Chapter Nineteen
A minute, or maybe an hour, later, Maddie finally caught her breath and murmured into his chest. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
Justin pushed up and slid his thumb under her chin. She struggled to open her eyes, heavy from sheer exhaustion… and pleasure. But she forced them open and locked her gaze with his. He studied her for a moment, his head tilting. What was he looking for? Did he regret making love to her?
“Are you okay?” he finally asked.
“I’m better than okay.” It hadn’t been like that, the intensity, the intimacy, in a long time. Way too long. And that was her fault—her focus on charting and temperature and planning exactly when to have sex. Don’t go there, Maddie.
That cocky grin of his that she loved so much split his face. She hadn’t seen it much recently. “I aim to please.”
She chuckled and pushed at him. She hated breaking the mood but she just couldn’t lay here naked. His gaze boring into her was too much. She’d revealed so much of herself to him while making love. Much more than she had in a long time. It left her vulnerable. After their struggles and her frustration, she rarely let him see her naked outside of the scheduled sex. But this was a new kind of exposed.
She scrambled off the bed and grabbed at the clothes on the floor, finding his shirt on the top of the pile. She tugged it on and fumbled to pull it closed. Her hands trembled as she tried and failed to fasten the buttons.
She heard a rustle and then he was beside her, his fingers on hers as he helped her finish. Then he led her back to the bed and tucked her against his side with her head on his chest.
She’d dreamed of this moment for a long time. When Justin finally came back to her. She’d spent her entire bath fantasizing about him stepping into the bathroom while she was in the tub, her eyes locked on his as he stripped down and climbed in behind her. His hands cupping her breasts, sliding down her slick body.
He hadn’t joined her in the bath.
But when she’d heard the plinking sound on her window, her heart had leapt. He’d been so cute when he raised his head, looking like he had when they first dated, full of hope and promise, not beaten down by the everyday realities of life.
It had only taken a minute to light the candles she kept strewn around the bedroom while he hurried around the house. She was determined to bring some romance back into their marriage.
And it had worked.
It hadn’t always been easy between them, but it had been good for a long time. Until it wasn’t. She hadn’t realized how much she missed just being with him, having a chance to connect, until they had lost that intimacy.
She’d had a taste of what she’d lost now, and she was going to grab hold with both hands. That didn’t stop her mind from wandering to her nightstand. She could practically picture the chart in the drawer, days marked off with bright red Xs. And beside it was the thermometer in its case, waiting for her to slip it under her tongue. She tried to fight back the thoughts, but she struggled. After hoping for a baby for so long, it wasn’t like she could just turn off the thoughts or the innate need that had taken up residence deep in her gut.
“Maddie, we should, uh—”
She held up her hand. “Stop. Don’t say it.”
“Say what?”
“Whatever you were gonna say.” Maddie squared her shoulders but she refused to look him in the eye. “Things are perfect right now, and anything you say could threaten that.”
He tucked his finger under her chin. “Maddie, look at me.”
She steeled herself and then raised her eyes slowly. His gaze softened but she couldn’t mistake the conflict swirling in his beautiful hazel eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Tears welled in her eyes and she swept them away angrily. He was not going to come in here, sweep her off her feet, make love to her, and then apologize. They’d just shared an emotional connection she’d been missing for so long, and she wasn’t going to let him pull away from her after that.
“Talk to me, Maddie. Tell me what’s going on. What you’re thinking.”
She sucked in a few deep breaths.
How could she reveal everything running through her mind right now? Shoot, she was ping-ponging back and forth through so many emotions that she could hardly identify them herself, much less explain them to Justin. Being with him this way, she could almost imagine their marriage was perfect, that he didn’t live under another roof. And then she got mad that he had left her alone to deal with everything she was going through. Which in turn made her want to crawl under the covers and pull them over her head.
She didn’t want to drive him away all over again.
If only she could live in the moment, enjoy what she and Justin had shared, the progress they’d made on their relationship. But no, she had to think about whether she could have gotten pregnant, how she wanted to yank open the drawer and check her calendar. How she yearned to shove a pillow under her knees to help her chances.
Tears sprang to her eyes again. Dammit.
