I let out a squeak as he carries me to my bedroom. I have to direct him once he’s up the stairs, but then, as soon as we enter the room, he tosses my body across it and onto the bed. I expect him to pounce on me, but he doesn’t. He stands in the middle of the room and looks around.
My master bedroom is decorated in all extremely pale greys and bright whites, except for a few medium gray decorative pillows on my bed and my dark grey sheets.
I have an all metal gold nightstand with a glass top and two white club chairs in front of the three windows that look out at the valley and city around us.
“This fits you,” he murmurs, looking around before his green eyes connect to mine. “It’s light and soft, like you,” he says, tipping his lips in a grin.
I shake my head slightly at his words.
“Why are you wearing my shirt, sunshine?” he asks, using that fucking nickname again as he prowls toward me.
My only answer is to shrug. I’m not about to really tell him why it’s the only thing I took with me from our life together in Shasta. That and my gigantic wedding ring that sits on my finger, since I’m unable to let it go. I don’t dare tell him why I still wear it, just enjoying the weight of it on my finger.
“You miss your man?” he asks as his hands slide up the outside of my thighs and underneath said shirt. He drags it up and over my body, causing me to shiver.
I watch as his eyes take in my torso, my bra covered breasts, my ribs, and my stomach. When they get back to mine, I expect to see them heated with desire, but instead he looks angry.
“You look too skinny, baby,” he murmurs as he unbuttons my jeans and yanks them down my legs, leaving me in just my bra and panties.
I don’t bother responding to his words. I’ve lost weight, and I haven’t decided if I hate it or love it. Graham loved it, but he’s a piece of shit, so I’m leaning toward hating it.
I suck in a breath when he lowers to his knees, his lips touching below the center of my ribs. He then kisses his way down my stomach, his tongue swirling around my belly button before he reaches the top waistband of my panties.
He gently tugs my panties down my legs, and without a warning, his tongue licks my entire slit before it swirls around my clit.
“Sloane,” I moan.
His tongue dips inside of me while his hands move to my ass and lifts me up slightly, pulling me even closer to him.
I gasp when his teeth graze my clit, one of my hands flying behind me to hold onto the comforter, and the other diving into his thick, blond hair. I spread my legs a little wider and arch my back, pushing my pussy even closer to his face.
He moans and starts to devour me, his mouth and tongue working me to the brink of a climax. Just when I’m about to fall over the edge, he sits back, moving away from me.
“What? Why?” I practically cry.
“Want you to come on my cock,” he murmurs as he slowly stands.
I watch him undress, a whimper escaping my lips when he’s completely naked. His body is bigger than it was three years ago, his muscles more defined.
My eyes dart down to his hard cock, and I bite my lip at the sight. When my eyes go back up his body, I notice that he’s got his cocky grin in place at my obvious ogling, and I roll my eyes.
Sloane leans over my body and presses his lips to mine before he moves them to my ear.
“Come ride me, sunshine. I want to see that body I’ve been dreaming about for three years above me,” he whispers.
My entire body breaks out in a shiver, and I nod. He throws back my comforter, sending pillows flying everywhere before he props his back up against the ones that didn’t go skidding across the room. I roll over and lift myself to my knees, removing my bra as I make my way toward him, then straddle him.
“Fuck,” he rasps as his hand slides from my stomach, up between my breasts, and around the back of my neck.
“Condom?” I breathe.
Sloane grunts, before he shakes his head. “No more of that, sunshine. It’s just us now, only us.” I make a noise in the back of my throat and close my eyes, wishing that his words could be the truth. “Baby,” he murmurs shaking me gently and I open my eyes. “I’m fucking serious, nobody else. Just you and me, from now on.”
He squeezes my neck as I take him inside of me, sitting until I’m completely full of him. Sloane is focused on me, and maybe it’s just me wanting to see it, but the truth to his statement is there. Damn if I don’t want to believe every word, every single freaking word.
I look down and into his green eyes, which are now full of desire, need, and want. His hands wrap around my waist, and I expect him to force me to move, but he doesn’t. He just watches me, his head slightly tilted, his eyes roaming over my face but nowhere else.
“You’re mine,” he rumbles, giving my waist a squeeze. “All of you. It was meant for only me.”
I fight back the tears that threaten to spill at his words. I want to ask him if all of me was meant for him, then why wasn’t all of him meant for me, but I don’t.
Instead, I close my eyes, unable to look into his for another minute, and I ride my husband. It doesn’t take long for the orgasm that I had been on the brink of only a few moments ago to return.
