Spiral of Bliss 01 Arouse (8 page)

“Why do you keep implying I’m missing something?” My spine prickles with irritation. “That I mentioned a baby because I need something to do, or because our marriage isn’t enough? Why can’t it be because we’re strong and happy together?”

“It can, but not now, Liv. Regardless of what you decide, I told you it’s a bad time.”

“Do you think there will ever be a good time?” I ask.

Dean sighs and drags a hand down his face. “I don’t want to have this conversation here,” he says.

“You don’t want to have this conversation at all.”

It’s a sharp retort that should bring me some satisfaction, but instead I just feel hollow. Because I know I’m right.

We’re avoiding each other. There’s tension. It’s lousy. Part of me wishes I hadn’t even opened this particular door. Why would I want to change anything about our marriage?

There was a time when I never thought I’d have the life I do now. Never thought I’d be safe or have a home. I certainly never thought I’d fall in love.

But all of that happened because I met Dean. He’s the one who turned my whole world right side up, who transformed all my warped ideas about relationships. Who proved that white knights really do exist. Who discovered alongside me that we are so much better together than alone. So why is the mere idea of a baby causing a rift between us?

I have no answer to that question. And I’m not sure I want one.

Tonight Dean is going to the banquet with Kelsey. She shows up looking classically sexy in a black sheath dress and a long strand of pearls. She wears almost no makeup except for bright red lipstick, which—combined with her disdainful expression—makes her look like Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. With blue-streaked hair.

“What’re you going to do?” she asks me while we wait for Dean to finish getting ready. “Pop popcorn and watch movies? Drink wine? Can I stay with you instead?”

I kind of wish she would—even though I wouldn’t tell her everything that’s been going on, I’d like her no-nonsense company.

Dean emerges from the bedroom, still knotting his tie. He looks incredible, masculine and handsome with his hair combed away from his forehead and his navy suit pressed to perfection.

“Wow,” Kelsey remarks in admiration, glancing from him to me. “Maybe
he
should stay just so you can have the fun of taking that suit off him.”

Dean and I both laugh, but the sound is forced and rusty. Kelsey gets it immediately because she frowns and looks at both of us again. I suspect my husband will be subjected to the third degree en route to the banquet.

I give him the obligatory kiss, hug Kelsey and tell her to behave. They head off. I’m somewhat relieved to be alone because at least now I don’t have to pretend.

I take Kelsey’s advice and eat some popcorn while watching an action movie, then part of a romantic comedy. But I’m soon bored, so I turn off the TV and page through a magazine. Then I wander over to check my email at my laptop by the window.

After surfing a few book-related websites, I’m bored again and restless and wishing Dean were here and everything was like it was before the idea of a baby made it all so messy.

I type a few words into a search engine. A massive list of results appears—live porn, amateur videos, free porn, fetish movies, hardcore videos, bondage, girls with glasses… girls with glasses?

Out of curiosity, I click that link. Sure enough, a screen of clips appears of half-naked girls with glasses. At least they’re honest about their advertising.

They’re in various stages of apparent arousal and intercourse. I don’t know whether to be intrigued or not. I’ve seen porn videos, of course, but not such a proliferation or such a niche market.

I click on a clip. There’s a guy between the spread legs of a girl wearing glasses. He’s rubbing his erection, teasing the head around the folds of her sex, slipping partway into her opening before pulling back again.

I’ve always liked it when Dean does that to me.

I switch to another clip. An older man is actively pumping into another girl, but his belly is fat and jiggling, which grosses me out. A third clip has a woman looking astonishingly uninterested while giving a blow job. I close the window. I find another clip of a decent-looking man and a girl wearing horn-rimmed glasses.

She’s on her hands and knees, and he’s gripping her ass as he thrusts into her from behind. The camera angle isn’t ridiculously close, but it’s close enough that I can see his cock moving in and out of her. It’s smooth and slick.

His fingers dig into her flesh. He’s pumping hard enough that her whole body is rocking with the motion, her large breasts swaying beneath her, her mouth open on a moan.

I squeeze my thighs together a little. I’m wearing yoga pants, and they’re getting warm. Not to mention that I’m frustrated over not having had sex with Dean in a while.

The man in the video shifts his position, planting his foot on the bed to enhance the depth of his thrusts.

Dean does that too. It works.

My breathing increases. The girl is moaning in a long, steady stream. She’s also sweating. Her hair is long, longer than mine, and sticking to her back in damp strands. The man slaps her bottom a few times, causing her to shriek and her skin to redden. She has a great ass, round and smooth and tight.

