Chapter 16
[Dart]
Ihated to leave her.
I’d hoped to give her a few minutes to herself, but then, selfishly interrupted her bath. Without planning to, I intruded upon that precious time, and then she sent me out with my friends. I should have stuck around, but maybe it was best to give us more space. I’d already revealed too much.
I didn’t want to hide behind a screen, suggesting that we’d talk on the phone better than we might talk in person, but I did believe that not looking at each other might have helped.
Without the sadness in her eyes and the pain I was certain she’d see in mine, maybe we’d be a little more open with each other.
Tell each other things we couldn’t face.
If we faced the other, I worried we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, voice our concerns.
Then again, what did I know? I’d walked away after begging her to come with me and her telling me no. I got the message. It only took me six months of rejected phone calls and unanswered text messages to finally get the hint.
However, rather than sign those divorce papers I was served, I doused them in gasoline and struck a match.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the news about Mirabelle.
Adoption. It’d been something I wanted us to do. While I could harbor hurt that we hadn’t gone that route together, I’m just too stinking happy that Trinity is accepting that option now.
She will have Mirabelle in a few short months.
And I try not to think about where that leaves me.
Part of their life? Or not?
Either way, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to support Trinity and Mirabelle in any way Trin will let me.
As for what I really want, I want to be the dad Mirabelle doesn’t currently have.
I forgive Trin for lying to me, or rather playing that game, making me think she’d slept with someone else.
I hadn’t really given her the chance to explain herself or Mirabelle when I first crashed here, and the fault falls on me.
I’d been too shocked by a baby in her arms and the despair of being kicked out to be rational. To stay calm.
I’m also so fucking relieved she hasn’t been with someone else, which eases the ability to forgive her for allowing me to think otherwise.
No one else has touched her sacred parts. No one else has climbed into her heart.
She is still mine in some manner.
The relief almost makes me giddy.
After cleaning up the wine mess, I pour her another glass and leave it on her nightstand next to her reading tablet. I stamp a sticky note to the top like I used to do when we’d go more than a day without seeing each other due to her shifts at the hospital and my construction schedule.
Just a simple heart. No extra words needed.
A sign that I loved her. That I’d miss her. That I’d be thinking about her.
All things I did when I was gone for three years.
A few nights later, I find Trinity set up on the pink velvet couch with the television on.
It’s positioned at ninety degrees to the set when we originally had a couch that faced the fireplace with the set above it.
The new arrangement looks formal, but Trin also didn’t watch television as much as I did.
Still, she’s settled in tonight. Mirabelle has started sleeping longer stretches in the night, and although it’s still early, Trin will get a few hours reprieve before a feeding close to midnight.
“Mind if I sit with you?”
She already has the screen pulled up to a historical romance prepped for her to click start.
“Sure. Okay.” She clicks the remote back to the guide screen.
“Don’t sound over enthusiastic,” I tease.
She chuckles softly. “It’s just that I’ve been waiting to watch this one, but I’ll find something else.”
I don’t want her changing her mind because of me. “Keep it. Let’s watch it.” I’m not opposed to watching this kind of movie. We’ve watched them together before.
She hesitates another minute before clicking back to the original title. “This falls in the middle of the series. I already watched the first half when it came out.”
“Go for it. I’ll catch up.” How hard can it be?
It doesn’t take long to see the pining of the man for a woman beneath his economic status, and it reminds me a little bit of Trin and me. Not the financial part, but the way the female lead believes she isn’t good enough for him, and the way he wants her anyway.
He’s wrecked by her. For her.
Because Trin sits beside me but angled toward the screen, I have both an appreciation for the fictional man in the series and a view of Trin’s neck.
The back of it with fine hairs from the shorter cut.
The spot where the column of her throat curves toward her shoulder.
A spot I used to nip just to weaken her knees.
My fingers twitch to trace along that line of skin. To inhale her scent. To kiss her there.
I clear my throat, and Trin shifts, twisting her body so her side is more open to me while her head still turns toward the television.
The position is almost worse. Her breasts are perfectly on display in a fitted tee. Her arms bare. Her hands on her belly before something happens on the screen and she drops them to her sides, resting them next to her thighs. She’s wearing jeans that hug her curves and flare near her ankles.
Her feet are bare, exposing said ankles and I feel like I’m living in this period piece. Trin once explained to me how exposed ankles were almost like flashing someone your breasts. Sexual and scandalous.
I scrub a hand down my face, feeling ridiculous for getting hot over my wife’s feet.
My wife.
Trinity is still mine, but a divide remains between us.
I shift, repositioning myself to mirror Trinity’s position. I hike my feet up on the low table and set my hands next to my legs, smoothing my palms over the velvety material of the couch.
Which causes my pinky to brush against hers.
Trinity immediately glances down, scowling.
“Sorry,” I mutter, dragging my hand back toward my thigh and tucking the tips beneath my leg as if that will prevent me from touching her. From wanting her.
Because the more the tension builds on the screen, the more the tension rises in this room.
She’s so close and yet so far away from me. Inches yet miles.
I try to concentrate on this poor sap trying to come up with a way to be with the woman he loves.
Until I feel something brush the side of my hand. Glancing down, Trin’s pinky flicks against the side of mine.
At first, I think she’s done it unintentionally. But I continue to watch the space between us long enough to learn she purposely moved her hand closer to mine.
When her finger brushes mine again, my breath hitches.
“What?” She turns her head sharply toward me.
“Nothing.” I hold still and glance back at the show. “He’s really aching for her.”
Trinity hums and returns her attention to the screen, but her finger slides over mine until I trap it between my pinky and ring finger. The silicone ring digs into her pinky. Maybe reminding her that we’re still married.
