Page 39 of Forever King

“Whatever they think, all that I care about is you never regretting marrying me, Duck.”

She stops stroking my cock and stares up at me in what looks like a mixture of surprise and horror. “Marius, I’ve never regretted marrying you. I love you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. What we have means the world to me. I would never want you to think I could regret what we are.”

This is the woman I fell head over heels in love with in Vegas. My Duck, so full of life and opinions, a soul to be reckoned with who I’ve never once wished would be anything but who she naturally is. Other men may prefer a wife who doesn’t fight them on a single thing. They can have those shrinking violets.

Give me a woman who knows her mind and isn’t afraid to say what she’s thinking any day.

I kiss her hard, my tongue playfully teasing hers as I fumble around to strip her naked. Having her happy again has made me want to show her how much I missed her, so I hurriedly make sure the two of us are nude as fast as I can.

“We have all night,” she says with a giggle. “No need to rush.”

Stopping when I toss my pants onto the floor, I shake my head. “That may be a little to optimistic, you know. Lily may have slept through the night last night, but I’m not sure it’s going to be an every night thing. A man has to strike while the iron’s hot.”

I’m rock hard, and she’s soaking wet, so we’re clearly both eager to get back to the way we used to be before Lily came on the scene. Duck opens her long legs wide, and I slide into her, loving how her body feels around me.

“God, I’ve missed this,” I moan in her ear.

“We’ve had sex since Lily, Marius.”

I lift my head and sigh. “Not when you were happy. You’re a different person when you’re happy, Duck.”

She twists her face into a grimace that makes me instantly regret saying that. Thankfully, she says, “I’m sorry I didn’t know what was going on. That wasn’t fair to you.”

Slowly, I slide in and out of her as I whisper, “It’s not about being fair to me. I just want you to be happy. That’s all that’s ever mattered to me.”

That makes her smile, and she cradles my face in her hands before kissing me. “I am happy, baby. Actually, this feels better than it has in a while. You might be onto something with that happy Eden being a different person.”

“I love that person most,” I say before pressing my lips to hers in a kiss that threatens to consume us.

This is the kind of couple we are. Passionate. Intense. But most of all, we’re two people who’re crazy about each other.

We make love like we haven’t in months, and the whole time we talk and laugh, just like it’s meant to be between two people who can’t imagine being with anyone else. She rakes her long nails down my back and comes harder than she has in far too long. Watching her get off is all it takes, and a few moments later, I come until I’m exhausted.

We lie there in each other’s arms and talk about how great it is to be happy again. For me, I’m not just happy but relieved. I’m sad to admit I thought more than once that because of all Duck went through being pregnant with Lily that maybe she might never be the same person she was again.

Now I know she was fighting against something I didn’t know could be attacking her. We can get back to being Marius and Duck once more, and I couldn’t be happier.

As the two of us drift off to sleep, she whispers, “I’m going to talk to my mother tomorrow. I have to get a few things straight with her.”

I smile and let out a sigh of relief. My Duck is back.

And she’s better than she’s ever been.

14

Duck

Last night,I felt more like myself than I’ve been in longer than I like to think. I spent over a year beating myself up over what I saw first as being a failure at being pregnant and then as being a failure as a mother, but after discussing things with my doctor and having a long talk with Marius, I know all that self-abuse I put myself through was wrong.

Now I have to handle one more situation I’ve let go astray.

The way I’ve handled my mother isn’t something that happened over a few months or even over a year. I’ve spent much of my life giving in to her demands. I don’t know when it began, but I remember watching my father and brothers when I was a little girl and feeling like since they didn’t pay much attention to her that I needed to so I could make up for what they didn’t do. That morphed into agreeing with everything so she could be happy.

Now I realize that should never have been my role in the first place. I shouldn’t have felt responsible for my mother’shappiness. It’s just that I hated seeing her talk to the rest of my family and have them ignore her.

Today, I meet the problem where it all started. At my parents’ house. I don’t want to make my mother unhappy. I love her dearly and know how lucky I am to have such a person in my life. My husband and my best friend lost their mothers far too young. I’ve been fortunate to have my mother there for me all my life. I just need to draw some boundaries.

My stomach twists into a tight knot from the anxiety building up inside me as I drive to the house. I think about turning around more than half a dozen times, but I stop myself by remembering that I’m the bride and Marius is the groom, so we get to make the final decisions about what our wedding is like.