I feel perverted, but I’m getting achy in a good way. A way that I can’t deny. I make sure the curtains are drawn before I pull my pants off and kick them beneath the desk. I’m too embarrassed to actually touch myself while staring at a hardcore video clip, but I don’t stop watching.

The sounds of the man’s hips slapping against the woman emerge from the speaker. She grabs the headboard and starts to push against him. It’s graphic and raw. They’re moaning and panting. Then he lets out a grunt and pulls his cock from her, rubbing the shaft between her ass cheeks as he spurts over her back.

I love it when Dean does that to me.

My heart is pulsing fast. I press my thighs together again and feel the burgeoning throb. I shut the laptop and move to the sofa, pulling my underpants down my legs and tossing them aside.

I’m wearing a T-shirt, but I’m in a hurry now and I reach beneath it to shove my bra up so I can play with my breasts. I rub them hard, tweak the nipples, and feel sensation uncoiling through my belly. I spread my legs and thrust a hand between them, unsurprised but still embarrassed by how wet I am.

At least my perversion is a secret one.

I close my eyes and imagine Dean and I in the same position—him thrusting into me from behind while I grip the headboard and rock back against him.

It takes almost no time at all. I know exactly how to touch myself and where. And with images of Dean clutching my hips, pumping in and out of me before he comes all over my bottom…

Oh… oh!

Vibrations flood me, causing my breath to stop and my whole body to tremble. I massage myself more urgently, aching to feel every last shudder through my veins. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, watching Dean reach beneath me to finger my sex as I stay there on my hands and knees, rocking against his hand, begging…

Another series of trembles courses through me before the sensations slow. I tug my hand from between my thighs and lie there panting as the delicious images fade.

“Liv.”

My eyes fly open. I stare at Dean, who’s standing by the door, his suit jacket tossed over his arm and his keys in his hand. For a heart-stopping second, I expect to see Kelsey right behind him, but the door is closed. He’s alone.

And I’m… like this.

Shit.

I scramble up from the sofa and try to yank my T-shirt down over my hips, but it’s too short. I’m naked from the waist down, and a fiery blush shoots across my skin. I fumble around trying to find my pants, underwear… anything to cover myself… finally I grab the quilt from the back of the sofa and wrap it around my waist.

I tuck one corner in to secure it, then use both hands to push my tangled hair back. I attempt a bright smile, which I’m quite certain is a miserable failure.

“I… I wasn’t expecting you until about midnight,” I remark.

“It’s almost one.”

“Oh. I… uh, I lost track of time.”

“I can see that.”

My blush grows so hot I feel like I’ve been set aflame. It should be silly to be so embarrassed. Dean’s watched me masturbate before—hell, he’s told me numerous times to do it in front of him—but this is different.

This is weird.

My bra is still hitched up over my breasts. I cross my arms and try to casually tug it down again.

“How… how was the banquet?” I can’t stop blushing. I must look like a tomato.

He tosses his jacket over a chair. “Long and boring, but the food was okay. Chocolate mousse for dessert.”

“How’d Kelsey do?”

“She rose to the occasion and charmed all the right people.”

“Think it’ll help with her proposal?”

“Probably.”

For a minute, we just stand there staring at each other. I can tell he wants to say something, but I don’t know what.

I’d feel better if he’d just come over and kiss me and make some wicked comment about how I occupy myself when I’m alone. Then I’d feel a
lot
better if he’d tug the stupid quilt off me and slip his hand between my legs…

“Well.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m beat. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”

He goes into the bedroom. I sink onto the sofa and press my hands against my hot cheeks. My eyes sting with tears of embarrassment and anger, but this time I don’t let them fall.

Instead I just sit there and try to breathe. My disappointment in my husband is so sharp I can taste it, bitter and cold.

“Was it porn?” he asks the next morning.

“Yes.”

It was also you.
A month ago, I would have told him everything.

We don’t say anything else about the episode. I’m no longer embarrassed.

Now I’m just sad.

CHAPTER SIX

August 28

iv, check this out.”

Allie pokes her head in the door of the bookstore. I push a few books back onto the shelf and follow her outside to admire the rainbow window display she’s constructed.

“Looks great.” It does, too—all colorful with big, cotton clouds and silver streamers of rain.

“Good.” Allie pushes her glasses up as we head back inside. “Hopefully it’ll get some people in for the book signing. This local gal writes novels that all have themes about color. She’s coming Saturday afternoon, so we’ll see if that helps traffic on the weekend. We could sure use it.”

“Business isn’t so great, huh?” I ask.

