CHAPTER TWENTY
Dean
SHE DIDN’T TURN AWAY. SHE COULD have—she had the perfect reason to—but she didn’t.
Instead she looked right at me when I crouched beside her and touched the sleeve of her gray sweatshirt. Instead she brushed the dirt from her hands and told me she was okay. Instead she asked me about medieval knights while I stood between her and the busy street and tried not to stare at her curved body.
Instead she stepped toward me. I had the strange thought that she wanted to come even closer.
November 20
I run outside a lot these days. Usually when the weather gets cold, I work out at the gym, play basketball, or run the indoor track at the university. Not this year. First thing in the morning, I put in five or six miles through town.
Liv is still asleep when I leave. She sleeps hard. She has ever since we got married. Before that, she slept restlessly, tossing and turning, waking often. Now my getting up, shuffling around the bedroom, turning on the bathroom light—none of it stirs her. The smell of coffee, though, that gets her going.
I press a kiss to her hair before I leave. I love her hair—thick, straight, shiny. I could spend hours nuzzling her hair, touching it. A sweet scent drifts from her, vanilla and something fruity. Peaches maybe. She always smells good.
She doesn’t move. I pull on my running shoes and head out the front door.
Mirror Lake is still, silent, only a few lights shining. My shoes slam against the road as I pick up the pace. Down Emerald Street, a path along the lake, back up into a residential neighborhood of refurbished old houses.
Thoughts that crowd my head all day, when I can’t shove them aside, whip away the faster I run.
Run. Run. Don’t think. Don’t imagine. Don’t remember.
Cold air hits me, the sharp sting of wind. Ice in my lungs. The grayness of dawn. My mind empties. For an hour, there’s only muscles burning, chest expanding, blood pumping. Into town again, past shops, restaurants, the movie theater.
It’s a good run, almost seven miles. I walk the final blocks home. A bakery on Avalon Street is just opening its doors. I stop to buy a bag of muffins.
The lights are still off in the apartment when I get home. I shower and dress in trousers, shirt, and tie before going to make coffee.
The pot’s almost full when Liv emerges, pushing her hair away from her face. She’s bundled in a robe that has enough padding to keep her warm in an avalanche.
She gives me a sleepy half-smile and pulls out a chair at the table. I add cream and sugar to a cup of coffee and hand it to her.
“Thanks.” She takes a sip and sighs with bliss. The breathy sound makes my cock twitch.
I turn away from her to pour myself a cup of coffee. We haven’t had sex in weeks, since before she kissed that bastard. Neither of us has mentioned it. I assume she hasn’t been interested, especially after the accident.
Her left hand rests on the table. The doctor removed the stitches yesterday, and now a scar mars the skin of her palm. I can’t stand that she got hurt so badly. That it was my fault.
My throat constricts. I fight down a wave of anger.
“Working at the bookstore today?” I ask.
“No, but I have a shift at the Historical Museum,” Liv says. “We’re putting together a quilt exhibition along with things like spinning wheels and looms. Oh, you know that old Victorian house over on Tulip Street, the Langdon House? The Historical Society decorates it every Christmas as part of the holiday festival and tour. Trees, lights, ornaments, the works. Samantha asked me to help with that this year too.”
I glance at her, my anger draining at the pride in her brown eyes. Since we moved to Mirror Lake, Liv has struggled to find a place for herself, and now she seems to have found it. She loves working at the Historical Museum and the bookstore, and with her newfound interest in cooking…
Shit.
I slide a hand to the back of Liv’s neck and bend to kiss her. She makes a little noise of surprised pleasure and opens her mouth to let me in. I tighten my grip on her neck. She gets it, and leans in for a harder kiss.
Her lips are full, soft. One of the first things I noticed about her as she stood in front of me on the busy sidewalk. Probably one of the first things other men—
Stop.
I straighten and run my hand through Liv’s hair. My heartbeat’s kicked up a notch. I sit at the table and open the paper. Swallow some coffee, eat a muffin. Chew, swallow. Swallow, chew.
