The way she accepted me for who I was, didn’t judge me for my mistakes, and believed that I could make her happy.
I still didn’t know how we were going to do this, and the fear of disappointing her bit at the edges of my bliss. But I was going to try harder than I ever had to make it work.
“Oh God,” she whispered, her eyes locked on mine, her hands clutching my shoulders. I knew she was going to come from the way her breathing changed and the way she moved, tight and hard and fast against me, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. As soon as she cried out, her eyes closing, her pussy clenching around my cock, I came long and hard and deep, my fingers digging into her hips as I thrust up inside her, my breath escaping in ragged, primal sounds.
Afterward, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, a shiver moving through my body. Burying my face in her neck, breathing her in, I spread my hands out on her back, feeling the bones and muscles beneath her satin skin. Somewhere underneath it all, her heart beat hard and fast against my chest, and I felt a powerful urge to possess and protect it, to offer her mine in return.
I wanted to say something to her, something to tell her how grateful I was, how swept away, how beautiful she felt in my arms. I wanted to stay here and hold her like this until that insatiable hunger burned in me again, and then I wanted to take her to bed and fill her body with mine, lose myself inside her. I wanted to make promises and keep them.
But I couldn’t.
“Jillian,” I whispered.
“I know,” she said softly, stroking my hair. “I know.”
• • •
“Monica, can I talk to you about something?” My sister and I were sitting in the living room at our parents’ house, drinking a beer and watching our kids and her husband Kyle play a board game on the floor. Her daughters—Emerson and Zoe, ages nine and six—were good with Scotty, and understood that he liked to play games exactly as the rules stated without any deviation. There was no letting Zoe win because she was the youngest, and there were no do-overs if you didn’t get the spin you wanted.
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I wanted to ask a favor.”
On the hour-long drive to Charlevoix, I’d thought of nothing but Jillian, specifically the task ahead—how and when should I introduce her to Scotty? I was crazy about her, but maybe I was just crazy, period. Did she even realize what she was getting into? My life (my child) wasn’t easy. And I didn’t want to confuse Scotty by bringing her into our lives and then having to explain her absence if she didn’t have the feelings I did, or if she decided we were too much to handle.
She and I needed more alone time together, but how could I manage that? Friday night dates were fun, but seeing her only once a week for a few hours wasn’t really enough time to get to know each other—especially since we tended to spend half that time naked and sweaty. No, we needed real time together. And in order to have that, I needed to get Scotty accustomed to staying the night somewhere without me, or staying at our house overnight when I wasn’t there. I couldn’t ask Sarah to stay the night, so that left my parents or sister. Which one would stress Scotty out the least was anyone’s guess, since none of them really understood the way his mind worked. My mother could probably come stay at the house with him, which would be preferable to having him have to sleep in a strange bed, but I’d decided to go with my sister. One, I wasn’t positive how my mother would react to my leaving my son to go spend the night with a woman I’d only been dating a few weeks, and didn’t want any additional guilt about it. Two, I felt more comfortable talking about it with my sister—she could get judgmental too, but it would be less embarrassing at least.
“Ask away.”
“Do you think Scotty could stay overnight at your house some weekend?”
She thought for a second, tipping up her beer. “Do you think he’d do it?”
I frowned. “Honestly, I don’t know. It might be…difficult, because he won’t like not sleeping in his regular bed in his regular room, but maybe if we brought a few things from home, he’d handle it OK.” I tried not to think about how unsettled he became simply from adding something different to the nighttime prayers. Guilt pricked at me—was this too selfish?
“I’m certainly willing to try. Do you have to travel for work?”
“No.” I rubbed a hand on the back of my neck, trying to shake the feeling that I was doing something wrong. “The truth is…I met someone.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Really?”
“Yeah. At that wedding a couple weeks ago.”
She hit my arm. “You didn’t say anything about it, you big jerk! I could have stayed longer that night.”
“Well, it was a rough night with Scotty, remember, and I didn’t feel right being away from home when he was so upset.”
“He’s not a baby anymore, Levi. And he’s got to get used to doing things without you and things that are new to him and things that aren’t part of his routine or whatever. It’s for his own good and yours.”
My stomach tightened. Don’t get into this now. At least she was supportive of my dating someone. “Anyway, a Saturday night would be great. I could bring him over in the afternoon and pick him up in the morning, and of course I’d keep in touch with you the whole time.”
She rolled her eyes. “Relax. I have two kids. I haven’t killed either of them so far.”