Chapter 25
JULIA
“Where’s my bestest babiest boy?” I coo as I push open the door that leads from the garage to the house.
It takes a minute, but excited chirps and meows filter down from the top of the stairs as Drumstick stretches out his body, freshly woken from what appears to have been an excellent nap.
While Tripp works to bring in our bags, Drumstick trots down the stairs toward me, and I scoop him up into my arms to press kisses to the soft skin of his cheeks.
I expected our ride out to Jacksonville to be awkward, maybe even painful, and it wasn’t.
I expected the ride back to be quiet, that we’d all feel better now that we’d gotten whatever that was out of our systems, but we didn’t.
What I hoped would be the start of rekindling friendships was reduced to uncomfortable silences and even more uncomfortable looks passed between each other.
I’d like to believe that it got better after I stole Tripp’s earbuds to listen to a book, but my gut worries that it might just be wishful thinking on my part.
After he finishes carting in our things, Tripp lays on the floor of our living room to let Drumstick walk, knead, and roll all over his body to say hello. I join the two of them, lowering myself to sit next to my husband. My fingers push through his hair as I smile down at him.
“You…” I hesitate, biting at the inside of my cheek.
Is it outing him if I watched it happen?
Is he going to feel like he’s being cornered or attacked if I ask?
As his eyes move to mine in silent invitation to continue, I pull in a breath.
“Are you bi, too?” I blurt. “I just— you didn’t seem like you were out of your element last night.”
“I’m not really anything, I don’t think,” he says with a shrug. “I never have been.”
“You’ve never told me that.”
“Did I need to?” He challenges as my fingers run through his hair. “You’re the only person I’d ever had sex with or brought home to my parents. I figured everything else was kind of a moot point.”
Squeezing Drumstick’s cheeks, he pulls him close to give the cat a big smooch, earning a loud, trilling meow in response before tiny teeth clamp down on the tip of his nose.
My eyes are on my husband, but behind them, last night replays for me like a movie. Tripp and Connor’s hips grinding against each other, the way that they kissed each other, the way that they pulsed in my hand as they came for each other.
My clit hammers between my legs at the memory.
“Would you do it again?” I probe.
His eyes flick to mine again.
“With Connor?” I nod, using my teeth to tug at the corner of my lower lip.
Tripp pulls in a thoughtful, loaded breath.
“I’m still pissed at him.” His brow lowers, his eyes narrowing at me as he studies me, his tongue offering a flick to the jewelry in his lip.
“Would you? With someone who wasn’t Connor? ”
“No,” I answer without a moment of hesitation. “I don’t want that. I only want the two of you.”
As Drumstick finally leaps from his chest in search of something to play with, Tripp pulls himself to a sitting position. His eyes hold mine, and I feel pinned in place as the afternoon sun shines on them from our living room window to give them a caramel glow.
Wings flutter through my stomach as a swarm of butterflies take flight there. They rise to my throat as he stands, towering over me with a hand extended to help me off of the floor, and I think my insides might burst when he pulls my body against his.
“I haven’t felt that close to you in a long time,” I tell him. “Am I alone in that? Am I crazy?”
“You’re not crazy,” he says with a soft shake of his head.
“I regret hurting you. That’s something I’ll always live with,” I admit, cupping his face in my hands, “but I don’t regret what the three of us did together in that hotel room.”
The tip of his tongue meets the smooth ball of the jewelry in his lip again as my thumbs stroke the length of his jaw. I want to know what he’s thinking. I want to ask him how he’s feeling.
But I know my husband, and I know that he doesn’t process things that way. He can’t talk this out – he has to feel it out. He has to go back and forth, up and down, side to side until he lands in a place that feels comfortable and makes sense for him.
The thing I find funny about that is that I was the same way, before he was part of my life.
Lock it away. Feel it in small doses. Get scared. Get angry. Accept it, but never face it.
Bringing myself to the tips of my toes, I press my lips to his in a quick peck. His thumb tugs at my lower lip and I stare up at him through my lashes, waiting with my breath locked in my chest and my heart pounding.
“You’re my wife.” Reaching behind me to carefully pull the ribbon from my hair, he says, “I’ll share you with him from time to time, if that’s really what you need from me, but you’re my wife, Jules.”
