However, none of them had really clicked with him. Until he met April at the local rodeo. She was dating one of the bull riders and had just come to cheer him on, but as soon as Clay saw her, he knew that she was the one for him. He was hanging in the background, as usual, watching things, not participating much. In fact, despite his success, he was starting to dislike the rodeo scene. Clay didn't have a problem lasting the eight seconds needed to win, and he didn't mind the bull—he just didn't do well with the bullshit.
He'd asked April out later that day and she'd laughed at him, that tinkling, waterfall laugh of hers as her face lit up, and she leaned forward to pat his hand. "Why, I'm flattered, Clay, but I'm seeing Jake, and I don't think he'd appreciate that much."
He hadn't taken no for an answer, biding his time, and when they broke up—and he'd known they would; Jake was a bounder—Clay was right there, asking her again and making a pest of himself until she said yes.
April was still in school, but Clay wasn't about to wait to marry her, so he proposed only about two months later, with the caveat that she had to finish her education.
It had amazed him how well they clicked. She was a little hesitant about getting spanked, but her father had always been the undisputed head of the family she'd grown up in, so it wasn't something that was completely foreign to her.
And Clay understood her hesitation about incorporating discipline into their lives. He knew that his spankings were going to hurt. But they'd discussed it, and implemented it before they married. Clay had to snort softly in his reverie. It wasn't as if the threat of a spanking had ever really deterred his little dynamo from doing anything she wanted—including taking his baby of a truck without permission and dinging it in a fender bender.
Clay closed his eyes at the memories—her mischievous grin, the unmistakable sounds of her pleasure as their bodies connected on the most intimate of levels; sounds that always threw him into his own spiral of pure, mind blowing ecstasy. They were opposites that attracted and created a wondrous place for themselves. April was as outgoing as he was quiet, and sometimes he'd just sit back and watch her circulate at one of the country barn dances the town often held. His beautiful wife April knew everyone's name, and their kids' names, and when she asked about their health and their families' health, everyone knew that she cared about their answer.
She cared. About them and about him. She loved him even after he'd roasted her bottom for doing something stupid. It had always amazed him that, despite the fact that her bottom was a ruby red, and obviously throbbing like the dickens, April always turned to him, came into his arms like he hadn't just set fire to those lovely hillocks. She was never afraid of him, not even after the strictest of punishments. In fact, the wetness between her legs told a different story.
She was everything. Everything he'd ever wanted. Everything he'd needed. She was his reason, the flower who blossomed under his touch, and now she was gone.
He would never again be that happy, never find her dancing in her stockinged feet in their oak-wood foyer while Patsy Cline blasted in the distance, never turn to pull her into his arms in the middle of the night, fitting her every soft curve and valley just perfectly into his hard planes and angles, reaching around to capture a pert breast, unselfconsciously enjoying the feel of it nestled in his palm like a contented bird...
Sometimes he didn't think he could take the pain. Work helped—the length of his work weeks were getting to be ridiculous. They were the things of which legends were made. But the solace was empty. Beyond the pain, there was miles and miles of nothingness, and of the two, he preferred the pain.
The one bright spot in his life was the only social engagement he cared to keep; his once a month lunches with Elodie.
She was a strange, timid little creature. Smaller than April—and that was saying something—even though she was the older sister, and much, much quieter. She'd been a rock for him when April died, and he wasn't about to forget that. He'd always liked Elodie, even though he could see that she was entirely overshadowed by her sister and her boisterous family, there didn't seem to be any resentment of the fact that April was so obviously the apple of everyone's eye.