Justin kept his hand on her shoulder. But he didn’t say anything. In the past, he would have pushed her to talk about what she was feeling and would have thrown his own feelings into the mix. But she appreciated that he gave her a chance to sort out everything running through her brain.
But the one thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t ready to handle the fallout of what they had just done. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
She kept her gaze locked on his and saw the minute that her words sank in. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. I’m so confused right now.”
“Let’s talk about this. I didn’t want to confuse you. We may not have been thinking, but that was a good thing. For the first time in a long time, we were feeling.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what I’m feeling. That’s not right. I’m just feeling so many things right now.”
He pulled her into his arms. She stiffened and tried to resist. Tried to put up the walls that had protected her from getting hurt for most of her life. But it felt too good to be in his arms. Where she belonged. She eventually relaxed into him, resting her head on his chest. After what felt like forever, he said, “Tell me.”
“From the day you moved out, all I wanted was for you to be back in our home. With me. Each time I saw you, and you kissed me, it was all I could do not to beg you to come home. It felt like when we were dating all over again.
“I know. I—”
She raised her hand. “No, wait. Just let me get this out.” She was trying hard not to get emotional, to maintain a rational conversation with him. They hadn’t had enough of those recently. Their mode of communication had devolved into yelling and she didn’t like that anymore than he did.
He rested his hand on her back and didn’t say anything else.
“When I opened the window and saw you there, my heart soared. It felt good. I liked feeling the excitement of what could be.”
“I feel the same way. We’ve come so far in the past few weeks, and I felt like we were ready to be together again.”
“I thought so, too. It was like it was before. Before I ruined everything.”
He leaned back until he could look her in the eye. “Maddie, you didn’t ruin everything between us. It hurts me to think you feel that way. We’ve both had a hard time recently.”
“But you left me.”
“No. I left the house so that we could have a break. We needed some time away from each other so that we could rebuild our relationship. And as hard as it has been going to bed alone every night, I think tonight is evidence that it has been helpful.”
She could no longer have this conversation lying across his chest. She pushed up and sat on the bed, her legs crossed, facing him. When he realized what she was doing, he sat up, his back against the head board. It was hard for her to talk to him this way, but they had no chance of building a future together if she wasn’t honest with him. “It has been better. And I don’t regret making love to you. But…”
“But what?”
“The minute we were done, do you know what I thought?”
He sucked in a breath and his shoulders tensed. Damn, she hated that she had made him this way. But she had to be honest with him.
“I wondered if it was a good time of the month.”
His face fell.
Everything they had worked through in the past few weeks and she’d ruined it with one sentence. “What is wrong with me? I just made love with my husband, and it was freakin’ awesome, but I spoiled it all.”
He covered her hand with his but he didn’t speak right away. He had allowed her the space to organize her thoughts. She owed him the same. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times and then finally spoke. “You didn’t ruin anything. You’ve wanted a baby for a long time. It’s not just something you can turn on and off. We hadn’t been together in a long time. It’s only natural your thoughts would turn in that direction. But you know what’s different?”
She sniffled and shook her head.
“This wasn’t planned. You didn’t come at me with a calendar and a thermometer. We weren’t thinking. We were just feeling.” He slid his hand off her knee and climbed out of the bed.
Oh God, he was going to leave. What had she done?
But he didn’t leave. He crossed to his dresser, pulled on a pair of pajama pants, and climbed back on the bed. After he got settled, he took her hands in his. “What I’m about to say may hurt you. When we were having sex before, when it was based on your charts and your plans, it didn’t feel like we were actually making love. It wasn’t intimate. It wasn’t because we couldn’t wait another minute to be together. It was clinical. And, frankly, not very enjoyable, not like it should be.”
She grimaced and tried to pull away, but he held firmly to her hands. “I’m not saying it to hurt you, but to help you understand where I am right now. I didn’t like the way it made me feel. Shit, I was probably the only man on earth who didn’t want to have sex with his wife. It wasn’t because I didn’t love you, but because I did. I wasn’t connecting with you because you were so focused on your charts and the end goal of getting pregnant instead of just being present, in the moment, with me. But tonight, you were with me. And we connected in a way that we haven’t in a long time.”