Sloane moves one of his hands from my waist to press his thumb against my clit. My entire body shakes as my head drops back, and I let everything else wash away and only feel. I feel the way our bodies fit together, the way his hands slide over my skin—his fingers rough. When I come, my entire body locks up and I let that orgasm roll through me.
Without skipping a beat, Sloane flips me onto my back and drives into me, his pelvis thrusting against mine as he fills me over and over until his muscles tremble above me and he lets out a moan with his own release. His body sags, and he buries his face in my neck with a long groan as his thrusts continue, slowly and languidly.
“You aren’t leaving me,” he whispers against my neck.
I try not to react, but my body must tense because he lifts his head and his eyes meet mine before he tips his head to the side in question.
“Tell me, Genny,” he murmurs as he lifts one of his hands and traces my hairline, with his fingertips.
I shake my head, but he doesn’t let it go. He urges me again to tell him what I’m thinking, and so I do. I can’t hold it in.
“If all of me is meant for you, then why isn’t all of you meant for me, Sloane?” I ask.
He freezes as his eyes meet mine, his cock still inside of me, and his weight on me. I know he’s angry because his jaw clenches, and I watch a muscle in his cheek jump.
“Sloane?” I hesitate when we sit in silence for what feels like a lifetime.
“You know the life, babe,” he says as though its no big deal.
“Get off of me,” I grind out.
One of his hands moves to wrap around my hip, and I know exactly where he has it. He squeezes the tattoo that says Soar, in pretty black lettering with black birds around it. Then his eyes meet mine and he gives me a cocky grin.
“It’s the life, Genny. You don’t get to just run away when you don’t like something. We make it work. We always make it work,” he grunts as he slips out of my body and sits back against the headboard.
“While that is fine and dandy for you, because you get to do whatever you want to, it doesn’t work for me anymore,” I state. He only laughs.
“Sunshine, it takes me less than five minutes to remind you just how much we do work together just fine.”
I narrow my eyes on him and decide to get out of bed and away from him. I don’t get far. He sits up and reaches for me, pulling my front against his and holding me against his body. I look up at him, giving him my most evil eye, but he only laughs.
“Lay it out for me, babe, tell me what you want,” he offers. I narrow my eyes on him, but he is the epitome of cool, calm, and collected.
“You really want to know?” I ask, sounding bitchy but not really caring at the moment.
“Yeah. Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,” he smarts back at me.
“Like I said, I want a baby, more than one if its possible. I want a husband who loves me.”
He shrugs, “Already love you, Imogen. You want a kid, it’s yours,” acting as if it’s no big deal.
“No,” I shake my head. “I want a husband who loves me, who would do everything in his power not to hurt me—and that doesn’t just include physically, but emotionally as well. I want a husband who doesn’t fuck every pair of tits he comes across who offers it up. I want devotion, and I want him to want a family as much as I do. You don’t, Sloane, and that’s okay. Maybe there is a woman out there who will love you and be okay with you being with other women; maybe there’s a woman out there that you couldn’t imagine cheating on, but I just know that that woman is not me. If it were, you wouldn’t have cheated on me repeatedly for over twelve years.”
“Imogen,” he rasps as his hand moves to cup my cheek, his eyes searching mine. “I can’t change the things I did, baby. All I can do is be better for the future.”
“What does that future look like to you? What do you want?”
“You, sunshine, and whatever comes with you. Whatever you want,” he murmurs.
God knows that I want to believe all of these sweet words, but this isn’t anything new. Sloane knows how to sweet-talk me, and I believe him every single time. I buy all of his sugary words every single fucking time.
Even right now, I want to believe him, I want to believe in him, but I’m not sure if my heart can handle it anymore. There isn’t much left of me, and I’m afraid to hope one last time and have there be absolutely nothing of me left when he betrays me.
“You’re so risky, Sloane,” I whisper.
“Give a sober ex-con a chance, sunshine,” he murmurs.
“I know I’m going to regret this,” I whisper, mostly to myself. I know he hears me because his fingers flex and he grimaces.
“I hope not,” he grunts before his lips press against mine.
I don’t bother to get up. Rather, snuggling closer to his hard, warm, body, I do something I haven’t done in days—I close my eyes, and I sleep.
Imogen’s breathing evens out and her body becomes heavier against mine as she falls asleep. Guilt. It’s an emotion I should feel on a regular basis, but I don’t. I never really have felt it before, except when it comes to Genny. I’ve felt bad, angry, regretful, but never truly guilty. I’ve just lied to my wife, again, and not only a small white-lie, I’ve downright fucking lied to her.
A family.
