Willed to Love (3 page)

Horrified at Lillian’s words, and stunned at the droll tone she delivered them in, Ashley collapsed against Bernard’s shoulder, surrendering to her laughter.

The shower shut off and Ashley pulled herself from the past and continued brushing her hair, trying to tame the wayward locks.

As Devon came back into the room, naught but a towel wrapped around his waist, she wanted to throw the hairbrush at him. Restraining the urge, more because it was an antique silver ivory handled brush that Lillian had given her, rather than because she didn’t want to leave a bruise on his tanned, toned body.

Without making a sound, she climbed to her feet and calmly left the room, as if the sight of his bare chest and legs wasn’t slowly turning her into a quivering mass of need.

* * * *

Ashley hesitantly opened the door to Nana’s bedroom a few days later, her heart aching as she was enveloped in the light floral scent the lady favored. As she stepped into the room, she could almost see Lillian propped up on her bed, a dozen pillows all around her as she watched her guilty pleasure–
daytime soaps
. She had spent hours laying across the foot of the bed, munching on whatever delicious snacks Nana had ordered for the day, talking to the wise woman while watching TV with her.

They’d had some of their best girl talks. More heart-to-hearts than anywhere else in the house, as if they had both reached an unspoken agreement to keep things completely serious while together alone in Lillian’s bedroom. It wasn’t a place for gossip, or for teasing. It was just the two of them alone, best friends. Crossing the room, Ashley flopped down on her back on the bed, tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Oh Lillian, what am I going to do?”

Turning on her side, she curled up on the comforter, pulling at partially around her as she poured out her pain to the one woman who she knew would understand.

“
I love him so much
!  But god, it
hurts
. Looking into his eyes, wanting him so badly I shake with it, and then the pain returns. I died a little inside when we lost the baby, and I know he is going to eventually want another one. But what if I can’t carry to term?” Under the warmth of the comforter, Ashley pressed her hands tight against her stomach and gave her tears free reign.

Sometime later, she woke to firm hands lifting her. Only partially awake, she curled against Devon’s chest, trusting him not to drop her as he carried her down the hall to their bedroom. With a sleepy smile, she pressed a soft kiss against his jaw.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she snuggled close, murmuring a protest when he put her down on the bed and moved to pull away. Tightening her hold, she pulled him down with her, until his familiar weight settled against her body. Without opening her eyes, she ran her hands down his chest, stroking over the muscles he had had to work hard to attain. With so much of his life spent behind a desk, he had always taken an hour four times a week to hit the gym, something she had grown to very much appreciate. Especially once they got a home gym set, and she could watch him work out, the sweat dripping from his body.

His hands stroked over her back, and when Ashley moved to pull him over her, he held her still and whispered softly in her ear. She vaguely heard his words; soft apologies, love words, the outpouring of his pain. Emotionally exhausted, she laid in the circle of his arms, held safe and loved, and drifted back to sleep.

* * * *

Several days later, Ashley was still trying to settle into some semblance of a routine. Devon made sure that the staff knew not to disturb her when she was in the room he had designated as her studio. All of her canvases and paints had been brought from her apartment and set up in what had once been a sitting room. She could remember sitting there for hours, spending time with Devon’s grandmother, listening to stories about him as a child. If they weren’t in the library or her bedroom, then they were in here.

The only saving grace was that his family had left them alone, so far none daring to challenge the family matriarch’s wishes.

In the evenings, they had fallen into the pattern of sharing dinner together and then retiring to their suite, where Devon worked on paperwork and she read, watched TV or tried to ignore the way her body was demanding a response to her husband. Most evenings they sat around and talked, often about nothing in particular. Neither of them broached the subject they most needed to work past, the miscarriage and why she had walked out. He knew some of what had happened, but she hadn’t been able to tell him everything. And now, she wasn’t certain that she could relive it all again to tell him.

Their time in the evenings was almost like a memory, a dream of what it had been like on their honeymoon, minus the intense sex. Devon hadn’t tried to go beyond a few kisses since the day he had found her sleeping on his grandmother’s bed, and none had been as passionate as before that day.  And as the days passed, she waited, uncertain how to approach the subject of a true reconciliation, uncertain if she was ready to pick things up where they had left off.  Although she had been half asleep, she still remembered the things he had said, the pain that had laced every word.

She knew he wanted things the way they were. So it should have been easy to say “I don’t want a divorce. I want you.”  But time after time she tried, and each time, the words got stuck. How could they go back to how they were, as if their baby had never happened?  How could they bridge the pain that still separated them?

Her heart still ached, and sometimes she found herself rubbing a hand over her belly before she remembered that the baby was gone. Sometimes, she’d look up and find Devon’s eyes on her, and the urge to curl up in his arms and cry was so strong, she almost broke down.

At night, she always turned in first, determined to be asleep before he came to bed, but in the morning she woke with her body tangled with his. It was damned frustrating, and she was about to strangle the love of her life if he didn’t stop the subtle war he was waging. She wasn’t ready yet.

She made sure not to walk about unclothed, always covering up her body and wearing the simplest and most unflattering night clothes. Devon on the other hand would walk out of the shower with a towel around his waist, another around his shoulders, and nothing else. They both knew what he was doing, and he was winning. Foolishly, she had shown him that it got to her, seeing him like that, and he was using it to his advantage.

They had always been affectionate with each other, making love most every night. Over time they had expected the intensity to abate, but rather than cool it matured, until they could take their time with each other, take things slow and leisurely explore rather than race to the finish line.

The last couple weeks though, it had felt like her libido had flashed back to the past, and was showing no signs of a return to the status quo.

Her showers had been getting longer and longer as she took care of her body’s needs, like she was currently doing. Just a few minutes before, Devon had been in the shower, and she could picture how he had looked, the water sliding over his tanned body, down his firm stomach to his groin where the droplets caressed his hard cock.

