a win.
His fingers grazed mine when he handed me the coffee this morning, and neither of us pulled away. That’s a win too.
Now his palm presses flat against my spine while I’m squeezing avocados like they hold the answers to my marriage. Warmth spreads down my lower back, and I lean into him. Just a little.
His thumb traces one slow line up my spine, and my throat closes up. I’m about to ugly-cry in public for the second time in a week, and the only thing stopping me is the elderly woman comparing cantaloupe three feet away.
Get it together, Shannon. You are not going to have a breakdown next to the guacamole ingredients.
That night, I go to him.
I brush my teeth and take off my clothes and walk into the bedroom naked. Robert is sitting up against the headboard reading with his glasses on, and when he looks up, his book slides off his lap.
So this is Shannon Matthews’ grand romantic gesture. Bare-ass naked in a doorway while her husband blinks at her over his reading glasses. Eat your heart out, Nicholas Sparks.
“I’m yours.” My voice doesn’t shake, but my hands do. “I’ve always been yours. Even when I was stupid enough to forget it.”
Three seconds of silence feels like a fucking year. My brain, which has been blessedly quiet for the walk from the bathroom, kicks back in and screams, you are naked in a doorway and you just said that out loud, and if he doesn’t move in the next two seconds, you will die right here on this carpet.
Robert takes off his glasses and sets them on the nightstand. His eyes travel down my body, and when they come back up to my face, his jaw loosens. He’s not looking at my tits or my hips. He’s looking at me.
He doesn’t say anything. He just pulls the covers back.
I climb in beside him, and his fingers find my collarbone. His mouth moves along my throat to that spot behind my ear where my pulse is going crazy. Every touch is careful, like he’s making sure I’m real, and my skin lights up because it’s been days since he touched me like this.
I run my hands over his shoulders and breathe deeply. He smells like Robert. Like the man I almost lost because I was too chickenshit to be honest.
“Shannon,” he murmurs against my neck, and the roughness in the tone hits me right between my legs, the way it used to when we first started dating.
My fingers tighten in his hair, and I pull him up so I can see his face. The mix of love and lust almost breaks me.
His pajama pants are gone in about two seconds before he moves over me, his full weight pinning me to the mattress, his cock hard against my pussy. Heat rolls through me. My skin flushes and my pussy clenches before he’s even inside me.
I reach between us and wrap my hand around his shaft. He groans into my neck while I stroke him. When he pulses against my palm, my pussy throbs in answer. She loves this cock.
He lifts his head and looks at me, and I let go of his cock and pull his face down to mine.
The kiss is soft at first. We’re still figuring out if we’re allowed to do this.
Then his tongue finds mine, and fuck it, I’m done being careful.
I kiss him hard, and my fingers dig into the back of his neck as his hand slides into my hair and holds on.
I moan into his mouth so loudly it surprises me.
I whimper against his mouth. “I need you inside me.”
He lines up and pushes in slowly, and my breath catches from the pleasure.
“Christ, Shannon.” He presses his forehead to mine. His hips flush against me, all the way in, and we both stop moving.
Holy shit. I forgot how perfectly he fits inside me. I almost threw this away. I almost threw him away. That thought hits me so hard my eyes sting and I tighten around him and hold on.
He makes love to me slowly. There’s no other word for it.
His hips roll against mine, and his cock drags along my walls with every stroke.
Every time he pushes back in, my pussy clenches around him like she’s afraid he’ll stop.
I wrap my legs around his waist, and my heels press into his thighs, pulling him deeper.
We kiss again, and our tongues twirl together. The pleasure from the kiss and his cock makes my brain empty…no more guilt. Just Robert.
“Look at me,” he groans.
His face is right there. I can see his jaw clench when he pushes deep, his eyes go glassy when I squeeze him. He can see me too. Every stupid thing I’m feeling is all over my face and I don’t care. I’m done hiding from this man.
He picks up speed and his pelvis grinds against my clit every time he bottoms out. My toes curl as the pressure builds, and I run my palms down his back and feel his muscles flex with every thrust. I dig my nails in because he’s inside me. A week ago I wasn’t sure he ever would be again.
He’s still mine. And I don’t deserve it, but I’m keeping him anyway.
And here’s the thing about Robert inside me versus anyone else: it’s not technique or even the filthy thrill of fucking a stranger. It’s that his cock knows exactly what I need. Fifteen years of fucking me, and he knows what angle makes my eyes roll back and how slow to go before I lose my mind.
And I’m losing my fucking mind.
My hips start grinding up against him, desperate and completely out of my control. I hear myself whimpering. The orgasm is building from somewhere deeper than the ones I’ve been chasing for weeks and my thighs are shaking and my fingers are clawing at his back.
He fucks me harder, slamming into me while I gasp. My pussy clenches around his cock so hard he groans. I’m scratching red lines down his back and wrapping my legs tighter and pulling him into me.
He grabs my knees and pushes them up toward my chest, and I have to unwrap my legs from around him. The angle changes, and holy shit, he bottoms out so hard I cry out.
