Shiver (3 page)

W
e've stood in silence for more than three minutes. I know because I've watched the seconds tick by on the clock on the wall behind where Alexa is standing. I've been waiting for her to respond. I wanted her to tell me immediately that she has an understanding of what I'm talking about but it's obvious that's not going to happen.

My pretty little wife can't even make eye contact with me right now. I know her well enough to sense that's because death makes her uncomfortable. It's a subject she avoids at all costs.

"I'd like you to come to Boston with me so you can understand what I'm doing there."

"Does Ben know about this?" Her gaze doesn't move from where it's glued to the floor. "Have you told him what you're doing?"

I haven't even fully explained it to her yet. How the hell can I mention it to my twin brother? I blamed him for years for our mother's death. I can't exactly call him up and tell him that I'm creating an exhibit of photographs I took of our mother before her death so I can show them at a small gallery in Boston. That's not something you bring up over a drink at a bar.

My mother's death still haunts Ben. I saw that firsthand when we were establishing the Foster Foundation, a charity dedicated to our mother's memory. It tore Ben up inside every time I mentioned how proud she would be of him and the good work he does at the hospital.

His life is settled now. He's happy. He's married to my wife's best friend, Kayla, and he's raising a little girl. I can't fuck that all up by telling him that I can't let my mother's memory fade away.

"I told you first," I explain calmly. "I want you to come and see what I'm doing before I talk to Ben."

"What are you doing?" The question carries the perfect balance of anger and frustration. She's pissed that I didn't correct her when she made the assumption that I was going to Boston to close the deal on the penthouse.

"I was cleaning out my things," I begin as I motion towards a chair a few feet away. "Why don't we sit, Alexa? I want to explain all of this to you."

She fidgets on her feet.  "She's been gone for a long time. I don't understand what's going on."

I ignore her inability to stand still as I lower myself back into my office chair. I need the stability of that to ground me so I can get through this conversation. The kids are due back with Diana sometime in the next hour so I need to get this off my chest before they burst in.

"Tell me, Noah." Her voice carries all the impatience of her movements. The toe of her left shoe is tapping a rapid beat on the floor.

"I wish our kids would have known her," I begin because that's exactly where this all started for me. "It kills me that they'll never get the chance to know her the way I did."

That quiets her enough that she sits her ass down on a chair across from me. "I'm sorry about that. I wish I could have known her too."

"That's another part of it." I scrub my hand over my forehead. "I've got this perfect family and she'll never see that. She's never going to know the three of you."

You'd think I'd be over this by now. I'm in my thirties. She died when I was eighteen-years-old. I struggle to recall the sound of her voice sometimes or the way she moved when she walked. I know her favorite flower was a rose, but for shit's sake I can't push myself to remember if I told her I loved her before I left for a ball game the day she took her last breath.

She was sick. She was really sick and if I would have been paying more attention than a teenager in search of his next high or his next lay is, I might have actually spent more time with her. I didn't. I regret it now that I see Alexa with our kids. My mother was just as giving and supportive to me and my brother as my wife is to our kids and I doubt like hell she knew how much that meant to me.

"I started sorting through my stuff there when I first put the place up for sale." I talk quickly, the words spilling out. "That's when I found boxes and boxes of old pictures I'd taken."

"Pictures of your mom?" she asks quietly.

"Her, my dad, Ben, friends." I shake my head faintly. "My folks got me a camera for my tenth birthday and I went hog wild with that thing. I took thousands of pictures."

"I'd like to see them."

Of course she'd say that. Alexa may not have been the biggest fan of my work when we met but since then she's been nothing but supportive. She'll sit next to me at this desk, grading papers while I edit images. She's learned what works and doesn't work in terms of shading and angles. I know her interest isn't coming from her own natural desire to take pictures. She's wanted to learn more about my business because of how much it means to me.

"Come to Boston with me this weekend." I lean forward to cup her face in my hands. "Come with me so I can show you exactly what I've been doing."