The same hard cock she was wishing was buried inside of her, rather than her fingers.

And his ass, oh man his ass, with the drops of water rolling down it, covering the backs of his legs as it headed to his feet. Her hands itched to cup his ass as he surged into her, burying his cock deep and hard within her pussy.

Leaning back against the shower wall, she tried to assuage the burning need within her, but for the first night in several long and lonely months, an orgasm was denied her. Frustrated, she removed her hand from between her legs and slapped it against the tile. She could hear Devon moving around in the bedroom, opening drawers and generally making noise. Every night before, she had managed to get in her shower while he was still finishing up paperwork, but tonight he had beat her to it.

Her nightly shower was the only way she had been able to take the time to readjust to him without rushing into a return to their sexual lives. She needed the time.

Closing her eyes, she tried to work herself back to the fever pitch by rolling her nipples around and using the removable showerhead between her legs. She was almost to the point of release when a rush of cool air entered the room, followed by Devon’s voice. “Ash?  You ok in there?”

Her eyes flared open and she dropped the showerhead as she hurried to turn her back to the room, hoping her husband hadn’t seen what she was doing. The showerhead clattered to the tile floor, bringing Devon into the room even as she responded, “I’m fine.”

“You sure?  You’ve been in here a while, and I got worried.”

Glancing at him over her shoulder, Ashley saw the frank approval in his gaze as it trailed over her body. Almost flauntingly, she turned to face him. Her body flared to life, egged on by frustrated needs, her nipples hardening as he watched with a faint glint in his eyes that she knew so well.

As she watched, the towel he was still wearing around his waist fluttered to the floor, leaving him gloriously naked. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything as he moved into the bathroom, opened the shower door and stepped inside.

Instant explosions went off within her as he pulled her against him and kissed her, months of frustrated passion, of hopeless need cresting, threatening to sweep them both away. Weak-kneed, she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him pull her tight against his body, the warm water cascading down them as he lifted her, fitting her into the curves of his larger frame, supporting her slighter weight on his hands.

“Damn baby I love you,” he whispered as he pressed kisses against her cheek and down her neck. “I missed you so much.”

Tears spilled from Ashley’s eyes as she tipped her head back, silently consenting to whatever happened. It had been two weeks in the making, and thanks to his grandmother’s letter, which she had read multiple times a day since she had agreed to the reconciliation, she was ready to give them a second chance. She had to.

Every day she had been apart from him had been lonely, and she had almost gone back several times. Only the faint stretch marks on her stomach, the baby clothes locked away in a hope chest, and memory of mocking laughter at her darkest moments held her back. She hadn’t been strong enough to face the rejection of his family again, hadn’t been strong enough to tell him everything that had happened.

But Devon’s Nana had changed everything with the letter she had left as the last of her legacy.

Dearest Ashley,

I gave up a lot in my life. Nothing I regretted more however than the love of my life. My family didn’t approve of him, you see. They had other plans for me.

And so I have spent most of my life alone, surrounded by a family that I grew to resent just as much as I hated the man my family forced me to marry. Devon has been the only bright light in my life, the child of my eldest. He is my legacy.

Don’t walk away from him. Fight for him, as I didn’t fight for my beloved. Screw the rest of the family. I’ve done all I can to protect you from them, and from the secret that you need to hold close to your heart. For you see, I didn’t tell anyone, although I suspect my husband knew, that I was pregnant when I married him.

His father was brought to life out of love, and that love continues on in Devon.

Losing Devon’s dad a few years back was almost as hard on me as when I had to walk away from his father. When your baby died, and you left, the sun stopped shining for two of us – Devon and myself. He deserves more than he will ever find with his kin, and he is coming to realize that.

I don’t know what all passed between you and my children, but if it is true to their form, it was hellish and completely unfair. Blame them, hate them. But don’t punish Devon, and yourself.

Remember dear, now you can tell the family to go to hell, and they can’t do a thing about it. Saving face is important to them, but money is at the heart of all that they do. My husband taught them well. I hope that my passing gives you the means to rekindle what was once there, and save what I lost.

All my love, and greatest affection,

Lillian

Wrapping her legs around her husband’s waist, she arched against him as his lips trailed down to her breasts. “I love you too,” she gasped as his cock rubbed against the cleft of her body, teasing her with what was to come.

Gently, as he always had, he lifted her up, her moist nether lips pressed against his stomach, her breasts dangling in front of his face. As if he had all the time in the world, he stroked his tongue over one of her nipples. Nipping at it lightly with his teeth, he tugged just enough to draw a gasp of pleasure-pain from her before turning his attention to the other nipple.

Lavishing equal attention between her two nipples, he alternated back and forth, curling his tongue around the hardened bud and nipping at it with his strong teeth.

Ashley clutched at his shoulders, her nails digging into the tanned flesh as her body demanded more. She wanted him to fill her, to make her feel whole again as she hadn’t felt since she left him. Her body ached in memory of what it was like to have his cock push deep into her pussy, stretching her until she thought she would scream from the sweet sensations.

Breathless, she started begging, “Devon, please!” hoping he would finally join them together. Thankfully, he understood and brought her back down his body, his cock nudging at her outer lips, then slipping partway into her core. Trembling at the flush of sensations, Ashley wiggled in his arms, eager to deepen their contact.

“I can’t go through this again. Whatever happens, we work through it together.”

Ashley’s eyes flared open and she looked into his blue ones, startled to find tears shimmering in their depths. “Yes,” she agreed, heartbroken that she had hurt him so badly, “I promise we will.”  At the time, it had seemed the only way. Now she knew she should have trusted him to help her, trusted him to choose her, to love her enough.