Chapter 41 – James
JAMES
As I stand in the doorway of Maura’s studio, I think god for noise canceling headphones. It's the only way I can watch her work without her complaining. My wife prefers that I not, as she puts it, “lurk around in doorways like some kind of obsessed stalker.”
“What if I am an obsessed stalker?” I asked once.
She bit her lip thoughtfully. “Then you're a pretty good one. You did get me to marry you, after all.”
Now, I stand and appreciate the opportunity to stare at my wife, uninterrupted.
She still isn’t showing much at all, but even knowing a little version of us is being made inside of her makes me so hyper vigilant and maybe a smidge overprotective.
I find myself more than a little obsessed with her body these days.
I never imagined I’d be the sort of man to talk to a woman’s uterus, but I find myself cooing to it every chance I get.
When the baby is a bit bigger, I’ll read to them. The books say it’s good for them to hear our voices in vitro.
If Maura thought I was territorial before she started showing, it’s nothing compared to the way I feel now. Or how I know I’ll feel when she starts really showing.
She dips her brush into glistening green paint, which she applies to the canvas with a broad stroke of her brush. I know it’s crushed Greek porphyry mixed in with the paint.
The industrial rock crusher was installed not long ago, but she’s barely used it for all the morning sickness and fatigue. I think she’s almost through the worst of it, though. Or at least that’s what all the nurses and doctors I’ve harassed about it have said.
I know she’s feeling better because she’s been working up a storm, painting practically every waiting hour. Most of the pieces are inspired by our trip to Greece, incorporating the stones we bought there.
After a few minutes, I pull out my phone and send her a text.
James
Got you a new stone. Sent it up from the storage.
Maura pulls out her phone almost immediately, and smiles as she reads it.
Maura
Is it one of the impossible ones?
James
One of a kind.
A few weeks ago, I coaxed Maura into giving me a list of all the stones she thought would be impossible to get. They'll be arriving next week. This one is a little different.
Humming to herself, Maura walks over to the dumbwaiter and opens the door, no doubt expecting some massive hunk of rock inside. She gasps in surprise, her paintbrush clattering to the floor. With shaking hands, she pulls out a small black velvet box.
She whirls around, ripping off her headphones. Her mouth falls open when she sees me dropping to one knee. She looks so beautiful, so genuinely shocked, that I want to kiss her before she even answers.
“Oh, James…”
“I've been thinking,” I say. “I did it all wrong, proposing the first time. It was all contracts and pressure. No romance. That's not how it's supposed to be.”
Her eyes grow shiny with tears. She walks slowly to me, stopping a mere footstep away. She lets me take her hand.
“Maura, I’ve been in love with you longer than I’ll ever admit in public. Embarrassingly long. Possibly before you even liked me. No one's ever made me feel as alive as you have, and I’d rather have twenty fiercely lived years with you than fifty empty ones without you.”
I take the box from Maura’s hand. “After the accident, my parents’ belongings were boxed up and stored for me. One of the boxes held my mother’s engagement ring.”
I open the box, and Maura’s hands fly to her mouth when she sees the rectangular blue diamond on a slender white gold band. The complete opposite of her reaction to my first ring. I know, without a doubt, that she loves it.
“I never thought I’d want to give it to anyone,” I explain. “She would only want me to give it to someone I loved. I know she would be proud for me to give it to you.”
Her full lips curve into a smile. “And I would be proud to wear it.”
“Wait a second, let me ask you first.” I laugh. “Will you marry me, my beautiful wife? Properly, by choice?”
Tears break free from Maura’s eyes, and she laughs at the same time that she cries. “Yes! Yes, James, yes.”
I slide the ring on her slender finger and kiss her knuckles. “It looks perfect.”
“It is. It’s so, so much better than my first ring—which was beautiful,” she adds quickly. “It just wasn’t this.”
“You’re right. This is better.”
I stand and pull Maura into my arms, setting my lips against hers. Her lips part for me, inviting and wanting. Mine, for the rest of our lives.
Lifting her in my arms, I carry her to our now-shared bedroom.
It's more colorful than it was when only I used it, Warm Front hanging prominently over the bed.
I only set her down long enough to peel off the linen dress she's wearing.
I sink to my knees in front of her, dragging her panties down her legs.
“Lie back on the bed for me, wife,” I instruct her.
She crawls backward onto the mattress, her head nestled on the pillow. I strip off my shirt and trousers, feeling her eyes on my body as she takes in the view.
“Like what you see?” I ask, raising a brow.
“Yes,” she purrs. “I love looking at my husband.”
Growling, I circle a hand around one of her ankles and slowly kiss my way up the soft, pale skin.
I crawl up over her while I kiss her everywhere.
On her calves and thighs, her hips, the soft curve of her stomach.
Territorial asshole that I am, I can’t wait until everyone can see she's pregnant with my child.
So that every man who so much as looks at her will know that she belongs to me.
