Leaving at Noon (11 page)

“
Zo,” he breathed. He was
walking, steering her backward, holding her so she didn’t
stumble—until the back of her knees hit the bed, and she sat
unexpectedly. And then instead of holding, he was pushing her,
pressing her back to the mattress and shoving her dress over her
hips all over again.

He tugged at her g-string, rolling it
impatiently down her legs and tossing it over his shoulder. Before
Zoey could compute his intentions, he knelt on the floor before
her, shoved her thighs apart and buried his head between her
legs.

Her back arched at the contact, her torso
lifting off the bed as her shoulders buried into the doona.

Ack!

That was too intense. Too much. She’d just
exploded around his hand. No way could she deal with his mouth all
over her like this, devouring. Kissing. Licking.

It was excruciating. Too much to bear.

Zoey twisted her hips, trying to escape, but
Theo’s hands clamped her hips to the bed, pinning her in place. She
had no choice but to endure the torture.

And dear God, what torture! It was
intolerably delicious. Sinfully agonizing. It was wicked and hot
and sexy, and it made Zoey want to howl in delight and in agony.
She tried to pull away again, but somehow landed up with her thighs
spread even wider and Theo’s tongue probing ever deeper.

Zoey shoved her forearm in her mouth and bit
down hard—anything to stop the screams of intolerable pleasure from
escaping.

Theo pulled back, but only long enough to
stare down at her spread legs and to lick his lips as he gazed at
her wet, pulsing pussy.

“
Sweetest cunt in the
universe,” he growled and swooped in to lick her once
more.

And God help her, with his tongue sweeping
over her clit and lapping at her juices, Zoey came all over
again.

Theo didn’t miss a beat. As her body
convulsed, and her muscles turned rigid, he drove two fingers
inside her and flattened his tongue over her clit. He tongued and
fingered her straight through her orgasm, and when the final
shudders of her second explosion passed, Zoey collapsed back on the
bed, spent and exhausted.

That was when Theo switched it up, driving
his tongue into her pussy and rubbing her clit with his
fingers.

She came again. Or maybe she hadn’t stopped
coming from the last time around. Or maybe even from the first.
Maybe it was all just one massive orgasm. Zoey didn’t know. Nor did
she care. All she experienced was the relentless pleasure pounding
through her, the ongoing shudders and convulsions, and the
persistent ecstasy Theo bestowed on her.

“
Zo?” Theo clicked his
fingers in front of his wife’s face.

“
Hm?” She looked up at him
with doe-like eyes. Her cheeks were flushed and her expression
serene. She seemed to have trouble concentrating on the smallest
thing.

Theo fucking loved it. “Waitress is waiting
for your drink order.”

“
Oh.” Her gaze traveled to
the waitress who stood with her pen poised. “Sorry. I’ll have…” She
chewed her bottom lip. “I’ll have the passion fruit
margarita.”

Theo’s heart dropped. Apparently going down
on his wife and making her come three times wasn’t enough to
inspire her to order a bottle of red.

He asked for a Corona.

“
Struggling to focus?” he
asked when the waitress left.

She flashed him a lazy, satisfied smile.
“I’m struggling to do anything that doesn’t involve melting into my
chair and humming in satisfaction.”

“
Hum away,
babe.”

There was very little sexier than the way
Zoey hummed when she was physically sated. The sensual, melodic
purr was Theo’s reward for a job well done. Hearing it made his
chest puff out.

Apart from humming, Zoey hadn’t said very
much since they’d left Fiona’s place. She’d walked beside him in a
dreamy haze and protested not at all when he dropped his arm around
her shoulders and pulled her close. If anything, she’d leaned into
him, as though using his strength for balance.

“
You haven’t done that in
a while,” she told him.

“
Gone down on
you?”

She nodded.

“
You haven’t been
interested.”

Zoey leaned forward, her eyes warm. “Wanna
know a little secret?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
I’m
always
interested in you going down on me.”

