10 COLE
Dinner finally gets done, and the two of us have a seat at the kitchen table and dig in to fill our plates.
I grab a piece of fried chicken, scoop some mashed potatoes and gravy onto my plate, and pick up a biscuit from the basket in the center of the table.
The first thing I grab to try is the chicken and biting into it is heavenly after not having anything like it in ten years.
Alice has always made the best fried chicken, and it doesn’t matter where I went or who cooked. Nothing can compare to this.
I take a big bite, and it’s cooked perfectly. The meat is tender and juicy, not too dry like the way I always manage to make it. The breading is crunchy and full of flavor that makes my mouth water. Chewing the big bite I just took, I swallow and rip off another big bite. Alice looks up and laughs.
“Were you starving?”
I shake my head. “No, I’ve just been waiting ten years for this fried chicken.”
She smiles and takes the smallest bite I’ve ever seen.
“If you know how to make it, why has it been years since you’ve had fried chicken?”
She shrugs as she chews her bite. “It’s just me. I don’t like to cook a big meal for just me. I usually just grab something on my way home from work, and then I’ll live off the leftovers for a couple of days.”
“If I could cook like this, I’d make it every day, and I’d probably weigh three hundred pounds by now.”
She laughs. “I’d say you would’ve already died from a massive heart attack by now.”
I smile but keep scooping the food into my mouth.
“I’m sorry about earlier, Cole.”
My eyes pop up and lock on hers. Is this a test?
“I was just thinking earlier that we shouldn’t be trying to make this harder for one another. We’re both adults here, and it’s okay to admit that our marriage failed. We were young, and we both wanted different things out of life. Love can’t fix everything, you know?
Sometimes it’s okay to love someone you can’t be with.”
I’m shocked and confused. I have no idea where that came from and don’t know how to respond. Is she apologizing for our little argument earlier, or is this about something more? Is she sorry for leaving me or leaving me the way she did? Is she sorry that our marriage is over or that she ended it?
“Why didn’t you move on like you were supposed to?”
she asks, no longer waiting for me to respond.
“I mean, why didn’t you move on, find someone else. I thought you would’ve at least had a live-in girlfriend by now. I was so nervous driving over here because I didn’t know what I’d be walking in on. I didn’t know if you’d have kids running around in the yard, showing me everything I gave up.”
She takes a deep breath. “I want that for you. I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone who wants the exact same things out of life that you do. I want you to be happily married with kids. Three, right?”
She looks at me with her brow raised. “I want you to grow old with the woman you love, watching your children grow and handing the business down so you can retire, where you and your wife can spend every day together just watching the wildlife run across the backyard,
watching the sunset from the back porch while you sip a cup of hot tea. I want you to get everything you ever wanted and so much more, and I’m sorry if I left you thinking the opposite. Just because I can’t be the woman by your side doesn’t mean that I don’t want that for you.”
I pick up my napkin and wipe my mouth before grabbing my beer and taking several long drinks.
But that doesn’t clear my head. I push my chair back, and I stand.
Taking a few steps from the table, I start pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor.
I have no idea how to respond to her. She’s thrown me for a fucking loop.
Doesn’t she see that I’ve been waiting for her?
Nobody else will ever do, and trust me, I wish they would because life would be so much easier.
She’s sitting at the table, watching me pace back and forth, back and forth. Finally, I turn to her. “Don’t you see it?” I ask her.
She quirks a brow at me.
“I know you’re not that fucking blind, Alice.”
Her mouth drops open. “I’m sorry? I was trying to be kind. I want to end our bickering. I don’t know what this is, but this isn’t ending it.” She stands up but doesn’t move from her spot.
“You want to know why I didn’t move on? Why all of your stuff is still in the same spot you left it?”
I level my eyes on her, but she doesn’t move.
“It’s because when I was sixteen, I met the girl I knew would be the love of my life. I knew she’d be the one I’d marry and want by my side until the day I died. And that hasn’t changed. It didn’t change the day I woke up and found you and most of your things gone.
