Chapter 14 – Maura
MAURA
Negative.
My eyes burn. When I try to swallow down the tears before they form, my throat goes tight. For the first time, it feels right that I’m surrounded by gray. The slate-gray tile and dove-gray walls of my bathroom perfectly match my mood as I stare down at the pregnancy test.
The first month has gone, and I’ve failed.
I lean back against the counter and close my fingers around the edge, digging my fingertips into the sharp line., trying to ground myself.
I knew that getting pregnant might take time. Even when both parties are perfectly healthy, the odds are only around 25 percent. James and I did everything we could, but there was no magic wand to wave. We’ll try again in a few weeks.
It’s just hard to swallow the bitter unfairness of it all. A few more months of trying would be easier to face if my time wasn’t already limited. The reality that I don’t have years to waste feels sharp.
I drop the test in the trash can. I’ll take another one tomorrow, just to confirm it’s not a false negative, but I’m not hopeful. Better to just face the reality.
Pulling out my phone, I shoot a quick text to my husband.
Maura
Took a test. Negative.
Dots dance quickly across the screen as he types a response.
James
I’m sorry.
I give him a minute to follow it up with another text, but none comes.
Raw hurt builds in my chest. As comfort goes, it’s insufficient.
Pathetically, miserably insufficient. But what did I expect?
I got what I wanted—a husband who doesn’t have feelings for me.
That’s the kind of comfort I can expect from an indifferent man.
I force myself to walk into the kitchen for a glass of water, when a tiny thud sounds outside. Then another, and another, and the apartment’s wrap-around windows come alive with pounding rain.
Hugging my oversized shirt around me, I slowly move to the glass balcony doors so I can watch the raindrops ricochet off the wood outside. It’s probably freezing out there, but some part of me longs to open the door and walk out into the storm.
“Screw it,” I mutter.
I yank open the door before I can talk myself out of it.
The slanting rain feels like blunted needles against my skin, sharp but harmless.
My bare feet turn icy and shriveled, and in moments my shirt and leggings are soaked through and clinging to my skin.
The heavy screen of rain makes the city around me fuzzy and distant, like I’m in a snow globe where it’s just me, all alone on this balcony.
Smiling, I turn my face up to the sky and let the freezing water wash away my morbid thoughts. How can I worry about time slipping away when in this moment, I feel so alive?
Victor always scolded me for doing things like this—walking out into storms, dancing to music when nobody else was, lying under a tree in the park until my clothes were covered in grass stains.
He never understood how close death has always felt, like a fog surrounding me, lingering and smothering.
Sometimes I just need a shock to my system to chase it away.
“Maura! Maura, come inside!”
I blink. Who just penetrated my bubble of solitude?
When I turn around, I see James standing in the doorway, wearing his usual tailored suit and a frown. A laugh bubbles out of me. Of course my rational, controlled husband would come find me out here at my most chaotic.
“Get back inside, Maura!” he yells. “It’s freezing! You’re going to catch your fucking death out here.”
I laugh again, this time more wildly, because I can’t help it. A little cold rain won’t kill me. My heart’s tried to do it for years and failed, so a sudden storm doesn’t stand a chance.
“No!” I yell back impulsively. “You come out here.”
“Maura,” he says again. Under the word: Be reasonable. Be smart. Come inside and be safe.
Well, I don’t want safe—not now.
“Come out here and feel the rain with me, James!”
He looks at me like I’m the most irritating, impossible woman he’s ever met. “Why?”
“Does there have to be a reason?” I yell over the pounding rain. “Do you have to be so goddamn efficient every second of the day? Just do it!”
“No.” His tone brokers no argument.
I cross my arms, annoyed. “Well, I'm not coming back inside until you walk out here with me.”
“That's childish.”
“And yet it's working.” I gesture at the rain streaming around me. “Clock's ticking, James. Your wife is getting hypothermia.”
“Manipulation,” he says flatly. “That's what this is.”
“Is it manipulation if I announce it? I feel like that's just…negotiation.”
He stares at me for a moment, his blue gaze inscrutable. After a long moment, he walks out to join me.
I watch while the water soaks into his hair, turning it even darker. It takes a little longer for the rain to seep into his heavy, expensive wool suit. His fists are clenched, his full mouth rigid and tight while he stares at me, displeasure radiating from him.