Her heart was racing so fast she thought it would beat right out of her chest. Her palms grew sweaty and she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She wasn’t sure she could bear to hear anything else he had to say.
“I understand that your mind went to the charts when we were done, because wanting a baby is something that you feel deep inside you. I get that. I understand why that was your first thought. But the fact that you were here, with me, while we were making love, was a huge step. And I’ll take it. Don’t beat yourself up because of what you thought afterward. This was major progress—for you, for me, and for our relationship.”
She only hoped he meant that. But what if, after he returned to his bed in his mother’s guest house, he had second thoughts? What if he decided she wasn’t worth the hassle? “I’m sorry, Justin.”
“Stop apologizing to me for your feelings. If you wish you didn’t feel that way, then that’s okay, and something you can work on, but for now, you have nothing to apologize to me for.”
She stared at him. How had she gotten so lucky to have this man love her? If he still did, that was, after everything she had done to sabotage their relationship.
Justin scooched down on the bed and patted his chest. She relaxed and felt his arms come around her. This was something else she missed—snuggling with Justin. Being with him, close to him. The physical and emotional distance in their marriage recently had gutted her even while she couldn’t stop herself from shoving him away. But he hadn’t yelled at her, hadn’t pulled away when she’d admitted how she felt after making love, and that was also a step in the right direction.
* * *
Justin listened while Maddie’s breathing deepened and felt her muscles relax as she finally fell asleep. But there was no chance he would do the same. The thoughts racing through his mind had his head spinning.
He had meant every word he said to Maddie about making love. The intimacy between them that had been missing for so long had roared back with a vengeance. His sole focus had been on Maddie, meeting her needs, and coming together as a couple. And while they were making love, he could tell she was with him. In the moment. Giving herself to him as much as he was giving himself to her.
And logically, her thinking about whether or not she could get pregnant made sense to him. For his part, he hadn’t even considered whether he should use a condom. They hadn’t used protection in so long that he could hardly remember. When it wasn’t time for her to get pregnant, they just didn’t have sex.
So she could have gotten pregnant tonight.
His heart leapt. Could it be that simple—focusing on making love without worrying about charts and graphs? He couldn’t afford to think that way. When they had first started trying to have another child, he got his hopes up only to have them dashed every month. And on top of his own disappointments, there was Maddie. His heart broke each time she took another pregnancy test and the result was negative. He wanted this baby for her, and for himself. After a while, he shut himself off from the hope.
It hurt too much.
And now that they had made love, would Maddie go back to the way she was, obsessing about timing and charting? She’d come so far in the time they’d been apart. He didn’t know if it was the counselor that she was seeing or that his Maddie was coming back.
When they first met, she didn’t let anything get in the way of what she wanted. A second pregnancy might have been the first thing in her life she couldn’t achieve with hard work and sheer determination. Making love without talking about using protection—or not—might have been a big mistake. It could give her hope she wasn’t prepared to handle right now. He couldn’t bear it if he shoved her back into the dark place she’d been when he moved out, wanting a baby so badly that she was unable to focus on anything else.
And did he really want her to be pregnant right now? His plan to repair their marriage was working. They were talking more than they had in years. And they had reconnected as a couple without focusing on the future or babies or anything but each other and their family. Bringing a baby into this before they fixed their relationship risked his long-term goals.
But what kind of man, what kind of husband, would wish for his wife not to be pregnant? Not wish, exactly. If she were pregnant, he would be over the moon and would work harder than ever to repair their marriage. But he was afraid. Afraid that a baby would be a quick fix. He didn’t want quick. He wanted forever.
Maddie murmured in her sleep and snuggled in deeper onto his chest. There was nothing he wanted more than to spend the night with his wife, to wake up beside her in the morning and make love to her when the sun was brightening the sky. But they had Aiden to consider. Justin wasn’t ready for his son to find him here and draw the wrong conclusions.
He grabbed his cell off the nightstand, setting an alarm for well before Aiden woke up. He could spend a few hours with Maddie in his arms and then sneak out before Aiden spotted him. It wasn’t ideal but he’d take it.