Ellie

 

I felt like I’d had a complete body workout and massage, inside and out—which was not far from the truth. Sex with Jack was out of this world, even better than I had imagined it might be.

 

After I returned to myself and woke the massive beast up to get him to roll off of me so I could breathe—there’s only so long that it’s okay for a huge man to sleep on top of a significantly smaller woman—he seemed annoyingly ready to bolt away from me, but I didn’t let him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and wouldn’t let go, and told him, “Dude, I let you sleep on me. You gotta let me snuggle. Fair’s fair.”

 

He seemed surprised at my rationale, but he didn’t argue, and he even relaxed into it, supporting his weight over me on his elbows. After several moments, he said, “We had that coming for a while.”

 

“Yeah. We did.” I grinned, and he gave it right back.

 

Another minute or two more, then he gave me a quick, tight squeeze and said, “You good now?”

 

“Yeah. I am.” I was a post-coital wordsmith. Not.

 

“Good. I gotta get up, get rid of this thing.” I loosened my hold on him, he eased his way out of me, kissed my lips, and got up to toss out the condom. I collected my clothes and began re-dressing; he just pulled his jeans back on and left it at that.

 

I totally appreciated that. He was super easy on the eyes.

 

The rest of the night, we didn’t even talk about it—we just allowed ourselves to be. He had a couple beers, I took care of Peter when he woke again; it was like we were a normal couple. Which we weren’t, but kind of, we were.

 

We had just agreed to marry, so—even though it was for convenience sake, and would be a temporary thing—the sex had seemed like a natural and normal thing to do, to seal the deal. Not to mention, we had obviously both been dying for it. Our chemistry was off the charts. Bonus!

 

In any case, our bodies were finally sated after too many days of being on high alert around one another. Well, sated might have been too strong a word. Because having had him once, I wanted him more. But I was also really just happy with what I got. I felt really, really good.

 

He disappeared into his bedroom for a while to get started with the broken glass, and maybe a half hour later someone had pulled up in a pickup with a huge board of wood to cover the window from the outside until it could be replaced.

 

I cooked up one of my favorite easy meals for dinner. After boarding up the window, his buddy had left, and we ate together, talking of how best to deal with the glass on the bed. Jack decided he was going to buy new bedding; there were too many shards all around for him to be comfortable with sleeping on and amongst them. I fully supported this decision. The thought of all those slivers was disturbing.

 

He didn’t want to leave me home alone again with Peter, even though I told him we couldn’t stop our lives because Brian was an asshole. Regardless, after dinner the three of us piled into his shiny manly pickup and we went to one of those huge home stores for new bedding—like a family—which was funny and weird, and definitely fun. We kept cracking up. It felt good and right, too—which in itself, was probably not so great.

 

I had to be careful not to get too comfortable with having Jack in my and Peter’s lives. I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn’t a for-real or a forever thing.

 

I didn’t want Jack sleeping in that room until it had been thoroughly vetted in daylight for all shards in the carpeting and any that might be hanging around the bed, and I found it fairly easy to convince him to sleep with me on the air mattress for the night. It was just a size double, so we were forced to be close, which I had no problem with, although his feet were hanging off the bottom of the bed. He laid on his back, and I curled up to his side, draped over him, with my face pillowed on his shoulder. Every breath I took was deliciously filled with his scent, and I kind of blissed out on it quickly.

 

But in short time, his scent and skin and feel had my body turning on hot, which was problematic for me. I was concerned about getting too much into this sex thing with him, without being clear about what we were doing together. I definitely felt like we should talk—that phrase dreaded by every man ever born. So I didn’t want to say it, but I thought it.

 

“Hey, where are you? You suddenly got really tense. What’s up?”

 

“Oh. Yeah. Um, you probably…no, you know what? Can we just sleep tonight? It’s kind of been a big day.”

 

He chuckled. “Understatement of the year. Yeah, babe. You comfortable enough? This bed is damned small. I think it was made for…”

 

“Lilliputians. Exactly, Gulliver.” We smiled at each other, and I kissed the side of his neck. “Good night, Jack.”

 

“’Night, El.”

 

# # #

 

I floated through the next day like it was made of creampuffs. I felt delicious, and I kept catching myself smiling at nothing.

 

Peter still wasn’t sleeping through the night, so I had been up and down a couple of times, as per my norm with him. Jack seemed to sleep right through, the lucky jerk, but his body just curled around me each time I reentered the bed zone, as if spooning together was our long-time habit.

 

In the morning, I must have slept through Jack’s awakening and departure, because I woke up to my baby crying and an otherwise empty house. Within minutes though, Jack came in through the front door loaded down with stuff. He set a paper bag and a carry-tray with two coffees on the kitchen counter, plucked out one coffee and nodded at me. “Coffee, bagels, cream cheese. OJ in the bag is yours, too.” He then headed to me, kissed the top of my head, which was still rather foggy, and the top of Peter’s head, then headed to the front door again. “I’m gonna be right outside for a while, not going anywhere yet. Don’t worry.”

 

“Um…I don’t…mnaaa…’wake ’nough to worry. But good to know.”

 

He looked up with a smile and watched me stand there in my daze, and he laughed at me. Right in my own face.

 

Whatever. I was not processing yet. Let him laugh.

 

“Ellie, turn around. Go into the kitchen. Grab a coffee. Sit down. Drink the coffee. I’m right outside.”

 

I recognized wisdom, and did what he suggested.

 

He was banging around the outside of the house for the better portion of the morning, and at some point I wandered out to see just what he was up to. Turned out, he was installing a security system, complete with a bunch of cameras, movement sensors, an alarm box, and a couple of panic buttons for easy access in multiple rooms.

 

The man was thorough and action-oriented. It kind of turned me on even more. How did he keep doing this to me, ramping up the vibe? He wasn’t even doing it on purpose, it was just him.

 

I began to think I was in way over my head with him; his very being was an aphrodisiac to me. I would have to tread carefully from here on. Peter needed his uncle through his whole life, not just these first six months. I had to get my head clear. Immediately.

 

Jack finished installing the system around lunchtime, and he toured me through all aspects of the system and the codes for activation, et cetera. It wasn’t rocket science, so I had it down quickly. He praised my aptitude with, “Sharp cookie. I like it.”

 

I smirked at him with the rejoinder, “As a tack, sweets. I got good genes.”

 

He purposefully misunderstood my comment and, leaning to the side, checked out my denim-covered butt. “Yeah, you do. Nice ass, too.”

 

I swatted his arm and laughingly danced away from him. He was too magnetic for my own good.

 

After lunch, sure that I was now ensconced in a safe-as-it-could-be zone, Jack took off for the shop, so I was on my own with Peter until night. Making sure the baby was clean, fed, breathing well, of good color, and tired out, I laid down myself to catch some much-needed z’s. I never seemed to get enough, and it was a daily test to see how many little naps I could score. After yesterday’s crazy scary and crazy incredibly awesome events, I was dealing with emotional exhaustion, too. 

 

I was gone in two seconds, flat.