Somewhere in His Arms (32 page)

             
“I’m going gray!” she cried in dismay.

             
Alec stepped in wearing the most hideous swim trunks she’d ever seen. They were some awful shade of purple with equal amounts of neon blue and orange with a few splashes of radioactive green thrown in for good measure. “How do you know you’re going gray?” he asked as he poured shampoo into his hand.

             
“Where on earth did you get
those?”
she asked, pointing in the offending item’s general direction and tilting her head back so he could massage the shampoo in. “They look like the result of a paint store explosion in 1985!”

             
Her husband merely chuckled and lathered up his wife’s head. “Don’t you like them? They have such character!”

             
“I think I can get you something more appropriate,” Lucy told him lightly. “Those look like the last pickings on a dollar store rack.”

             
“As a matter of fact, they are!”

             
“Take them off!”

             
The smile was suddenly swiped from his face. “W-What--” he said stupidly, not quite certain he’d heard her right.

             
“You heard me!” she reiterated, craning her neck to see him standing there with his jaw agape. “You’re too gorgeous to be wearing that insult to clothes. Besides, you don’t need them,” she paused and swallowed hard, “in… here.”

             
“No?”             

             
Lucy shook her head, feeling cold and shaky and wondering if she’d gone mad. It was a
shower
, after all. No one wore clothes in a shower and
he
was her husband.               Modesty was all fine and good, but somewhere along the line, one would be confronted with their spouse’s nudity sooner or later. “It’s all right, Alec,” she forced herself to say. “Don’t you…um…need a shower…too?”

             
He seemed to be having trouble breathing. Then she felt his lips brush her shoulder. “Are…you sure, wife?”

             
“Um…” her voice shook, “I think so. I-I m-mean we
are
married and…um---”

             
“Hush,” he said softly, and then she heard him moving behind her and the trunks were discarded in a soggy purple heap on the tile floor. “Happy now?”

             
“Um…”

             
“There now, wife!” he laughed and handed her a sponge. “It’s only a shower, right?”  He turned around to face the wall. “Can you wash my back, love?”

             
“Certainly,” she murmured and poured some bath gel. Lucy was again reminded of how tall he was. She felt so tiny standing behind him. As she lathered his back, she took the opportunity to study her husband.
Her husband!
This beautiful man was
hers.
She was a little in awe of his male beauty. He had an athletic build with a body that was leanly muscular, with broad shoulders that tapered to a flat belly, and tautly muscled buttocks. Her eyes caressed him lovingly and somewhere in the back of her mind, she was reminded of the fact that she had touched every inch of that magnificent form on their wedding night.

             
Her heart swelled in her chest, overwhelmed by the love she felt for him, and rose on tiptoes to lather his shoulders. He stiffened suddenly when she began to wash the middle of his back. The scars. Lucy tried to regard them with a nurse’s eye, but she found herself feeling overcome with a wife’s pain for her husband. She saw now why he refused to let her bathe him. He was afraid she’d be repulsed, disgusted, horrified by the marks on his back.

             
They were in no particular pattern, just small uneven circles where the cigarettes had been put out onto his flesh. The small puckered scars were ten years faded, but the pain remained as she could attest by the involuntary shrinking of the skin as she pressed her lips against them. Alec stiffened. “W-What are you doing, Lucy?”

             
“Hush, my love,” she soothed and continued to kiss each scar. “It’s all right.”

             
“Lucy,” he croaked as his eyes filled with tears, “don’t love…”

             
She began to cry as well. “I’m sorry, Alec!’ she wept and dropped the sponge. “I’m sorry they hurt you!” Lucy was crying in earnest now, harsh wet sobs that wracked her chest.

             
He whirled around and cradled her small face in his hands. Alec shook his head.  “They don’t hurt anymore,” he breathed and pressed his lips to her brow, where her own scar was beginning to fade. He proceeded to kiss her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, her trembling mouth. “Don’t cry, wife.”

             
Lucy shook her head stubbornly, uttering a hoarse croak, and wrapped her arms around his neck. She rose on tiptoe to kiss his face as he’d done her and pressed herself against his wet body, wanting to comfort him the only way a wife could. 

             
Alec groaned at the feel of her soft breasts against his chest, the taut little nipples burning into his flesh. It had been too damn long. Now she was here in his arms and he couldn’t find the strength to push her away. He crushed her to him and claimed her mouth in a hot kiss, his tongue thrusting through the soft sweetness of hers to tangle with her own.

             
Lucy cried out at the bruising pressure and her first instinct was to try to push his tongue out with hers, but she found herself kissing him back, sliding her tongue timidly into his mouth, and gasping as he stroked it provocatively with his. Their kisses took on a fierce desperate quality, as if each might be their last, and she reveled in her husband’s embrace. “Alec,” she sighed dreamily when his lips slid hotly down her throat. “I love you so.”

             
“Sweetheart,” he muttered hoarsely, flicking out his tongue to taste the salty sweetness of her damp skin. “My wife,” he rasped.

