Back to You (4 page)

Dreams remain, but we resent

Forevers change, with one regret

“What’s that, babe?” I ask, curious because the way he sings it is sinfully beautiful. With meaning and feeling and depth.

He breaks out of what I’ve come to recognize as a creative trance, his hand resting over the strings as if to silence them.

I wish he’d continue. I want more. “Why’d you stop?”

He shakes his head and stands, returning the guitar to its place on the wall. He swaggers toward me with his hands in his pockets, his eyes focused on my lips. Sensing the heat of his stare, I suck my lip into my mouth, biting on it. As if watching him play wasn’t sexy enough, now he’s got the smolder going on? I can’t help but think that my
other
reason for creating this secluded space is about to be proven completely ingenious
.

“I stopped because it’s not finished yet. You can hear it when it’s done.” He’s inches away from me now, his sweet breath tickling my already pleasure-prickled skin.

I reach up, locking my hands behind his neck, looking hard into his eyes. It’s still there. The pain. There’s so much we need to say, but not tonight. I’ll give him that. We can take pleasure in this moment and just be us again.

I want more than anything to sit down, lock myself away and play with chords and riffs and put those words to the music that’s been banging around in my head, but what I want even more is to make love—no, to
fuck
my wife. Even after almost a week of single-handed kid-duty, she looks incredibly sexy and just telling her won’t be enough. She needs me to
show
her how incredible she is. How incredible it feels to be able to call her mine… again.

“Mi, I missed you.” I know she understands I’m not just talking about these last few days. Will I ever get used to having her back without worrying she’ll be gone again at some point? God, I hope so. Because living in anticipation of the other shoe dropping is no way to live.

Her cocoa brown eyes glisten with tears—she’s reading my mind. This woman owns my soul—it’s hers to navigate. I belong to her. I always have.

She presses her body against mine and whispers, “I missed you, too, babe.” Her fingers burrow into the hair at the nape of my neck, pulling me down to her mouth. I love when she takes control, knowing exactly what I need—what we need from each other.

The urgency to take her overcomes me and I grip her from behind, lifting her off the floor. She lets out a beautiful gasp and wraps her legs around my body as our kiss goes from sweet to hungry. Years and years of kissing the same woman and it never gets old. It’s still as fucking magical as that first time—under the streetlights, at that bus stop, the words to
I Want You
swimming in my head as we got lost in how good we fit together.

I echo the words that are stuck in my head. “Baby, I want you so bad,” I growl, my mouth still open over hers.

“I want you, too,” she says, breathless, her forehead pressed against mine.

Lifting her in my arms, I whip her around and then set her down on the nearest surface. One that won’t be ruined with DNA and all that fun stuff.

“Here, babe? You don’t want to go up to the bedroom?”

“What fun is that? We can give this room a dual purpose,” I say, sliding her yoga pants down over her ass to find a nice surprise. “Commando? You walk around like this all day?”

I grab her bare behind as she lets out a musical giggle. “Desperate housewife with a dirty mind. It makes me feel sexy.”

“Babe,” I cup her chin in my hand and look into her eyes, “you don’t need to walk around pantyless to prove how sexy you are. You do know that, right?”

Gripping my wrist, she guides my hand between her legs, leans in and says, “Enough talking. This sexy mama is horny.”

“Good,” I whisper into her ear at the same time as I insert a finger inside her, “because I can think of a million ways to satisfy you.”

“Mmmmm,” she moans as I rub my thumb against her in circles, her legs opening wider as she gives in to the pleasure. Her head falls back with her eyes closed, and her bottom lip between her teeth—she’s gorgeous, she’s sexy, and she’s all fucking mine.

As I watch the pleasure spread across her features, my dick grows painfully stiff against the denim that confines it. It’s damn near impossible
not
to set it free and dive right in. My body aches for her—my hands want to touch her, my tongue wants to taste her, and the impatient bulge between my legs needs to burrow itself inside her.

Unable to wait any longer, I use my free hand to unzip my pants. The sound alerts Mia and she lifts her head, her eyes meeting mine. “Let me,” she purrs, her hands already tugging at my jeans.

She scoots off the desk and stands before me, bending to guide my pants down my legs. I step out of them, one foot at a time, and she tosses them to the side. “Socks,” she orders.

I laugh because I know that’s always been a pet peeve of hers. “Yes, ma’am,” I say as I pull them off and throw them in the corner to join my pants.

“I’ll give you ma’am,” Mia jokes as her hands travel up my legs, sending a fantastic message to my dick.
She’s coming closer… a lot closer.

