Mutual Release (55 page)

He slid two fingers in deep, stroking her G-spot then retreating and leaving her breathless and quivering.

“Or this.” He eased the lubricated glass dildo into her, feeling her grip it as he pulled it out slowly, then back in. “I know you love your toys, don’t you, baby?” Her body was close, and he had to grip his own cock to keep control over himself. Holy hell, this was amazing. Maybe they should play with fire all the time, if her hormones would cook up such an amazing mix of mutual gut-deep lust.

He set the dildo aside just as she was shivering her way to climax. He watched her pussy, saw it flush red and pulse, the hard nub of her clit throb. His cock responded, leaking and urging him forward.

“No,” he said more to himself than to her. “It’s different today, isn’t it?” She whimpered. “Tell me what it is. I want to know what has you worked up into such a state and has me wanting to fuck your brains out over and over without any foreplay whatsoever.”

“I want a baby,” she said, her voice clear. “I want your baby, Sir.”

He stood, shocked to his core that she would even admit it, and like that. He paced around her, trying to quell the need to yell and throw something.

“I love you, and I want to have your baby,” she said, sighing and leaning her head back as she spread her legs. His mouth watered. But he could not do this. He ripped off her blindfold, unbound her wrists so she lay in the cradle of the swing, a puzzled look on her gorgeous face.

“We had an understanding,” he whispered, about to pass out from the effort to not plow into her and give her what she wanted.

“I know you think you don’t want a family, but – ”

He held up a hand, his brain clearing slightly. “I don’t want the responsibility. I have enough of that already. I can’t… what if she… I mean, there are so many horrible things that could happen to… to… a child.” He sat, put his head in his hands, jumping when she put her fingers through his hair. “This is a hard and fast item; a non-negotiable one. That’s why I brought it up so early.”

He closed his eyes and leaned into her, wrapped his arms around her waist. She held his head, keeping his face pressed to her skin. “Everything is negotiable,” she whispered. “And I really, truly want this – this thing we could do together that would be so perfect.” He felt her shake, knew she was crying. His head pounded.

“I can’t be a father. I don’t know how. What if he… turns out like… Damian? Or if she… gets hurt? I can’t do it, Julie,” he shouted, leaping up and starting to pace. “Why can’t you even try to understand?”

She rose, took his hand and wrapped her luscious body around him as she covered his lips with hers, probing with her tongue, bringing him fully alert and on fire once again. She pulled his cock free of his boxers, and before he could blink he’d tossed her onto the bed and was pounding into her, hard, groaning and crying out, matching her cries of ecstasy, unable to stop.

He collapsed over her, his face stiff with emotion, felt their hearts beating in time and fell into a deep sleep as she cradled him to her chest.

Chapter Seven

“Put it there,” Evan said, his voice calm, belying the looming tide of anger that beat against his temples.

“No,” his wife insisted, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “Put it over there.”

The movers, holding a huge, heavy walnut table, looked dismayed and sweaty. After four hours of this kind of back and forth, he was going to owe them a huge tip. Evan threw up his hands. “Listen to her. I’m going out.”

Julie held up an arm, blocking his huffy exit. He stared at it, then at her. The blue eyes he adored more than life snapped with a fury he knew matched his own. He grabbed her wrist, not too gently. He had never in his entire adult life been such a mess of contradiction – of ecstatic happiness and dark anger at the same time. He knew a lot of it was the fault of her chemistry, the one he’d been in tune with from the moment they met. It had changed drastically. And his own body was already rising to the primal occasion, hardening and preparing for connection. A connection he wanted, but felt, somehow, they had lost.

They had it all, did they not? Businesses of their own, plenty of money, the big house, the cars, the kinky, wild sex life they required. What the hell was their problem? Why did everything turn into a world war of nuclear proportions between them anymore? Musing it had sort of always been that way, and that exact dynamic was one he had relished and wanted more of, he frowned into her beautiful face.

“How did we get here?” he asked, still gripping her, his hand tightening as she tried to pull out of his grasp. “Huh, Julie? Tell me. How?” He dropped her arm and stepped back, watching as she pointed to the place where the final sticks of furniture were being placed, and re-placed, and moved once more by the company which was helping them consolidate their independent lives into one. His hand shook when he ran fingers through his sweaty hair. A simultaneous terror at losing her and rage at her manipulation via abandonment of birth control made him breathless, needing to drink, to smoke, to run, to yell and punch walls, or to fuck – which is one thing they definitely kept doing in tandem with the fighting. Groaning, he dropped into his favorite leather recliner, the one now sitting in an odd configuration relative to the large plasma TV she’d put in precisely the wrong place in the room.

Watching her run around, tipping the movers, laughing, lightly flirting with them, Evan let the anger mount, unwilling to let it go. By the time she’d finished ignoring him and stood, in the ever-popular Julie-with-her-arms-crossed, better-watch-out position in front of him, the word that kept popping into his head was: apoplectic. His face burned, heart pounded, knees shook. He wanted to shove her into the wall, walk out and leave her for days, and at the same time wrap her up and hold her for hours and hide in their bed, doing nothing but fucking and talking. “Jesus, please us,” as his mother used to say. He was screwed.

“Well, I think we are here.” She held up both hands, taking in the four-thousand-square-foot mini-mansion he’d bought for her with the gesture. “Because you wanted to make a major decision without me. To exercise your inner Dom by slicing my opinion about a fucking million-dollar house right out of your equation.”

His jaw dropped and his vision tunneled as he rose and got right in her space. She didn’t back down; no big surprise there. She had no reason to fear him. But he was damned if he would take that kind of attitude, considering what she had just done.

