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“Are you slut-shaming me now? It doesn’t matter, Gus. It didn’t happen a few days ago, and it’s not happening now. It’s over. Now, instead of having sex with a trusted friend on rare occasions, I’m not having sex at all. With my husband. Are you happy?”
God, the fucking relief that broke over me. Yeah, I was fucking happy. Except for the part that she and I weren’t having sex, but tonight that wasn’t my fault.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath, closing my eyes. “I’m sorry for making you feel.... I just got...” I rubbed the pain in my chest.
“Yeah, whatever.” She crossed her arms.
“What are we doing about tonight?”
She shook her head and gestured to the room that should be the guest room that I’d turned into my room. “I’m following your lead. If you don’t want him to know this is an arrangement, I won’t spoil it. But you probably need to move some of your things around, so it doesn’t look obvious that we don’t share a bed.”
“Is that going to be okay to share your bed tonight?” We’d never slept together. To do so now, because of a stranger… It felt wrong.
“Gus, you’re my husband. I expected you in my bed on our wedding night.”
Her eyes were almost black in the light of the bedside lamp. It was a challenge, her expression read. One I was too cowardly to fully commit to, but maybe, just for tonight, I could give in to that bit of softness.
I looked around the room. It didn’t look too bachelor-pad-y. Except for the bed I hadn’t made that morning, it would easily pass for a guest room/study. I nodded. “I’d like to make this a real marriage.”
Decca’s doe eyes grew wider. Her arms dropped to her sides.
“Around Chris, I mean.”
Something inside her dimmed.
“I know he’s your friend, so you can tell him whatever you need, but...”oh, shit, here we go... “I don’t want to share my wife with another man. Call me selfish, possessive, patriarchal... I realize I’m being all those things. But, Decca...”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry if I’m out of line.”
“You’re not out of line, Gus.” She closed the gap between us, reaching forward to clasp my hands in hers, then sucking in a deep breath and thinking better of it. “You’re my husband. My real husband. Maybe I proposed to you because I thought it would be convenient, but I also thought it would grow to be a real partnership.All the bells and whistles. I have no desire to have a sex friend anymore. And I have no desire to start off our marriage by confirming to any of our friends that we’re a planned arrangement.”
While she spoke, the warmth of her words and tone of voice spread through my chest and blossomed into a fire that nearly engulfed me. Before I thought about it, I pulled her into my arms and folded my body around hers, giving in to the need to cover her as completely as I could. Every inch of her wrapped in every inch of me. I kissed the top of her head, lingering in the contact as I breathed in the scent of her cheap hotel shampoo—different from the usual cheap shampoo she used here because she hated spending money on herself.
I pulled myself away, but an image of gossamer strands still connected us in my mind. Her face was slack. Dazed. Starved for this outpouring of any feeling at all from me. It was so much less than she deserved.
Oh, Crow, just wait for me a little longer. I’ll give you everything you want.
She recovered first. “You strip the bed. I’ll hide your things.”
Decca
For the first timein three months of marriage, I woke to find my husband in our bed.
Not just in our bed. Velcroed to me in our bed.
With my shoulders pinned by his heavy arm, I stretched to silence my alarm. His thigh hiked higher over my hip as he adjusted me like a body pillow.
Was Ijusta body pillow, or was this something more? Maybe sleep was the only reality in which he couldn’t pretend we weren’t really married. Maybe this was his body telling him to let go with me, dive in and treat this marriage the right way.
I closed my eyes and melted under the weight of his arm, the press of his leg on mine. The lingering, exotic scents of my fragrance mingled with a salty, spicy, ocean air of his. Together, it reminded me of a pirate. But like a hot pirate with golden skin and a shirt of pure white linen. A pirate who bathed twice a day. I basked in the sun-drenched arms of this pirate, feeling the soft underside of his forearm against my cheek, wanting to turn my head slowly,imperceptibly, to kiss him there, leaving him with a trace of my breath.
This could be every morning. I just needed to have patience. One day, he’d come around and realize he wanted me as much in his waking life as he did in his sleep. I’d give myself five more seconds to float through the bliss. Then I’d get up.
We had a guest in the other room, which meant I needed to brush my teeth and get down to the kitchen to make the coffee before Chris slipped away without an honest explanation. I hadn’t been fair to him. And I shouldn’t have blindsided him like that. He covered well, but I knew he was hurt.
As I inched over, easing my way out from under Gus’s body, he murmured something incomprehensible in a deep and husky morning croak. I let out an involuntary groan at the sound of his voice. I wanted to melt back into the mattress again and savor his embrace.
