Something wet runs down my cheek. No, no, no. I spin quickly, wiping underneath my traitorous eye. When I look up, I realize I’ve spun towards Connor.
His brow arches at me. I glare at the sight of his wide grin, and I want so badly to mouth, shut up, but I can’t speak to him. Hopefully my eyes convey the message. This better not be considered cheating.
Loren laughs behind me. “Did you just cry, Rose?”
“No, Loren,” I retort, turning back around. “There was dust in my eye.”
“Sure,” he says, a smile attached to his voice. “It was just dust.” He tilts his head at me. “You know you’re a kickass mom, right?”
I think he’s trying to make me cry.
“I’m pretty sure you would rip out your hair for my son too.”
I have to wipe my eyes again. “I would,” I whisper beneath my breath. I would over and over again.
Lily adds, “I know that you’d love Moffy as fiercely as you love Jane.” She wipes her nose that drips with her tears. She sniffs. “And we’d be at peace knowing he’s with you.”
I have to dab my eyes with a paper towel. I say what’s aching to come out. “Thank you.”
I live my life confidently, but motherhood has always been “in progress” for me. After I’ve had Jane, I’ve felt more self-assured, but it belongs in my heart. My growth remains empty in the eyes of others. Except these people, in this kitchen. They see me. And I realize that’s all I needed.
The oven timer beeps, and I glance over my shoulder at Connor. We lock eyes again.
Silence is a cruel punishment between the people you love.
Never again, I think.
I can’t imagine how this is going to work tonight. Ignoring each other. In bed.
Something tells me a pillow barricade won’t restrain my ambitious husband from getting what he wants.
Regardless, I’m no cheater. And the rules still apply.
[ 44 ]
ROSE COBALT
I brush my teeth before bed and do my very best to ignore my husband’s dominant presence. He seems to make a show of stretching slowly across the counter, just to reach for the fucking toothpaste.
It’s unnerving. His height. His unfaltering posture. His sheer ability to vacuum all oxygen by grabbing an object alone. This type of confidence intoxicates the air, and I inhale the poisonous fumes with each shallow breath.
I collect my hair to my right shoulder, holding it back as I spit into the sink and rinse my mouth. I avoid the mirror, his gaze beckoning me to meet him, and I search for my hairbrush. I won’t succumb to him that easily.
He lost.
There are consequences.
“Rose, you’re lying down with your ass perfectly raised,” he says deeply. I try not to tense. Ignore him. “One of my hands is wrapped around your neck.” I sense him nearing me. One step. Two. “I forcefully roll your panties down your ass, down your legs, off your ankles.” His hand rests beside mine on the counter, and I slam the drawer shut. Ignore him, Rose.
“You just collapsed on the bed,” he says.
I did not, I almost retort. I literally bite my tongue.
“I haven’t even slid my erection inside of you yet, but I plan to…” His voice seems to be nearer, like a husky whisper in the pit of my ear. “I plan to fill you so full, Rose. My cock all the way between your legs, right in…right there…” I keep waiting for his hands to touch me, right there. Even when they don’t and I’m left with cold air, I clench. Fuck me.
No, Rose. I ditch the pursuit for my hairbrush that has disappeared at the most inopportune moment. Then I turn my back to Connor. On my exit out of the bathroom, I flick off the lights, shrouding him in darkness, as though he doesn’t exist at all.
I feel his frustration behind me, his body tightening and coiling at my lack of response.
Connor rarely simmers. Our back-and-forth banter releases his pent-up conceitedness, his narcissism that needs to be fueled and acknowledged, and without my reply, his irritation pools and pools.
I’m afraid my vagina does not understand tonight’s mission.
Ignore thy husband.
I delicately set every decorative pillow in the middle of the bed. Already dressed in a black sultry chemise, a slit up my thigh, I’m prepared for se—sleep.
God. I cannot have sex tonight. Get in the game, Rose.
I think I’m tangled in the midst of it.
I climb underneath the puffy comforter about the same time Connor exits the bathroom, shirtless but still in black slacks. I try not to hone in on his body for long or his styled, wavy brown hair.
In my peripheral, I catch him inspecting the pillows along our bed with agitation and then he unbuckles his belt, his movements rough and controlled and extremely audible. The clack of the metal clasp. The whisk of the leather leaving his pant loops.
