Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
ATTICUS
It had been yet another damn long day. The woman who was supposed to stop by to bathe Mimi was apparently sick and had to cancel, so Nicole had to handle that task alone while I worked on something for dinner. I’d helped Nicole carry her grandmother to the bathtub before leaving the room so they could do their thing. I’d offered to assist, but Mimi wasn’t comfortable with me seeing her naked. I couldn’t blame her. But as a result, Nicole also got stuck with having to change her multiple times a day.
Nicole and I had managed to get through today without biting each other’s heads off, though, and that felt like a reason to celebrate.
I’d picked up a bottle of red while I was out earlier buying groceries but had forgotten to open it during dinner. That was just as well, since drinking didn’t seem to go well with spoon-feeding Mimi.
After we cleaned up supper, I popped open the bottle of wine. “Want a glass?”
“Yeah.” Nicole nodded. “I could use it after today.”
“Me, too.”
I poured her one and walked it over to where she was sitting at the kitchen table.
“Thanks for handling dinner,” she said as she took it. “And all your help with Mimi.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” I poured my own glass. “Wanna take these outside?”
“Yeah.”
She stood, and we headed out back, taking seats at the table in the yard. For late August, it was a pretty cool evening.
We sat in silence for a bit, sipping our wine and decompressing. This reminded me of better times, when we’d drink wine together after dinner and talk about our future, our hopes and dreams. This tense moment of quiet was nothing like that, yet it still felt like a gift to be with her.
“How are the guys doing?” she finally asked.
“Tristan and Emily are engaged,” was the first thing I thought to say.
“Wow.” She smiled, but it seemed strained. “That’s…great.”
“And Ronan…” I grinned. “Well, Ronan is Ronan.”
“Yeah.” She chuckled. “Somehow I know what you mean.”
I swallowed a larger gulp of wine. “Does he know about this? That you’re here with me?” I couldn’t even utter his name.
Nicole stopped mid-sip and set her glass down. “He does.”
“I hope it bothers him,” I bit out.
She looked down and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You’d better fucking believe it doesn’t matter what he thinks of this.”
“Can we not talk about that right now?” Her breathing quickened. “We’ve been doing so well today. I don’t want to end up in a fight.”
It was too late. Even that quick mention of Julian put me over the edge. “Have we really?” I cocked my head. “Been doing so well? Or have we just been suppressing everything better than we normally do?”
Nicole’s face reddened. “You’d rather me talk about what’s bothering me? I’m not sure you want that, because then we have to discuss all the women you’ve slept with since we’ve been divorced.”
Heat rushed through me. So much for the wine calming me down. I straightened. “I have nothing to hide. I’ve been doing what anyone in my position would, whatever it takes to fucking survive after getting my heart broken.” I stared into her eyes. “But I’ll tell you one thing, you don’t know a single one of those women.” My bottom lip trembled. “I wouldn’t fuck around with one of your supposed friends.”
“No…” Her voice shook. “You’d do worse than that.”
My chair skidded against the concrete patio as I got up. “You know what? Fuck this. I’m going out front for a smoke.”
I was halfway across the grass when she called after me. “Atticus, wait. Don’t.”
I turned. “Why?”
“You haven’t smoked since you’ve been here. I can tell because I haven’t smelled it on you. And I heard you tell Mimi you’ve been trying to quit. You’ve been doing so well. Don’t ruin it.”
My eyes widened. She’d been keeping track? “Well, I know Mimi doesn’t like it. She’d smell it on me, too. So I’ve been trying not to.”
Nicole’s eyes glistened. “Please don’t smoke anymore.”
She looked like she might cry. What the fuck? I wouldn’t allow myself to speculate as to why she cared so much. But it fucked me up a little to see that she did.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I won’t.”
I returned to the table across from her as we both attempted to recover. The peace didn’t last long though. “How come you never responded to even one of my emails?”
She blinked. “Emails?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Atticus.”
“I’ve sent you dozens of emails over the past few years.”
“I never received them.” She shook her head. “Where did you send them?”
“To your main personal account—the Nicole Gellar one.”
She shook her head again. “I stopped using that account. It kept getting infiltrated by spam. I haven’t checked it in years.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, shit.”
“What did they say?”
I had to laugh. What didn’t they say? Those emails were a series of brain dumps, many written in the middle of the night while I lay on a bunk traveling along a dark highway. It would be impossible to summarize them.
It was probably better that she hadn’t read those messages. It wouldn’t have changed anything. But at the time, I’d needed to let out some of my feelings and emailing them had seemed like the right choice.
“It doesn’t matter what they said.” I took another sip of wine and slammed the glass on the table harder than I intended. It did make me feel a bit better to know she hadn’t just ignored them, though. I’d always assumed she had.
“I’m sorry if you thought I’d chosen not to answer you,” she said softly.