“I’m your wife,” I echo breathlessly with an affirmative dip of my chin.
The pulse between my legs is raging. Demanding. My nipples peak, straining against the cushion of my bra as he cups my face in his hand, and I slide mine beneath the hem of his shirt to feel the warmth of his skin against my palm.
The tip of his nose presses against mine and his lips sit mere millimeters away, their very presence teasing me in a way that makes me whine.
“Did you like it?” He asks with a voice only just higher than a whisper, thick with gravel. His lips brush against mine, and I melt in his grip. “Did it feel good to be fought over and stretched out? Did you like the way it felt to have both of us inside you?”
“Yes.” The word practically dances on nothing but air.
His lips tease mine again, and as they make contact, his toes push against mine to guide me backward toward the kitchen.
Only when we reach the point where carpet meets tile does his mouth properly crash into me.
We tangle together into a mess of tongues, teeth nipping at flesh, and shed clothing, until I find myself being helped onto the dining table.
Tripp breaks our kiss only to bring two fingers into his mouth, sliding them past his lips.
As his mouth meets mine again, he swirls the pads of those fingers against my hammering clit to send a shockwave through my body.
When he finally slips them inside of me, I moan against his mouth, tangling my hand into the back of his hair.
My free hand holds onto his wrist while he works his fingers inside of me and the pad of his thumb moves against my clit in a perfect, blinding rhythm that steals the breath from my lungs.
With my hips rolling against his hand, his mouth trails from mine, leaving kisses along my jaw and down to my neck.
He stops there, sucking and kissing at my skin.
“Lovey,” I whine with my grip tightening on his wrist as electricity rockets throughout my body.
Soft, warm lips meet my ear, first with a kiss, and then with a whisper.
“Come on my hand,” he tells me. “I know you need it, baby, I can feel it.”
Pushing his fingers deeper inside, he adds pressure to my clit with his thumb, and I fall apart.
My arm wraps itself around his shoulders and I hold onto him like a lifeline while he brings me to orgasm.
As I come down, his hand cups my pussy, his palm massaging against it as I catch my breath; and then those same two fingers slide right back inside of me.
“Oh my—”
My grip doesn’t falter on him as my head falls backward and my fingernails bite into his shoulder. His fingers are relentless against every sensitive nerve and every needy spot inside and out that aches for his touch.
I watch his face while he touches me, flushed and focused. This is the Tripp that I remember. The man whose own pleasure was derived from mine, who loved to watch me come for him over and over again, as many times as he could make me.
I’m not sure what it is that we’ll wind up calling last night, and I’m not sure if it will ever happen again, but whatever it was…it freed me. It freed him. And I’m not sure if he’s realized that, yet.
My body tremors as he pushes in deeper, and my head falls to rest against his shoulder with a harsh whine.
“Tripp, I need you,” I plead with my body writhing against him.
“I know you do, baby,” he tells me almost sympathetically. “Give me one more, and I’ll give you what you need.”
My thighs clamp around his wrist, my knees pulled to my chest as he changes the movement in his hand.
His fingers no longer gently beckon pleasure from the sensitive spot inside.
It’s his entire arm working those fingers against that spot, using a strong and unrelenting motion that makes the table wobble underneath me as I whine and gasp in his grip.
The ends of my fingernails bite into his bicep as strangled sounds claw their way from the depth of my throat, blinding heat stealing all of the air in my lungs.
“There she goes,” he purrs as my body tightens and I desperately cling to him, my face pinching as I fight for any semblance of self control. “That’s it, baby, let me have it. Make a mess for me.”
I cry out against a tsunami wave of pleasure that gushes against his palm in a spray, leaving every inch of my body shaking and my lungs empty while I gasp for air.
His fingers slowly withdraw from their position and he swirls them against my clit in a gentle caress as he meets me in a kiss, and it doesn’t matter that my body is already spent.
I still need him.
It seems almost effortless, the way that he keeps his lips on mine as he brings one of my ankles to his shoulder.
I gasp, breathing through pursed lips as he slowly teases, gliding the solid length of his cock between my lips to tease my sensitive clit before pushing inside of me with a low and heady ‘fuck.’