“Come sit on my lap,” he said.
He settled in the armchair in the corner of our room and I—calmly as I could manage in a garter belt, heels, and sheer bra—tottered over to the vanity and removed my accessories.
Be calm, be sexy, I chanted inwardly. This is your wedding night.
I turned to Matt. My jaw dropped, and my calm and sexy soared out the window.
He had his dick in his hand, eyes on me.
“I will never get tired of that reaction,” he murmured. “Come here.”
Sit on my lap … oh, boy, that made a different kind of sense now.
I shuffled over, unclipping my garters as I went. He smiled at me, not with his usual wicked amusement, but with simple, youthful desire.
I kept on my heels and thigh-highs; I kicked off my panties.
“God”—he touched my hip—“let me make sure you’re wet enough…” He stroked himself while he swirled a finger around my folds. The whole display mesmerized me. He still wore his shirt and slacks, only the thick rod of his arousal protruding from his fly.
Because I knew it would drive him crazy, and because his teasing touch was driving me mad, I lowered my body onto his fingers … lifted and sank again.
“Ah, fuck, Hannah. Are you fucking my finger?”
I nodded and rolled my hips, biting my lip to suppress a moan.
“Turn around,” he whispered. “Sit.”
I obeyed, gripping the arms of the chair and lowering myself onto his lap. He positioned his tip at my entrance. I took it slow, loving the way his thighs trembled and tensed.
At last, with a gasp I couldn’t subdue, I sat.
He unhooked my bra and tossed it aside. He hugged my back to his chest.
The way his heart beat against my shoulder blade told me he could barely keep still and quiet, which made two of us.
We sat like that, husband and wife, locked together intimately.
“Even if they can’t hear us,” he said, “everyone knows what we’re doing.” He cupped my breasts and lifted them. I felt his cock shift deep inside me.
“You like that they know, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. All the men present today wanted you secretly, guiltily. Probably some of the women, too. You were a vision…”
He pinched my nipples and I squirmed, my body clamping around his. Delicious.
“I think…” I panted. “I think the women were focused on you. Matt, you looked—”
He covered my mouth. So handsome, so graceful … so beautiful, brave, and strong.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “Don’t. Don’t make it about me tonight. It’s you, Hannah. It’s always you. I was proud to be on your arm tonight. I was proud…”
I wanted to look at him, but I couldn’t, the way we sat.
And that’s how we did it that evening, sitting together in our home. His hands played me and I moved on his lap. He told me how it felt. He told me many things. No book can hold them.
Epilogue
HANNAH
April 2016
Matt and Seth Junior are in the meadow.
Seth is one and walking, which has thrown Matt into a panic. Last week, I caught him crawling around the main floor of the house (my husband, not our son). I laughed for ten minutes straight. Matt didn’t crack a smile. “I read that you need to get on the child’s level,” he’d explained, “to spot potential hazards.”
Then he crawled away, glaring at walls and furniture.
I doubled over with laughter—again.
As it turned out, anything within Seth’s reach constituted a hazard. Matt stripped our house of knickknacks from the floor to a yard up. He’d already put plug covers in every outlet and gated not just the staircase, but most of the doorways. “So we can control his movements.”
My husband is a worrier, you see.
So am I.
I watch my boys from the nursery window, a smirk on my lips. I know what you’re up to, Matt. Ever since I caught him reading Dracula to Seth (and confiscated the book, which is way too dark for a one-year-old mind), Matt has taken their reading sessions outdoors.
I pull on a light jacket and stride out into the meadow.
The April sun is warm; the wind is cool. Seth’s white-blond curls, which we leave a little long, toss in the breeze. He caught the rare fair-haired gene in the Sky family pool and has his father’s deep brown eyes. From Chrissy’s side, he got the same thick curls I inherited.
I know he will look like Seth when he grows up: devastatingly handsome, tall, and kind.
“What’s going on here?” I say.
Matt, who is lying on a blanket with Seth’s pudgy hand on his knee, snaps upright.
“Bird! Hey … hi.”
I squint at the thin volume he holds: Beowulf & Other Poems.
“Beowulf? No. Okay? No.”
“Oh, come on. He likes it. He likes—”
“He likes the sound of your voice. I don’t want weird, dark ideas infiltrating his mind. Stop trying to turn him into Heathcliff.” I go to swipe the book and Seth’s bubbly laughter distracts me. I am as powerless against Seth’s charms as I am against Matt’s.
“Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma,” he trills, pushing away from Matt and walking toward me. His little foot catches on the blanket. Down he goes, peals of delight turning to wails of unhappiness.
“See?” Matt demands.
I scoop up Seth. “Yes, I see that it’s nap time.”
“Here, I’ll take him.” He pulls Seth out of my arms and cradles him as if he were a much smaller child. “He still likes me to hold him.”
Seth is inconsolable. I twist away so that Matt can’t see me smiling. He is too painfully cute, and this routine reminds me of Seth’s infancy. “He likes me to hold him,” Matt would say to anyone who tried to take the baby. I had more than one picture of my husband standing in a corner, facing the wall, rocking Seth.
My two babies …
We walk to the house together, my hand in Matt’s back pocket.
Inside, he passes off Seth. He refuses to put him down for naps or bed. Too much like good-bye, I guess.
“Say night-night to Daddy.” I wave Seth’s hand and then carry him to Laurence’s hutch. The rabbit turns an ear. “Say night-night to Lor Lor.”