Slip of the Tongue (Slip of the Tongue 1)

“Almost.”

He pulls out and slides me back up the bed by my hips. My arms tingle. I bend my elbows, but I don’t move other than that. This is Nathan’s event. He gathers up my shirt and pushes it over my head. Picking up one of my limp hands, he begins to massage it, working his strong fingers into the meat of my palm, around my wrist, and up my arm then down the other. To my shoulders, he applies more pressure. My eyes shut. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more tranquil.

He straddles my outer thighs, elbows the spot where he bit me, and gets a guttural groan. “Keep making noise,” he says as his cock twitches against my leg. “I’m almost there.”

He moves down my back, and I don’t hold anything in. My breathing picks up when he massages my ass cheeks, opens them, and closes in on my anus. I can come again, but Nathan knows it might take more than it did the first time, so he lightly presses against it. As soon as I anticipate it, though, he abandons my anus and slides two fingers into my pussy.

“I came hard,” he says. “You’re sopping with it.”

My arousal springs, a jungle cat waiting in bushes. He knows just how to touch me, just what to say. He pumps into me two, three more times and then slides his hand up my crack. He eases one slick finger in my asshole. I clutch the sheets but relax the cluster of muscles he’s currently working. All at once, it’s good.

“This will never not get me rock hard,” he mutters.

The comforter flutters with my desperate, gaping breaths. “Not even when we’re old and gray?”

He grunts and removes his finger. “Turn over. We can make love now.”

His cold, robotic tone can’t scare me off. He stands and looks at the bed as if he can’t decide how to proceed. I get up too and take over, pushing him into a sitting position on the mattress.

We wrap our legs around each other. This time, we’re face to face. When I lower myself onto him, he’s nice and hard inside me. “Press your tits against me,” he nearly groans. “God, you’re so fucking hot inside.”

He circles me with his arms, urging me into his warm, open chest. He teases my asshole again with the tip of his finger. When he slides it in, my face gets burning hot. He moves it, and I move on him, swiveling my hips to stroke all the right spots. We kiss, and with his tongue searching my mouth, his finger working inside me, and his cock filling me up, I’m possessed by him.

“Watch my face when I come,” I rush out, feeding my words into his hungry mouth. “I want you to tell me how I look.”

“I already know every detail of how you look.” He sounds much calmer than me, although his hairline is damp. Sweat beads on his upper lip.

“What do I look like?” I ask.

“Not yourself . . .”

Instead of distracting me, talking this way is ballooning my arousal. “Is that a polite way of saying ugly?”

“Not ugly, but not pretty. Sexy as fuck, though, like . . .” His breath comes in hot bursts against my nose. He’s getting close. “An animal,” he grates, “whose prey is just out of reach.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and pull myself onto him more furiously. He meets my pace, plunging his finger deeper and faster. His honesty makes me hot. Like my face at the peak of my pleasure, it’s not pretty, but it’s real. That’s more erotic than anything.

He whispers, “You’re killing me. Hurry. I’m going to explode. I won’t finish before you.”

“You can.”

“I won’t.”

He keeps his promise. The balloon pops. When I come, my ribs rattle, my hairs stand on end. He continues to plumb my depths because fingering my asshole turns him on as much as it does me. Inaudible words pass between us. He takes the skin of my neck between his teeth. For a moment, it’s as if he’s going to rip my head off when he comes.

He doesn’t.

When I once again feel my heartbeat independently of his, he detangles from me and steals off into the bathroom. I flop back against the mattress and shut my eyes. Listening to him piss after intense lovemaking is oddly comforting. It’s small, but it’s ours, and it means something to me.

Our bed is a cloud, and I begin to drift, but then Nathan is back, standing over the bed, looking down at me.

“Everything okay?” I rasp. I remember all of a sudden that his things are on the couch, that we haven’t closed this distance yet. He looks torn, as if he can’t decide what to do.

But then he says, “Yeah. Let me just get my pillow.”

I yawn, watching him pick up his suit, put it in the closet, then walk out of and back into the room. We never finished our conversation, but I slide over in bed to let him in next to me. I turn on my side, facing him. His eyes are closed already, so I study his face, the strong, straight nose, the angular, stubbled chin. I drop my eyes. I haven’t had much of a chance to appreciate his body lately. He’s been working out harder, and it shows. His arms are sinewy and strong, his pecs firm. When he turns over, the muscles move under his skin. He’s always been godly to me, but it bothers him when we eat more and do less. He says he likes to know I still find him sexy. It blows my mind he thinks I might not.

