Aced

“DAMN IT,” I SHOUT IN frustration as the flour flies all over the kitchen because I forgot to put the guard around the mixer’s blade. Tears sting the backs of my eyes as I look around at the mess. Normally I’d find this amusing, laugh it off, but not right now. Not with how this week has gone. Nothing can seem to pull me from this funk I’m in.

I squeeze my eyes shut and ignore the voices in my head telling me I’m going crazy because I fear that I am. The video’s ripple effect just continues to knock me on my ass. Gone are the things I normally use to center myself: my boys, my freedom outside this house, my work. Even Colton’s visit to Tawny derailed me momentarily. Yes, I felt validated Colton believed enough in my assumption that he went and talked to her, but at the same time, it still knocked me back a step seeing her again.

Shake it off, Rylee. It’s temporary. Enjoy playing the domesticated role, take advantage of the quiet time now before the baby comes, and life is turned around with lack of sleep and two a.m. feedings.

I pick up the carton of eggs on the counter and blow the flour off them so I can put them away and start to clean up this disaster. Mind focused on the mess at hand, I don’t notice Baxter on the floor behind me. When I step on his paw, he skitters up and away from me with a yip causing me to lose my balance. I catch myself from falling by grabbing the edge of the counter, but all nine eggs in the carton fly across the kitchen making a distinct symphony of splats as they land on the tile floor, counter, and against the refrigerator door.

“Fuck!” Adrenaline begins to rush through my body, and just as quickly as it hits me, it morphs and changes into a rush of so many emotions that I’m suddenly fighting back huge, gulping sobs. And it’s no use to fight them because they already own my body, so I carefully lower my pregnant body to the flour-ridden floor beneath me. Leaning against the cabinet behind me, I let them come.

Wave after wave. Tear by tear. Sob by sob.

So many feelings—anger, humiliation, despair—come forth before being replaced by the next in line that have been waiting all week to get out. And I just don’t have the wherewithal to fight them anymore.

“Rylee?” Colton’s voice calls from the front door, and I just close my eyes and try to wipe the tears away but there’s no way I’ll be able to hide them from him. “What the . . .? Ry, are you okay?” he asks as he rushes to my side where I just shake my head, tears still falling, the agony all-consuming.

He drops to his knees beside me, and the concern etched in his face as he looks me over, ignites my irrational temper.

“Leave me alone,” I say between sobs.

“What’s wrong?” he pleads, reaching out to wipe flour from my cheek, causing me to cry harder.

“Don’t,” I tell him as I shake my head away from his hands, making him lean back on his haunches. And I can feel his eyes on me, assessing me, trying to figure me out, and for some reason that thought sets me off. I’ve had enough eyes on my body judging me this week—scrutinizing me—and the notion causes the distress to come to a head. “You want to know what’s wrong with me?” I yell unexpectedly, startling him.

“Please,” he says ever so calmly.

“That!” I yell, pointing at him. “You walking around this house like everything is all right when it’s not. You treating me with kid gloves and avoiding me every time I get emotional because you feel guilty about the video when it’s not your fault. I’m sick of trying to pick a fight with you because I’m going stir crazy in this goddamn house and you won’t take the bait. You just nod your head and tell me to calm down and walk away. Fight me, damn it! Yell at me! Tell me to snap the fuck out of it!” My chest is heaving and my body is trembling again. I know I’m being irrational, know I’m letting the hormones within me take charge, but I don’t care because it feels so good to get it all out.

“What do you want to fight about?”

“Anything. Nothing. I don’t know,” I say completely frustrated that now he’s giving me the option to fight with him, I don’t know what to fight about. “I’m mad at you because I’m worried about you racing next week. I’m freaked out that all of this is going to distract you and you’re not going to be careful and . . . and—”

“Calm down, Rylee. I’m going to be fine.” He reaches out to take my hand, and I yank it back.

“DON’T tell me to calm down,” I scream when he does exactly what I told him I hated. Visions of the crash in St. Petersburg flash through my mind and cause my breath to hitch. I shove it away, but the hysteria starts to take over. “I miss the boys. I’m worried about Auggie and how he’s doing. I miss my normal. Nothing is normal! Everything is up in the air and I can’t handle up in the air, Colton. You know I can’t.” I ramble, and he no doubt tries to follow my schizophrenic train of thought.