             
Her eyes closed, suddenly transported to their wedding night. He’d said the same thing before taking her virginity. Lucy’s eyes flew open suddenly and she stared down in disbelief at Alec’s dark head hovering over her breast. His tongue darted out and grazed the nipple before taking it into the scalding cavern of this mouth. She cried out at the surprising burst of pleasure and slid her fingers into his wet hair. Lucy arched her back, offering more of herself to her husband’s greedy mouth. Her lungs found it difficult to pull in the required amount of oxygen to keep her on her feet, and she felt herself sliding down some dark and winding tunnel.

             
Then Alec’s mouth took hers again and his arms were wrapping tightly about her, and she felt herself being lowered gently until she felt the cold press of tile beneath her. He was on top of her and Lucy clung to her husband, gasping in shocked pleasure at the feel of him, hot and hard between her thighs. His skin was warm satin against her own, she began shaking uncontrollably, and not just from the water evaporating on her body.

             
She kissed him back hungrily, sliding her hands possessively over his tautly muscled back and down to the smooth flesh of his ass. He was trembling in her arms. Lucy slid her lips across his cheek and slipped her tongue into his ear, licking and laving until he groaned and ravished her mouth with his.

             
It was a sweet blinding madness and Lucy reveled in it. Her head fell back, breathless with desire, and gasped with each passionate kiss across her face, down her throat, and across her breasts. She cried out softly when he parted her thighs with his own and stroked between the engorged lips with the tip of his cock.

             
“Oh,” she breathed in pleasure, shuddering at the exquisite press of his velvety flesh into hers and wanting him inside her in the worst way. “Alec!” she pleaded and suddenly regretted her eagerness when he thrust hard and deep. Her eyes widened and she gasped in surprised pain. She dug her nails into his back and winced as he stretched the tight flesh. Lucy panicked for a moment, feeling too full of him for it seemed her body had forgotten this crucial part. But soon the initial discomfort eased into something manageable.

             
“Darling wife,” he groaned against her throat. “Take… me.”

             
“Yes,” she whispered and kissed his shoulder, sinking her small teeth into the warm flesh. He moaned and clasped her tighter to him. His voracious mouth ravaged hers again and Lucy gave him kiss for kiss, embracing his tongue with her own, and telling him without words how much he meant to her.

             
Then he began to move as he had that first time. The first thrust stretched her to the point of discomfort, and he seemed to sense this, sliding out and easing back into her gently. Lucy moaned and held on tight, relishing the delicious pleasure pain of her husband thrusting into her body. She arched her hips eagerly against his and gasped when he increased his pace. His thrusts were a frenetic, desperate race to the finish, almost as if he were afraid he’d lose her again. The pleasure mounted, and she egged him on with her soft gasps and whimpering cries.

             
She was barely conscious of her husband’s own ragged breaths, the forceful pounding of his body against hers, and the sweet words of love he muttered in her ear. Lucy tightened her arms around him, feeling the familiar storm gathering between her thighs, and feared she would die from the sweet agony of it. Her panting breaths mingled with his and she cried out, suddenly desperate for it. Her hips thrust greedily until a small shriek escaped her lips, her body recoiling violently from the shattering force of her orgasm. It spread its excruciating heat throughout her body, rendering her helpless in its grasp.

             
She lay wracked with aftershocks from that most tortuous pleasure, staring up at Alec, his face a rictus of ecstasy while he pushed frantically into her, until finally his eyes squeezed shut and with a shuddering cry, he collapsed onto her spent body.

             
Afterward, with his heavy weight pressing into her, the warm water cascading gently over their spent bodies, she soothed him with her lips and hands. She kissed his face and stroked his back, knowing now what it meant to be truly loved and loved in return.

             
Soon after, Alec toweled them off and carried her tenderly to bed, where she curled against him in the dark, lulled to sleep by the gentle rhythm of her husband’s heart

Chapter Twenty

She opened the box with a mixture of dread and anticipation. Alec had allowed her to go wild with his credit card and so Lucy had ordered a
few things online: a few shirts; a pair of capris jeans; underwear, a pair of Mary Jane sneakers; a few nightgowns.

             
Lucy picked up the pink cotton gown and held it up to her, wondering if her husband would like it. She had never been one for fancy lingerie, but the nightgown sort of filled the prerequisite for romance. It was waltz length with lace-trimmed neckline, sleeves, and pin-tucked bodice.

             
She needed Alec to like it; for he had not touched her since that night he made love to her in the shower. And that was nearly two weeks ago. The night after that awesome event which had left her feeling sore but deliriously happy, her husband had tucked her into bed and…promptly left.  He hadn’t tried to touch her nor kiss her for that matter, and Lucy was left feeling no better than an unpaid whore who’s just been used shamelessly.

             
When she tried to touch upon the subject, Alec had mumbled some sort of excuse about having a cold and had left her to fend for herself while he went gallivanting about town. Lucy was none too pleased about it, and she wanted to know what the hell was going on. Had she done something wrong? She knew so little about men. Perhaps she should have taken Vivian’s advice on how to handle the opposite sex. She could have used that information right about now.

             
Alec had retired to his room after a light dinner of baked chicken and mashed potatoes, and Lucy found herself all alone on a Saturday evening. Well, not exactly alone. She had the large television in the living room to keep her company. After loading the dishwasher, she tidied the kitchen and curled up on the sofa with a cozy afghan for some channel surfing.