Don’t think about him.
Him and her.
I push the paper aside and stand. She looks up.
“I need to head out early,” I say. “I’ll see you this evening. Call if you need me.”
She smiles. “I always need you.”
For now, her words are enough. Enough to diminish the fire of jealousy I can’t put out. But I have no idea what’ll make it flare again.
Work is a predictable routine, though I’m edgy about my grad students these days after Liv told me about Maggie Hamilton’s insinuations. I haven’t seen Maggie since she left town a few weeks ago.
When she gets back, I’ll tell her to find another advisor or change majors altogether. She should never have been accepted into the program to begin with, so I don’t feel bad about dismissing her.
Today I give a morning lecture, teach a grad seminar, and hold office hours. A few students trickle in—one complaining about her essay grade, another asking if he can revise his paper, a third with some genuinely interesting questions about music and liturgy.
With ten minutes to go, a sharp knock sounds on the door. Kelsey walks in, dressed in a tailored suit and heels, the blue streak in her frosted blond hair almost glowing.
Kelsey. Sharp, feisty, brilliant. Too blunt for her own good, but that’s one of the reasons I like her. Impossible to bullshit Kelsey. And you know you’re never getting any bullshit from her.
“What’re you doing here?” I ask.
She frowns and flops into a chair, peering at me through her rimless glasses. “We have a lunch date. You forgot?”
I look at my desk calendar. “Yeah. Guess I did. Sorry.”
“Well, now you’re paying.”
“Deal.” I stand and shrug into my suit jacket. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere off-campus so I can bitch about my research team without worrying that someone’s going to overhear.” She looks me over. “And since you’re paying, somewhere expensive.”
We end up at a ridiculous French place with low lights and linen tablecloths. The hushed atmosphere doesn’t stop Kelsey from launching into a tirade about her colleagues, the difficulty of funding her research project, and the lack of proper lab equipment.
She exhausts herself before the entrees arrive, then spears a fork into her salmon and gives me a penetrating look.
I know what’s coming.
“You and Liv worked out your troubles, huh?” she says. “That’s what she told me, anyway.”
“So why are you asking me?” I have no idea how much Liv told Kelsey about what happened. I do know Liv, though, and she wouldn’t spill all the sordid details, not even to Kelsey. She’s too private.
But I also know Liv needed someone to talk to during the whole fucked-up mess. And since I wasn’t around, she’d naturally go to Kelsey.
“You’re the one who first told me you and she were in a rough patch,” Kelsey reminds me. “Was it all because Liv started thinking about having kids?”
Was that all? I don’t even know.
I do know that when Liv told me early on she didn’t want children, I was relieved. I like kids, but after everything that went down with Helen—not to mention my doubts about being a decent father—I was fine with the idea of just me and Liv. More than fine. It was what I wanted.
“It’s natural, you know,” Kelsey tells me. “That Liv would change her mind. Biological clock and all.”
My insides tighten. “Yeah.”
“She seemed upset that you weren’t on board.”
“There was nothing to be on board about,” I snap. “Liv didn’t even know if she wanted kids. She still doesn’t. And what business is this of yours anyway?”
Kelsey doesn’t flinch at the snarl in my voice. “It’s my business because you two have always been the most freakishly happy couple I’ve ever known. And God knows, if you two can’t make it, what hope do the rest of us have?”
Great. No pressure there.
“It’s fine,” I lie. “We worked it out.”
“Why don’t you want a baby?” she asks.
A black fear rises in my chest, swamp-like, dragging bitter memories along with it. I grab my water and take a gulp, shake my head.
“Leave it, Kelsey.”
She understands the hard, “back off” tone and shrugs. We eat in silence for a couple of minutes. All the troubles of recent months, not to mention this new crap with Maggie Hamilton, roil inside me.
I can’t tell Kelsey any of it. She doesn’t know about Helen either because Kelsey and I lost touch when we were in grad school. I’d been too mired in a shitty marriage and excessive work to maintain contact with my old friends.