“Let’s make our own normal then. Why don’t we start by getting the baby’s room set up? That’s one thing we can do, right?” he asks, eyes wide, face panicked. But his words cause fear to choke in my throat.

“Look at me,” he says. “Putting BIRT’s room together is not going to make something happen to him, okay? I know that’s why you haven’t done it yet . . . but it’s time. Okay?”

With those words, the fight leaves me. Those body-wracking sobs I had moments ago are now quiet. Tears well in my eyes but I refuse to look up at him and acknowledge what he’s saying is true. The nursery is incomplete because I’m frozen with fear that if I actually finish it, I’m jinxing it. That fate’s cruel hand will tell me I’m taking the baby for granted, and reach out and take him or her away from me again.

When I can finally swallow over the lump in my throat, I look up to meet the crystalline green of his eyes and nod, just as the first silent tear slips over and slides slowly down my cheek.

“It’s all going to be okay, baby,” he says softly. I don’t deserve his tenderness after how I just yelled at him. And then of course that sets me off even further and another tear falls over.

“You’re absolutely beautiful,” he murmurs reaching forward to move hair off of my cheek, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

“No, I’m not.”

“I’m the husband, I make the rules,” he says with a soft laugh.

“How can you say that? I’m covered in flour because I tried to make you cookies, which is normally simple, and I failed so epically at that including dropping nearly a whole carton of eggs. And my belly is so big I can’t reach my toes to paint them and they look horrible and I hate when my toes look horrible. I tried to shave today and I can’t even see between my legs to do that and I’m going to go into labor and have all this hair and look like I don’t take care of myself and . . . and . . . we’re having a baby and what if I’m a horrible mother?” I confess all of this as we sit on a flour-covered floor with a dog licking up broken eggs, but the way Colton looks at me? He only sees me.

I take comfort in the thought. That even amid all this chaos swirling around us, my husband only sees me. That I can still stop the blur for him. That I’m still his spark.

Be my spark, Ry.

We sit in silence for a moment, the memory of that night in St. Petersburg clear in my mind, his hand on my cheek, our eyes locked, and it hits me. With him by my side, everything is going to turn out how it’s meant to be. It always has. He knows how to calm my crazy even amidst the wildest of storms.

Colton leans forward and presses a kiss to my belly before placing a soft one on my lips. “C’mon,” he says, grabbing my hands and starting to pull me up when I’d rather just stay right where I am, wallowing in my own self-pity.

“Why?” I ask as I look up at him beneath my lashes, lips pouting.

“We’re going to go make our own kind of normal.” Between the comment and grin he flashes me, I can’t resist him. I never can. He gently pulls me up and before I can process it, he has me cradled in his arms and is walking toward the stairs. “Colton!” I laugh.

“That, right there . . . I’ve missed the sound of that laugh,” he murmurs into the top of my head when we clear the landing.

He carries me into the bedroom and sets me down on the edge of the bed, fluffs a bunch of pillows against the headboard, and then helps me lean back against them. Our eyes hold momentarily—violet to green—and I can tell he’s trying to figure something out. My curiosity is definitely piqued.

“Red or pink?” he asks. I look at him like he’s crazy.

“What?”

“Pick one.”

“Red,” I say with a definitive nod.

“Good choice,” he says as he turns around and disappears into the bathroom. I hear a drawer open, the clank of glass against glass, and then the drawer shut again. Carrying a bath towel in one hand, what appears to be a bottle of nail polish in the other, and a huge grin on his face, he climbs up on the bed and sits at my feet. “At your service, madam.”

I just stare—a little shocked, a lot in like—and absolutely head over heels in love with him and the completely lost look on his face over what in the hell he should do next. And while the Type A in me wants to tell him the answers, I don’t. My husband is trying to take care of me regardless of how awkward he feels and that’s a very special thing.

He lays the towel out over the comforter and then gently lifts my legs so my feet are positioned atop of it. And I stifle a laugh as Colton holds the bottle up of fire-engine red nail polish and reads the instructions on the back, his eyebrows furrowed and teeth biting his bottom lip as he concentrates. He chuckles and shakes his head as he grabs my foot.

