Moonlight poured into the room like a diaphanous waterfall, thick and pooling on the floor. I’d been staring at that moonlight for an hour now, trying to fall asleep, but sleep refused to come. Instead, my brain kept running through arguments against theological theism and rifling through remembered Aquinas quotes.
The danger of being mid-dissertation, I supposed.
I rolled over to be closer to Poppy, my wife and my lamb, who was currently fast asleep and facing away from me, her knees drawn up to her chest. I ran a hand over the swell of her hip, the lace of her boy shorts tickling my palm and pulling my mind slowly but steadily away from long-dead Catholic philosophers.
I moved closer to her, pressing my lips to the back of her neck and curling my body around hers. She was warm. Soft. Lavender-scented.
Mine.
Even after three years of marriage, that word still punctured me, pained me with the beautiful awe and wonder of it all. This woman, this polished, driven, smart-as-fuck woman, had chosen me.
And now I was hard.
So very hard.
I wanted to wake her up. I wanted to roll her onto her back and wedge my knee between her thighs. I wanted to hook a finger in the crotch of those panties and pull them aside, and then I wanted to sink into her. I wanted to fuck her until I came, and then I wanted to fuck her again. Hell, I wanted to fuck her all night and all day until we left for her parents’ Newport mansion for Thanksgiving in a couple of days.
My upcoming dissertation deadline and her busy work schedule meant that there’d been a lot of nights in the last twelve months that we’d gone without each other, and now I lived with a constant gnawing lust deep in the pit of my stomach—a hunger that never felt completely sated, even immediately after we had sex. Poppy teased me about the feast or famine nature of our sex life this year, and I hoped that the teasing didn’t mask a deeper unhappiness. Because I knew I was certainly unhappy about it.
And it was my dissertation causing it. So in a way, it was my fault, which made me even more unhappy. But this project was the culmination of the last four years of my study, the pinnacle of this new, post-clergy phase of my life. It was fascinating and meaningful and magical, and those long, silent nights in my library stall were so peaceful and rewarding. I was finally in the dusty, scholarly cave I’d wanted to be in for so long. Just…why did it have to come at the expense of time with Poppy?
Tonight had been prototypical of our new life. She’d sent me a text in the afternoon:
Come home early tonight. I am excited to tell you about my day!
So I’d promised Poppy I’d be home from the library in time to eat a late dinner. And then dinnertime came and went, and so I promised her I’d be home before ten. And then I found an annotated set of Paul Tillich’s essays in the Barth collection and lost track of time, and when I finally checked the clock, it was past two a.m. I’d rushed home, racing past Trinity Church, jogging with my heavy laptop bag the whole way to our townhouse—a narrow brick thing close to the cemetery. When I walked into the bedroom, I saw a sight that was now heartbreakingly familiar to me: Poppy in her adorable lace sleeper set, asleep with the light on and her finger in between the pages of the latest Galbraith mystery, as if she’d closed it thinking she would rest her eyes for just a minute.
She’d tried to wait up for me, like she always did. And I’d failed her.
Like I always did.
I’d shrugged off my laptop bag and sank onto the bed, not even trying to quash the self-recriminating bitterness that squeezed my heart and repeated all the things I already knew.
You don’t deserve her.
You’ll never deserve her.
And the worst: You failed at being a priest. Now you’ll fail at being a husband.
It didn’t matter that the dissertation was almost done. It didn’t matter that I’d blocked off all of Thanksgiving break to be with her, and that by Christmas, I would have unlimited time and attention to shower upon her.
What mattered was that she waited up for me, night after night, like a princess in a tower. And unlike the fairytale princes, I never rode to her rescue.
And so now here I was curled against her, with a throbbing erection and a guilty heart, and how could I wake her up to fuck her this late when she’d waited all night, alone, for me? What kind of selfish jackass would I be if I did that?
With a mental groan, I rolled onto my back, my dick screaming obscenities at me as it left the warm, firm cradle of her ass. It was more instinct than intention when my hand found my cock, though I couldn’t say the same for my other hand, which gently palmed her ass again.
I should go to the shower, I thought. But somehow that felt more shameful than simply jacking off here, and honestly, I wanted her more than I wanted my release. I wanted to be close to her, feeling her, and if I couldn’t have that, then I would rather wait until morning.
Except…shit. She’d have to work early tomorrow, since she’d be taking the rest of the week off. And she’d probably work late too, and I had a five o’clock meeting with my dissertation advisor, which meant I’d be taken by The Revision Frenzy afterwards.
