After, she relaxes against me, and I hold her, and I try to feel something.
Karen lifts her head after a while, and I open my eyes to meet her satisfied expression. “Stay?” she asks, her hand moving back to my cheek.
I nod, closing my eyes again. “Okay.”
The house is quiet when I let myself in at six in the morning. I feel bad, leaving Karen without saying goodbye. But I texted her with an explanation that I had to get home before the kids woke up, and I had a nice time.
I was in a daze the entire drive home, mostly from the lack of coffee. But when I walk through my front door wearing last night’s clothes, the wrongness I feel buzzing through my body intensifies.
I’m doing the walk of shame. This is what my life has turned into.
I move through the living room, preparing to go up to my room and sleep for a long time, when I’m stopped in my tracks.
Will is asleep with his head tipped back against the cushion. Ollie is curled against his left side, his little arm thrown over him and Will’s hand resting on his back. Addie is on his other side, her pink hair fanned out, her legs tucked up, her head on his shoulder.
I look at the three of them, and I think I should be there too. That I might love him for how good he is with them.
But I’m sure I’m just tired.
And I feel sort of… raw after last night, my emotions all over the place as my heart tries to reason with what happened. Iwasn’t ready for that step with her. I don’t feel for Karen the way she does for me, and I’ve had this guilt sitting in my chest since I let her climb into my lap.
Like I’ve betrayedmyself.
I go upstairs, into my room where the king-size bed waits for me, too big for one person, and start undoing the buttons of my shirt, slowly because I’m exhausted even after sleeping a solid eight hours, a lot more than I usually get. I’m distracted by trying to find the button I missed, but not so much that I don’t hear the door open and close.
In the reflection of the full-body mirror, I see Will step through it, locking the doorknob behind him. Clearing my throat, I pause on the button I’m currently working on. “How was Star Wars?”
He doesn’t say anything, stopping behind me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his breath at my neck.
His hands come up around me.
His left hand, still wrapped in a thin layer of gauze, and his right, finding the buttons I haven’t undone yet and working them much easier than I was, one and then the next until my shirt hangs open. “Will—”
He pulls the shirt off my shoulders and lets it drop to the floor behind me.
I’ve never been an attractive man. I know that, and I’ve made peace with it. A person’s value doesn’t lie in their physical beauty.
But right now, with my body on display, the morning light coming in through the curtains, shining on my torso, covered in hair, the extra weight I’ve gained since my separation, I wish more than anything thatthiswasn’t what Will’s eyes were roaming over in the reflection of the mirror.
I don’t get a chance to cover up as his hands slide down my arms, back around to my stomach, up my chest, through the hair, and I watch his face. There’s no laugh or smirk this time, only concentration when he finds my nipple and pinchesalmosttoo hard.
A sound escapes me as I press back against him, shifting to get away, but trapped between his fingers and his body. “What are you—” I start, but he lets me go, his hand sliding down to my waistband, plucking at the button of my jeans.
I watch in shock and confusion until he starts to shove my jeans down.
“Wait!” I tell him, my hand going to his wrist, but he doesn’t stop, ignoring my words as my pants and boxers hit the floor.
And fuck, I’m already hard. I have been since his hands touched my skin, and now, standing here in absolutely nothing, I don’t have anything to hide behind. My brother-in-law, the man I want, who rejected me outright, is staring at my cock, hard and leaking for him with a raised eyebrow.
I shiver, and I don’t know if it’s because the room is cold or because of the way he’s looking at me. “Huh,” he says, the corner of his mouth twitching up. “I figured a hotshot doctor like you would have a bigger dick.”
The embarrassment burns inside of me so bright I think I might actually die, but my cock chooses that exact moment to twitch, a bead of come spurting out, enjoying his gaze, no matter his opinion on its size.
I open my mouth to argue, turning my head to look at him, but I don’t get the chance, because he wraps his hand around me and I let out another one of those desperate sounds. My head drops back against him, and he starts to move his hand, so slow, torture in its truest form, as his mouth finds my neck.
It’s not even a kiss. It’s mostly teeth, dragging, biting before his lips seal over the skin, sucking hard.
I know what that means. That each time he does it, he’s leaving behind a mark I won’t be able to cover up. But I don’t care, because his hand is picking up the pace and his lips are moving to my ear, his breath leaving goosebumps all over my body.