He smirked at her mischievousness and played
along, even if she wasn’t speaking the truth. “Ditto, babe.”

“
Wanna hear another
secret?”

“
Yeah.” Hell,
yeah!

“
If I thought no one would
notice, I’d go down on you right here, right now.”

Theo lost his smirk. Hard to keep it up when
every drop of blood had emptied into his groin.

“
I’d lick your balls and
suck your cock and swallow down every inch until you came in my
mouth.” Zoey grinned. “Fair’s fair.”

He had to clear his throat to respond.
“Unfortunately, people would notice.”

“
Pity.” Her disappointment
was rife—but not as rampant as his.

The waitress returned with their drinks and
took their dinner orders. Barramundi for Zoey, steak for Theo and
side orders of steamed vegetables and hot chips for the table.

Theo liked the veggies. Zoey always asked
for the French fries.

“
It’s not true,” he said
as the waitress walked off.

“
What isn’t?”

“
That you’re always
interested.”

Confusion clouded her face.

“
In me going down on
you.”

“
Oh.” She regarded him
before answering. “Yeah. I am.”

He shook his head. “Not these past few
months.”

The playfulness was gone from her gaze. In
its place ran a river of hurt. “You haven’t tried these past few
months. Not once.”

Theo rubbed a hand over his hair-roughened
chin. Jesus, he really needed to shave. “How could I?”

There hadn’t been an opportunity. When once
he’d have picked her up and thrown her on the couch to get a taste
of her, or dropped to his knees while they ate, or pushed her
against the wall, or woken her up in the middle of the night with a
tempestuous kiss to her pussy, recently she’d closed herself off to
him so completely, he’d found no opportunity.

“
You ignore me when we’re
awake and lie curled in a tight ball, with your back to me, when
we’re asleep.”

Zoey blinked, and for a second the river of
hurt vanished, but then she blinked again and it was back, as
though she couldn’t hide her pain. “You could have tried. Reached
for me, touched me. Kissed me.”

His ribs tightened, pressing down on his
lungs. “I did try.” He’d run his hands over her hair while she
cooked, massaged her shoulders while she worked, sat beside her to
watch telly, snuggled up to her while they slept, and every single
time, she’d pushed him away, shrugged off his touch, inched away
from him or rolled to the other side of the mattress.

Night after night, he’d climbed into bed,
aching for his wife, and night after night she’d snubbed him. “You
rejected me every time.”

“
You did try,” she agreed.
“At the worst times. When my mind was focused on other things, or I
had to work or get tasks done. When I didn’t have time to respond.
But worse than that…”

Her voice drifted off.

“
Worse than that?” Theo
prompted.

She took a deep, shuddery breath. “Worse
than that, you made your moves after saying hideous things to
me.”

The arrival of their food interrupted their
conversation. Heavy silence surrounded them as the waitress laid
the dishes on the table. Seeming to pick up on the tension, she did
her job quickly and silently, vanishing in seconds.

Neither Theo nor Zoey looked at their food.
They stared at each other.

“
You’d hurt me, Theo. And
then you’d try to fuck me. So yeah, there were occasions I wasn’t
interested.”

Her words baffled him. “That’s what we do
when we argue, Zo. It’s what we’ve always done. We fight, and then
we make up.” Theo had a short temper. He knew that. If something
annoyed him, he shouted, he yelled, and once he’d gotten it off his
chest he got over it.

Zoey was a little different. When she got
angry or upset, she withdrew into herself.

Yeah, they’d had some humdingers in the
past. They’d been together over eight years. It was impossible that
they hadn’t. But making up had always been the best part. No matter
how bad the fighting got, they’d always found their way back to
each other. And when they did, the make-up sex was hot enough to
melt a glacier.

Over the last few months there’d been no
make-up sex. Hell, there’d been no make-up, period.

“
That’s what we
did
,” Zoey corrected him. “Before. When we were in a good
place. We haven’t been in a good place for a long time.”

