But here, we’ve put on the usual display, the one that tells strangers we love each other with our quiet glances, his handon my back, our heads ducked toward each other as if sharing a secret.
“How often do you have to come to these?” I whisper after the final speaker leaves the stage to polite applause and a live jazz band.
Amusement lights his eyes and he pulls my chair closer to his and puts his mouth close to my temple. “Too often.”
“Should I pull a fire alarm? We can pretend I’m drunk off the open bar.”
When he laughs, I feel the light huff of breath on my face and have to bite my lip not to smile too wide myself.
When he’s not being overbearing, it’s easy to fall into comfortable company, private jokes, and a shared king size bed at the end of each day. We haven’t had sex since our wedding night—haven’t come close since the day in my sister’s basement. I haven’t pressed and he hasn’t asked, ever respectful.
I think he’s waiting for me to remember that this bargain hasterms,but the last time was . . .intense. To say the very least. I’m not used to anything beyond a one night stand, and it makes me uneasy.
But I’ve become familiar with the feeling of Maxim’s hand on my lower back, thumb swiping back and forth absentmindedly. I’ve slipped into complacency, too quickly getting accustomed to the smell of his skin after he sleeps, or his aftershave, or the way he looks reading before bed, these little glasses on his nose.
When we’re not arguing about my autonomy, I am comfortable with him.
That—that feeling ofeaseis what scares me more.
“I think we’ve given enough time and money to warrant an early escape,” he says and I could not agree more.
Samuel drove us in a short limousine tonight with Sasha as security in a second vehicle. When we slide into the back seatafter rushing out of the hall, Maxim’s hand on my waist, the privacy divider between us and him is already up.
“The politicians will be sad you didn’t say goodbye,” I say.
“Maybe. But most of them were looking at you like they wished you were their date instead of mine, so I think they’ll understand.”
I laugh, but he raises an eyebrow and looks down at my body like this was not a joke at all. I cough into my fist and reset my posture.
“Can we call a truce?” Maxim asks, surprising me.
“This must be a really nice dress,” I remark.
“It is.”
My lips part, but I have no sharp quip in response to his earnestness.
“I’d like that,” I say. “A truce, I mean.”
He offers his hand for me to shake, and after a moment of looking at it, I take it in mine. It reminds me of shaking his hand in his kitchen the day after Christmas. When we set our terms to begin with.
“I suppose we need a truce to make a baby,” I say without thinking. I would close my eyes in embarrassment if I didn’t think it would look weak. For Maxim’s part, his eyes have nearly ignited, a quiet smoldering behind the blue that makes my mouth dry.
“I suppose,” he echoes. His hand is still wrapped around mine, keeping them aloft.
Maxim leans closer, and I don’t realize I’ve done the same, my face near his. He looks at my lips, and I cannot begin to read the expression on his face beyondwant. I shiver remembering his hands on my body, his mouth on my neck, and have to swallow the new dryness in my throat.
“You were the most beautiful person there tonight. Every night,” he says, voice measured and low.
“I know,” I say. I lean closer, matching his slow slide toward me.
If he was just any man, I would kiss him, roam my hand over his length until he was a panting mess, and then I would have him, and I would never have him again. But this is my husband, the only person I will ever have again, and I’ve already had him once. I already know what those hands feel like on me, what his cock feels like, how he would make sure I was taken care of.
My breath catches as his lips ghost across mine, the barely there touch making my lips tingle.
It’s not bad, having my husband. I will need to have him, and have him a lot to make a baby. Then forever more, he and me, the man I can’t love and I.
“I think everyone who met you was charmed by you,” he whispers.