It’s barely perceptible at first, the way his shoulders lower by a fraction.
Soon, his rigid muscles untense, and he’s slouching as much as his tightly muscled form will let him.
He closes his eyes, and I can’t look away from the rain tracking down the sculpted lines of his face and neck.
He could be made of marble, except for the small jump of his pulse in his neck.
I want to drag my teeth across that spot.
It’s not what we agreed. It’s not scheduled, not color-coded, not thoughtfully placed based on mutual availability.
Pure, reckless impulse makes me grab his face and pull his rain-wet lips against mine.
Our lips part on a shared breath. James’s body goes rigid again, this time from surprise.
Then he’s kissing me back, his hands sliding into my wet, tangled hair, angling my face up to his.
Our bodies shiver under our wet, heavy clothes, but the heat from our open, hungry mouths can’t be contained.
He hauls me up into his arms, one arm under my knees, the other under my back. He forcibly carries me back inside, and I let him, unresisting. Because he makes my body feel more awake than the rain did.
When he sets me down right inside the balcony doors, I don’t let him walk away.
Grabbing his suit lapels, I tug off his suit, going right for his belt once his shoulders are freed.
Water drips from us onto the expensive marble floor, but James doesn’t seem to give a shit, either.
He helps me tear off my jeans, both of us stumbling backward into the apartment like horny teenagers.
We reach the edge of his plush living room rug, and I trip a little over the edge. James falls with me and lands on his knees, my body cradled against his. He lowers me down onto the rug, shoving away an armchair to give us room.
I know the odds are low that I’ll get pregnant outside my fertility window, but they’re not impossible.
James must be thinking the same thing, because he doesn’t stop me when I pull his cock out from his trousers and position it at my entrance.
He shoves an inch inside me and I shriek at the sudden stretch.
We’ve never done this without foreplay, and it stings.
My body seizes, and James goes perfectly, eerily still.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “You weren’t ready. I shouldn't have—”
“No.” I reach up, pushing back a dripping strand of hair that fell over his forehead. “I wanted it. It feels good.”
He shakes his head, and a little furrow forms between his brows. “I want to be careful with you, Maura. You need—you deserve to be handled delicately.”
I cringe. James doesn’t know it, but he accidentally triggered one of the worst parts about being sick—the way people treat you like you’re breakable.
Like they have to wrap you up in bubble wrap and keep you away from anything hard.
They don’t realize that pain is inevitable, and insulating yourself from the world won’t protect you from it.
Well, screw that. Because I might be getting addicted to the perfect pleasure and pain combo James makes me feel. I don’t want to be handled delicately. I want him—all of him.
“Give me more.”
He closes his eyes and moans, like he’d like nothing better than to give me that.
“More,” I beg. “More. Make it hurt, please, James.”
He shakes his head and rolls off me. My body goes cold, and for a moment I think he’s not going to let me go any further. Instead, he yanks my hips up so I’m straddling him.
“You want this?” he asks, his eyes glittering with want. I nod eagerly, and he strokes my outer thighs in silent approval. “Then show me. Take me like you mean it.”
I take a breath, gazing down at him. He’s messier than I’ve ever seen him, still in his wet clothes, his dark hair askew. His sharp cheekbones look more shadowy and dangerous. He’s beautiful the way a panther is—elegant yet ferocious.
My hand circles around his thick cock, and he winces.
I’m not sure if it's because my skin is so cold, or because he's struggling so much to hold back. I position him at my entrance, sliding his throbbing head against the sensitive skin. We groan simultaneously at the sensation, but he doesn’t push.
He stares at me, his hands still gently stroking my thighs.
He’s not going to take me—not yet. He’s going to make me prove how much I want it first.
So I do.
I slide down quickly, forcing several inches of his thick cock inside me in one stroke.
“Fuck!” he roars, his eyes squeezing shut. A muscle jumps in his jaw from how hard he’s clenching it. It’s intoxicating, seeing how my body undoes him.
Letting out a breath, I lower down again, taking another inch.
It’s not easy to take him. With his size, it never will be.
But my body is starting to get used to how it needs to stretch for him, and right now I’m craving him so fiercely, my desire overrides any concern for my body.
My fingers dig into his firm, warm chest muscles as I lower down on top of him until his whole cock is buried deep inside me.