I try to catch myself before I frown in reaction. For the record, no one’s ever liked me less for eating them out before, including Elise. If I remember correctly, that’s usually the kind of thing that inspires more touchy-cuddly feelings in her.
What the hell did I do?
“I’m, uh...sorry about this morning,” I start off, hopefully quietly enough that my brothers won’t hear, or at least not loud enough to catch their attention.
Elise just shrugs and pretends to return her attention to sorting through a rack of dresses, but she doesn’t even glance at some of the ones she adds to the pile draped over her arm, keeping a wary eye on me. “What’s there to be sorry about?”
The words “I’m sorry I ate you out specifically after I said I wasn’t going to do that” just aren’t going to happen while my brothers are here, but I’m sure she has to know that’s what we’re talking about. And all the other moments I haven’t been doing a great job at staying away from her.
“Uh, well. Y’know. I’m just trying not to make this whole ordeal harder for you, crossing lines we set pretty firmly at the start of this and all that,” I remind her, just in case she’d forgotten that whole fight we’d had about it just a few days ago.
She glances at me warily and starts walking away to the dressing rooms. “You didn’t make it harder for me, it’s fine.”
The way she darts behind the safety of the thin plywood door and quickly locks it says otherwise.
I follow her and ask over the top of the stall door, “Really?”
She waves an empty plastic hanger at me, and I back off a few feet. I can see her kick off her pants in the few inches of space under the privacy screen, and the top of her head over it.
Right. Stay away, sit still, no touching. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I jam my hands in my pockets and wait for her answer.
“I’ve made my peace with everything that happened between us. Found the closure I was looking for. I’m good now, Shawn.”
I frown. “When?”
“I don’t know...I overheard you talking to your brothers the other day. About the way you lied to me. It made me upset at first, but the longer I think about it, that was never really the issue.”
Sometimes I forget humans can eavesdrop too. “It wasn’t?”
“No.”
She doesn’t elaborate, of course, just shimmies out of one dress and into a different one. I catch myself biting one of my knuckles, staring hard at the sliver of her I can see between the door hinges and the wall. After this morning, the need to touch her is overpowering. My cock twitches at the barest glimpse of her shins under the door like some kind of repressed Victorian.
“Hang on. If me lying to you wasn’t the reason we got divorced, what was? No, for real. Why’d we split up then?”
“Shawn, we can’t keep doing this. There’s nothing left between us to repair, I don’t know why you keep digging. We’re not...we’re not going to get back together, or anything. Obviously.”
She sighs and leans against one of the dressing room walls.
“Obviously, pssh, yeah,” I repeat, because yeah, we’re totally on the same page. I hadn’t been hoping that she’d just fall into my arms after a couple of orgasms, wanting to see if we could make it work one more time, or anything else along those lines. Not at all.
“I’m leaving after this whole wedding is over,” she says pointedly, a little bit exasperated, like she doesn’t believe I’m agreeing with her.
“I’m leaving too,” I add, and honestly, it does now sound like we could just happen to leave in the same direction, if she wanted to. Apparently, I don’t actually know the reason she doesn’t.
Whatever idiot thing I’m about to say next dies on my tongue when she opens the door and I get to see what she’s tried on.
That is not just fancy work event clothing. I’ve seen the early stages of Elise’s attempts at professional catering clothing, the black dress pants and button-down shirts. But this is something else entirely.
It’s a little black cocktail dress that hugs her middle a little too well, and my mouth goes dry at the way the fabric clings to her hips, her legs, highlighting every curve and movement.
It’s cheesy, but I like her in satin. I recognize it instantly, a memory blooming from the shiver of fabric as she turns. She had another skirt like that when we lived together. Every time she wore it, I found myself worshiping with my head between her thighs.
She hovers in the doorway apprehensively, before turning around and pulling her hair aside.
My jaw physically aches at the sight of her bare neck and shoulder. It’s more than just the want to kiss, to carve into that spot that always makes her breath hitch with the blunt edge of my teeth.
Momentarily I forget where I am, until she asks, “Can you get this zipper for me?”