“No. And they’re raising the rent on this building at the beginning of the year, so…” Her voice trails off and she shrugs. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Hey, how was your date?” I ask, in an effort to divert the topic from her dwindling business. “Didn’t you go out with Brent again last weekend?”

“It was great.” Her cheeks get a little pink. “Brent is nice and cute and a great kisser.”

“Can’t go wrong with any of those qualities.”

“You got that right.”

We both look up when the bell over the door rings. A plump, blond woman strides toward us, a sheaf of flyers in the crook of her arm.

“Morning, ladies,” she says. “I’m Natalie Bergman from Epicurean, the kitchen and cookware store over on Larkspur.”

“Oh, I love that place,” Allie says. “I got a bunch of stainless steel pots from you guys and some great napkin rings.”

Natalie beams. “Glad to hear it. You might be interested in this, then.” She waves a flyer at both of us. “We still have a few spots open for a cooking class that starts next week. I was wondering if I could put a flyer in your window.”

“Sure. Leave a few on our counter, too.”

Natalie stacks up the flyers and hands one to me to tape in the window. “It’ll be a great course, held over in the Epicurean kitchen classroom. Tuition includes all supplies and food.”

I skim the flyer.
French Cuisine Classics! Learn the techniques of French cooking in this sixteen-week intensive course. All levels welcome. Tuesdays 7:00-9:00 p.m.

“I have the registration forms too.” Natalie digs into her bag and produces another stack of papers. “If either one of you wants to take one.”

“I will.” I’m almost surprised when the words come out.

Natalie hands me the form. “You’ll love the course, really.”

After she leaves, Allie asks, “You’re going to do it?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“Nah.” Her red curls flop as she shakes her head. “I’m not much for cooking.”

“Neither am I.”

I guess that’s the point, though. If you don’t know something, you find out about it. And if you can’t do something, you learn how. Especially if it’s something that intimidates or scares you.

Dean isn’t home when I return to our apartment, but his briefcase is by the door. I remember that he was going to play football this evening, so I leave the flyer on the front table next to a pile of mail and put a frozen lasagna in the microwave.

I head out to tend to my balcony garden. A few blooms still flourish in the late summer sun, but the plants are starting to wither a bit. I clip off dead flowers, sweep up the leaves, and water the plants.

Dean comes back, dirty but cheerful because his team won the game. I’m glad when he comes over to kiss me—even with things all weird and tense between us, he still kisses me often and strokes my hair, and I still rub his lower back in passing and hug him around the waist. While we try to pretend everything is okay.

He heads off for a quick shower before dinner while I set the table.

“How was your day?” he asks, pulling a clean T-shirt over his head as he comes out of the bedroom.

“Good. Worked at the bookstore for a few hours.” My stomach twists suddenly as I take the flyer from the front table. “A woman from a cookware store dropped this off. She asked if we could put it in the window.”

Dean glances at the paper. “Classic French cuisine?”

“I… I was thinking of registering for it.” My heart thumps against my ribs.

“That’s a great idea,” Dean says.

“It is?”

“Sure.” He drops the flyer back onto the table. “Don’t you think so?”

“Well, yeah. Lord knows I’m a lousy cook.”

“So you’ll learn to be a good one.”

“It’s once a week for an entire semester,” I say.

“Sounds like you’ll learn a lot, then.”

“It’s expensive.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

I drum my fingers on the table. “So it’s okay if I register?”

“Of course it’s okay.” Dean looks at me with a hint of puzzlement. “You don’t need my permission to take a class, Liv. If you want to register, go ahead. I think it’s a great idea.”

I turn and head back into the kitchen. I wonder if I was secretly hoping he might talk me out of it, but now a spark of excitement lights inside me.

I could actually learn how to cook. The pressing need for that particular skill hits home when I take the burned, gummy-looking lasagna out of the microwave.

Surely I can do better than
this
.

Dean pauses in the kitchen doorway, shuffling through the pile of mail.

“Anything good?” I push a knife through the pasta.

He doesn’t respond. I glance at him. Concern gleams in his expression as his eyes meet mine.

“Dean?”

He moves closer to me and puts an envelope on the counter. My heart stutters. I recognize the looped handwriting, even though I haven’t seen it in ages.

I pick up the envelope and peer at the smudged postmark. Austin, Texas. That means nothing. She could have been passing through, probably en route to Mexico.

I’m surprised she remembered our address. I’m surprised she even
has
our address.

Dean settles his hand against the nape of my neck. “You want to open it?” he asks.

“Not really.”