She glances down at where I’ve caged her finger.
“What happened to your ring?”
I hesitate to admit the truth but decide there is no point in holding it back. “I lost it. Tossed it down the track the day I was served divorce papers.”
She struggles to remove her finger, but I grip it harder between my own.
“The moment I did it, I regretted it.”
She’d bought me that ring. A black titanium band I wore with pride.
She nods and turns back toward the television, keeping her finger looped over mine.
“Where are your rings?” I hesitantly ask. If she says she was as careless with hers as I’d been with mine, I’ll be crushed. I should have never tossed mine in anger.
“Upstairs. In a drawer.”
I could joke that she could have pawned them or sold them through a resale market, but I can’t muster such a tease. I hate the thought and foolishly find relief that she has the set.
One day, I’d like to give her a new one.
We return to watching the show, moving from one episode to another. Trinity takes a bathroom break and comes back with popcorn in a large bowl and two water bottles.
“Thank you, baby,” I easily say to her when she hands me a bottle and sets the bowl in her lap.
This may be even worse than brushing fingers. Our hands meet every few seconds in the shared bowl.
I scoot closer to her, and she glances at me over her shoulder, her brows pinched.
“You’re too far away. Popcorn stretch.” I exaggerate how I had to reach so far for a dip in that bowl on her lap.
She shakes her head but doesn’t say more, returning her attention to the show, while I’m hyper aware that her shoulder is next to my arm and her thigh is a mere centimeter from mine.
While the couple on the screen are supposed to be staying away from one another, the lady has just slipped into the man’s bedroom. My heart rate jacks up, hoping this doesn’t lead where I think it’s going to go.
But suddenly, they are kissing, and he’s taking off her dress . . . and oh, fuck no.
I swipe the popcorn bowl off Trinity’s lap and set it on mine because I can’t watch that without thinking about doing the same thing to the woman next to me.
And then, there’s a whole fucking montage. Him on top of her. Him behind her.
I lean forward, setting the bowl on the table, and swipe down my face with both hands.
Trinity’s breathing becomes shallower. My heart races faster. I feel like I’m watching a horror film, fingers over my lips, prepared to cover my eyes at the soft porn on the screen.
Finally, the scene ends.
“Well,” I choke, knowing we have not watched something like that before. Or at least, not something I remember being so hot.
Trinity rolls her head toward me. Her eyes blown wide and bright brown. I’ve seen that look before. I know that look, and I cannot have her looking at me like that unless . . .
Suddenly, I’m pressed back into the couch, and she’s on my lap, her fingers fisted in my shirt.
I’m so startled that my hands lay limp beside her calves for a second.
“Dart,” she whispers, staring right at my mouth, not even trying to disguise what she’s looking at, while I try to meet her eyes. Try to guess what she’s thinking.
Fuck it.
“What are you thinking?” I whisper, holding my breath. Holding as still as I can, though I’m certain she can feel my arousal through my jeans. I’m not hard from watching someone else get what they want, but because I kept imagining us.
The positions we experienced. Me over her. Me behind her. Her on top of me, like right now.
My hands lift to her hips, a will of their own.
“I’m not thinking,” she whispers, her voice almost hollow only seconds before her mouth crashes against mine.
The shock is hard. Her mouth tight. But after my brain catches up to what’s happening, which is my wife is trying to kiss me, I run my tongue along the seam of her lips.
And suddenly, I feel like that guy on the screen, frantic for more of Trin. Desperate to pull her closer.
I grip her ass and drag her forward, feeling her settle over where I’m hard. Letting where she’s soft know what she does to me.
She moans into my mouth as we move together in a way as familiar as my name, and yet everything about this kiss feels different.
Charged.
I know this woman. My wife. I recognize her kiss, and yet I don’t. There’s something almost electric between us.
We kiss like we did all those years ago, and yet, with all the years between us.
I slip my hand up her back and dig my fingers into her hair, cupping the back of her head. She moves to my jaw, and I shift to her neck, taking a bite right where I wanted to earlier.
She groans as my teeth gently sink into that soft pressure point right below the surface. Her body melts against mine. Her center hot over where I’m hard. Her breasts brushing my chest.
Screw the actors on a television. This is so much more.
Because my wife is kissing me again. She’s letting me kiss her.
I tug at her hair and bring her mouth back to mine, needing more of her, needing confirmation this is really happening. I’m not dreaming.
She’s in my lap. Her lips on mine. Her hands on my shoulders. And—
A sharp squawk comes through the baby monitor on Trinity’s phone.
Abruptly, she pulls back, glancing over her shoulder at the device on the table near my feet. Slowly, she turns back to me. Eyes dazed. Lips swollen. Neck slightly red from where I bit her.
Shaky fingers cover her lips, and I feel her retreating before she actually does.
“Trin?” Panic lands in my chest.
She scrambles off my lap, struggling to stand on her feet. Her legs actually buckle, and I reach for her. But she holds out a trembling hand. The other comes to her lips again.
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
It should have. It definitely should have. We need to get back to who we were. Two kids in their twenties, insatiable for each other. A newly married couple who couldn’t have sex often enough.
But that isn’t who we are anymore, is it?
Those twenty-somethings turned to thirty-year-olds struggling to have a baby and build a home.
Then forty hit, and I had a bit of a crisis moment.
But dammit, I want my wife back.
Unfortunately, she is already swiping up her phone and racing for the staircase.
Scrubbing both hands over my face, I fall back on the couch and glance up at the screen.
The episode has ended, leaving me in suspense.
Does the hero ever really get a second chance with the girl of his dreams?
I suppose if he didn’t, it wouldn’t be much of a plot.
But is it possible to fuck up the second chance once you finally get it?
I’m about to find out.