“Okay. Fair.” He let his Evan’s-voice-is-so-calm-you-really-should-worry tone hit her hard. She blinked. He smiled. “I’ll match your anger about suffering a new house most women would be thrilled to own with mine – about how we agreed to the ‘no kids’ rule and you fucking broke it. Without telling me.”

She bit her lip and at that moment Evan loved her so much he thought he might be having a heart attack. He held back the urge to beg for her forgiveness. To admit she was right, that something like buying this house meant more to her than to him and he should have included her in it. Until he took a deep breath of her, and her goddamn hormonally-enhanced lust. That helped him slip right back into the fury, burrow down in it nice and deep.

“I… I tried to explain it to you,” she said, arms at her sides now, the look in her eyes one Evan refused to acknowledge. “I… I’m so…”

He held up a hand. If she said she was sorry he would lose it, right and proper. And there was too much between them now for a simple kiss and make up. Doubting his sanity, unable to stop himself, he grabbed her hands, back-walked her to the wall of their giant family room, and pinned them over her head. She squirmed, but his body was on autopilot now. He had to be inside her or he was going to explode.

“Let go of me, you ass,” she said, glaring at him.

He shut her up with a kiss that made the room go dark. She kept fighting him, trying to break out of his grip, until he slid his lips down her damp neck and let go of her hands so she could wrap herself around him.

“I hate you,” she whispered as he ripped her shirt off, popped open her bra, and yanked her shorts down. Her eyes were dark and full of meaning. But not at the words she’d said, and he knew it. Julie was an expert at saying shit she did not mean and Evan understood quite well.

“No, you don’t,” he growled before unzipping his jeans and shoving himself into her without even taking the damn things off. She wrapped her legs around his waist, as if there weren’t a million perfectly good horizontal spaces in the huge house where they could fuck. He grunted, loving the exquisite glove of her body. She moaned as he leaned in and bit her shoulder, then thrust hard, going deep, meeting a core need they both felt and one he hated, but simply could not ignore.

“Oh…” She exhaled as he gripped her ass and pounded into her, matching her voice with his. “Yes!”

“I love you,” he whispered as the room dimmed, and he was left with nothing but his anger.

* * * *

Julie woke and stretched, put her hand out to touch her husband’s sleeping form, then bit back tears realizing he was not there, not with her in their bed. In the eight months since their “wedding night” at The Suite, they’d argued endlessly and fucked nearly as much. Angry, rough sex was on order most every night and a few times during the day.

Her body was sore, her nipples ached, and her pussy stung, but she was insatiable. And Evan was no better. They’d managed the move into the house he’d bought, which, she was the first to admit, he had chosen very well. It was a large one, on Ann Arbor’s northwest side of town, off Newport Road. Huge and perfect, it had a gourmet kitchen, four bedrooms and baths – the master bath was a work of spa-like art. She loved it and told him as much several times. But he still wouldn’t really talk to her. It was awful.

She put her face in her hands and held back the sobs that threatened. Which was quickly followed by a rush of horrific nausea that sent her stumbling for the spa-like toilet, which looked like any other toilet when one was puking up all the nothing one had eaten the day before. Tears rolled down her face, the alarm clock chimed. And she hauled herself into the shower.

When she had hit the five-month mark post quitting birth control with no signs of pregnancy, Evan calmed somewhat. But a subtle change had occurred between them. He was never not there for her. She never felt abandoned or abused. But those months had been chaotic for them both at work and at home, where they’d moved, unpacked, and tried to settle in while fucking like rabbits in every room. It was as if he was out to prove just because she wanted it did not mean she would get pregnant.

Her agenda was pretty simple – her body required his, nearly nonstop. And then, ten weeks ago, her period had not appeared. She knew it before she read the home test kit, sobbing for an hour while her husband banged on the door demanding to know what was wrong. She’d stared at it, not even hearing him, remorse and fear battling inside her. They didn’t need a kid, he was right. But God help her, she wanted one so badly she swore to never ever scoff when hearing about a woman’s biological clock.

He’d stared at her when she opened the door, her face tear-streaked, clutching the stick with its
plus
sign as clear as day. He had cursed and walked away. She followed him out in silence, grabbed a suitcase, packed a few of his things, and told him to get the fuck out. She would do this on her own if that truly was his attitude. He’d left without a word. They had not talked for nearly two months. It was awful. Worse than that – she did require him, his presence, his body, his laugh, his voice, everything about him, and he damn well knew it.

So he took it from her. Her punishment for daring to get pregnant.

Emerging only slightly refreshed and coming to grips with yet another day operating under a low-grade, ever-present level of dizziness, she got dressed, noting how her clothes hung on her since she’d been throwing up non-stop for two months straight. Her phone buzzed and she tried to focus on it while sipping hot water laced with lemon. Sara again, checking on her, which made her smile.

She and Sara had become friends fast, which was a new thing for Julie. But the woman was no-nonsense, hard-working, and brutally honest with her, which Julie valued. After Julie tossed Evan out on his ear, Sara had read Jack the riot act with regard to his friend who was, at the moment, cooling his heels at a residence-style hotel.

And now here she was, a puking, miserable, alone mess. Plus she’d been called in for another doctor’s appointment. They were “worried” about something they wanted to check. It had taken every ounce of willpower not to call Evan and tell him to meet her there. Terror fluttered at the edges of her consciousness. Something was wrong. She needed Evan with her. Sara’s text reminded her that she would meet her at the OB office, and they were going for pedicures after to celebrate. Julie smiled. Sara had her own issues, including holding Evan’s friend Jack at arms’ length. “I’ve spent too many years protecting myself from him, Julie,” Sara had said once several weeks ago. “I don’t even know how to take him back, how to be anything more to him, even though I want it.” And Julie held her tongue, realizing she had no right to give relationship advice whatsoever.