And I’m too fucking embarrassed to tell Kelsey about Maggie’s lies. What if Kelsey wondered about them the way Liv did?
Christ. All I need is the two most important women in my life doubting me.
“Okay, I’ll back off.” Kelsey looks at her plate and uses her fork to make a little design with her carrots. “Just… you know, I love you two assholes and want you to be happy. So I’m here if either of you needs me.”
Two specks of color appear on her cheeks. I can’t help a faint smile.
“Thanks.”
She frowns. “But don’t tell anyone I said shit like that. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell everyone what a hard-ass you are.”
“I’d better be, considering the amount of time I spend on the elliptical machine.”
“I’m making chicken piccata,” Liv calls from the kitchen. “Does it smell good?”
“Smells great.” It does too—lemons, capers, and garlic.
I drop my briefcase by the front door and go in to find her looking adorable, if frazzled, in gray sweatpants and a flower-print apron with her hair trapped in a high ponytail. Her face is flushed from the heat of the stove. She turns her cheek to me for an obligatory kiss, then waves me out of the kitchen.
“Go, go. Fifteen minutes. I need to get everything timed right.”
I change into flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, then stretch out on the sofa to watch the news. Pot lids bang in the kitchen. Water runs. The oven door slams shut. Liv curses.
“Need any help?” I ask.
“No thanks. Just a few more minutes.”
Although I love that she’s been trying so hard to learn to cook, I still hate that she took that class. If she hadn’t, she’d never have met that goddamn chef, they’d never have kissed, and we wouldn’t have had the fight that nearly killed us.
But she did. And they did. And we did.
Fuck.
I scrub a hand down my face and try to focus on the TV.
“Ready!” Liv calls.
I go to the table, where she’s put out two plates of chicken, potatoes, and green beans. “Looks amazing.”
“I hope it’s good.” She waves me to sit before taking her place. “So tell me about your day.”
First I try the chicken, which is juicy and tasty with a bite of pepper. “This is delicious.”
“Really?” She gives me a smile so bright my heart clenches. “You like it? I added more lemon than the recipe called for, but I thought it’d add a nice kick. And I put in a few flakes of cayenne.”
“You’re becoming a great cook, Liv.”
Still smiling, she digs into her own meal and asks again about my day. I give her an overview and tell her about lunch with Kelsey—and what Kelsey said.
“She thinks we’re freakishly happy?” Liv repeats.
“That’s what she said.”
She pokes at the remains of her chicken and glances at me. “What do you think?”
I don’t know how to answer that, so I play dumb. “About what?”
“Are we freakishly happy?”
Irritation pulls at me. She knows the answer, so why is she putting me on the spot? How the fuck can a couple be freakishly happy if the wife kisses another man? How can they be happy at all?
A swarm of anger fills my chest. I smother it with effort.
“If we were, we’d live in a circus,” I say, fighting to keep my voice even. “And no one on the outside looking in knows the full truth.”
It’s not what she wanted to hear. I can see the disappointment in her eyes, the slight hunch of her shoulders.
What the hell was I supposed to say? “Yeah, sure, we’re freakishly happy.”
Then she’d be mad because I was lying.
Fix this, West. Make it okay for her.
I go around to her side of the table and grasp her shoulders, pulling her up and against me. She settles easily into my arms like she always has, her hands sliding around my waist, her breasts pressing against my chest. She gives a little sigh of contentment that makes me want to both hold her forever and tear her clothes off right there.
Now I suppress the urge to do the latter. I tighten my arms around her.
“No,” I murmur against her hair which now smells like chicken piccata. “We are not freakishly happy. We are not freakishly anything. We’re two people who love each other. We had a tough time. We worked it out because we want to be together. Because we can’t imagine being with anyone else. Because we don’t want to be.”
She slips her fingers inside the waistband of my pants to stroke my lower back. Blood starts to pool in my groin, my prick pushing against her belly. She looks up at me, then reaches one hand down to palm my crotch. Although uncertainty flickers in her eyes, her tone is light.
