Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
Olivia
We lay in the bed, clothes rumpled and bodies sticky from sex. He traces my neck with his fingertip, watching me like there’s nothing else in the room. I snuggle in closer and bend to kiss his chest right below his collarbones. On the worn skull tattoo between his pecs.
“Would you like your gift?” I whisper.
He rolls onto his back, propping himself against the headboard. He has a ghost of a smile on his face, it never reaches his mouth, but I can tell when it’s there. I’ve gotten good at reading his microexpressions.
“Alright, what do you have for me?”
I scramble down, pulling my panties up and my skirt down. His cum slips from me and I feel it soak my panties, but I’m too distracted to care. He outdid my gift, but I’m still pleased with mine. I always struggle deciding what to buy for him.
What do you buy for the man who has it all? He’s not motivated by material things unless he’s buying them for me or the boys. He likes experiences, mainly the experience of being in bed together, but it seemed silly to just fuck him as a gift.
As if I don’t fuck him every other day of the year.
Any time he wants.
I return to the bed with the little box wrapped in deep blue paper and tied with silver ribbon. He gives me that look, the one that means he finds me amusing, that he loves me. It’s hard to discern that expression past all the hard coldness in his face, but I see it deep in those icy eyes.
“I know you’re not gone as much as you used to be,” I say. “But here…so you won’t forget me when you are.”
He shakes his head once.
“You’re the only thing on my mind when I’m not with you,” he says.
I bite my lip because even after years together he still makes me blush. His tattooed fingers unfasten the wrappings and he lifts the lid to reveal a fine leather wallet. I can tell he’s confused. It’s not like he doesn’t have a wallet already.
He flips it open. Inside, it’s lined with silk. His eyes flick up to mine and they’re bright.
“Is this...from that slip?”
“The slip I wore on our wedding night?” I say, shrugging. “Yes, I might have saved it.”
The space between his collarbones, above his tattoos, flushes. I can tell the thoughts of having part of such an intimate moment between us means a lot to him. Of course it does, he loves little details more than anything. He lifts it to his face and inhales.
“It still smells like you,” he says, desire rising in his cold voice.
“Well, it was in my closet for a while.”
I put a picture of us on our tenth wedding anniversary in the first fold. He’s sitting in his armchair with the fireplace of his old office in the background. I’m perched on the arm of his chair and he’s got one arm around my waist. He’s deadpan as usual, but I’m smiling because he just pinched my ass a second before the camera flashed.
It’s so much better than our actual wedding photo. We have one from that day and I’m standing next to him looking sick. He’s staring down at me with a disjointed expression, as if he has no idea how I got there. Little did we know that someday we’d want a good photo to commemorate the beginning of our marriage.
He sets the wallet aside like it's made of glass and pulls me into his lap. I sit with my legs to the side because my gold dress is so tight I can barely breathe—the look on his face when I walked out of the bathroom made it worth it though. My arms go around his neck and we kiss with aching slowness.
We’ve had a lot of growing pains between us over the years. There were so many nights of tears, fighting, and rough make up sex. Hard words flew back and forth over our bed, behind locked doors, and even more apologies were whispered between the sheets. I’m not sure it’s possible to be more intimate than Lucien and I have been. We’ve seen the absolute worst of each other.
And yet, he stayed.
And so did I. Tonight I’m so glad we fought hard to end up here. Because the good is so good it’s worth it all.