“Tell me you’re mine.” His voice is raw and shaking. His hand grips my thigh and pushes it wider as he drives into me. “Say it, Shannon.”
“I’m yours. I’m yours, I’m—oh god—”
My whole body seizes in ecstasy. The orgasm slams through me, and I can’t breathe, can’t do anything except hold onto him. Pleasure rolls through me in waves, and I’m making sounds I’ve never heard come out of my mouth. His name is in there somewhere, but mostly it’s just noise.
He fucks me through it. Every thrust pulls another wave out of me until I think I might actually be sobbing.
“Yours,” I choke out when I can breathe again. “I was always yours.”
His rhythm breaks as my words hit him, and he comes with a loud groan.
His cock pulses as he fills me with cum, and my pussy milks him through every throb.
When he lets go of my thighs, I lock my legs around his waist and hold him inside me because this man is mine.
I fucked other men, and it made him harder than ever, and he is still mine.
I’m not letting go. I got so fucking lucky, and I know it.
Most men would have walked, but Robert stayed and fought for us.
I’m going to spend the rest of my life being the woman who deserves that.
Not the cocktail-party version of Shannon.
The real one. Even when the real one is messy and scared and kind of a slut.
His arms slide under me and hold on. We lie there, his weight on me, still inside me, our breathing slowing down together. His cum is warm inside me and leaking around his cock, and I don’t move. I don’t want to lose a single drop.
I fall asleep like that. Wrapped around my husband in our bed, and it’s the best I’ve slept in weeks.
I wake up to an empty bed and the smell of coffee.
For about two seconds, my stomach drops because an empty bed has meant bad things lately. Then I hear Robert in the kitchen, opening cabinets, and the knot in my chest loosens. He’s making coffee. We’re okay.
I pull on one of his t-shirts and take my phone with me. When I get to the kitchen, he’s standing at the counter in his pajama pants, pouring two cups. He looks up when I come in, and his eyes drop to the shirt. The corner of his mouth twitches.
“That’s mine,” he says.
“Yep.” I set my phone on the counter next to his and take the mug he hands me. “Whatcha gonna do about it?”
He pulls me in by the hem of the shirt and kisses my forehead. I get that dumb flutter in my chest like he just asked me to prom.
We drink our coffee at the kitchen island, and it’s quiet and normal. I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated normal this much.
Then he sets his mug down. “I called James a few days ago.”
I freeze. I’ve been walking around terrified of what was going to happen with James for weeks, and Robert just calls him.
He must see the tension on my face. “Hey, don’t worry, baby. It’s handled.”
“It is?”
“Yep. I told him I know about the casino. That it’s our private life and he needs to mind his own business.”
I wait, and he continues.
“He tried to act like he was just worried about you. I told him I know what he saw and it’s between us.” Robert wraps his arms around me, and I melt into him. “The whole thing took maybe three minutes.”
Three minutes. If I’d just told Robert the truth immediately, he would have called James. And everything that happened after would have been a conversation instead of a catastrophe.
“I should have told you so you could have done that weeks ago,” I say quietly.
“Yes.”
One word, but there’s no anger behind it. Just the kind of simple, stupid honesty that would have saved us both a lot of pain if I’d tried it sooner.
I drink my coffee and figure we’re done. The hard part’s over. We can go back to being boring married people who fight about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher.
Except Robert’s still got his hand on me. His thumb is doing that thing on my hip where he rubs the same spot over and over, and I know that move. That’s his I’ve-been-thinking-about-something move.
“I want to go to the casino.”
I look at him. He’s not asking. Not exactly. His jaw is set the way it gets when he’s already past the debate and into the plan.
“When we’re ready,” he says. “I still want to watch.”
Adrian told me not to come back. But Adrian doesn’t know about Robert wanting to be there. This makes it different. This makes it safe.
My pussy clenches so hard I almost drop my coffee. Just like that, she’s back online and voting yes before my brain has even processed the sentence. Robert watching me. Watching two men—
“Yes.”
We look at each other, and I can tell we’re both thinking the same thing.
I grab my phone. My fingers are trembling as I text Tony.
SHANNON: My husband wants a personal show of me with two guys. You in?
The three dots appear almost immediately. Tony doesn’t make people wait when he’s interested.
TONY: Tell your husband he’s going to watch you beg for it.
My pussy buzzes with pleasure, and I tip the screen toward Robert.
When he reads it, his hand tightens on my waist. I can tell he’s already picturing it.
He gives me that grin. The one I haven’t seen in weeks, the one that means I’m about to do something stupid and he’s going to enjoy every second of it.
“Well,” he pulls me closer. “I guess we’re going to the Goldpoint.”
I look at my husband in our kitchen, his fingers hooked on my hip, Tony’s text between us like a lit fuse. We’re not who we were before.
I give my husband my best flirty smile. I said the ugly parts out loud and he’s still here, grinning like we’re about to do something reckless.
I’m pretty sure this version of us is going to be trouble.
The End