Between Then and Now (2 page)

They quickly made their goodbyes, and a quiet
thrill danced through her heart that Ian held her close until they
got back to their SUV, where he held her even closer and pressed
home a kiss that promised more to come at the end of their short
drive.

Ian drove, and she was grateful for the
automatic transmission that allowed their fingers to remain tangled
even as Ian nudged the vehicle into drive. The silence was
comfortable and warm, and she was torn on breaking it with chatter,
but information needed to be shared.

“
Karen said that Evie and Dale left
before we got there. They were fighting.”

“
Guy’s a douche.” Good that they
were in agreement on that point. “Too bad they’ve got kids caught
in the middle of that.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Is she going to need
anything?”

“
You think they’re going to break
up?”

“
Writing’s on the wall there. Just
a matter of time.” Ouch. He wasn’t wrong, but it hurt her heart to
hear the words said out loud.

“
I don’t know. Her mom will
probably step up. Might be good for her.” Evie’s father had passed
away the previous year, and the loss of her life partner had
impacted hard on Claire Calhoun. “Maybe they won’t break
up.”

“
Babe, some people aren’t meant
for forever.” He lifted her hand to his mouth. “Some guys don’t
know what they have.”

His words tugged the corners of her mouth
north again. “Oh?”

“
I know what I’ve got. I don’t
always show it, but I’m lucky to be your husband, Carrie
Nixon.”

“
Best mistake ever?” She meant the
words to land lightly. It was a standing joke between them, but all
that had gone unsaid between them over the last few months weighed
the words down on her tongue, and her voice cracked.

“
Don’t do this, not tonight.” His
features pinched together. He didn’t let go of her hand, but the
easy softness in his grip faded, replaced with a subtle tension
that told her it was an effort to keep touching her.

“
I’m not doing anything,” she
whispered. Tears threatened, hot bubbles at the edge of her
vision.

“
You’re dragging old shit into a
new argument. Shit I didn’t even know was in your head. An argument
I didn’t even know we were having.”

“
We’re not!” Were they? Was it all
one big fight that just ebbed like the tide? “I don’t know why I
said that.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need
to. She tentatively lifted her gaze to read his expression, but he
didn’t look over at her, instead keeping his eyes on the road
ahead. A muscle twitched along his jaw, and she squeezed his hands,
willing him to turn and see her. See that she wasn’t mad. That she
was just scared and strangely alone and not dealing with that
well.

“
I don’t think we were a
mistake.”

“
Damn straight.”

“
But we weren’t in love when we got
married, Ian. That’s never going to be something I
forget.”

“
Never asked you to.”

“
We just can’t talk about
it.”

“
We can talk about it, babe. But
you can’t yell at me about it.”

“
I didn’t yell.”

“
You cried. That’s
worse.”

“
Didn’t cry. No tears.”

“
Sad voice, choked up…sounded like
crying. Carrie, that kills me, you know?” He dragged a deep breath
into his lungs. “I just wanted an evening without a fight. Come on,
let’s go in.”

With a start, she realized they
were home. “Wait—” She unbuckled her seat belt and reached across
the center console. “Slide your seat back.”

“
Carrie, I’m not—”

“
Give me a chance to get the mood
back, please?” She was grateful she’d worn a skirt tonight. “Scoot
back, and close your eyes.” He still hadn’t moved, but at least he
wasn’t getting out of the truck. “I want to show you what I’ve got
on under this skirt.”

Thank god for his healthy libido. A lecherous
grin spread across his face as he flicked his gaze to her hemline.
“Please tell me the answer is nothing.” She waited for his gaze to
hit hers again before offering a slow nod. His already smoldering
interest caught a burst of oxygen from her answer, and while he
slid his seat back with his left hand, his right arm was hauling
her into his lap. “We gotta stop fighting, babe.”

“
We weren’t fighting,” she
whispered.

“
We were doing something,” he
muttered as he arranged her thighs on either side of his, his
thumbs pressing hard into soft flesh. “And it wasn’t
this.”