Because I’m content enough to have him back, it takes me a moment to register that he turned away from me. After this long sleeping apart, and after the way he just owned me, all I want is to burrow into his arms. He doesn’t appear to feel the same way, though, and with that realization, a chill passes through the room.

In the morning, I wake late and to an empty bed. My joints crack when I sit up, my body sore and aching from last night. I warm as the memory oozes over me. The way Nathan lost his thoughts and his control just from seeing my breast. The way he bit and fucked me, then kissed and made love to me.

I pad into the kitchen. I should already be out of the shower, but I can’t bring myself to care about being behind schedule. I find my coffee mug waiting and a note from Nathan.

Ginger already fed and walked, sleepyhead.

I smile to myself at the endearment. My chest aches, and for the first time in a while, it’s in a good way. Maybe I read too much into his distance last night while we fell asleep. He came back to bed, and that’s a start. What’s more, the conversation has begun.

In the fridge, there’s an unopened quart of milk. Nathan must’ve gone to the grocery store last night. I forgot to on Sunday . . . because I was screwing Finn instead. Jarred by the thought, I grit my teeth. He’s been noticeably absent from my mind the last twenty-four hours. Screw isn’t really fair to Finn—he cares. He wants me. He doesn’t screw. He loves. And as much as his intensity scares me, it also delights me. Will it still if Nathan and I continue down this path to reconciliation?

I put milk in my coffee and take it into the bathroom. I undress and reluctantly shower off last night. I have to forget about Finn and focus on Nathan. As I shave my legs, I decide I want to do something nice for him, something to build on the progress we made last night. I can feel his guard dropping. He just needs a push over the edge. An idea doesn’t take long to hit me, and when it does, I know without a doubt, it’s the right one. Cook for him. Not just any meal, though. His favorite—barbeque ribs. My imagination blossoms, and I picture him coming home to a candlelight dinner, a sparkling apartment, and a safe, warm environment where we can finally put everything on the table and wipe the slate clean. The more I imagine it, the harder my heart beats.

High on adrenaline, I call in sick to work feeling no guilt as Amelia reams me out. I barely hear her anyway since I’m picturing the shock on Nathan’s face when he walks through the door and sees the spread. I hear his laugh when I admit I played hooky from work to get everything perfect. For dramatic effect, I cough into the receiver before I say goodbye to Amelia, hang up the phone, and get started.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Though I’ve made barbeque ribs countless times throughout our marriage, I stand in the kitchen, reading the recipe over and over.

On the counter are bags of groceries from my trip to D’Agostino. They hold ingredients for dinner, a six-pack of craft beer recommended by a young employee, and the best calla lilies in the neighborhood. They’re Nathan’s favorite flower.

I brush the ribs with seasoning. While I work, I try to mentally prepare for the emotional side of tonight. Nate and I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m confident barbeque ribs will get him to talk. I’m not sure I’m ready to hear what he has to say, but I doubt I ever will be. If we don’t fix this now, and it continues to get worse, it’ll eventually send one of us over the edge into madness.

Once I’ve spaced out the ribs on a baking sheet and get them in the oven to roast for the next few hours, I turn and look around the kitchen. Nathan should be home between six and seven, and that gives me plenty of time to scrub the apartment spotless, especially since it’s fairly clean to begin with. I unpack the groceries, get the flowers in water, and pick up any mess I’ve made.

I move into the living room, bundle up Nathan’s sheets and blanket from the couch he’ll no longer be sleeping on, and add laundry to today’s to-do list. As I’m passing the desk, though, I stop. Even though his laptop sits there most days, I notice it now because it’s open and dark instead of shut. The urge to snoop is new to me, thanks to the last few months. Nathan doesn’t keep secrets. He’s terrible at it. But maybe instead of secrets, there are answers there, behind the blackness.

I don’t sit down, but I drop the linens on the back of the chair, lean over, and tap the space bar once. After a second, his spotless desktop appears. I open the browser and check over my shoulder, my heart in my throat. I shouldn’t be nervous, though. I use Nathan’s laptop all the time, and he uses mine. If he were to walk in right now, he wouldn’t think anything of it.

Ginger whines, and I jump, forgetting she’s even here. I glance over at her, and I swear, she shakes her head, warning me not to proceed.