I’ve never really wanted one, and I still don’t. Yet, to keep her, that’s one of the major things she needs from me. Something she’s mentioned more than once, twice, or even a dozen times to me over the years. I offered it to her, half-heartedly throughout our marriage to appease her, but I never really thought she’d push for it. She didn’t, until now. I had a shitty childhood. I’m aware that I never did without financially, but emotionally, I was extremely destitute.
My father has never shown any other emotions toward me but disappointment and anger. He’s selfish, fucked up, and abusive.
My mother has always been so worried about upsetting my father, about being perfect for him, and then later about drowning in a bottle, that she never had time to nurture me. She spent my entire childhood trying to save her own ass that she had no clue how messed up our whole family dynamic was for me.
In order for me to keep Imogen, I’ll have to knock her up. That I can do, the fidelity thing I’m not so sure I can do. I’m not scared of fucking someone else, or of being able to say no because I could. I just don’t know that I would say no when the opportunity presents itself.
In fact, it’s not really the desire for other pussy, it’s the desire to get blitzed. When I’m stoned, I don’t give a fuck what I’m doing or how it’ll make anybody feel. When I’m wrecked, all I care about is climbing higher and higher.
Then I crash, and fuck me, the resentment I feel toward myself is too much, so I search for that dope again and I end up fucking whores, drinking, and doing stupid shit that I know is wrong. I end up acting just like my goddamn father. Isn’t that the fucker? I act exactly like the man I despise. I treat my wife the way he treats my mother.
I squeeze my eyes closed and can’t get the image of the look on her face the first time Genny caught me with another woman out of my mind. She looked devastated. I was blitzed as fuck and just brushed it off, because I literally didn’t give a shit in the moment. It’s so hard, to be what she needs and what I need, and being high, that thrill and that escape from reality, it was easy. It was always easier to escape through dope and booze.
Fuck, I’m such a dick. Even now, I’m not sure I could keep from fucking around. It’s not that I don’t love her, because I do. I love her as much as I’m capable of loving another person, but sex is sex, and I need it—the thrill, the escape, just like with dope.
I need it all. Without it, I don’t know who I am. I’ve been rebelling and fighting for so long, I’m not sure how to just be. I don’t want to lose her, either. Sitting in that cell, thinking about her and how much she means to me, and how much I truly missed her, I know that I need her in my life.
Opening my eyes, I look down on her sleeping against me. I should let her go. I should let her find someone who could make her happy, someone who can stay faithful and give her those kids she wants without reservation or hesitation.
Fuck.
Her doorbell rings, and I slide out from underneath her sleeping body before gathering my jeans. I yank them up my legs and hips, zipping them only as I make my way downstairs to the front door. I pull it open without looking through the peephole, and I’m met with the angry gaze of Graham.
I can’t contain my smirk as his eyes widen and then narrow on me. Taking in the fact that I’m shirtless, barefoot and answering Imogen’s door in the early evening, he practically growls at me.
“So, it’s true. The whore lied to me, then,” he grunts.
“Genny doesn’t lie.”
“So you didn’t get back together?” he asks.
“We did, but not until about an hour ago. I have more important things to talk to you about, you prick,” I growl.
He chuckles. “And what’s that?”
“You hit my wife,” I state. He winces but stands firm and doesn’t respond. “Do you have anything to say for yourself there?”
“You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. Her father doesn’t want you with her, and he’s going to make life really fucking difficult for her, and you, if she doesn’t toe the line. Just remember that,” he says, lifting his chin.
“Oh, I’ve won, Graham. Haven’t you realized yet? I always win; and with Imogen, I always will. My dick is the only one she’s ever known. You aren’t getting even a taste of her, you piece of shit. You come anywhere near her again, and I’ll kill you,” I rumble.
“We’ll see,” he winks before he turns and jogs away. My entire body jolts as I watch him go.
I close the door and turn around on a heavy sigh as I make my way back up to Genny. I’m done. I decide right here and now. This worry about other women, this worry about staying sober, this worry about me chasing a high, it’s done.
Maybe it took Graham coming over with his cocky as fuck smile, maybe it was the fact that he’s threatening to take the only woman who has ever loved me away. Maybe it’s that he represents the fact that I was on the verge of losing her forever. I’m done.
Gathering her in my arms I inhale her sweet scent and press my lips to the top of her head. From now on, I fight, but I don’t fight her. I fight for her and for us. I’m going to fight my demons, and I refuse to be my mother, to drink myself to death, or to get blitzed anymore. I refuse to be the bastard my father is. What I am going to be is a better man. Starting right fucking now.