Knots (35 page)

“Absolutely. I think we can go dancing at least once a month,” Jeanie offered.

“Or maybe every weekend,” Marly shot back, her eyes hopeful.

“We’ll see . . .” Jeanie forked some rice and popped it into her mouth.

“This is delicious,” Toloa said.

Out of nowhere, Toloa’s husband clapped. “Good food. Good people and happy choices. Good for you.” He bowed his head a little, then radiated nothing but acceptance at Jeanie.

“She’s a smart woman. Always admired how when she made a decision, she followed it through,” Mark said, his tone gushing and oozing with pride.

She could’ve levitated out of the chair, until Jay reached over the table and flicked her shoulder. “Well, now that you’re rich, with nothing to do with that money, why don’t you buy me a new car, sis?”

Her face went cold and so did her blood.

“Rich? She’s not rich. What’re you talkin’ ‘bout?” Marly gave him the “You’re stupid!” eyes.

“You know—she and Pono were saving every penny to get fertility treatment, for her problems.” Jay went back to eating.

“Shhhhh!” Toloa shot him a look of death and mortification.

“No, it’s fine,” Jeanie said, setting her fork down. “We saved around nine thousand. After we sold our other car, it made a big difference. We were going to try to have IVF soon.”

“What was your problem called again? Poly popping ovules or something?” Jay chugged his Gatorade down.

She watched him go. How like his brother he was. Pono loved sports drinks. She hated them—only bought them for him and never drank them. They had awful aftertastes.

“It’s polycystic ovary syndrome,” Jeanie told him, her voice firm but kind and patient.

“I thought that only happened to fat ladies.” Jay was demolishing his enchilada.

“Not always, but sometimes it’s a problem for heavier set ladies,” Jeanie said.

“You should eat more, definitely then, since it’s not a problem. Skinny’s ugly.” Marly stared at her with a bitter look in her eyes.

“Marly!” her dad barked. “Enough!”

“What? That’s what everyone in the family tells me—too skinny—eat more so I won’t be ugly—when all I want to do is lose weight.” Marly picked at her food, her expression one of being ganged up on.

“It’s our way,” Toloa tried to explain.

“I know. I remember. It’s not a bad thing—I get it.” Jeanie remembered Pono had told her that skinny girls were looked down upon. It was a sign of being well-off and taking care of themselves to have some decent meat on their bones. It meant good childbearing. But Jeanie was slightly paranoid about gaining weight since she already had PCOS. She didn’t want to make it worse. Not that it really could be any worse since as far as she knew, she hadn’t ovulated in months.

“You’re beautiful,” Mark told her.

“Thanks.” She reached under the table with her right hand and squeezed his left. “I was going to be put on Clomiphene next month, actually. I was kind of worried about having a pregnancy with multiples, but Pono liked that idea.” She tried to shrug, but only one shoulder raised and it looked like more of an odd twitch than anything. Her nerves were jumping like crazy as her stomach curled into several knots.

Mark shifted in his seat.

Was he unaware of this issue with her? Would he be relieved she might not ever conceive, or would this make him turn against her? They hadn’t even discussed birth control because he wore a condom the times he came inside her, otherwise he was either being sucked off, or ejaculating all over her body. She figured that meant he was ignorant of her situation.

“I thought you were going to have surgery?” Jay was up, grabbing more food as he waited for her response.

“Yeah, we considered getting my ovaries drilled, but it was going to mean I’d have to take more time off work, and since we’d be using some of our savings for these treatments, it was going to have to wait. We figured we’d try the shots first.” She played with a tortilla chip on her plate, swirling it in the refried beans but failing to actually bring it to her lips.

“Eat. I’ll handle this,” Mark whispered in her ear.

She dropped the chip, picked up her fork and somehow obeying him lit something up inside her.

Her back relaxed into the chair and her mind quit racing.

“I’ll help you fix your car,” Mark told Jay. “Just like last time. What’s going on with it now?”

He turned to face Jay, though he kept his hand on Jeanie’s leg.

“Oh, a ton of stuff. Need to replace the motor mounts and replace the timing belt. Those are expensive parts. And I’m not sure I have the right tools to do the motor mounts,” Jay answered then returned to the table with a hefty serving of seconds.

Jeanie smiled inwardly. Even though her secrets were spread out like the buffet of food, at least everyone knew what was going on. No more hiding.

No more shame.

She was infertile, and she wasn’t sure she cared anymore.

Chapter 15

After the Finaus left, Jeanie moved to the kitchen and began cleaning.

Mark moved past her and filled them both a glass of wine.

“You were marvelous,” he whispered in her ear.

She jumped. “Jesus—you scared me.”

“I’ve been right here watching you and helping some. You didn’t see me?”

“No—I guess I was caught up in my thoughts and cleaning.”

“Well, you’re sexy as hell when you’re that focused. I may need to watch you scrub out the shower sometime.”

She smirked. “What on earth about that is sexy?”

“Clearly, you need to be around me more to understand why that turns me on—why you turn me on, wearing my shirt without my permission.”

He took the dishrag out of her hand, passed her the glass of wine and went about undressing her by starting with his shirt.

“Tell me to stop now if you don’t want this, because you’re moving in here—at your own declaration, not mine—which means I have full access to you once again.” His brow was up, testing her. Would she contradict her earlier statement?

It felt like forever since he’d been inside her, telling her how insatiable she made him.

“Green, Sir. I want it. All of it.” She gulped down her drink, set it aside and her eyes were transfixed on his hands, undressing her.

“Dinner was delicious. Thank you for that. And you were perfect.”