“I must really love you because I’ve never done this for anyone before.” His cheeks flush with pink and his dimple deepens. All I can do is lean back, smile wide, and appreciate him all the more.

“Not even for Quin when you were kids?” I ask, thinking back to how sometimes Tanner would help me with girly stuff as long as I’d help him with icky boy stuff first.

“Nope,” he says as he concentrates on painting my big toe. He grimaces as I feel him wipe at the sides of my nail. I fight the grin pulling at my lips because I have a feeling I am going to have more polish on my skin than on my nails. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. He’s trying and that’s what matters most.

I stare at my husband—gorgeous, inside and out. He listened to my rant, and picked the thing he could do something about to try and help me. I’ve always known I’m a lucky woman to have found him, but never realized just how fortunate until right now.

I watch him concentrate as I try to let go of the chaos of the last week.

Angered shock: What I felt when I found out my picture was on the cover of People magazine. Inside, a blow-by-blow story about the video and a million other lies about my purported sexual preferences. Psychologists giving their two cents about the heightened arousal that some people get when they have sex in public with the risk of being caught. I wanted to scream—to rage—and tell them to stop telling lies. To explain it was a moment of heated passion that got carried away. Two people loving each other.

Two people who still love each other.

Confinement: How I felt when Dr. Steele made a house call—something she normally doesn’t do—because I couldn’t leave the house without paparazzi following me to her office. A doctor, whose clientele includes a high ratio of celebrities, is not too fond of photos being taken of her office as other patients come and go.

Exposed: Not being able to turn on the television, open my email, go onto Google without knowing there was a chance of seeing an image of myself.

Lonely: How I feel without seeing my boys daily. I miss their laughter, their bickering, and their smiles.

Validation: Watching Tawny come into view over Colton’s shoulder. Knowing he’d considered my feelings, confronting her in my presence when he’d promised he’d never see her again.

Hurt and hope: Colton’s unexpected speech last week as he left Sully’s Pub. Using my name and whore in the same sentence stabbed deeply into my resolve and stung enough that I’d picked a fight over it. But at the same time, I appreciated the fact he was saying something, doing something, to try and expose Eddie.

So many things, all unexpected, have caused my head to be in a constant whirl and our lives in upheaval even though I’ve never left the confines of our property.

“I wonder if your little speech the other night caused reporters to start digging up info on Eddie?” I murmur as I watch the top of his head.

He looks up and meets my eyes. “Not now, Ry. I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. I want to spend time with my wife, paint her toes, talk to her, and not let the outside world in, okay?” He nods his head to reinforce what he’s saying. “It’s just you and me and—”

“Nothing but sheets,” I finish for him, causing a huge grin to spread on those lips of his.

“I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time,” he says with a reflective laugh as he screws the cap onto the nail polish. I notice how much red is on his fingers from trying to fix his overage. He looks back down and shakes his head. “Not as good as when you do it, but—”

“It’s perfect,” I tell him without even looking at my toes. The overage of paint on my skin is almost like an added badge reflecting how much he loves me. “Besides, the part on my skin will come off in the shower.”

“It will?” he asks as he spreads his fingers out and looks at his own speckled with nail polish. My bad boy marked by the deeds of a good husband. “Thank Christ, because I was worried how I was going to get it off. I thought I was going to have to use carb cleaner.”

A giggle falls from my mouth and it feels so good. All of this does: his effort, his softer side, seeing him look so out of place, and simply spending time together.

He blows gently on my toenails to help them dry, and I find so much comfort in the silence. I lean my head back on the pillow and close my eyes as he moves from one foot to the other.

“I know you’ll do good at the race next week,” I murmur eventually, not wanting him to think from my whirlwind of emotions earlier that I’m as worried as I let on.

“I promise I’ll come home to you and the baby safe and whole,” he says, eyes intense and heart on his sleeve like the tattoos on his flank. And I know that’s a promise he really can’t make. After all these years together I know he can’t control what others do or don’t do on the track, but I hold dearly to the fact he’s cognizant of it because that’s all I can ask. “And with apple pie a la mode.”

The laughter comes again because that’s my go-to craving right now. Well, besides sex with him. “You know a way to a woman’s heart.”

