“What? I’m—” I trailed off when he hit a particularly good angle. “I’m hungry. A growing girl needs to eat.”
“Growing girl?” he questioned through gritted teeth. “Baby, you’re the same—fuck, do that again—the same height you were in high school.”
“No, horizontally, I mean.” I gestured to my hips and thighs, which had expanded over the years.
“Good. Gives me more to hold onto,” Teddy grunted, giving both a rough squeeze before reaching forward to snag a gingerbread cookie from the plate on the coffee table. He broke a piece off and held it to my lips. “This oughta tide you over for a bit. Open.”
I took a bite, chewing while watching me with an expression that suggested he couldn’t quite believe this was his life now.
“Good?” he asked, pushing his index finger past my lips as he offered me another bite.
“So good,” I said, swirling my tongue around the digit, tasting myself as much as the spices. “Can’t believe we never brought food into the bedroom when we were married.”
“This some long-unfulfilled fantasy for you, Kels—riding my dick while I feed you gingerbread?”
I chuckled. “Absolutely not. Old Kelsey would have had a coronary. Crumbs in the bed… cookies for dinner? The horror.”
“Old Kelsey was wound tighter than an eight-day clock,” Teddy dryly stated as he brushed crumbs off my lip.
“She was exhausting,” I agreed. “And frankly, kind of a pain in the ass.”
“Nah, you were doing your best.”
“Was I though?” The question came out lighter than I intended. “Or was I just... performing? Like everything had to be Pinterest-perfect or the world would end?”
“You were trying to hold us together,” he said quietly. “Only way you knew how.”
“Fat lot of good it did,” I mumbled around another mouthful of cookie.
“Might’ve taken the scenic route through Hell, baby, but we’re still here,” Teddy said, huffing out a strained breath when I reached back toward the coffee table.
“Scenic route’s one way to put it,” I deadpanned as I selected a handful of cookies, feeling him soften in me. Not all the way—just enough that I registered the loss of fullness.
It had been a frequent occurrence in the years before the divorce, when stress and grief and exhaustion had taken their toll on both of us. Before, it would have sent me spiraling into insecurity, wondering if I wasn’t attractive enough, wasn’t sexy enough, wasn’t enough period.
Now I just engaged my inner muscles to hold him inside me before settling more comfortably in his lap.
“Think this is your handiwork,” I said, holding up a gingerbread snowflake with a missing point before bringing it to his mouth.
The rigid expression on Teddy’s face softened into something like gratitude or maybe even relief. Like he’d been bracing for me to pull away and make it A Thing.
“Those were all you, baby,” Teddy drawled, taking a bite.
“Me?” I exclaimed, placing my hand against my chest in feigned horror. “I would never make such a mistake, Theodore.”
“Oh, really?” His eyebrows raised mockingly as he took another bite of the cookie, crumbs tumbling down his bare chest. “Seem to recall someone saying she was too high-brow for anything but the snowflakes and trees.”
I rolled my eyes, unable to suppress a grin. “Fine, maybe I delegated the more… phallic-shaped cookies to you initially. But need I remind you that you were responsible for more than a few of those little artistic creations while I?—”
“Recovered from seven orgasms?” Teddy helpfully supplied, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
The playful back-and-forth was absurd and perfect and exactly what I hadn’t known I needed—the easy intimacy, the comfort with our bodies and their limitations, the ability to be completely ourselves without pretense or performance.
We continued like that, between kisses and bites of gingerbread, until his cock slid free of my body.
Feeling the tension return to his muscles, I reached between us to take him in my hand. “Wanna know what I’m thinking about now?” I whispered, my lips brushing the shell of his ear.
A shudder rippled through his body. “What’s that, baby?”