We stand there for a few minutes. Unease simmers in my belly. Finally I rip open the flap, my fingers shaking. I unfold the single sheet of paper, and position it so Dean can read it too.

Liv,

Stella tells me you’re still married. I moved to Florida last year and am now traveling through the south. I could use the money you promised, so please send a cashier’s check care of the address below.

I let the letter fall to the counter and try to think. It’s been, what… three years? I’d been married to Dean for just a few months. We were living in Los Angeles—his last fellowship position before starting at King’s University.

Through some convoluted communication with my aunt Stella, I found out my mother was living less than an hour away in Riverside. I wrote and told her Dean and I were going to be passing through (which we weren’t), and that I’d like to see her. I didn’t expect her to respond. The following week we drove out.

It’d been a brief visit—an hour, tops. Dean was outwardly polite and inwardly seething. My mother was indifferent toward him and hostile toward me. I tried to be composed and did not succeed.

“Guess she doesn’t have my email address,” I say.

Dean pulls me closer, spreading his hand over the side of my head. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. He knows what it’s like, how knotted everything gets inside me. My memories of my father are faded almost to nonexistence, and I had a twisted relationship with my mother.

When I had a relationship with her at all.

All the old emotions roil up into my chest—anger, fear, sadness, inadequacy. I’ve learned to control them over the years, but they swarm up again the minute she makes contact.

Dean wraps his arms around me and shifts so our bodies are pressed together. It feels good, the muscular length of him against me, his arms tight around my back. I rest my cheek against his chest and breathe.

He’s so solid, so secure. He’s been the one constant in my life, the one person who hasn’t abandoned me or given up on me. The one person who would tell me not to give up on myself.

I move away from him first, pressing my lips to the side of his neck. I’m no longer hungry for dinner—least of all microwaved lasagna—and Dean says he had a late lunch anyway, so we both settle in for the evening.

He goes into his office to work, and I change into my nightgown, curl under an old quilt, and find an
I Love Lucy
marathon to watch.

Lucy Ricardo. She would’ve been a good mother. Nutty, but good. Probably a heck of a lot of fun, too.

The candy factory episode is half over when Dean emerges. He sits beside me on the sofa, and we shift around a little until I’m lying with my head in his lap. He strokes his hand over my hair, then underneath the quilt and around to my breasts.

It’s been two weeks now—longer than we’ve ever gone without some form of intimacy—and my whole body floods with relief and arousal. For a few minutes, Dean rubs my breasts through the cotton of my nightgown. I squirm as my nipples harden, and then he starts to roll them between his fingers. Heat tingles across my skin.

Dean strokes the curve of my hip, gathers the material of my nightgown in his fist, and drags it up to my waist. I can feel him getting hard, and I rub my cheek against his crotch. Urgency spools through my lower body, sparked by my increasing pulse.

I shift again until I’m lying face-up with my head still in his lap, and he’s looking down at me with a hot gaze that makes my blood shimmer. I squeeze my thighs together because the delicious throb is starting. Dean pushes the quilt aside and pulls my nightgown up farther so my breasts are exposed.

His breath escapes in a rush as he palms the full globes. I shiver.

“So damn beautiful,” he mutters.

It’s an incredibly erotic feeling, lying there with my head in his lap and my nightgown bunched up, naked except for my white cotton panties. He starts stroking me again, sliding his hand to rub my breasts, my nipples, and back down over my belly to the edge of my panties. He slips his fingers teasingly beneath the elastic.

“You want to come, beauty?” he whispers.

The husky note in his voice fires my excitement. In response, I writhe against his hand. I’m still squeezing my thighs together because the throb is building, but Dean urges my legs apart.

He pushes his hand beneath my panties, fingers toying through the damp curls, until he reaches the place where my arousal is centered. Then he splays his hand over my folds, sliding one finger easily into me while his thumb circles my clit.

It’s not enough. I buck my hips, trying to thrust myself harder against his hand. A smile tugs at his mouth. He slides his arm beneath my shoulders, his other hand coming around to pluck at my nipples. Fire streams through my veins.

I press my face into Dean’s shirt and moan. My skin is hot, flushed. His breath echoes through his chest. I feel my arousal coiling tighter, and even though I crave that explosive release, I love this moment of being close to my husband again, hearing the pound of his heart against my ear, the heat of his body flowing into mine.

He grips me harder just before the tension breaks, as if he knows I can’t prevent it any longer. His hands and fingers work harder—in me, over me, on me—and then the sensations rocket through me, causing me to choke out his name as I clench my thighs around his hand and ride the exquisite wave.