Through some convoluted communication with my aunt Stella, I found out my mother was living less than an hour away in Riverside. I wrote and told her Dean and I were going to be passing through (which we weren’t), and that I’d like to see her. I didn’t expect her to respond. The following week we drove out.
It’d been a brief visit—an hour, tops. Dean was outwardly polite and inwardly seething. My mother was indifferent toward him and hostile toward me. I tried to be composed and did not succeed.
“Guess she doesn’t have my email address,” I say.
Dean pulls me closer, spreading his hand over the side of my head. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. He knows what it’s like, how knotted everything gets inside me. My memories of my father are faded almost to nonexistence, and I had a twisted relationship with my mother.
When I had a relationship with her at all.
All the old emotions roil up into my chest—anger, fear, sadness, inadequacy. I’ve learned to control them over the years, but they swarm up again the minute she makes contact.
Dean wraps his arms around me and shifts so our bodies are pressed together. It feels good, the muscular length of him against me, his arms tight around my back. I rest my cheek against his chest and breathe.
He’s so solid, so secure. He’s been the one constant in my life, the one person who hasn’t abandoned me or given up on me. The one person who would tell me not to give up on myself.
I move away from him first, pressing my lips to the side of his neck. I’m no longer hungry for dinner—least of all microwaved lasagna—and Dean says he had a late lunch anyway, so we both settle in for the evening.
He goes into his office to work, and I change into my nightgown, curl under an old quilt, and find an I Love Lucy marathon to watch.
Lucy Ricardo. She would’ve been a good mother. Nutty, but good. Probably a heck of a lot of fun, too.
The candy factory episode is half over when Dean emerges. He sits beside me on the sofa, and we shift around a little until I’m lying with my head in his lap. He strokes his hand over my hair, then underneath the quilt and around to my breasts.
It’s been two weeks now—longer than we’ve ever gone without some form of intimacy—and my whole body floods with relief and arousal. For a few minutes, Dean rubs my breasts through the cotton of my nightgown. I squirm as my nipples harden, and then he starts to roll them between his fingers. Heat tingles across my skin.
Dean strokes the curve of my hip, gathers the material of my nightgown in his fist, and drags it up to my waist. I can feel him getting hard, and I rub my cheek against his crotch. Urgency spools through my lower body, sparked by my increasing pulse.
I shift again until I’m lying face-up with my head still in his lap, and he’s looking down at me with a hot gaze that makes my blood shimmer. I squeeze my thighs together because the delicious throb is starting. Dean pushes the quilt aside and pulls my nightgown up farther so my breasts are exposed.
His breath escapes in a rush as he palms the full globes. I shiver.
“So damn beautiful,” he mutters.
It’s an incredibly erotic feeling, lying there with my head in his lap and my nightgown bunched up, naked except for my white cotton panties. He starts stroking me again, sliding his hand to rub my breasts, my nipples, and back down over my belly to the edge of my panties. He slips his fingers teasingly beneath the elastic.
“You want to come, beauty?” he whispers.
The husky note in his voice fires my excitement. In response, I writhe against his hand. I’m still squeezing my thighs together because the throb is building, but Dean urges my legs apart.
He pushes his hand beneath my panties, fingers toying through the damp curls, until he reaches the place where my arousal is centered. Then he splays his hand over my folds, sliding one finger easily into me while his thumb circles my clit.
It’s not enough. I buck my hips, trying to thrust myself harder against his hand. A smile tugs at his mouth. He slides his arm beneath my shoulders, his other hand coming around to pluck at my nipples. Fire streams through my veins.
I press my face into Dean’s shirt and moan. My skin is hot, flushed. His breath echoes through his chest. I feel my arousal coiling tighter, and even though I crave that explosive release, I love this moment of being close to my husband again, hearing the pound of his heart against my ear, the heat of his body flowing into mine.
He grips me harder just before the tension breaks, as if he knows I can’t prevent it any longer. His hands and fingers work harder—in me, over me, on me—and then the sensations rocket through me, causing me to choke out his name as I clench my thighs around his hand and ride the exquisite wave.
He holds on to me, easing the last tingles from my body, and then I go limp and just breathe against him while he strokes my damp belly.