Her eyes graze over my face before they settle on my lips. "You know I can't resist you, Noah. I'd follow you to the edge of the earth if you asked me to."

"I'd do the very same for you, Alexa. I'd do anything for you."

***

"Y
ou said you'd do anything for me," she hisses the words from between her teeth. "You need to let me finish what I started."

I need to fuck her before I blow my load all over her face. "Stop, Alexa. I told you to fucking stop."

This is one of the few times when I can say I don't give a fuck that she's not listening to me. I'd gone to bed before her but when she crawled in next to me, all bets were off. Sleep was the last thing on my mind when she took my dick between her lips and sucked me to the back of her throat.

I'd almost lost it right then. I had to physically pull her off of me so I could catch my breath. She wasn't having it though and with a few quick flicks of her head to free her hair from my hand, her mouth was back on me, sucking, licking, taking me to the edge over and over again.

I want to come down her throat. I want that almost as much as I want her to climb on top of me so she can ride me.

"Get on my cock," I pant the words out quickly as she slowly licks the underside of my dick. "I want your pussy."

She moans as she scrambles hastily, shedding the boy shorts and tank top she's wearing. She'd turned the small light on the nightstand on when she walked into the bedroom and locked the door. It's enough of a glow to highlight her beautiful body. My cock stiffens even more as my eyes trail over her.

"Ah shit," I murmur as I watch her glide her long fingers through her soft folds. "You're ready."

"Sucking your cock turns me on." She dips a finger into her channel, pulling it out and over her swollen clit. "I love sucking it."

She stands on the bed, straddling me while she continues fingering herself. I stare up, in awe of how incredibly fucking beautiful she is; in disbelief that this woman agreed to spend the rest of her life with me. This is mine. All of this is mine.

"Sit on my face. Let me taste you." I fist my cock, bringing myself to the edge again.

"Not a chance." She's down and on me in an instant, her hands pulling mine away from my dick. "I'm going to come with this inside of me."

I stare at her face, watching her eyes flutter closed as she slides my shaft into her very wet, very ready pussy.

––––––––

"I
f I fall asleep in class today, it's your fault." She rests her hands on my shoulders as she reaches up to kiss my cheek. "You're a fucking machine, Noah."

"A fucking machine?" I parrot back. "You've never called me that before. Does that mean you like me, Mrs. Foster?"

She rolls her eyes as she purses her lips. "Only my students call me that."

"You didn't mind when I called you that last night." I arch my brow.

She kisses me softly, her tongue grazing a lazy path over my bottom lip. "You can call me whatever you want when we're in our bed."

"Whatever I want?" I ask in a soft voice when I hear the twins rounding the corner to come into the kitchen. "I'm going to remember that. In fact, I'll never forget that."

The sudden curve of her brow is a silent question but I'm on dad duty now. That means I've got to find something, anything to get in front of Max before he eats his plate, and I have to coax my beautiful brunette little princess to eat a few bites of banana before I take them both to school.

"When's grandpa coming over?" Max walks right past me on a mission to get to the refrigerator. He opens the door with both hands before he pulls out a small tub of yogurt. "I have some stuff to go over with him."

"Go over with him?" I reach behind me to yank open the utensil drawer before he reaches it.

He grabs hold of a spoon and then closes the drawer with his shoulder. "We're working on something. I called him but he didn't get back to me yet."

This kid is way too smart for his own good. "When did you call him?"

"What time was that, Mommy?" He sits by the kitchen table, as he pulls off the lid of the yogurt. He runs his tongue over it before he drops it on a paper napkin.

Alexa smiles as she stares at him. "You called him last night around seven, Max. I told you grandpa was traveling yesterday to Texas. I'm sure he'll call us back tonight."

"You'll tell me right after school if he called you, right?"

I feel like I'm sitting on the sideline of a tennis match as my wife and son volley responses back and forth. Chloe has settled in a chair by the table as she takes the smallest bites humanly imaginable of the banana Alexa peeled for her.