“Except for when I lost track of what to say and do when my goddamn fertility issues came up.”

He stood up straight and set his hands on her shoulders. “If you have something to say about it, say it now, but don’t you dare put yourself down for something you can’t control.”

“How is this going to work, Mark? I mean, does it even matter if I can’t have kids? I doubt you even want them anyway.”

His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“How am I supposed to be a submissive and do kinky things with you if we’ve got a baby around, and that’s even assuming I could ever manage to conceive?”

He smiled. “Babies aren’t a problem for me. I enjoy them. Besides, submissives get pregnant all the time. I’d love to have that with you.”

She pushed his hands off her. “That’s just it. I’m not even sure I want kids. I kind of gave up hope a long time ago. I was saving all that money because Pono wanted it so badly.”

He hummed for a second, took in a scraping breath. “I want kids, too, but if you don’t, that’s fine. Maybe someday you will. Maybe it would be good for you to take a break from worrying about it. It sounded at dinner like you were exhausted by even thinking about it. Do what feels right to
you—
what works for us. Don’t go off your past, Jeanie. That stuff has no bearing on us since it’s up to you now. Your choice.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and went back to undressing her. The sleeves were falling off her shoulders, so he yanked them off.

“You say it’s fine, but I can see in your eyes it’s really not.”

“What do you want me to say? That I adore kids? Yeah—okay, I fucking do. I love ‘em, and you’d be an amazing mom, but I can’t stand hearing you beat yourself up and making yourself crazy over it. I already knew of your fertility issues before, so this wasn’t news to me tonight. I love you no matter what, and this doesn’t change anything for me. You realize even if you had those shots, you might not’ve gotten pregnant? Pono did anabolic steroids in college. I told him not to do it, but I couldn’t stop him. So odds are his sperm count was low or maybe non-existent.”

Her lashes shook as her eyes actually squinted and trembled. “What?”

“Yeah—steroids, and lots of them.”

“But then . . .” She gripped his wrists for support, and her head fell. “Could that be why he had that heart attack? It wasn’t completely my fault for overfeeding him and enabling him? He had a heart condition he didn’t know about, and he was taking steroids possibly for a few years?”

“Two years I know about,” he answered.

“Not my fault,” she said, sounding stunned—her voice far off and distant.

He grabbed her hips, then pushed his own hips into her. “No. Not your fault. None of it was. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

Her head lifted. She gaped, and her eyes glazed when she looked at him. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Let’s go lie down. The kitchen can wait ‘til morning. You’ve cleaned most of it anyhow.” He pulled her into the bedroom, undressed her the rest of the way and set her on the bed, naked.

“Why don’t you tell me what you liked and didn’t like about dinner tonight?” If he distracted her for a moment, then he could get in bed with her and they could hash out her feelings for as long as it took, but first he wanted to be in bed with her, naked, too, so she could have skin-to-skin contact.

He undressed as fast as he could, then joined her.

She collapsed into his side with an exhausted sigh.

“Did Pono’s family know? Can you answer me that first? Did they know about the steroids?” she asked, stroking his chest with slow passes.

“Yeah. They knew.” He grimaced for a second. “I’m not sure if it’s what caused the heart condition or if it already existed. I’m not sure if they know either.”

“So, they covered stuff up, too. They lied to me, and I should’ve known he’d been doing that shit when he met me. But no one told me.”

He sighed and tipped her chin up with his index finger knuckle. “They probably should’ve, yes, but I knew it as well, and I didn’t tell you. Pono was ashamed of it, and honestly, I thought he’d told you before he ever married you. He stopped using them not too long after he met you.”

“Well, they probably were aware I didn’t know. They should’ve told me.” She exhaled with a shaky sob.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I know how hard this is to find out this way.” He kissed the top of her head and pulled her in for a tight hug.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, muffled by his chest.

“Anything for you, my sweet little thing.”

He felt her lips curl into a smile against his chest. “I missed hearing you call me that.”

“It hasn’t been long, but I missed saying it, too,” he agreed, planting a few more kisses on her forehead. He made a humming, grunting sound and then relaxed his hold on her.

“Okay, so what I liked least about dinner tonight?” She was looking up into his eyes, and her eyes glazed a little. “I think you know—being outed about my fertility issues. I wish I would’ve talked to you about it sooner. That seems to be a repeating theme with me—waiting too long to speak to the people I love about sensitive topics and then having someone else tell them for me in a way that’s less than flattering.”

“You think I made you look bad by telling his family we were together?” He rubbed his stomach—it was bunching up on him. Was she going to flip out again and want to leave?

His instincts were to literally chain her to the bed, but he waited and listened, hoping he was maybe misunderstanding.

“No, not really. I did feel that way tonight with Jay, but he’s so young, he doesn’t get that tact can go a long way.” She blinked, and her chest rose as she sighed with a heavy, burdened sound. “I guess I wish I could stop being a coward.”

“You know what I’m going to say about that as well, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I suppose I do. You’ll say I’m brave.” She slapped her palm softly on his chest. He grabbed it and then settled his palm over the back of her hand.

“Because you are.”

“Compared to what? You always speak your mind, and I couldn’t even ask Toloa what she wanted me to do in her freaking garden when I was there most of the day. Why? Why does my mouth close when my mind’s in overdrive? No one else seems to struggle with that but me.”

He chuckled. “That’s not true. There are some submissives who feel like that from time to time. So when they don’t ask for sex or much of anything else, it’s not necessarily because it’s being imposed on them, but more so because it feels wrong to do it. They get their needs met by their Dom because he finds out what she’s thinking and decides if what she wants is good for her or not.”