She grinned. “I should have realized he was gay a long time ago. The man lov
es to shop. We used to have so much fun together. Well, except when we tried to have sex. That never did feel quite right with him.”
“Your vagina was trying to wait for me,” Eric claimed. “It knew he wasn’t the right dick for you.”
She laughed. “Smart vagina. I should have listened to it. It knows a thing or two about dicks.”
“I’m insanely jealous of that guy. Do you realize that?”
“Why?” she asked. “He’s just a friend.”
“A friend who fucked you before I did. A friend you loved before you loved me.”
Her eyebrows crinkled together as she stared at her plate and took several small bites.
“I’ll always love him, Eric.”
His heart wrenched in two.
“But it’s nothing like the love I feel for you,” she continued. “He’s just a friend.” She shrugged. “Apparently he was always just a friend and I wanted it to be more, not because I felt more for him, but because...” She tapped her fork against her plate, still not looking at him. “Because it made sense. It was a logical relationship, not a passionate one. I never felt as if my world would end if Isaac was no longer in my life. I never got giddy with happiness just looking at him. I never thought I’d die if he didn’t fuck me immediately. I never felt as if he completed me. Complemented me, yes, but he never completed me. Never made me feel whole, as if everything that was missing in my life was wrapped up in a perfect package and delivered directly to my heart.”
She finally met Eric’s eyes.
“Isaac never made me feel for even an instant the way you make me feel every moment since I met you, Eric. He’s not your competition, he’s lost somewhere in your shadow. So don’t be jealous. There is nothing for you to be jealous of. The love I feel for Isaac is friendship, that’s all it ever was. I just never realized what it was until I had real love. With you.”
“I’ll never be jealous of that douchebag again,” Eric said, too overwhelmed with emotion to say anything more meaningful.
Rebekah laughed. “Good.”
“But I am glad he’s leaving the continent.” Maybe a lion would eat him.
Rebekah rolled her eyes and shook her head. “He’s not a threat to you, Eric.”
“I know. I just like him better not being a threat halfway around the world.”
“You’d like him once you got to know him,” Rebekah said.
Eric doubted that, but he let it drop. He didn’t want to talk about Isaac. Now that his belly was full, he was ready to do a bit more celebrating with his bride. “Are you ready for dessert?”
“I’d love some cake,” she said.
“You’re having big hard sausage for dessert. Remember?”
“If I promise to be very good—having learned my lesson after your brutal spanking.” She smirked at him. “Can I have two desserts tonight?”
“Of course.” He slipped from his chair and leaned over to kiss her before taking their plates to the kitchen and cutting two mostly intact pieces of birthday cake.
When he returned to her, she was staring down at her wedding ring, twisting it around her finger. She had that expression on her face. The one of sad longing she wore when she thought about not being able to have a baby.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, slipping into the seat beside her this time.
She shook her head slightly. “Everything is perfect,” she said and smiled up at him.
“We’ll adopt a baby,” he said. “We can head to an agency right now if you want.”
She huffed on a half laugh. “How did you know I was thinking about babies?”
“You have a thinking-about-babies expression,” he said. “I’ve seen it frequently enough that I recognize it.”
“I was just thinking I’ll never be able to pass this ring down to my children,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Well, because even if we adopt a dozen of them—”
“A dozen of them?”
She patted his hand. “They won’t be blood.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “What’s more important? Blood or love?”
When she paused in reflection, he took her hand and squeezed it. “Love is more important,” he said. “Love. I have no blood ties, but I have you. It’s far more important.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I’m being foolish. I just… Sometimes I…”
He stroked the silky hair at the back of her head. “I know. You never have to say it. I know you feel you’ve lost something irreplaceable, but there are kids out there who’ve lost something irreplaceable too. They’ve lost the love of their mothers. You can give them that. It will mean everything to them. Trust me on that.”
She gave him a rather watery smile and wrapped her arms around him. “I love you,” she whispered.
“Eat your cake,” he said after a long moment.
“And then sausage,” she said with a giggle.
“You didn’t think I’d forget that, did you?”
He won a point in the living room, when Rebekah sucked her dessert into submission on the sofa. Rebekah’s point on the stairs came easily—literally—and they agreed to call their tryst against the tile wall in the master bathroom shower a tie. They hadn’t even started on the first of their six bedrooms when Rebekah called a timeout.
