The answer, by the way, was a big, fat, disappointing no.
But I didn’t volunteer any information. Waited for him to ascend from his underworld kingdom and play with his little mortal wife. Take interest. Make conversation.
Something compelled me to still send him pictures of lone clouds whenever I found them in the sky, even though he’d failed to respond. Maybe to remind him miracles did exist, and so did magic.
We made love every night.
Sometimes, it was depraved and rough, and sometimes, it was slow and taunting. It was always a wild exploration. A symphony of new notions and tastes and colors I’d never experienced before.
Three weeks after I moved in, I got my period.
I cried when I saw the first spot of blood on my panties. I wiped my tears, took a shower, threw the underwear in the laundry basket, and drank two glasses of water to calm myself down. It was my second period since I’d started sleeping with my husband.
I wasn’t sure what hurt more—my wanting a baby so much and not getting my wish, or letting Cillian down, which I was undoubtedly going to do.
“Aunt Flow is in town,” I announced during dinnertime. It was one of the rare occasions where it was just the two of us.
“Better than Aunt Tilda, I suppose.” Kill didn’t look up from his plate.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” I asked in a thin voice. He patted the corners of his lips with a napkin, still staring at his plate.
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll plan my evening accordingly.”
“Have fun,” I gritted out, this time not bothering to hide my disappointment.
“I intend to.”
I didn’t expect a visit from him that night.
To his credit, he managed to hold himself off until half past eleven. I’d listened to him through the adjoining wall of our rooms, going about his evening. Typing on his laptop. Flipping sports channels. Taking business calls.
Finally, there was silence. A knock on my door sounded a few seconds later. I loved that he always asked to come in, never assuming, never demanding.
I opened the door.
We stared at each other for a beat.
“Did you call me?” He frowned.
I suppressed a smile. “No.”
“I thought I heard your voice.”
My chest filled with something warm.
All I did was shake my head. This time, he had to work for it.
“I came for…” He broke off, running his fingers through his silky brown hair, furious with himself. “I don’t know what the hell I came for.”
“Yes, you do,” I said softly.
I wanted to hear it from him. That he enjoyed it. Us. That he didn’t only do it because we were supposed to, but because it made him happy.
God knew it made me happy.
Too happy, maybe.
He leaned down to kiss me. Letting him off the hook was tempting, but for the sake of his synthetic grass heart, I put a hand on his chest, pushing him away.
“Say it.”
His downturned lips flattened, and his eyes hardened. He snapped his knuckles, something I’d noticed he tried not to do when there were other people in the room. He was hanging onto his control. Barely.
“I came here to make out with you middle school style. Happy?”
“Very.” I pulled him by the white V-neck of his shirt into my room, closing the door behind us.
On that night, and the four nights after it, all we did was kiss and fondle and explore. He sucked my nipples until they were too raw and sensitive for me to wear a bra the next day, and I gave him hand jobs while we both stared at my small hand wrapped around his cock in awe.
When my wrist started hurting, I graduated from hand jobs to blow jobs. At first, Cillian was skeptical.
“I like your hands and mouth where I can see them,” he drawled.
“I’m not a rabid animal from the wilderness.” I laughed.
He gave me a jury’s-still-out-on-that sort of look, which made me laugh even harder. I bit down on my teeth.
“Sree?” I asked, my voice was muffled. “Nrro teeth.”
Grinning down at me, he got up from the bed, standing up and lowering my head with his hand until I was on my knees in front of him.
“Fine. But we’ll do it my way. I’ve got requirements.”
“Shocker!” I gasped. We both laughed. Then I said, “I’m listening.”
“Lick it first. Thoroughly.”
He released his cock, velvety, throbbing, and impossibly hard. I captured it in my fist, my fingers barely creating a full circle, and began licking it shaft to tip. He groaned, fisting my hair and tugging on it roughly.
“Faster.”
I obliged.
“More tongue. More saliva. More.”
He ordered with that sharp, princely twang he had that made him sound like the ruler of all things. I did as I was told, getting so wet, I selfishly wished he’d choose not to come, toss me into bed and enter me, Aunt Flow be damned.