I prop myself up on my arm beside her, so I have full access to her body without crushing her belly.
I kiss her shoulder as she wraps her hand around my length.
Fuck, I love the way that looks. As she pumps her hand up and down, her chest heaves with shallow breaths.
I lower my mouth to suck on her breast. A small chest suits her frame, but I love every way the pregnancy is already changing her body.
I thrust shamelessly against her hand while I feast on her breasts and neck. Every little sigh that falls from her mouth just makes my cock throb harder.
I drag my teeth along the juncture where her shoulder meets her neck and she sighs. “James…”
Hearing my name from her lips almost makes me come before I want to.
Gently, I move her hand from my cock to my hair as I slip down her body and settle between her spread legs.
I sink my mouth into her slick pussy, lapping at her wetness.
I love the way her hips arch up toward my face.
I love how my wife shamelessly takes her pleasure when I eat her out.
My hands skate over her thighs and belly, while her hands grip my hair tightly, pulling me even closer.
I’m surrounded by the musky scent and taste of her, and it makes my cock throb against the mattress.
I wish I could tell her how fucking sweet her nectar is, pouring on my tongue, but that would mean I’d have to stop tasting her.
Right now, that’s not something I’m fucking capable of doing.
“Oh, god,” Maura moans. “Yes, James, yes.”
Her hips rock faster and faster, chasing the pleasure I know is spiraling up through her body. My fingers tighten around her hips and I hum, adding to the vibrations of my mouth. I refuse to relent until her legs spasm over my shoulders.
“Oh, fuck!” she screams as she comes all over my mouth. I wait till her legs are done shaking before I raise my head and slowly lick every drop of her off my face. She looks down at me with lust-drunk eyes.
“I love hearing your pretty mouth swear when I make you come, wife.”
Her lips curl into a smile. “Maybe you should make me do it again,” she teases, and I grin.
“It’s like you’re reading my mind. Lie on your side now, Maura.”
Satisfaction still unfurls in my belly whenever she does as I say. When she rolls to her side, my cock pulses.
I climb up behind her, letting my hard cock press against her ass and running my hands over every inch of skin I can reach. I pepper kisses against her soft neck and knead her breasts, paying special attention to her peaked buds.
“You want to come again, sweetheart?”
“Yes,” she sighs, and I slip my fingers down to her sopping pussy.
I urge her top leg forward onto the bed to give me access before I drag the head of my cock over her entrance. “And you know I’ll always give you anything you ask for.”
My mouth finds the place beneath her ear. “I used to think love was just something the world takes from you.”
My hand spreads over her belly, grounding myself in what we made. “Then you happened.”
I thrust slow, controlled. “Ask me for forever, Maura, and I’ll give it to you.”
I take my time, stretching her open bit by bit. Maura arches her back, pressing her hips down to take more of me.
“Give me forever,” she says, her voice breathy and broken.
“It’s yours.”
I grit my teeth as her sinfully delicious heat envelopes me. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the way her pussy takes me, the way she eagerly takes every inch I give her.
I take my time stroking her breasts before circling her clit with my fingers as I push the final inch inside.
“Oh god,” she pants. “More, James, please.”
Our breaths and bodies seem to sync up as I rock inside her. Every time I pull out, her pussy clenches tightly, like it’s trying to keep me deep inside. It’s torture every time I pull out, but it’s worth the heavenly heat of thrusting back in.
“You were fucking made for me,” I groan. “Always mine. Forever mine.”
“So possessive,” Maura says, but her humor is swallowed up by her desire.
“Say it,” I demand, thrusting deeper. “Tell me you're mine.”
“I'm yours.” The words come out breathless, wrecked.
“Again.”
“I'm yours, James. Only yours.”
The admission breaks something loose in me. I grip her hips tighter, driving into her with an intensity that borders on desperate.
Her inner walls clench tight as a fist.
“And I’m yours, Maura Keller.”
She moans, and it’s all I can do to keep from unleashing right then. My fingers press harder on her clit, urging on her orgasm. I promised my wife she could come on my cock, and she gets everything she asks for.
I suck on the most sensitive place on her neck, and when I circle her clit one more time, Maura comes undone. Her whole body shakes and trembles against mine in a shattering orgasm. I bury my face in her neck and follow her over the edge into a void of mind-shattering pleasure.
Her jasmine perfume grounds me as I float back down into my body. Her soft curves press back into me, and I’m overwhelmed with how lucky I was to find this gorgeous, joyful, chaotic woman.
“I love you, Maura. My wife.”
This time, the words “my wife” feel different coming off my tongue. They’re not just possessive and territorial. They’re solid, chosen, and utterly permanent.
She snuggles back against me and lets out a small hum of satisfaction. “I love you, too,” she whispers. “You’re mine. All mine.”
I wrap my arms around her waist and close my eyes. I plan to stay curled up with my wife for as long as she’ll let me, and I hope that’s a long goddamn time.