“Can we finish tomorrow?” she asked, leaning against the inside of the bathroom door, a fluffy white towel wrapped around her exhausted body.
“Are you giving up?” he asked.
“If I give up, do you win?” she asked wearily.
He rubbed the water from his sopping hair with a towel as he watched her. “Yep.”
“Well, that ain’t happening. To bed with you, husband,” she said.
She crawled up onto the bed, flopped onto her back, and held her arms out to the ceiling. “Take me. I’m yours,” she said.
He was going to have to pull out some marital aids, he decided, and headed toward the closet. He knew he’d be unable to get hard again for at least an hour and surely Rebekah would need more stimulation than usual to come after that gusher she’d just had in the shower.
By the time he made it to bed with a six-pack of vibrators pressed against his bare belly, Rebekah had fallen asleep. He grinned and whispered, “I win,” but he knew damned well he’d have no problem reinstating their competition in the morning. They couldn’t leave this game between them unfinished.
He set the vibrators within reach on the nightstand, planning to give her one hell of a morning wakeup call, and lit a candle. He switched off the overhead light and climbed into bed with his wife. She sighed contentedly when he drew her into his arms and flipped the comforter over their entwined bodies.
His body was tired, but his mind was so full, he doubted he’d ever sleep. So he held her and instead of shutting the world away, he let his thoughts wander. Unfortunately they wandered in ways he didn’t necessarily like.
Near sunrise, Eric rested on one elbow so he could stare down into the sweet face of his wife while she slept. The candle on the bedside table flickered wildly as it burned up the last of its fuel. Eric’s mind was still too full to sleep. His heart too full to move from her side. He traced one of her eyebrows with a fingertip, overwhelmed by the tenderness she stirred within him. At times he wanted to cradle her against him gently, afraid she’d break. At other times he longed to squeeze her tightly, to make sure she could feel the strength of his love. God knew he’d never be able to express it with the depth he felt it. She filled so much within him he’d never realized was hollow. But there were still a few places she couldn’t touch. Couldn’t fill. He wondered if he could love Rebekah better if he were whole.
If he tried to fill those spots of emptiness that had been left behind early in his childhood, maybe he could be a man worthy of her attention.
Maybe it was time.
Time to seek out his mother. Time to know the truth about why the heartless bitch had abandoned him. He didn’t even know if the woman was alive. Wasn
’t sure if he cared if she was alive. But if she was... If she was, he wanted to know. Needed to face her. He’d thought that by burying her abandonment beneath years and years of disregard, she would cease to haunt him, but he’d been pretending. With Rebekah by his side, for the first time in his life Eric had the courage to find answers to questions that had eaten at him for years. With Rebekah by his side, he could face anything.
He was no longer alone.
Eric tugged Rebekah’s small body solidly against his chest, his heart thudding painfully beneath her temple. She stirred, her arm moving to circle his waist.
“Eric?” she murmured.
He remembered a time when she’d woken from sleep and, unfamiliar with having strange men in her bed, she’d called him Isaac. Now the only name she whispered when pulled from her dreams was Eric’s. He fucking loved that.
“Is it morning?” she murmured, her voice slurred with sleep.
“Not yet.”
“Are you horny again already?” And instead of grumbling about his ceaseless libido interfering with her sleep, she turned her head to kiss his chest.
“Getting that way,” he said with a grin.
Her hand reached up and sought his face, rubbing at the beard stubble she found beneath her fingertips. “Did you sleep well?”
Her breath warmed the skin of his chest and the achingly full heart within.
“I haven’t slept at all,” he said. “I’ve been watching you sleep.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were the creepy stalker type?” she asked.
“You’re on to me,” he said with a grin. “Can’t seem to help my limitless infatuation for you, Mrs. Sticks.”
“Completely understandable. I’m pretty awesome, you know.” She rasped her fingernails gently over his beard stubble.
“I know.” He pressed a kiss to her hair and forced himself to be serious, even though every instinct preferred to continue their light-hearted banter. “Do you really think we can find out about my mother?” he forced out.
Rebekah stiffened slightly and then tugged away from his chest so she could look at him in the low flicker of the candlelight. “I’m sure we can. Do you want to try?”