This might be the most I got until it was time to drive to Rhode Island. And if she was waking up early, it would be doubly shitty of me to rouse her now just to satisfy my needs.
I pumped my cock a few times, glancing down and then allowing myself another silent groan as I dropped my head back and let go of myself.
Just sleep it off, Tyler. You’re a big boy, you can go without an orgasm for a day.
Even if it had actually been four days, fourteen hours and thirty-seven minutes, but who was counting? I had gone without sex for three years once.
Marriage had spoiled me, apparently.
I was naked and even the feeling of the sheet against me was too much, so I pulled the sheet down, laid back and tried to let the cool air in the room do the necessary work and put my body—especially certain parts of it—to sleep.
And that’s when Poppy decided to wake up.
I felt her stretch beside me, her legs extending out as she slowly turned onto her back. Through the sheet, I could see the supple muscles of her dancer’s thighs, the slope of her waist and hips. Under her sheer lace tank top, her nipples hardened as the sheet slipped down to her stomach.
My grand plan to sleep off my erection was not off to a great start, not with the world’s sexiest woman stretching and squirming sleepily next to me.
Her hazel eyes fluttered open, the moon’s rays painting them a pale green and amber.
“Tyler?” she murmured, voice sleep-thick and huskier than normal.
“Lamb,” I whispered. She has to be up in about two hours; I should tell her to go back to sleep.
I should I should I should.
She blinked and yawned, her lips a sweet shell pink without their trademark red lipstick. Her lips stayed slightly parted after she yawned; her lips were almost always parted because her two front teeth were slightly too big, and the effect was that her mouth always looked open and ready.
And then her eyes were a little clearer, her expression more alert. She propped her head up on her hand, moving closer to me.
“What time did you get home?”
“About an hour ago.”
A little frown chased across her lips, and I couldn’t tell if it was unhappiness because of the toll she thinks all this work is taking on me or if she was simply unhappy. But the frown vanished the moment she caught sight of my cock, hard and dusky and ridged with veins.
Looking at her looking at my cock was enough to make it swell and bob, now much too hard to lie flat against my abs.
She licked her lips. I didn’t bother to keep my next groan silent.
“Don’t make me ask you,” she warned, and I knew exactly what she meant. She didn’t want to ask for me to handle her the way she liked to be handled. She didn’t want to beg for my dominant side to be uncaged.
Not tonight, the subtext to her request said. Not when I need to be reminded that things are still okay.
The thing was that I needed to be reminded that things were okay, too.
I looked her in the eyes. “Say ‘red’ if it gets to be too much. If you can’t speak, pinch my thigh. Understood?”
The moment she nodded, my hand was laced in her dark chestnut hair and I was dragging her to my groin.
“Suck me,” I commanded, shoving her head down as my other hand held my cock upright. The minute her lips grazed my tip, I hissed, losing all control and thrusting up into her warm, wet mouth before she was completely ready. And shit, it was so perfect, so wet, and her tongue was doing the most incredible things. I could easily climax just by lying back and letting her service me. And while that idea was appealing, I decided tonight called for something different. Something a little more aggressive.
I grabbed her hair again, yanking her head up and pulling her aside as I climbed off the bed, and then I forced her to lay flat on her back with her head hanging over the edge. I was standing up now, and our bed was the perfect height to—yes—fuck her mouth. Fascinated, I watched the delicate workings of her throat as my cock pressed in past her lips, past her tongue, and all the way in. I cupped a hand over her neck as I pulled out and pushed back in, feeling the thrust of my cock through her skin.
The next time I slid inside her throat, she swallowed against me, her throat squeezing the head of my dick and her tongue pressing hard against my shaft and her lips sealing tightly around my base.
“Jesus,” I muttered, and then she swallowed against me again, and I had to make a hasty retreat from her mouth to make sure I could keep going.
Fuck, that had felt good. Sinfully, amazingly good.
And still I wanted more. Her cunt. Her ass. Every tight, wet part of her. I wanted to claim her, over and over again.
I tugged impatiently at her tank top, exposing her pert little tits, the perfect size for my hand to cup. I didn’t cup them now, though, just thumbed the furled nipples while I resumed fucking her mouth, giving each breast a sharp slap once in a while. I saw her hand snaking down her stomach, and I didn’t stop her, watching as she began playing with her clit.
“Good lamb,” I told her. “Rub that pussy for me.”
She moaned around my dick, the vibration going straight through me, reverberating up my spine.
“Now use one finger to trace around your hole.” She obeyed, and when she did, all the breath left my body, like I’d been punched in the stomach. “Yeah, just like that, baby.”
