The Wife He Couldn't Forget

“We’re still wearing too many clothes,” she pointed out, her fingers drifting across his shoulders before tugging playfully at his hair.

“I’m getting to that,” he answered, shifting lower on the bed and pressing a line of wet kisses down her torso as he did so. “One.” Kiss. “Thing.” Kiss. “At.” Kiss. “A.” Kiss. “Time.”

With the last kiss he tugged her panties to one side and traced his tongue from her belly button to her center and slid his hands beneath her buttocks to tilt her toward him. As his mouth closed over her, his tongue flicking her sensitive bud, he heard her sigh. There was a wealth of longing in her voice when she spoke.

“I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you, so much.”

And then she was incapable of speech or coherent thought, he judged from the sounds coming from her mouth. All she was capable of was feeling the pleasure he gave her. And he made sure, with every lick and nibble and touch, that it was worth every second.

She was still trembling with the force of her orgasm when he slid her panties off completely and shucked his clothes. He quickly reached into the bedside table drawer, grabbed a condom and sheathed himself. Settling back between Olivia’s legs and into her welcoming embrace felt more like coming home than anything he’d felt before. The rhythm of their lovemaking had often been frenetic in the past, but, tonight at least, he wanted to take it slow. To truly live and love in each special moment. He positioned the blunt throbbing head of his penis at her entrance and slowly pressed forward, taking her gasp in his mouth in a kiss as he slid in all the way. Her inner muscles tightened around him, and he allowed himself to simply feel. Feel without pain. Feel without emptiness. Feel without frustration or loss.

Loss?

She squeezed again, and he stopped thinking and gave himself over to the moment, to the beauty of making love with the woman he loved more than life itself. And moments after he’d slowly brought her to the brink of climax again, he pushed them over the edge and took them both on that wondrous journey together.

Later, as he drifted to sleep, his wife curled in his arms with her hair spread across his shoulder, he knew that everything had finally started to fall back into place in his world again. He might not remember everything, but he remembered this and he never wanted to let go of it—or of her.

* * *

Olivia woke before dawn with a sense that all was well with her world again. She’d slept better than she had in months, maybe even since before Parker had died. Xander slept deeply beside her, and she gazed at his profile in the slowly lightening room. She would never have believed it was possible to love a person as much as she loved him and she never wanted to lose him again.

That meant she had to talk to him. Had to tell him about Parker and his death; about their separation. But how on earth was she to start talking about something so horrible when they’d just reaffirmed everything about their love in the most perfect way possible? She didn’t want the darkness of their loss and the cruel words they’d thrown at each other to taint the beautiful night they’d shared. Maybe they should take another day, or even a week.

It wasn’t going to be easy telling him, whether he remembered eventually or not. But he deserved to know what had happened. Objectively and without emotion or harsh words clogging everything. It also meant facing up to the full truth about her contribution to the slow and steady breakdown of their marriage.

How did she explain why she’d taken decisions they should have made together and made them herself? Decisions like getting Bozo—like stopping her birth control pills before they’d even really discussed when they’d have a family. They’d been in no way emotionally ready to be parents, but she’d forced the issue because she’d had an agenda and nothing and no one would sway her from it.

Looking back, she could understand why she’d behaved that way, but it didn’t make it right. She’d had to become a mother at only twelve years old, caring for her three younger siblings—aged ten, eight and six—when their mother died. Waking them each morning, feeding them breakfast, packing their lunches and making sure they all got on the school bus on time. Then, at the end of each day, making sure everyone’s homework was completed and a hearty meal was prepared and on the table when her father came in from the farm.

She’d hoped that taking care of everything would make him happy and proud of her. But it never seemed to work. She did everything she could to try and put some of the sparkle back in her father’s dull blue eyes, but it seemed that no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did, his grief over her mother’s death locked his joy in life and his children in a frozen slab.