“Nope. Just my woman’s.” His eyes light up as he shifts off the bed, and I immediately become saddened because I fear our time together seems over. I know he has a lot of work to do since he’s so behind staying home with me, so I won’t ask him to keep me company any longer. Besides he’s been more than sweet enough to me after how I acted in the kitchen.

So I’m taken by surprise when Colton reaches behind my back and under my knees and picks me up off the bed. He’s seriously trying to throw his back out by carrying my pregnant ass again but the only protest I emit is a startled gasp as I look into his eyes to find a mischievous gleam.

“Hold tight.”

“What are you . . .?” I ask, confused as he sets me down on the edge of the bathtub. I look longingly at the tub and think of what I’d do to climb in it and let the hot water swirl all around me. But no can do being pregnant so I just sit silently and wait to see what Colton is up to.

He steps over and into the tub and one by one picks my legs up so they swing into the oval haven. I stare at him, partially wanting him to tell me to break the doctor’s orders and take a bath, but also surprised that my husband—the man who never follows rules except for when it comes to what the doctor tells me I can and can’t do while pregnant—seems to be going rogue.

And of course I kind of like it.

“Stand up,” he says as he grabs my hands and helps to pull me up so we are both standing barefoot and fully clothed in the empty tub. With his eyes locked on mine, he drops to his knees and very cautiously pulls my shorts down. His eyes light up and a smirk plays at the corners of his mouth as he carefully pulls each foot out of the leg holes to avoid messing up my polish. When he’s done and I’m staring at him like he’s crazy, he looks up at me and orders, “Scoot back on the edge with your shoulders against the wall.”

I do as he says, my butt on the lip of the tub and my back pressed against the chilled wall behind, and watch with curiosity as he drops to his knees before me. With his tongue tucked in his cheek, he scoots closer, hands pressing my knees apart as he moves between them.

I suck in my breath, eyes flashing up to lock onto his. My need for him still stronger than ever, but hidden beneath the layers of emotion this week has brought upon us, resurfaces. My body reacts viscerally to the thought of his hands on me: a warmth floods through my veins, my nipples harden, my heart picks up its pace, and my breathing evens.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, snapping me from the visions in my head of his fingers parting me and his tongue pleasuring me.

“Always,” I stutter, knowing the last time he asked me this, the video was released. I hold my breath as he moves the towel from the edge of the tub to uncover a razor blade and shaving balm. Well, maybe not so much. My eyes widen as I realize he’s trying to fix the second problem I complained about in my childish rant downstairs.

I bite back the immediate recant of my instant agreement about trust, because

a razor blade on my nether regions should allow for a reconsideration of the question. And I know he can see my hesitation because his eyes ask me again.

He wants to shave me. I’m nervous but at the same time feel a rush of heat between my thighs at how hot the simple idea is. I nod my head ever so slightly, my eyes on his, because yes, I’ve been married to the man for six years, trust him with every part of me . . . but shaving me? That’s a whole helluva lot of trust.

And the old me would be massively embarrassed about sitting on the lip of the bathtub spread-eagle in broad daylight while my husband squirts shaving lotion into his hand, but for some reason I’m not. The world has seen me naked like this by now. However, the idea is so damn intimate and personal that when I look down to watch his hand disappear below my belly seconds before the cool, moist lotion is spread into the crease of my thighs, I feel a new connection with him, a new intimacy that restores some of what was lost with the video.

He turns the faucet of the tub on and lets it run a bit as he warms the razor under its flow. He looks back at me with an encouraging smile in place and then slowly moves the blade below the swell of my belly. We both hold our breaths as he begins to shave me; the only sound in the room is the soft scrape of metal against flesh and the trickle of water into an empty tub.

After a few minutes I allow myself to relax, the inability to see what he’s doing only serving to heighten both the intensity and the sensuality of the whole act. He continues to shave, face etched in concentration on areas I can’t see but can sure as hell feel. And it’s not the bite of pain I expected. Instead it’s the soft press of his fingers as he pushes my skin this way and that way. It’s the warm water as he cups it and lets it fall over my sex. It’s the way his fingertips feather ever so lightly over my seam to wipe away the excess shaving cream that doesn’t wash away with the trickle of water.