I looked up at the sky for a while. When I turned back to her, my eyes fell to her cleavage, my mouth watering with a desire to taste her soft skin. My skin. My wife. I would never look at her as anything other than mine, even if that was far from the truth. I remembered the times we’d finished a bottle of wine together and taken our buzz back to the bedroom to fuck each other’s brains out—drunk, uninhibited sex at its finest. Something about being angry at her made me want to fuck her so hard right now. That was all my body craved. Sex with Nicole was unlike anything I’d experienced with anyone else. It didn’t matter if I lost my inhibitions with her. I could let myself go without worry.
She snapped me out of my trance. “What are you thinking about right now?”
I shook my head. “You don’t want to know.” I downed the last of my wine.
***
Thank God I was the first to wake up the next morning because my dick was hard as a rock. I’d somehow managed to avoid this situation until now, but it was only a matter of time. Since the first sight of her, my body had felt like it was on fire.
This morning’s erection was brought to you by Nicole’s supple ass. She’d been sleeping with her back toward me, but the covers had slipped down. Her pajama pants were so thin that they’d formed a wedgie. On anyone else, that wouldn’t have done it for me. But on her? Every little thing turned me on, now more than ever since I couldn’t have her. I wanted to fuck her so badly it hurt.
She also wasn’t wearing underwear. She never did to bed. With each second staring down at her, I grew harder. How I missed morning sex with Nicole—the way I’d kiss down her neck, eventually waking her up. She’d squirm and complain that she wanted to sleep more but would inevitably back her ass up against my cock, initiating sex. I’d be inside her in a matter of seconds. I missed the raw feel of fucking her without a condom. These days I wouldn’t dare have sex with anyone bare. That was a recipe for disaster. That was also one of the main reasons I never had more than three drinks. I couldn’t risk losing touch with reality—not in the world I currently lived in. But with Nicole? I’d always been able to let myself go. She was the only woman I’d had that experience with. I grew even more turned on just thinking about it, the raw, wet feel of her tight pussy. I looked down to find a damn wet spot on my shorts. Fuck. I needed to go take care of myself before she woke up.
I crawled out of bed quietly and tiptoed down the hall. Unfortunately, any time one of us used the bathroom, we ran the risk of waking up Mimi. The layout of this house absolutely sucked.
I’d just taken my dick out to relieve myself when I heard, “Help!”
Shit. I panicked. Without thinking, I turned the water on, grabbing the small plastic cup on the edge of the sink and stupidly dousing my cock in the hopes that by some miracle it would bring down my erection.
“What’s wrong?” I panted, running into Mimi’s room.
“I’m freezing,” she told me. “Please turn off the fan. It kept me up all night. I didn’t want to wake you, but then I heard you in the bathroom.”
“You scared the shit out of me, Mimi.”
“Language, Atticus.”
I tried my best to hide my still-semi-hard crotch as I lingered facing the fan before turning it off. Thankfully, my boner went down pretty quickly, but there was nothing I could do about having poured water on myself.
She looked down. “Did you pee your pants?”
“Yeah…” I swallowed. “You scared me so much I pissed myself.” Really?
“I’m sorry.” She laughed.
Of course, then Nicole had to walk in.
Her eyes fell to my crotch. “What the hell?”
“Mimi was yelling for help. Pissed myself.”
Her eyes widened. “You need to have better control, Atticus.”
You have no idea. I ran a hand through my hair. “I agree.”
After I fluffed Mimi’s pillow and made sure there wasn’t anything else she needed, I joined Nicole in the kitchen.
She clearly hadn’t bothered to get dressed this morning, because her nipples were like steel through the material of her shirt. A visual of ripping that shirt off with my teeth threatened to make me hard again.
“How about you go put a bra on, and I’ll make coffee?”
“I’ll put on a bra if you change those nasty pee pants.”
“It’s not really piss. I made that up.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because the truth would’ve been worse.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand. But what you can do is start wearing underwear to bed, please.” I leaned in and gritted my teeth. “For fuck’s sake, Nicole. Are you trying to kill me?”
Her mouth dropped before she turned and walked away.
While she was out of the room, I prepared her coffee just the way she liked it. I’d nearly forgotten just how much I loved taking care of her. I felt nostalgic for a moment as I poured in just the right amount of sugar. But taking care of her wasn’t my job anymore. I couldn’t help enjoying these little moments of delusion, though, while I still had them. In less than two weeks, we’d be apart again, and I’d go back to my life without her. This time here would seem like a dream.
Nicole emerged again wearing a cute, floral dress that was almost worse than her shirt with no bra. It had a low neckline and her beautiful breasts were practically busting out of it. I had to wonder if she’d selected that outfit to torture me. She’d also sprayed on a fresh burst of Egyptian musk. I licked my lips.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize my not wearing underwear was that noticeable.” She looked down at her chest. “I’ll cover up from now on,” she said. But the glimmer in her eye told me she had no real intention of accommodating my request.
Okay. She’s definitely fucking with me. “You drive me crazy,” I growled under my breath.
Suddenly, my attention was diverted to Mimi’s room. I heard voices. I narrowed my eyes. “Who the hell is here?”
“I don’t know.” Nicole walked down to her grandmother’s room as I followed.