“
I tried, Zo.” He’d done
his best to reach her across the distance between them.

“
By making an effort to
fuck me after you insulted me?”

“
Hey, you had a go at me
too.”

“
Yeah. But I never tried
to get into your pants afterwards.”

“
Maybe that’s the
problem,” he said wryly.

She saw no humor in his response. “Sex isn’t
the answer to our troubles.”

Maybe not, but lack of sex certainly
contributed to them. “It’s not just sex, babe. I need to touch you.
Hold you. Without the physical side of our relationship, I’m cut
off from you.” Theo resolved things physically. His actions said a
whole lot more than his words ever could. A conciliatory handshake,
a wave of apology, a nod of acknowledgement. Or when it came to
Zoey, holding and kissing her.

Going down on her tonight? Shakespearean
sonnets couldn’t have told her all the things he’d needed to say
better.

Zoey shook her head. “I can’t stand to be
held by you when you’ve just offended the very fiber of who I
am.”

“
It’s my way of
apologizing.”

She picked up her fork and played with her
food. “Sometimes saying sorry is a lot more effective.”

Theo waited until she’d picked up her knife,
sliced off a piece of fish and shoved it to the side of her plate.
“I’m sorry.”

“
For what?”

“
Everything.”

She dipped her head to acknowledge his
apology, but didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she cut off another
piece of fish and this time nibbled on it. Then she nibbled on a
third piece and a fourth.

With her silent moratorium on conversation,
Theo tucked in to his own dinner. The steak was rare, like he’d
ordered, and tender, but he didn’t really taste it. He ate
methodically, cutting his food, chewing and swallowing. It filled
the hollowness in his stomach but didn’t loosen the tightness in
his chest.

As he tackled the plate of steamed veggies,
Zoey spoke. “I thought it would help.”

He looked up questioningly.

“
Your apology.”

“
It didn’t?”

“
I still hurt, Theo. The
things you said.” She tapped her fist over her heart. “They’re
buried so deep, hearing that you’re sorry doesn’t reach
them.”

“
I get that.” He did. “You
know I didn’t mean any of it, right?”

Zoey’s gaze hardened. “No. I don’t know
that.”

“
Whatever I said, I said
to get under your skin in the moment, to get a reaction from you.
To piss you off. It wasn’t real. Any of it.”

“
Sounded pretty real to
me. All of it. That comment about my mother?”

Theo stared at her blankly.

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember.”

He scratched his forehead. “Yeah, sorry.
No.” No recollection there at all. “I said shit designed to hurt in
the moment. Soon as it was out, I forgot about it.”

“
God, Theo.” Her face
crumpled.

“
Same goes for the stuff
you said to me, babe. It hurt in the moment, and then I forgot
it.”

“
That doesn’t make your
comments any easier to remember.” Her face was racked with
grief.

“
What did I say about your
mother?” It must have been pretty damn bad for Zoey to look at him
like he’d crushed her world.

“
You truly don’t
know?”

He shook his head. “Like I said…”

Zoey drew in a shaky breath. “You
congratulated me.”

“
On what?”

“
Turning out to be the one
thing I hoped I’d never become.”

Oh shit.

“
My mother.”

Shame burned in his gut. “I did?”

She nodded woodenly. “‘Well done, Zo,’ you
said, ‘on becoming the coldest bitch in the Southern hemisphere.
Just like your dear old mum’.” Her voice was deep—like his—and
mean.

Theo felt like the lowest piece of scum.

“
I tried so hard to get
her to love me.” Now her voice wasn’t deep. It was soft and high
pitched, like that of a child. “Year after year, I got good grades
and behaved the best I could and dressed in clothes she wanted me
to wear. I took ballet and tap and modern dancing lessons because
she wanted to be a dancer. I did everything right. Everything she
wanted me to do, and it never made a difference. Ever.”

Her eyes shimmered with tears. “I figured if
I could just be the perfect daughter she’d love me. But she never
did. Even when I was the most perfect I could be for her.”