Settling herself on her knees, she cups me from behind and trails her tongue from one hip to the other. I nearly buckle over with shivers; she knows this is a weakness, but I bury my fingers into her hair and stand straight, rolling my eyes into the back of my skull. “Shit, Mia, Happy Fucking Anniversary,” I growl as the warmth of her mouth wraps around me, her lips sliding up and down with slow precision.

Intimate moments alone have been too hard to come by lately, but with our trip to Newport next week… there’ll be plenty of time for
this
on the agenda. Now seems like the time to tell her all about my gift to her, but I can’t seem to form any intelligible words other than
fuck, shit
, and
yeah
with Mia’s mouth working its magic.

I don’t know what goes on in other households, but right now I feel like one lucky motherfucker. A sexy-as-hell wife, a killer studio, and the best damn welcome home I’ve ever received in my life.

After our fun in the studio, I leave Declan to his toys and go upstairs to freshen up for bed. Looking at myself in the mirror, it all starts to resurface. The guilt. The remorse. The nagging feeling that even though things between Declan and I are on the right track, a part of me will never be able to forgive
myself
for almost giving up on us.

No amount of gifts and blow jobs are going to make up for it. And it’s not that Declan is even the one making it difficult for us to get past it. It’s
me.
I made my bed and I have to lie in it
and
live with it… and all the reminders of the things I almost had with Noah. I know I’m back where I belong, but I was so close to giving my heart to someone else and that still scares the shit out of me.

Old habits are hard to break. Not that I plan on making a habit of hooking up with old flames, but now that we’ve been down that road of separation and infidelity—will we fall into old patterns? Wind up taking each other for granted again? It’s only going to get harder with time, and age. We’re still the same two people we always were and although I’d like to think what didn’t ruin our marriage will make it stronger—things can go the
other
way too.

I replace the cap on the eye cream and remove the one from the hand cream. All these anti-aging remedies that probably mean diddly. I can’t erase the wear and tear on my skin any more than I can erase the evidence of the toll that time takes on a marriage. As much as any husband and wife love each other, and vow to stick through good times and bad until death do they part, things get in the way…
life
gets in the way. I like to tell myself that we’ve been through the worst, but there are no damn guarantees—not even branding your spouse’s name on your body sets anything in stone.

“Damn it!” I sigh, gripping the granite countertop as I scowl into the mirror. “The past is the past… we can only move forward.”

Declan told me that the first night we got back together. It’s been a calming mantra every time I have a freak-out, melt-down moment. I try to let the soothing message penetrate, wondering why my mind is wandering back to bad thoughts when things are so obviously
good
. It must be that he was away. Just the mention of Hong Kong makes both of us want to break out in hives. Business trips and the Murphy’s just don’t mix. I’ve got to find a way to put an end to them for good… maybe I can call Robert myself and beg him to keep Declan safe and sound in his cubicle from now until retirement. That should go over well.

Before I have the time to concoct a persuasive email to Declan’s boss in my warped brain, I notice my husband standing behind me, staring.

“What?” I ask, my hand on my hip. I hope he can’t see through me—all those doubtful thoughts running around haphazardly.

“You don’t know how beautiful you are, do you?”

“Declan, stop. You must be jetlagged.” I start to walk past him, disregarding his compliment. I’m in a pair of his freaking boxers and an oversized t-shirt. What can possibly be beautiful about that?

He catches me by the wrist, stopping me from passing him in the doorway. I look down to where his hand is gripping my arm and then back up to his eyes. Territorial. I love it when he looks at me like that.

“Don’t you want to know what
your
gift is?” he asks, pulling my hand to his lips, kissing each of my knuckles. His tenderness almost erases all the uneasiness I felt before. It makes it a little easier to chant that mantra and believe it. Maybe I am all he needs. Maybe the worst is finally behind us.

I hook my arms around his neck, and lean my body against his. “I’m actually dying to know, but I figured you got too busy at work and forgot to book it. I didn’t want to nag.”

“Ye have little faith, Mrs. Murphy,” he says, pulling my hair out of the messy bun piled on top of my head. “Ready to let your hair down in Newport next week?”

“Newport?
Next week?
Oh my God, really?” I pull back, clasping my hands together and practically jumping up and down. I’ve wanted to go to Newport for forever. How did he remember? I haven’t mentioned it in a long time. My parents used to go every year before they had me. I’d always wanted to go with Declan, but getting pregnant three minutes after our wedding kind of put a glitch in that plan. Newport has always been something I wanted to experience as a couple, not as a family.

As if he can read my mind, he answers, “Yup, I remembered and it’s been long overdue. We leave Monday.” He pulls me in tighter, taking a long sniff of my hair.

I nuzzle against him, happy to be in his arms. Safe from worries… for now. “Wait. Monday? What about the kids?”

“Doubting me again?” he asks, walking backwards toward the bed, holding my hand to guide me. “Relax, babe. I got it covered.”