These things add together, build into an intense experience I never would have expected and yet don’t want him to stop. We’ve been disconnected this week, so stressed about the video and the repercussions, that we haven’t even paused to pay much attention to each other besides the verbal, Are you all right? And How are you doing?

He runs the pad of his finger back down the length of me. In reflex, I push my hips forward some, a nonverbal beg for him to dip his fingers between the lips of my sex so he can discover just how much I want and need him right now. I groan out in frustration when his fingers leave my skin, prompting him to chuckle.

“Is something funny?” I ask him between gritted teeth.

He just shakes his head. “Nope. Just making sure I made that little landing strip you like nice and straight,” he says, tongue between his teeth as he concentrates, oblivious to the sexual torment he is putting me through. But then again, maybe that’s his goal. He can’t be this clueless. He knows my body all too well to know his touch is going to stoke my fires from embers to a wildfire.

“There.” He hmpfs in triumph as he leans back and looks at his handiwork, a smug smirk on his face as he looks up at me. That smug smirk soon turns into a cocky grin once he recognizes the look of libidinous desperation on my face. “What’s wrong?” he asks, feigning ignorance.

He’s definitely toying with me. And hell, I’m all for being played by him. What better way to forget the world outside than lose myself to the skilled hands of my husband?

“Nothing,” I murmur, right before he pulls the hand-held showerhead from its base and stretches the necking so the sprayer faces the delta of my thighs. He turns it on, the pressure of the water creating its own pleasurable friction that causes me to suppress a hiss of desire.

“I think I missed some shaving cream right here,” he says with a concerned look before his fingers touch me again. But this time, they slip between the seam of my pussy and slide up and down the length of it, spreading me apart so the pulse of the water hits my clit. I groan from the sensation as I selfishly offer myself to him by widening my knees and trying to tilt my hips up.

“Good. Got it,” he says as his finger takes a pass over my clit before all touch and water leaves me.

“What?” I yelp, catching that lightning-fast grin of his as he starts to stand up.

“All done,” he says causally, picking up the extra towel on the tub’s edge to pat me dry.

“No, you’re not.”

His amused laugh falls into the silence around us. “Your toes are painted, your pussy is trimmed,” he says, ticking off the tasks on his fingers. “Whatever else could there be to do?” Our eyes lock and then mine slowly drag down the length of his torso as he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it outside of the bathtub. He nonchalantly undoes his belt and pulls it through the loops, making a show of throwing it aside as well. When he slides his pants and underwear down his hips his dick stands at attention when he straightens up.

“I don’t know,” I say with a lift of my eyebrows and suggestion lacing my tone.

“Okay. I’m going to take a shower then,” he says with a smirk as he starts to step out of the bathtub, making me laugh.

“No, you’re not.” His eyes are back on mine, hungry with desire, and for a split second I wonder why he’s not taking what’s laid out before him when his want is so blatantly plastered on his face—and his body for that matter.

“I’m not?”

“No.”

For a few moments, we stare silently at each other with words unspoken but so much emotion exchanged. And finally I ask what keeps crossing my mind. “I miss you. I want you.” Something flickers in his eyes I can’t read, but I can tell he’s struggling with. “What’s wrong, Colton?”

And I figure there is no better time than right now to ask since we are both literally and figuratively stripped down. There will be nothing left but the truth between us.

“I started all of this by taking you on the hood that night. I asked you to step outside of that perfectly square box you lived in and look what happened. Fuck yes, I want you, Ry. Every second of every damn day. But with everything that happened . . . I don’t know . . . I’m not touching you until you tell me you want me to,” he admits. While I want to tell him he just was in fact touching me, quite easily turning me on, I also understand how hard this has been for my always “hands-on” husband to not touch and take when he wants to.

I angle my head and stare at him, a smile spreading on my lips as my chest constricts with love for him. “I believe the motto is anytime, any place . . . right, sweetheart?” I ask, imitating perfectly the way he says it.

His grin lights up his face, his posture changing instantly from cautious to predatory. Shoulders broaden, fingers rub together as if he’s itching to touch, and the tip of his tongue wets his bottom lip. His eyes trail up and over every inch of my body; the look in them alone setting my nerve endings ablaze.

“That’s a good motto,” he quips. “Time to put it to use.”