It didn’t change when you ignored call after call of mine. It didn’t go away four years later when I finally gave up hope that you were ever coming back. And it still hasn’t gone away today. You don’t want to be here, fine. But just because you moved on doesn’t mean I ever will. I know what I want,
and it hasn’t changed. Nobody will ever compare to you, Alice. I knew it when I was sixteen, and I know it now.”
For a long moment, it feels like the world stops spinning as she looks at me and I look at her.
An emotion shoots across her face, but I have no idea what it is.
Is it anger? Is it confusion? Hate? Surprise?
Love? I’m not sure of anything anymore. But then, completely out of nowhere, she rushes around the table, heading in my direction.
Her arms are out, and they wrap around my neck as she jumps into me.
Her legs wrap around my hips, and her mouth finds mine.
Her force is so powerful that I fall backward, but I quickly catch my balance as I spin her around and press her back against the wall.
My lips move with hers, and her tongue pushes its way into my mouth.
Together they dance, and I completely lose myself.
I’ve waited ten long years for this. I’ve imagined it so many times in my head.
I had almost forgotten how sweet she was, how soft her lips are, how fucking good she feels clinging to me for dear life.
My hands are holding her hips, and they slowly move down and around to her ass, squeezing and kneading. She moans into my mouth, and my dick instantly hardens. When she nips my bottom lip with her teeth, it throbs with need.
I’m not sure what this is exactly, and I don’t know how far I should let it go or if I should stop it.
Earlier today, we were ready to tear one another’s heads off, and now I’m about to bend her over my kitchen table and fuck her until I can’t move.
God, just imagining it has my dick begging and pleading.
Even though I don’t ever want to stop, I need to know what this is, if she’s going to regret it. “Alice,” I say against her lips, but she silences me with a hard kiss. “What is this?” I whisper.
“Shh,” she says against my lips. “Don’t stop. Don’t think. Just do what comes naturally.” She pushes my shirt up to my chest, and her soft fingertips grazing my stomach and chest feel like a soft feather, making goose bumps prickle my skin.
Our kiss breaks off just long enough for me to rip the shirt over my head and sling it to the floor.
Seconds later, my mouth is back on hers.
She laces her fingers into my hair and pulls my mouth closer before jamming her tongue down my throat.
I like how rough she’s being. It makes me want her even more, and it’s making me that much more impatient.
I don’t want to break our kiss to remove her shirt, so I move my hands up to the neck of her tank top, and I pull in opposite directions until the shirt rips down the center.
The sound of the tearing cloth fills our ears, and she gasps but doesn’t stop what we’re doing.
Now that I’ve gotten to her bra, I reach behind her and unsnap it with one hand.
It pops open, and her tits bounce from the action.
The straps fall from her shoulders, and the bra lands between us.
I grab it and toss it to the side as I begin kissing my way down her neck and over her collarbone.
I set her feet on the floor and drop down to my knees, kissing my way lower and lower.
I kiss over the swell of her breast and then to the peak where I suck her hard nipple into my mouth.
My tongue flicks against it, and she moans as she laces her fingers into my hair and tugs at the root.
Alice has always had beautiful tits. They’re big but not too big.
They’re just the perfect amount of overflowing handful, and they’re perky and beautiful.
Her nipples are the perfect size and color, and somehow, her skin has always had a sweet taste to it, like she sweats sugar.
I’ve never found another woman like her.
“Oh, Cole,” she breathes out as her head falls back to rest against the wall.
I take my time with one breast, and I move on to the other. “What is it, Alice?”
“I need you,” she begs.
Hearing her beg for me is the biggest turn-on of all. She needs me. For ten years, she’s needed me, but I know it’s nowhere near as much as I’ve needed her.
While my mouth works over her breasts, my hands get busy with pushing her pants down her hips.
I pull her panties down with them, and when she steps out of them, she’s completely bare for me.
I sit back on my knees and look up at her.
Her eyes meet mine, and I can see the need overflowing her sparkling green eyes.
Slowly, I let my eyes fall down her body, taking her in.
They start at the top of her head, and they slowly move down until they land on the junction between her legs. She’s still smooth, completely bare, and I wet my lips with excitement as I move in.