“
This isn’t everything.”

“
No, but it’s something. Evie and
Dale, they don’t have this. They should, because she’s sweet and
hot.”

“
You think Evie’s hot?” This
teasing was truly lighthearted. She’d never doubted Ian’s
attraction to her, not even during and after her pregnancies. She’d
gained an extra ten pounds with each kid that was never going away,
and she hadn’t been skinny when they met. How much she bitched, now
that seemed to have an impact, but thankfully it had a short
half-life.

“
Babe, you think Evie’s hot. I’m
just stating objective facts. She’s a ten, and Dale’s not, so he’s
an idiot. But I don’t want to talk about them anymore. I want to
talk about…” He let the sentence drop off as his fingers
disappeared into the shadow between their bodies. She sucked in a
wavering breath as he curled first one and then two digits into her
wet heat. “All right?”

She nodded.

“
Fuck, I’m a lucky man.”

“
Mmmm. Right now, I feel like the
lucky one.” Thank god for private country properties. They didn’t
have a farm, but they were outside of town, and their driveway
curved around to a garage at the back of their house. Without a
second thought, she peeled her t-shirt off in what she hoped was a
sexy move. It sure felt sexy. She was hyper-aware of his breath on
her chest and wanted more of that. She arched her back, riding his
fingers with slow and deliberate intent, taking her own pleasure
but doing so in a way that she could feel was working on him as
well. His other hand stroked from her ass to her back, a hot slide
toward her bra that resulted in a quick release.

“
You’ve gotten good at that over
the years.”

“
Gotta be quick with the rugrats
always threatening to interrupt.” He pressed her back, laying her
upper body against the steering wheel. “Don’t need to be quick
tonight, though.”

There shouldn’t be anything sexy about two
grownups squeezed into the driver’s side of an SUV in their own
driveway, their empty and comfortable house a few feet away, but at
that moment, nothing was hotter than Ian perusing her body spread
out in front of him. He twisted his hand, still pumping slowly in
and out of her sex, and rested his thumb on her clit. She watched
him through hooded eyes as delicious sensations washed over her
body. He wasn’t building her toward an orgasm so much as shifting
her into an altered state of arousal. “Don’t play with me,” she
panted. “Make me—”

He pulled his fingers out of her pussy and
tapped them on the inside of her thigh. “You don’t want me to play
with you?” His other hand stilled on her breast, abandoning its
path to her nipple.

She thrust her hips, helplessly,
because there wasn’t much room to move, and with her legs folded
underneath her, she had no leverage. “That’s not what I meant.
Ian!” He chuckled, and she slid her own hand between her thighs.
His laughter faded as she touched herself, and he licked his
lips.

“
Keep doing that.” He loosened his
belt, then lifted his hips the barest amount, just enough to give
him some play with his jeans.

Sex in the car. What were they thinking? They
weren’t, for the first time in weeks, maybe longer, and it was
glorious.

No, what was glorious was his wife perched on
his lap, back arched like a pinup girl, topless, with her short
skirt pushed up around her lush, pale hips.

The details of what she was doing with her
hand were lost in the night shadows, but he could still feel her
slippery excitement under his fingers, and couldn’t wait to replace
her hand with his cock. The full moon lit up her bare shoulder and
highlighted the twist of her arm as she languidly stroked her
pussy. His gaze shifted to the swell of her right breast, and the
thought of getting his mouth on her nipple caused his erection to
pulse painfully against the damn zipper, as if reminding him that
he was doing a piss-poor job of freeing the dirty bastard. Didn’t
he know it.

With an expletive studded rip, he had his
jeans open and his cock in his hand. Wouldn’t care if the pants
were damaged, either. “Come here, babe.”

He cupped the back of her neck and
pulled her to him. Her lips parted, an invitation he’d take. His
biceps flexed as he closed the gap between them, and he wanted to
roar. Fuck, yes. This was what it was all about. There was too much
fucking noise between them most of the time. Carrie on top of him,
all soft and wet and willing, this was what they needed to hang on
to. Needed to make more time for.