I press my cheek to my pillow and reach out to my end table, switching off my lamp. I dip my hand underneath the comforter, splaying my palm on my thigh. I ache to go a little higher, a little closer to my panties, for stimulation…
I listen to him too intently, hearing him step out of his slacks. In effect, I imagine Connor in his boxer-briefs, his bulge noticeable, maybe even already hard beneath them.
My fingers stroke my bare thigh, diving beneath the silk of my chemise. I’m dying to touch my clit, but I fear that he’ll hear. Even married, I still masturbate, but not as often and never while next to Connor. He’s never even seen me do it. My skin heats the longer I tease myself, my hand so close to my panties…
The bed undulates with his weight, and I hear each pillow being tossed onto the floor. Normally I stack them delicately on the chaise in front of our four-poster bed. I can’t even curse Connor out for maltreating my pillows.
I could crawl out of bed and put them in their proper place, but my squeezed thighs and the pulsing inside of me has carnal demands, not clean ones.
I’m literally too horny to move.
I fixate on the wall, my back turned to him, and I wait for his lamp to flicker off. An eternity must pass and I sincerely wonder if he’s reading a book just to annoy me. It’s 2 a.m.—we both need sleep. Or sex.
That too—but only I can quench my own arousal tonight.
Ignore thy husband.
With this in mind again, I slowly turn and realize that he is, in fact, propped against the headboard with a book in hand. Not to annoy me though. His brows are cinched in frustration as he flips the page, focusing on the text. Reading is his attempt to stimulate his brain in ways that I’m not.
It’s not working either. He shuts the book roughly and then locks eyes with me, his lips beginning to rise. “Venez à moi.” Come to me.
Oh no. Not happening. At least not how he wants. I plan to turn off his light for him. I break eye contact and then scoot closer, stretching over his lap to reach his end table. I inhale as he grasps my ass, his fingers dipping quickly between my thighs and skimming my panties.
I hurriedly shut off his lamp, bathing us in semi-darkness, and I go to move back to my side of the bed.
Right as I pass, he clutches my face and kisses me forcefully, stealing all oxygen from my lungs. I ache and pulse and then wake up, pulling apart and pressing my hand over his mouth.
“There are rules,” I pant, trying to catch my breath. “Don’t fuck with them.”
My eyes already orient to the lack of light. His displeasure crosses his features. I gave him an order. In bed, I never play this role. I don’t like it, and while it’s not ideal for either of us—we can’t diminish the stakes of our games. He knows this.
He’s just not used to failing.
I peel my hand off his lips, remove his wayward fingers from my panties, and then slide back to my end. I fluff my pillow, waiting for him to speak.
“Do you even know how wet you are right now?” he asks.
I freeze.
“Your panties are soaked, Rose.”
I don’t doubt it. I hope he notices my fiery glare, even if it?
?s not plastered to his face. I lie on my back, scooting fully beneath the comforter with my arms disappeared beneath it. I’m a stiff board, mummified. If brazen enough, I can also be a satiated woman.
I shut my eyes to block out Connor from my peripheral, but his domineering aura still shadows me. I feel him in the same position: propped against the headboard, his knee bent. His mind is at constant work to find a solution in order to achieve his desires.
“I never said how you felt the first time I put my cock inside of you.”
My chest collapses in a deep breath. He’s trying to arouse me enough that I succumb to him and allow him to dominate every inch of my body.
I’m not that easy to crack.
It’s a part of why he’s with me. He loves the challenge, and he thinks I won’t touch myself while lying next to him. But I’m as stubborn as he is dominant.
“When I slid into you, Rose, you were so tight that my cock swelled from the pressure.”
The first time I had sex. I never asked if I was that tight, but hearing that it affected him increases the pulse. It hurts, screaming for a hard, fast entry. My left hand kneads my breast and my other descends down the front of my panties.
I hesitate only when I dive into my mind, wondering if he’s watching or if he’s concentrating on other things. Like what, Rose, the ceiling, the floor?
When he speaks again, it goads me to continue to my clit, thinking that he’s more focused on his words. “You were used to toys but you weren’t used to the warmth or length of my erection, which fit perfectly between your thighs. In and out…in and out.”