Forever Us (Always and Forever 4)

I barely get to spend time with my son because of my crazy work schedule. And when I finally get home, Lana is hoarding him, holding him close and not giving me any time alone with him, without her watchful gaze assessing everything I do. How I hold him, how I change him, how I feed him. All of it is wrong to her.

I find it pathetic that I sneak in his room every night when Lana finally falls asleep, so I can enjoy whispered secrets with my own child. I feel like I’m a prisoner in my own home, like Lana is the warden and I’m only allowed in the yard with Princeton on her watch.

Last night, I craved her, missed her like a drug addict needing his fix after so much time without it. I miss my best friend, the stranger now in my bed. When she got out of the shower, I tried hard to put the moves on her, turn on my Kingston charm after months of fucking blue balls, and I was rejected.

We fucked one time after her six-weeks postpartum was up, and it was emotionless. She practically laid there and took it, her once high-pitched pleasure sounds now mute, her constant connected gaze, avoidant and dull, her familiar touch, like the first time with a strange woman who you never wanted to fuck in the first place.

I felt awful, faking my orgasm not to give her a break, but myself. Watching her lie there under me like I was some John fucking his whore made my stomach sick and my dick flaccid. She never came either, her fake performance just as terrible as mine.

We haven’t really talked much, and when we do, she gets angry easily. If I even mere mention her attitude or lack of emotion, she comes for my head. She’s lost way too much weight. I know hands down she is less than one hundred pounds. I can’t tell you the last time she put makeup on or dressed in anything other than baggy, worn-out clothes.

I’m not trying to be a fucking tool; she still looks breathtaking, but it’s different. She’s different, not the woman I fell in love with. We’re like passing ships in the night, knowing we are both there, knowing we serve the same purpose, but yet we just move along.

Looking over at her sleeping form, her back is to me as I lie resting with my arms behind my head and my legs crossed at the ankles, staring at her. She cut her hair; it’s short, just under her chin. It looks elegant, just like her, timeless like her smile, edgy like the

contours of her thin, perfect body.

I feel oceans between us, mountains rising to block her from me and me from her, except I feel like she wants that. We came so far before Prince. We didn’t just cusp the edges of moving on; we grasped it, held tight, and let it pull us up. But then, like always, Joel—he came in and won, taking ownership over Lana.

Is it wrong to say I’m jealous? Does it make me sick? Sick, because I’m beyond jealous that another man owns her so completely? That part of me wants to do whatever I can to gain her obsession? Joel is in her every thought, her every move, her every decision, while I stand on the sidelines, the poor fool who just wants to be her every necessity.

Sure, he gained his by abuse, but it’s still more than she gives me, and I think that makes me the sickest man alive. I would do anything, even beg for her to fear me, just to get her to notice me in some way.

He hasn’t contacted her, and I’m optimistic to say that he wont. If he’s smart, he learned I will kill him without a second glance or thought if he ever comes near her or our child. I will end him for not only physically scarring my woman, but for causing her much more emotional damage. The bipolar switches of Lana and I are maddening. We found love, we found peace, and then we lost it again.

I don’t dare tell Lana that I have gone to see Dr. Moore, Trey’s therapist, about us. When my own home became a war zone, I had no other choice but to look outside our relationship for comfort. Most men cheat, but I go and talk about all my shit to an unbiased stranger, because the only woman I want is Lana. I do this a couple times a month, a secret she doesn’t know.

Dr. Moore has hinted that she believes Lana may have some sort of PTSD or postpartum depression—possibly even both. I looked into them a couple times while working at the studio, my office becoming my detective lair. Sure enough, a lot of her attitude or reactions to things follow suit with many of the symptoms of not one but both of those conditions.

She doesn’t want to go back to work. She is constantly depressed whenever she is not within touching distance of our son. She finds anything a reason to be angry it seems, and her nightmares have come back. I know for a fact the PTSD is from the abuse, a trigger whenever anxiety or depression is present. Lana never received help after Joel. She just left it all behind in Utah—or so she thought.

He has consumed every part of her life up until this point, and I now know that her relationship with Joel isn’t over, because she has not moved on. No matter how much she says she has, no matter how hard she tries to hide it, I see it. I feel my soul mate drowning in the weight of her past, and I do not have the power to save her like we both hoped I did.

I just need to find a way to get her to agree with meeting the therapist and maybe, just maybe, what we have can be salvageable.

I want to salvage us, save us from the wreckage. I want this, because I love Lana, my napalm, my weakness, my Achilles’ heel. Regardless of the past nearly five years of emotional abuse and psychological fuckery, she is still my queen, and I want to make us work. Especially now, with our little man. God, I love him.

My mind shifts to a much more pleasant train of thought. My son, the epitome of me, the reason I’m whole. Becoming his father has been the greatest achievement in my life. I’m obsessed with knowing he’s mine. A swirl of pride welling deep in my chest outwardly exudes my confidence. I want to bang on my chest like Tarzan whenever I see my Princeton. I made that. We made that. Me and Lana, our love, the product of our desire, love, and obsession with one another was made into a human—a product of us and a physical representation of my very purpose on this earth. I love my fucking son.

Thinking of him, my mood much more settled, I look back at Lana. Thinking about our mating to make my perfect son has me hard for the first time in months. I want to thank her with my body, tell her how fucking grateful I am that she made me a village. I am the alpha, the fucking ultimate. I don’t just love Lana, because she possesses my thoughts daily. I submerse myself in her, and I never want to let my dainty, tiny, womanly queen out of my fucking reach.

I am sick.

Turning on my side, I scoot into her, nudging her back to my front and my hard cock into her ass. Gliding my hands down her smooth arm, I watch with animalistic lust as her body reacts to me in her sleep. Her arms break out in goose bumps. Her tiny nipples pebble under her silk nightie, calling to me.

Skating my hand up over her hip and down between her legs, I lift the material of her nightie enough to let me feel her bare pussy against my knuckles. She’s creamy, so fucking creamy. Taking the tip of my finger, I run it between her lips and drag it from her center, all the way up her stiff fucking clit, barely wet with a sleeping arousal. My lips find her neck as my fingers begin to draw light circles around her lips.

Not opening up for me, yet, still trying to decide if this is a dream or reality, her eyes move behind her closed lids. Her lip goes between her teeth and she moans deep in her throat. My eyes hood, watching her like a fucking psychopath. I’m horny, fucking wound tight for her. I nip her ear, never taking my eyes off of my hand on her pussy.

“Wake up, baby. Daddy is hungry,” I growl into her ear, making her ass lift and tilt back so my hard cock nudges between her ass cheeks. She begins grinding and, like I wanted, finally opens up. Still fucking sleeping, her legs open, giving me the honey. One of her legs lifts, creating a ninety-degree angle, separating her pussy for my fingers.

Jackpot.

I’m so turned on and so is she—even in her sleep—that my confidence is spiraling to the point of no return. We may be goddamn strangers, but when we fuck—when we both want it this bad—we’re in sync, like the same fucking human being.

“Baby, wake up.” I lick the shell of her ear and then slide home, going knuckles deep with two fingers inside her tight center.

I’m vulgar tonight, ready to shred my insecurities and fuck her like a real man does, like a king after returning from battle.