As she sank into the kiss, her
weight shifted onto his torso and his hand got pinned between their
bellies. His hand, and his cock. He reacted instinctively to the
gentle squeeze and jerked his hips, his balls connecting with her
damp heat.
Oh, fuck.

All thoughts of going slow and taking their
time were vanquished by that contact. He needed to be inside her.
As if reading his mind, she pressed up on his shoulders, lifting
her hips enough to re-align their cores. She was more than ready
for him, but he used the thinking part of his brain and
paused.

“
Babe.” Both of them were breathing
loudly, or their breath was loud because it was otherwise quiet, he
wasn’t sure. But she wasn’t listening to him, she was kissing his
jaw and panting, wriggling around on the top of his cock. “Babe.
Stop. Do we need a condom?”

“
Oh…” She scrunched up her face.
“No. It’s an okay time. I just want you inside me.”

“
You and me both. You
sure?”

“
Just for a minute.” She wriggled
out of his grasp and sank onto him, eliciting matching groans.
Nothing between them was pure heaven, even if it meant pulling out.
Or not, but that was Carrie’s call. He’d happily make babies with
her until they weren’t physically able, but it wasn’t his body that
bore them, or lost them. His heart, but maybe not as much as
hers.

He spread his fingers wide around her hips,
his thumbs notched over the top of her thighs. He loved the feel of
her muscles flexing with need under his hands, her body the perfect
combination of soft and strong. Sweet and fierce, that was his
wife. He pulled them together, then held her there, enjoying her
helpless wiggles as she tried to work her clit against the base of
his cock.

“
Slow down,” he murmured. “Do too
much more of that, and I’m going to fill you up.”

She gasped against his mouth, and even in the
shadows he knew that turned her on. They needed to have a
conversation about birth control, and maybe not while they were in
the middle of fucking.

He twisted his hands into her hair, finding
the elastic that he’d wound her ponytail around earlier. Eight
years of wanting to see her undone meant he knew his way around
hair accessories, and with a flick of his fingers, the elastic shot
across the car and her bright red locks tumbled around her
shoulders.

“
I fucking love your hair, babe.”
His words were backed up by his cock twitching inside her, and she
surged in response, starting a slow ride that he could get on board
with. He squeezed her hips and helped her find a rhythm that soon
had them both groaning. He loved that she still dyed her hair
bright colours. The red was by far his favourite. The night they’d
met, it had been freshly coloured, and she’d worn it in pigtails.
He hadn’t been able to stop looking at her at all night, wondering
if he’d ever have a chance with a woman like her.

Even after they started dating, he’d known
that she had big plans. Plans that couldn’t include a country boy,
tied to a family farm.

And then he’d gone and knocked her
up. He’d lived with that guilt for eight years, and probably would
for the rest of his life. Carrie’s grand adventure had gotten her
as far as baking the occasional birthday and wedding cake in a
modest ranch house on ten acres carved out of a sugar bush. He
wanted more for her than that. He wanted to give her the
world.

“
Iannnnn,” she groaned, her face
pressed into the side of his head, her arms wrapped around his
neck. He felt it too, an urgency to her rise and fall as she
tightened around him, and he sucked in a breath, willing himself to
hold off until she’d taken all the pleasure she could. He let her
go, and she bounced faster and harder on his lap as he turned his
focus to her soft, creamy breasts, full and supple in his hands as
he cupped them, teasing one nipple with his thumb as he sought the
other with his mouth.

Her nipples were flat, even after nursing two
children, but the pillowy tissue popped out at his gentle urging,
and her pussy clenched around him as he licked and sucked first
one, and then the other, to a sensitive point. Carrie had always
liked nipple play—when they met, she’d had them pierced, thin gold
hoops that she’d beg him to tug on just before she came. The rings
were long gone, but he could still help her over the edge with a
scrape of his thumbnail and a nip of teeth.