Somehow, the angle made the scene all the more tantalizing: how I couldn’t quite see her cunt, just the swell of her mound and the glistening of her wet finger as it circled into view and disappeared again. How I could hear the faintly wet noise of her touching her pussy.
I gave her nipple a gentle pluck. “Now push inside. Two fingers.”
She moaned again, and even over the moan, I could hear the delicious sound of her slowly fucking herself. “Good girl,” I ordered. “Harder now. Faster.”
I pulled out of her mouth and stared at the show in front of me—her tits jiggling as she fingered her pussy, her boy shorts shoved to one side just like I’d fantasized about doing myself not moments ago—all while she tongued and sucked on my balls.
“I wish you could see how filthy you look right now,” I told her. “I can’t decide whether I should make a filthy girl like you come on her own fingers…or come on my cock.”
Her mouth pulled away, enough for her to murmur, “Please,” her lips tickling my sensitive skin.
“Please what, lamb? Let you come? Fuck you? No, don’t stop with your fingers yet. Keep going.”
Her hips lifted off the bed, her breathing growing shallow and uneven. She was close. “I want you,” she managed.
And I wanted her. So badly. “If you make yourself come, then you can have me. How about that?”
I felt her nod, and then within seconds, she was gasping through her climax. I watched it all greedily, unable to wait for her to come down before I was sitting on the bed, pulling her on top of my cock, groaning into her tits as I impaled her on me in one, savage move.
She cried out, burying her face in my neck, and there was nothing in my world but clouds of silky, lavender-smelling hair and the feel of her firm ass in my hands, and her pussy wet and sweet on my dick.
I moved her on me, not up and down, but back and forth, the way she liked, making sure that her clit ground against the flat muscle above my cock every time she moved. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” I murmured, holding her close as we rocked. “So fucking gorgeous.”
Thank you, I told God as Poppy’s body began trembling over mine. Thank you so much.
Is it weird to pray during sex? Maybe it is, but sometimes it happens. I’ve tried to accept that it’s who I am—a man who loves God, and who loves fucking, that I can be dirty and holy all in the same moment.
Poppy’s head fell back as her second orgasm took her, and I bit at her exposed throat and breasts as she panted and shuddered and clawed at my back. This time I let her feel every wave and every flutter while I was inside of her, stretching her and filling her.
And when she finally, finally, stilled, warm and limp and sated, I eased her off and onto the bed.
This next part was for her.
I took her hand and wrapped it around my cock, which was now so hard that it hurt, dark and rigid in the moonlight. It stood straight up from my groin, the flared cap swollen and darker than the rest, and beaded with pre-cum.
The minute her fingers closed over me, I lost the ability to think or to breathe. It was only deep emotional memory that forced me to stay still, sitting on the edge of the bed, my feet flat on the floor and one hand braced behind me. I used my other hand to cradle hers, guiding her strokes, feeling the Poppy-wet skin of my erection sliding with her hand.
I had to stay still so she could see it. Because as responsive and needy as my lamb was, there was one thing in the world that turned her on more than anything else, and it was the sight of me coming. The actual act of it—my sounds, my expressions, and most of all, my dick pulsing in her hand or cunt or mouth or wherever, and then spilling its seed.
When she traveled, that was what she wanted to see when we Skyped. When I commanded her to touch herself, that was the mental image that pushed her over the edge. And the few times of the year that I let her take control and make me her slave—that was where her games always led.
I didn’t like to disappoint my lamb. Especially when I’d disappointed her in other ways.
Her grip tightened as her eyes raked from my face down to my tensing stomach down to where she was jerking me off, and she used her other hand to trace the furrows of my abs, the line of dark hair that ran from my navel to my groin.
Her face was hungry and she bit her lip as her hand worked faster and faster, and I felt four days worth of deprivation coiling deep in my core.
“So good,” I said raggedly. “You jack me off so good, lamb.”
Her lips grazed my ear as she leaned closer. “Come for me, Father Bell.”
Jesus Christ.
My balls seized, my stomach clenched—every muscle in my abdomen flexing—as I uncontrollably fucked her fist—and my fist around hers—tighter and harder and faster until I was cursing—
Fuck
Fuck
Fuck
—Because she hardly ever called me that and it shouldn’t be hot, it shouldn’t make me come. But the moment she uttered those breathy words, I was a man possessed, thrusting up between our joined fingers until I came in huge, milky spurts, coming and coming, and spilling over our hands and jetting onto my chest and her arm and still it kept coming, and before I was even finished, she was pushing me flat on my back and licking me clean. My dick, my abs, my navel, my hand. Even the delicate spot behind my balls, her tongue was there, laving off every drop of my climax.