“Yes, please,” I murmur. He bends at the waist and places both hands on the edge of the tub beside my hips. At an achingly slow pace, he leans in and brushes his lips unhurriedly against mine. The kiss is equal parts torment and tantalizing, liquefying the desire already mounting within me. A delicious ache pools in my lower belly.

“Ride me.” Two words are all it takes. He says them with his lips pressed against mine, and it’s all I need to hear. I place my hands on his shoulders so he can help me stand and make it to the bed.

He lies down, propping a pillow beneath his hips, as I crawl beside him. I pull my shirt over my head and take one more taste of his kiss before I do just exactly what he’s asked. Asked? Who am I kidding? More like demanded, but this is one demand I have no problem complying with since I’m on the receiving end of its delirious outcome.

Our lips meet, and I can feel his desire for me in the way his hands run down my arms and over to my torso. His fingers dig into my hips as he helps me settle atop him, our bodies expressing what we need from each other without a single word uttered.

Eye contact is way more intimate than words can ever be.

Rising up on my knees astride his hips, I scoot back so the crest of his dick is just at my entrance. His hand grabs the base of his shaft and runs it back and forth to spread my arousal onto him. And when we’re both slick with my desire, I sink down slowly, inch by perfect inch upon the length of his cock until he’s completely sheathed root to tip. My head lolls back and a moan of appreciation falls from my lips the same time he groans out my name. It may have only been a week since we last connected like this, but in our relationship where we both use physical touch to help say the words we’ve left unspoken, that’s a long time.

I wait a moment—revel in the feeling of him filling me. And there is something about his reaction that is even sexier than the sensation of his dick awakening every erogenous nerve within me. It’s the arch of his head back into the pillow so all I can see from my viewpoint is the underside of his jaw and Adam’s apple—that place I love to nuzzle into. It’s watching the tendons in his neck go taut from the desire I’ve created. It’s seeing the darkened stubble in such contrast to the bronzed skin around it. It’s the feel of his hands still gripping my hips, so his biceps are flexed, and the darkened disks of his nipples are tight with arousal.

All of it—the whole package—is like a visual aphrodisiac that makes the sensation of me rocking my hips over his all that more intense. Then of course the guttural groan of, “Fuck, Ry,” only adds to it.

So I begin to slide up and down on his cock, changing the angle every couple strokes to make sure his crest hits where I need it to so I can get off with him. My God, how I needed this with him. From him.

It’s amazing how we can feel so very far apart, how I can feel at the end of my rope after so much pandemonium this past week, yet when we are like this I feel complete again within minutes. Connected. United. Indestructible.

One.

I rise up, let the crest of his dick hit right were I need it to, and pop my hips forward to add some intensity to my pleasure. The girth of his shaft causes my thighs to tense and tighten over his hips. My body slowly begins to swell with warmth as desire surges within me. Letting my head fall back, I reach behind me and scratch my fingers over the tops of his thighs causing his hips to jut up and fill me more deeply when I thought it impossible.

“Oh God,” I moan, head lolling back, hands falling to my sides. My words spur Colton on, encourage him to grind his hips up to work his dick between the confines of my thighs. And I pull back as he thrusts causing the root of his shaft to slide up and against my clit. My eyes roll back. I moan incoherently as I ride the high of sensation from him rubbing over one hub of nerves before moving right back in to tantalize the other in a two-for-one knockout punch.

“Come on, baby. Your pussy feels so damn incredible. Fuck, I love when you ride me.” His words end on a groan as I begin rocking over him again, filling me with a sense of power, knowing I can knock him breathless.

And we began to move in unison. A slow slide followed by a quick grind by both of us as we take our time moving up the ever-beckoning ascent to climax. Explicit words muttered into the comfortable quiet. Tense fingers press into the flesh of my hips. The veins in his neck taut with strain as he holds on to the control I can slowly sense is slipping from his grip. Eyes locked on each other’s as we tell each other our feelings with actions. Then a quickening of pace. Our breaths begin to labor and our bodies become slick with sweat.

And yet despite that slow, sweet build, my orgasm hits me unexpectedly. The tingling in my center starts measured and steady, then explodes into a burst of electricity that pulses through my body with such intensity it knocks the breath from me. My body drowns under the orgasmic haze, causing every one of my senses to be magnified. I hear the catch of Colton’s breath as my muscles contract around him, feel the sudden sensitivity my climax brings, and ride the wave of dizziness that assaults me.

