But when he came, it was always so sexy.
His jaw clenched, almost as if he were angry about something. Then his eyes smoldered, treasuring the pleasure in his body before he exploded between my legs. His chest puffed up as he took in a deep breath to hold. Then he shuddered as his body took over, as his hips bucked to get his dick deeper inside me while he finished. His forehead rested against mine, and he moaned as he came, a little louder than usual.
My fingers snaked into his hair, and I caressed the strands as I felt him relax. My husband was the best lover I’d ever had, and watching him find the same satisfaction turned me on. I wanted him to feel as good as I did, to love fucking me as much as I loved fucking him.
After a few more seconds of rest, he rolled off me and cleaned off in the bathroom.
I lay in his big, comfortable bed, ready to fall asleep.
He came back minutes later, naked and beautiful. He got into bed beside me but didn’t cuddle with me. He’d only done that once and hadn’t done it again since. Now that the sex was over, he was distant. He seemed to be doing it on purpose, as if forcing himself to draw an invisible boundary in our relationship. Sometimes he let me get closer to him, but if I got too close, he pulled away.
I opened my eyes and looked at him, spotting the coldness in his eyes. Our tender moment was long gone. To him, it had already been forgotten. “Maverick?” I propped myself up, my head resting against my palm.
He stared at the ceiling, one hand behind his head while the other rested on his chest. “Yes?”
“Has there ever been a serious woman in your life?”
The air around him turned noticeably tenser, like he had sucked all the life and joy from the room. “I don’t ask you about your past, so why ask about mine?”
“That’s what friends do.” He immediately turned into the spitting image of his father, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him something so insulting—even if it was true. “I’ve had a few men in my life, but nothing too serious. I’ve loved boys in the past, but when I look back on them, I realize that wasn’t love. It was just… I don’t know.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Maverick, come on.”
He turned his head toward me, his eyes cold.
“It’s three steps forward and two steps back. Every time.”
He knew exactly what I meant, so he faced the ceiling again.
“Stop pretending you don’t care about me. Stop pretending our relationship doesn’t make you happy.”
He clenched his jaw but didn’t make a rebuttal. “No, I’ve never been in love.”
“Ever had a girlfriend?”
He was quiet for a long time. “No.”
“So, when you lost your virginity, that was a one-night stand too?” I asked incredulously, assuming he had to have had some meaningful relationship in his life.
“That was just a fuck in the back seat of a car. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a relationship.”
“So, only when you were forced to get married did you actually try to get to know someone?”
He shrugged. “I’m not much of a talker. I’m an even worse listener.”
“I don’t think that’s true…”
He kept his eyes on the ceiling.
“Why are you like that?”
“Why is anyone the way they are?” he asked. “No one really knows.”
“Well, why don’t you want a relationship with a woman?”
“I don’t like anyone,” he blurted. “That’s just how I am. I’m not a big people person. Being in a relationship requires talking and dates… I can barely get out a few sentences all day. And I can barely listen to a woman speak for five minutes without losing my libido. So, I strike fast. Get what I need, then get out.”
“So, it has nothing to do with sowing your oats?”
He shrugged. “I guess not. What did you see in Dante?”
“He was handsome, kind…and he was good to me.” I hadn’t thought about him in a while. He was probably happy with the woman he’d replaced me with. He’d probably pitied me in the beginning, but now I was just a distant memory.
“He wasn’t that good…if you ask me.”
“It just wasn’t meant to be. I don’t blame him for walking away.”
“I do. Coward.”
I dropped my hand and returned my body to the bed, my hair stretching across the pillow. “Before all of this happened, he used to talk about us getting married and having two kids. But everything changed the second I put on this ring.”
He didn’t say anything to that.
Since he was in a dark mood, I stopped talking. His attitude could change within a few heartbeats. Now he was brooding in his silence, thinking about something he would never share with me.