And by the time she was done, I was fucking hard again.
“Hands and knees,” I ordered her, voice hoarse.
She scrambled to obey.
An hour later, we stepped out of the shower, mostly sated and bleary-eyed with the need for sleep. She wandered into our closet for a fresh pair of panties while I fell into bed, mind blissfully free of tomorrow and my imminent advisory meeting.
Poppy’s phone buzzed on her end table. A short buzz—a text.
It was four in the morning. Who the fuck would text at this hour?
Buzz.
Buzz.
Buzz buzz buzz.
Reluctantly, I opened my eyes, giving the phone a baleful glare. I sat up and reached for her phone. My plan mostly involved throwing it across the room, but I paused when I saw the name on the screen.
Anton Rees.
I couldn’t help myself; I glanced through the texts that were on her screen. Since her phone was locked, I only saw the first line of each and they all seemed innocuous enough:
Just landed at JFK—
London went well, call me when—
Don’t forget Sophia’s proposal today—
I’ll be in early—
Normal co-worker stuff. If your co-worker is the vice chair of the board for your rapidly expanding, award-winning non-profit foundation.
With what I considered saintly restraint, I set the phone back down on the end table without snooping any further. I knew Poppy’s phone password, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that no matter how handsome and intelligent Anton Rees was, no matter how much he was passionate about the exact same things as my wife, no matter how many times they traveled together, I trusted her.
Once, I’d made the mistake of not trusting. When I found Poppy kissing her ex-boyfriend, I’d assumed the worst and left the scene without even trying to talk to her. She’d done it as a purposeful attempt to drive us apart, unable to bear the guilt of being the catalyst for my schism from the clergy. If I had trusted her, if I had stayed, we could have had another year together. Instead, I’d run away, believing that she was unfaithful, and we’d spent a year miserably apart.
Since then, I’d been scrupulous in my trust. Hell, I was even sort of friends with her ex-boyfriend now.
But I’d be lying if I said that Anton didn’t test that.
Poppy wandered back in from the closet, clad in a red thong and nothing more, despite the chilly, drafty room.
“Anton texted you,” I said, my eyes on the pebbled skin of her breasts. “Kind of late to be texting, don’t you think?”
“It’s actually early, you night owl,” she teased as she crawled back into bed. Without any hesitation, she snuggled her body into mine, so that my chest pressed against her back and our legs were slotted together. “He flew in from London this morning. He’ll probably go straight to the office.”
“Mm.” It was a noncommittal noise. A Tyler-trying-to-be-an-understanding-husband noise.
Normally, Poppy would call me on it. She would turn in my arms and search my eyes and lasso the truth out of me. One of my favorite things about Poppy is that she forced me to open up and be honest about my own needs. After years of being a counselor and a resource for other people, it was gratifying to have someone do the same for me.
But not tonight. Tonight, she laced her hands through mine and sighed. “Do you still want to have children?”
Well, that was an abrupt change of subject.
“Of course I do,” I said, kissing the back of her neck. “I want you to be pregnant all the time. I want you to have nine thousand of my babies.”
She giggled, and I pressed my hands against her stomach, smiling into her neck. I loved her laugh. It sounded noble, royal even, like I was the knight who’d managed to charm his way into some queen’s bed.
“Nine thousand is a tall order, even for us,” she said.
“Nine hundred?”
“Still a bit ambitious.”
“Okay,” I sighed heavily. “Nine, then. You did it, you talked me down.”
“Nine kids.” She tried to keep a flat, mock-serious tone, but she failed, dissolving into sleep-delirious giggles again.
“I’m Irish, Poppy. Genetically we can have no less than nine children.”
“Or what? Saint Patrick will chase all the snakes back into Ireland?”
“How did you know? We only tell that to initiates into the ritual.”
“Is the ritual drinking whiskey and singing ‘Molly Malone’? You forget that I’ve spent the last three Saint Patrick’s Days with your family.”
I chafed a hand along her goose bump-riddled arm and then reached down for the quilt folded at the side of the bed. “Ah, my sweet WASP-y bride. So much to learn.”
“As long as I get to learn it with you,” she said sleepily, and my heart panged because fuck I loved her so much. And double-fuck, she would only get another hour to sleep before she’d have to get up for work.
I spread the quilt over us both, curled my body around hers once more, and by the time I got resettled, she was snoring softly, fast asleep.