"Grandpa might call me," I interject. "I am his son after all. You haven't forgotten that, have you?"

Max laughs. It's like warm sunshine as it bounces off the walls of the kitchen.

"What's so funny?" I crouch next to him, burying my index finger in his side.

It brings up an even bigger giggle as the yogurt that was in his mouth seeps out the sides. "Grandpa always calls me on Mommy's phone. You know he does."

I do know that. I know that my father talks to Max on an almost daily basis and I couldn’t be more grateful that he's as committed to spending as much time with the kids as he is.

"I'll call him this morning and tell him to come to New York next week," I offer not only for Max but also for myself. I miss my dad.

When I stopped taking nude photographs of women, he lost his job as my manager, which meant he was officially retired. He now spends his time golfing, jetting around the country to visit friends and spending time with his grandchildren. He's been on his own since my mom died. He's dated a few women but not one of those relationships has gone very far. He says he's happy being alone. I have no reason to doubt him.

"Tell him to hurry, Daddy." Max brushes his hand over the tattoos on my arm. "I need to tell him something very important."

***

"D
id you sell your place in Boston yet?" My brother tilts his chin towards an empty table in the hospital's cafeteria. "I'm thinking of listing the condo I've got there. I may wait for the market to swing back up."

I settle onto one of the extremely uncomfortable plastic chairs that litter the space. It's mid-afternoon so the lunch crowd has thinned enough that a person can actually move. I meet Ben during his breaks whenever I can, but he knows not to ask me here between eleven and two. I've made that mistake before and I won't again.

"It hasn't sold." I take a sip of the bitter coffee. "How's Kayla? Tell me about Emerson."

When Ben and his wife first told me they were naming their daughter after our mother I had to bite down the urge to cry. I had imagined doing the same thing after her death, but when I saw Emerson Foster for the first time, I knew the name belonged to only her. She's a perfect mix of my brother and his wife.

"She's great. They're both great." He leans back on the chair, crossing his legs. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing," I lie. "Working hard, hanging with my kids, chasing my wife. You know how it is."

He raises his hand to wave at someone behind me before his gaze falls back on my face. "You've got something going on. I can see it in your eyes. I heard it in your voice when you called me this morning."

"Bullshit." I chuckle. "I've got nothing going on."

The expected laugh doesn't come. Instead, he pulls his teeth across his bottom lip. "You've been thinking about mom, haven't you?"

Some people would call that twin intuition but that's not what this is. He's not using a special sibling power to read my mind. He's fishing and I know exactly why. "You're asking me that because it's her birthday in two weeks."

"It would have been her birthday in two weeks," he corrects me. "I've been thinking about that too."

I pick up the paper cup of coffee and bring it up to my lips. It takes like shit but it's worth it if I can avoid discussing this subject with him today. I don't want to delve into an emotional conversation about our mom in the middle of the cafeteria.

"We should hang out that day." He taps the toe of his shoe against my leg under the table. "We can have some beers, shoot some pool. We should do something to commemorate the day."

"Take the day off, Ben. Meet me in Boston."

He doesn't say anything at first. He stares at me, his eyes widening as if some realization has suddenly washed over him. "Done. I'll fly out that morning."

I smoothly shift the topic to the weather. The details of what we're going to do that day don't matter one bit. My twin brother and I are going to honor our mother on what would have been her 60
^th
birthday.

––––––––

"P
art of me hates when you do that, Noah." She tosses those words over her shoulder at me without even a backward glance. "You come in here and look like the hero."

"I am the hero." I cross my legs at the ankles as I rest against the edge of her desk. "Your students fucking love me, Alexa."

She turns towards me, her hands darting to her ears. "Don't talk like that here. I teach eight-year-olds, Noah. No swearing."

I wave both my arms in front of me in a grand gesture. "Your students were dismissed thirty minutes ago. The only one who can hear me swear is you."