There was a woman standing there talking to Mimi.
“Hi there.” She smiled. “I’m Lori McFadden. I live next door.”
“Oh…” Nicole tilted her head. “Hello.”
“I hope you don’t mind. Adele gave me a key a while back, and I check in on her from time to time. It’s good to see you both. She’s always talking about her granddaughter and grandson-in-law.”
“Aren’t they the most beautiful couple you’ve ever seen?” Mimi beamed.
Nicole looked over at me. I was still fired up by her little dress and wanted an excuse to touch her. I decided to play the part for a moment. “Thank you so much,” I said. “It’s our pleasure to be here with Mimi.” I wrapped my arm around Nicole, bringing her close. She flinched at first but then relaxed her body into mine.
I rubbed my thumb along her waist.
Nicole squirmed and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry if I seemed surprised to see you here, Lori. I didn’t realize she’d given anyone a key.”
“Only recently. Just in case her worker can’t be here or is running late. She has my number if she ever needs me.”
Nicole nodded. “Well, I appreciate that so much.”
I tightened my grip around her waist and pulled her closer. “ We appreciate that.”
Nicole looked up at me; her face was beet red, and I fucking loved it. I leaned in and kissed her softly on the forehead. Her eyes were still slightly closed when I pulled back to look at her. As much as I wanted to hang on, I let go and put her out of her misery.
Nicole couldn’t get away fast enough as she rushed past me through the kitchen and into the bedroom. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. “Don’t do that again.”
My stomach sank. It hurt to hear her say that, even if I had crossed the line. “Don’t… what specifically?”
“Touch me.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t touch me again like that.”
That felt like a knife to the heart. “I thought we were pretending to be married,” I whispered. “Married people touch each other.”
Her chest heaved. “Yeah, well, I can’t handle that.”
“Your nipples can’t handle it, at least. They’re hard as fucking rocks right now. It’s obvious why you don’t want me to touch you, Nicole. It isn’t that you can’t handle it. It’s that you like it. And you don’t want to like it.”
She looked down as her cheeks turned pinker by the second.
My voice was strained. “You tell me not to touch you. And yet you’re intentionally trying to torture me. That fucking dress. You wore it on purpose because you knew it made your tits look so damn good. And you wanted me to suffer.”
Her gaze lifted to meet mine. “Maybe…”
“You don’t think I’m tortured enough? You put that damn dress on and tell me not to touch you?” I leaned in so she could feel what she was doing to me. “You get off on edging me?” As her breathing became heavier, I inched closer. “You don’t want me to touch you because it makes you feel things you’re trying not to feel? Is that what it is?”
She looked away. “I don’t know…”
I placed my hand on her chin, moving her face to look at me again. “You used to beg me to touch you.”
She licked her lips, and it made me yearn to do the same, to taste her again.
“For the record, Nicole, I will never not be yours to touch. Nor would I be able to pretend for a second that I don’t want you to touch me . You never have to ask permission.” My chest pressed into hers. “You were looking at me our first night here like you wanted to touch me. When I came out of the shower, I could see it in your eyes. Desire. You weren’t happy about it, but it was there. Tell me I’m wrong.”
My dick hardened even more as she licked her lips again. I spoke close to her mouth. “Was that my imagination? I don’t think it was. You’re forgetting how well I know you. I know you inside and out, every inch of your body. And while someone else may be borrowing you, I think deep down you know who you belong to.” We breathed together for a moment. “Other women have borrowed my body since we’ve been apart, but I have never once, not for one second, not belonged to you. You won’t admit it, but you feel the same. It’s why we’re so fucked up. We both want something we can’t have anymore. But even if we’re not physically together, I’m yours. That’s never changed. I’ll always be yours, Nicole. Whether you like it or not.”
I moved back suddenly, forcing myself away before I took things even further. I’d done enough.
She stayed in place as I left the room. I moved some things around in the kitchen without purpose, pretending I was doing something other than ruminating on all the words I’d just recklessly unleashed, even if they were the truth.
Then I sensed her behind me, my body instantly, painfully aware of her presence. I turned to her. “I forgot to mention that I’m gonna need to disappear for an hour once a week.”
“Oh yeah?” She arched a brow. “Going to take care of that little pissing problem of yours in private?”
“No.”
“Sneaking cigarettes?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Where are you going for only an hour, then?”
“Actually, I’ll be seeing my shrink during that time.”
“Oh.” Her expression softened. “How long have you been seeing someone?”
“Back when everything went down with us, Doug, the band manager, was worried I wasn’t gonna be able to function with our grueling recording and touring schedule. He insisted I talk to someone. Tristan and Ronan see her, too. But I probably need it the most.”
“You see her every week?”
“Not always. Only during down times when we have breaks. But I recently asked her to fit me in once a week for the time being.” I’d be surprised if Nicole didn’t realize why I needed more therapy at the present time.
“I see.” She nodded. “Well, I’m proud of you for seeking help.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. Maybe someday it will help me wrap my head around losing you, although I doubt that.