I’ve let myself run wild with that because she needed to see it.
But she needs more than just that, too.
She needs to be adored, worshiped, honoured.
“Daddy loves you so much. Wants to keep you safe. Do you feel safe, little bird?”
She beams at me and nods. “And do you want Daddy to make you feel good?”
Another nod.
“Maybe a bedtime kiss, mmm?”
Her lips part, her eyelids fluttering half shut, and I give her a long, sweet kiss there, on her mouth, but that’s not what I mean.
I crawl down her body, kissing each precious bit of her good night.
“Good night, Grace,” I whisper against her neck. “Good night to your sweet, lovely breasts.” She giggles as I lave her nipples, sucking the puffy points into my mouth. “Good night to your sweet belly, and this adorable little belly button, and the sweetest of good nights to your perfect pink pussy.”
She gasps as I press her thighs apart and settle in, flat on the bed, for a very long, very filthy devouring of my wife’s cunt.
She tastes perfect, musky and hot, and her flesh is already blooming for me as I lick between her folds, then suck her clit.
“Daddy can’t wait to fuck this little pink hole,” I growl. “One day soon, I might even go without a condom. Wouldn’t that be nice, baby? Feel me inside you? Bare? Just you and me, nothing in between us?”
“Would you come inside me?” she asks in her dreamlike, fantasy voice.
“Deep inside you.” I lap at the arousal spilling from her now. She likes that idea, and fucking hell, so do I. “Fill you with seed.”
She cries out and tangles her fingers in my hair, pulling my mouth fully against her clit, and I suck her through her orgasm.
Then I sheath myself and thrust home, fucking her with abandon. She comes again, clutching at me, and I growl in her ear one more time.
“Just like this. This is how I’ll do it. Fill you all the way up with Daddy’s seed.”
“Fuck, Luke, yes…” She gasps and I lose it, my hips jerking out of control as my climax darkens the edges of my vision.
And then she laughs. “Wow. I mean, wow. Right? That was super dirty.”
I nod and roll onto my back, my heart pounding.
31
Grace
Spring turns to summer far too quickly. I’m not sure if I like it. It’s a reminder of time passing, of healing being slow.
Luke, on the other hand, likes the longer days. He’s unhurried in the morning, and making dinner together stretches longer into the night.
When he approached Sam about hiring a new executive team for the firm, and stepping back into just being founders and investors, Sam was more on board with that idea than Luke thought.
And suddenly, my husband became a house husband of a sort.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he brought up the topic of babies, but I was. It had been a long time since we’d discussed it in our twenties, and agreed then that we weren’t interested in being young parents. Or maybe even parents at all.
“Why didn’t we ever have kids?” he asks, clearly not having the same memory of it that I do. We’re sitting on the terrace having brunch.
“Because you were an asshole,” I say lightly. “And things got rough there for a while.”
An understatement.
“Did you want babies? Did I keep that from you?”
“No,” I say honestly. “I wanted to make art.”
“Is that still the case?” There’s something about the way he says it, something searching and loaded, that I put down my espresso cup and give him my full attention.
“Why are you asking? Do you want kids?”
“I didn’t before. Now…”
“Then it’s the trauma speaking.”
“I’m not saying I do right now.” He shrugs. “And if you still don’t, then it’s a moot point. I want you.”
But if I wanted a baby… Conversations like this can’t be had in half-measure, with things left unsaid. Except I don’t want him to say the rest of it. Not now. “If you still feel the same way in six months, bring it up again.”
The corner of his mouth quirks, a tiny almost smile. “I will.”
But I think about the conversation for days afterward.
It’s one thing for me to decide to stay with him and renew our relationship despite the transgression. It would be another thing entirely to start a family with him. Can I be sure of his fidelity forever?
I’m shocked to realize that yes, I think I could be.
Only time will tell if that remains true.
And then there’s the outstanding question of whether I gave moving on enough of an attempt.
Would I be happier if I left? Hypothetically, yes. I can see that path.
He betrayed me. But he’s also dug deep and created a safe space for me to be real. Warts and all. Would I find that with someone else?
Maybe.
Another hypothetical.
I don’t know which path holds more happiness. That’s the truth. But I do know that this path is currently beautiful, full of happiness every day. That’s messy and complicated, but it feels much more tangible than the hypothetical.
He’s built me a path to happiness. The first few paving stones were fucking jagged. I never want to go back over them. But going forward? I believe him when he says it’s going to just get better. That when I’m sixty, I’ll look back and see two horrible, fucked-up years followed by twenty-five years of raw, unadulterated love.
Will it be worth the pain?
Only time will tell.
And I’m not ready to bring a baby into this family. Not yet.
It’s funny how thoughts twirl through our minds, morphing. It’s not like there was a direct line to whether or not I want babies—mid August, and the jury is still out on that—to me revisiting all the in-hindsight ways I was secretly kinky in my teens and twenties.
But looking back, I can remember individual purchases so clearly. And somewhere in storage, I remember with a start, I have a Daddy’s Girl t-shirt I bought at a music festival a decade ago.
When I’m down there, I find it readily, but then I start picking through Luke’s stuff, looking for any evidence of his relationship with Caitlyn.
I don’t find any, and I’m left with a sick, angry feeling in the pit of my stomach. Lizard brain reaction, my own counsellor would say. I’m two months into therapy, and I thought I was getting past those worries.
I can’t keep digging, can’t keep picking at this scab. Not if I want to stay with him. Not if I want to be happy.
I grab the t-shirt and run all the way up eight flights of stairs, bursting into our loft with a gasp.
He looks at me, setting down the book he’d been reading. Instantly, I know I have his full attention. “What do you need?”
Big, intense feelings well up inside me. I could cry right now. I could puke. I’m definitely shaking, because how long have I wanted this, how long have I wanted his gaze on me, his undivided attention and concern?
And now I have it, at considerable cost.
This is a brutal kind of beautiful. I clench my hands tight at my sides. I don’t cry. I don’t puke. I lift my chin. “I’m overwhelmed. Can you crowd out the bad feelings?”