And just as I’m about comatose from the bliss—my head light and heart full—Colton begins to move beneath me. His actions rouse me to respond and help pull him over the cusp and into oblivion with me. We move in sync, and when he bottoms out in me, I can feel the hair around the base of his shaft teasing my swollen clit once again to draw out the aftershocks still quivering through me.

“What I’d give to flip you over right now and fuck you senseless,” he groans when I slide back up him again.

“Yes, please,” I murmur. He lifts his eyebrows in a nonverbal question, and I know he’s petrified he’ll hurt the baby, but my comment is all the consent he needs to tell him all will be fine. Because I know as much as Colton loves the soft and slow, he does that for me. Gives me what I need to get mine.

And I know as his wife that this is what he needs. What he loves.

With his help, I climb off him and get on my hands and knees, ass in the air, and head looking over my shoulder to see him taking in the sight of me swollen, wet, and completely his. Our gazes meet and the carnal lust in his is so strong I’m glad I offered him this. After a week of feeling so out of control, he needed this ownership of my pussy to right his world. And after all this time, I know giving him complete control allows him to find it.

“Fuck, I love looking at you like this,” he murmurs, as his finger traces down the line of my slit and then back up, circling over the tight rim of muscles just above it. My whole body tenses as a deep-seated ache burns bright from his touch where we’ve played occasionally when we want to change it up. “I love seeing how goddamn wet I make you. The pink of your pussy. The curve of your ass. The jolt of your skin as I slam into you from behind. How you arch your back and shift your hips so you can take me all the way in. Fucking addictive.”

He places his hand on the back of my neck and runs it down the length of my spine. The singular touch sending my nerves, already on high alert, into a frenzy of vibrations that heighten the anticipation of when he is going to enter me. And yes, while I’ve already had an orgasm, with Colton, there is always that thrill of him being in me that never goes away. I know this tease of touch will be followed by the overwhelming onslaught of sensations. My whole body tenses as I wait with expectant breath.

His hand slides from my spine over to my hip and down the back of my thigh before tracing back up my inseam to my apex. This time though, his fingers part me, one finger sliding in and out to be replaced by the crest of his head.

His sigh fills the bedroom. His hands grip the sides of my hips and urge them backward and onto him while he stays completely still. The guttural groan that fills the room matches the internal war my body has over whether it wants to chase another orgasm or just take the pleasure as it comes and enjoy helping him get his.

And I don’t get a chance to answer my own questions, because the moment Colton is in me, he starts to move. The pace he sets is so demanding, I know this is every man for himself, and I’m perfectly okay with it. Because there is something so damn heady about being taken by Colton with such authority. It’s animalistic and raw and greedy and so very necessary to the dynamic of our relationship. I wouldn’t want him any other way.

“Goddamn,” he cries out as the sound of our bodies connecting echoes through the room. A symphony of sex.

“Fuck me,” I shout as his dick swells within me, the telltale sign he is so very close. So I reach back and scratch my fingernails over the sides of his thighs as he slams into me again. The groan he emits from the sensation is the only sound I need to know he’s a goner. Within seconds his grip tightens, his hips thrust harder, and his body goes completely taut as my name falls in a broken cry from his lips.

After a few moments a satisfactory sigh falls from his lips that is so very rewarding to me. Slipping out of me, he starts to laugh and it takes me a second to sit on my butt to see what is so funny. He’s looking at the sheets and the little marks of red all over their light blue color.

“Just when I thought I couldn’t have made your toes look any worse, I did.”

I look up from the sheet to see the love, amusement, and satisfaction in his eyes and I smile. “Hmm. Good. That means we’ll have to do some of this all over again.”

“Just some of it?” he asks, eyes narrowed. When I nod my head, my favorite dimple appears alongside his playful smirk. “Which part might that be?”

“The find-our-own-kind-of-normal part.”

“Just that part?” he asks, head angled to the side. His dick still glistens with our arousal as he grabs the towel used for my toes earlier and helps clean me up.

“The sex part. Definitely the sex part,” I say with a more-than-satisfied smile. He leans forward and seals the comment with a kiss.

“Definitely the sex part,” he agrees.