Beautiful Beloved

She took a handful of my hair and pulled me back, laughing. “Finally, he admits it!”

“What does that mean?”

Her brow furrowed a little as she studied my face, warm brown eyes moving to take in every aspect of my expression. Sara often studied me like this: quietly, earnestly. She ran a fingertip across my chin, her eyes trained on my lips. “I want you to not worry so much,” she whispered. “I want more babies—maybe not right away, but someday—and when I say that, I see terror in your eyes.”

I swallowed around the heavy lump in my throat. “It’s not as hard on my body.”

“My body seems to be weathering it fine. I’m going back to work soon. Look at us. We did it.”

I bent, tasting her skin again. Kissing her stomach.

She pulled me up, whispered in my ear, “Tell me you didn’t love having your baby in here.”

Laughing, I admitted, “She was certainly easier to take care of all tucked away in there.”

She looked back up at my face as I shifted over her, spreading her thighs with my knee and settling there, growing tighter at the feel of her, soft and warm, beneath me. “All right, love?”

Her breaths were already coming faster, short bursts against my neck, her hands sliding lower over my back to push my boxers down my hips. “Yeah.”

I slipped my finger into her mouth, wetting it against her tongue before bringing it between us to touch her. I hummed, rubbing myself on her thigh. “You sure? You’re not sore?”

She stared up at me, expression shifting into one I couldn’t quite read. “I’m sure.”

“We made love last night, too. I don’t want to hurt you,” I explained.

She closed her eyes, pulling my head into her neck. “I know, baby.”

I slid in, slow, and pressed my mouth to her jaw, groaning. Each time . . . each fucking time I was sure I would never get used to the feel of her. Her nails dug into my back as she let out a relieved moan.

“Christ, Petal. You’re heaven beneath me.” Cupping her breast in one hand, I squeezed, relishing the slide of milk on my palm. “Fuck,” I managed. “Fucking hell . . .”

“This is a new thing,” she whispered, scratching her nails down my back.

I clenched my jaw, fighting the admission that wanted to burst free. “I bloody love them like this. I’m sorry—I know they’re mostly a drag for you—but fuck, Petal. I love your tits like this.”

I felt her still beneath me and stopped moving so I could pull back and look at her face.

“What?” I asked. “What did I say?”

She didn’t look upset, just a funny mix of disappointed and amused. Sliding her legs up my sides, she whispered, “Since when do you have to give me a disclaimer?”

Smiling, I bent and kissed her sweet, full lips. My heart was beating a little too fast; I still wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong.

“You don’t have to apologize for being turned on by that,” she whispered into my mouth. “I miss seeing you lost in me, and unapologetic about it.”

My immediate instinct was to show her how lost I really was: to lift her arms over her head, pound into her, and relish the sight of her breasts moving below me, relish their weight and the spike of lust I felt when they leaked onto my skin. But instead, I began to slowly move above her, making sure to ease her pleasure from her with every draw of my body inside hers.

She grabbed my ass, urged me faster and harder, and I tried to give her more but it was almost like something newly hardwired in me with every shift forward:

Take it easy.

Take it slow.

Take it easy.

Take it slow.

We’d had sex many times in the months since the baby was born, but it hadn’t yet returned to the wild days of before, with fucking on the kitchen table or the floor, or sweaty and reckless play in the club. Those days we’d had spanking and bondage. Those days I’d taken her in every manner imaginable, sometimes with strangers watching, sometimes with only my video camera as witness. Once I’d bit her shoulder so hard she’d bled and it nearly made her savage with excitement.

Before—and during—her pregnancy, it never occurred to me how fragile she was.

And then she’d had my baby: nearly nine pounds and over twenty-four hours of hard labor. For two months after Annabel came, we’d stumbled our way through new parenting, fallen in love with our daughter, fallen in love all over again with each other, and found tiny winks of sleep whenever we could. Eventually, we’d also found ways to be carefully intimate with hands and mouths, playful with words and toys.

Then, nearly two months ago now, Sara said she was ready to make love again.

I’d been terrified at first, but one kiss led to another, and soon I’d been harder than I could remember being in weeks. The sound she made when I pushed into her would forever echo in my thoughts. It was a broken sound, the sharp, surprised cry of pain. I’d immediately stopped, and although she swore she felt no pain now, I couldn’t help but feel I was handling her differently: being careful with a treasure I’d only recently discovered could be broken . . .

We had yet to return to the club.

We had yet to even pull out the camera for anything other than pictures of our daughter.

We had yet to have sex that did anything more than rustle the sheets, let alone break furniture.

But here, in our bed, with her beneath me, and making her hungry, gasping little noises, her words echoed in my head—pounding—each one like a mallet hitting a drum.

I miss seeing you lost in me, and unapologetic about it.

She was letting me be gentle. She was patiently waiting for it to sink in that she’d asked for more, for real sex, again and again.

She’d say, Do you want to make a movie tonight?

No, Petal, it’s enough just to feel you.

Do you ever miss the club?

No, Petal, I love being right here where we are, with our baby asleep down the hall.

You really like to look at them like this? You like the taste?

I’d wanted to make things easy for her. I’d wanted her to feel safe and cherished. I closed my eyes, absorbed by the paradoxical sensations of relief when Sara began to quietly come beneath be, and heartache in the realization that somewhere along the line, I had forgotten what she needed.

At four in the morning, I sat on the floor of the nursery while Sara fed Annabel. The sky outside was deep blue-black, and even on the Upper East Side at this hour, the streets were relatively quiet.