“You want to hold that thought until I clean the kitchen?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I pull in a breath. “Sure.”
I close my eyes for a second, conjuring images of medieval saints and monastic architecture to will my erection away. Once I can move again, I help Liv clear the table before she gestures me out of the kitchen.
I go into my office and work on a paper about the Romanesque architecture of the Speyer Cathedral. Focusing on work has always been an easy out, a way to stop thinking about things I don’t want to think about. Years of study have taught me how to close off everything except triple-aisled basilicas and octagonal domes.
Liv would call that ability a “dorky professor thing.” I call it a survival technique.
Tonight, it’s nearly ten when I finally look up from the computer. The sound of the TV buzzes from the living room. I’d half-expected Liv to come find me, but she rarely comes into my office when I’m working.
I shove away from the desk and go into the living room. She’s lying on the sofa… asleep. She looks younger when she’s asleep and you can’t see the hint of shadows in her eyes. But I know they’re there.
Her ponytail is askew, fanning strands of long hair over the sofa cushion. I look at her face, her parted lips, the arch of her throat. Her breasts move with each breath. My prick hardens again. Her T-shirt has ridden up to expose the skin of her torso, pale and smooth.
I shift and wince as my erection grows thick against my thigh. I grab it and squeeze, feeling that familiar pull in my groin.
I tug a quilt over Liv, turn off the TV, and return to the bedroom. Close the door.
I stretch out on the bed and rub my dick through my pajama pants. Can’t help hoping Liv wakes up and comes into the bedroom. I want her mouth on mine, want to curl my fingers in her hair while she wraps her hand around my cock… Christ.
The images flash through my brain as I tug my erection out and start to stroke it. Urgency tightens my nerves. All I have to do is think of her—full, round tits bouncing in time to my thrusts, her lips parted and face flushed, the grip of her pussy around my shaft.
Pressure builds. I work my cock faster, driving myself toward release. My heart pounds. I imagine pressing my hands to Liv’s damp thighs, spreading her wider, sinking into her tight, wet heat.
I can hear her moaning my name, begging, pulling her legs up so she can feel every thrust, so she can take me deep. “Dean, fuck me harder… yes, just like that… oh, God… I’m going to come… I feel it… oh!”
I tighten my hand on my shaft and rub my thumb over the head. My spine tenses as the pressure snaps. I groan, semen spurting over my stomach as I imagine shooting deep inside Liv while she squirms beneath me and strains toward another orgasm.
I fucking love watching her come. Her whole body shakes, she wraps her legs around me, and digs her fingers into my back. Her throaty, little cries fire my blood all over again.
My wife.
I stroke my cock until the final pulses ebb. My breath is ragged. I grab a few tissues and wipe the dampness off, then stare at the ceiling.
Not long ago I’d have thought nothing of waking Liv up by rubbing her breasts or kissing her. She’d open her eyes and fall right into me, her mouth seeking mine. Instead, she’s asleep in the other room and I’m in here jacking off.
The last of the pleasure fades. Guilt pushes its way back in.
I should have told her years ago about my first marriage. Of course I know that. Numerous times I almost did. Then she’d turn her warm, brown gaze on me, her “You’re my hero” look that broke my heart in two, and the confession disintegrated in my throat.
What if I told her and that look changed? What if she wondered how much I was to blame for the disastrous marriage? What if she questioned my ability to deal with conflict? To solve problems? To fix things?
What if she thought I was weak, hadn’t treated Helen right, hadn’t done as much as I could have? What if she wondered what was wrong with me?
The questions knotted my brain until I’d finally shoved it all down and told myself to forget it. To focus on Liv, make our relationship a haven of warmth and safety. To love and protect her. To keep anything from hurting her more than she already had been.
That was all I wanted. It’s all I still want.
But I’m failing. I have no fucking idea how to fix what’s gone wrong in our marriage. I have no idea if my wife will ever again look at me the way she used to.