I collect the glasses from the lounge and take them through to the kitchen. The dishwasher has finished so I start unloading as the female lead in my current book starts her new job as an assistant to the notoriously difficult to work with but—by all accounts—incredibly good-looking CEO. Oh yeah, we know where this is heading.
With the dishwasher empty, I hand wash the glasses and cups we had left over from the end of the evening to avoid loading it back up. When they’re dried and put away, the chapter ends and the next one begins, this time in the CEO’s point of view. He recollects his first meeting with his new assistant, how he felt annoyed by his body’s reaction to her low-cut blouse and the way her smile was too perfect.
I’m acutely aware of how long it’s been since Lisa and I were intimate, and I’m growing more and more worried about it. I didn’t bring it up to Jake, it feels disloyal to Lisa to talk about it. I want her so freaking much it hurts.Literally. My cock has basically been standing to attention for months and I’m struggling to get him to stand down. Lisa and I have always been very physical in our relationship. When we first got together, I couldn’t keep my hands off her and that new-relationship-magnetism never faded. After the boys were born, we were both chomping at the bit for the six-week safety window to pass before we could have sex again. But after Mary, Lis wasn’t ready. She didn’t seem herself and I didn’t want to pressure her so I told myself I would wait until she initiated something. Nearly a year later, my dick is about ready to fall off.
It was walking in on Lisa pleasuring herself that started this rippling thought that she’s mad at me. I thought she justwasn’t feeling sexual after Mary was born, but clearly she still has needs, she just doesn’t want me to sate them. I know I need to talk to her. I know I need to find out what’s been going on. I’m just being a total coward about it. I sigh out loud at my own idiocy as I head to the garage and open the overhead cupboards to check Lisa’s crazy to do list. Anything in pink I know I can do so I check what she has for tomorrow and see that she wants to lay the table for breakfast first thing in the morning. Great, I can do that now. I take the deep red tablecloth off the table and switch it for the fun one with Santa and Elves on it. This is apparently the breakfast tablecloth. Not the dinner tablecloth. Anyone with half a brain should know that…according to my wife.
By the time I’ve laid all the cutlery perfectly perpendicular to the Santa Claus placemats and put out glasses for both champagne and orange juice, the grumpy CEO is wanking off in the shower to inappropriate thoughts of his assistant.I feel ya, buddy. Although are they inappropriate thoughts if they’re about your wife?Interesting. I quickly sweep, give the kitchen surfaces a final wipe over and vacuum in the lounge before finally heading up to bed.
CHAPTER NINE
“The most beautiful, sexiest, fuckable woman.”
LISA
I’m sat up in bed, propped up by my pillows against the headboard with my latest romance book in front of me when Harry makes it upstairs. He opens our bedroom door, Mary’s milk bottle in hand, and stops dead when he sees me, a bemused smile tugging at his lips.
“What are you doing still awake?”
“You said you’d be up soon, I wanted to wait.” I shrug, closing my book and placing it down on my bedside table. I see his eyes flick to the cover briefly before coming back to me.
“Sorry, babe,” he says, stepping further into the room and gently closing the door behind him. “I was just pottering, making sure we’re set for the morning.”
I smirk up at him as he steps over to Mary’s travel cot, set up in the corner of our room. “You were ticking things off my list, weren’t you?”
“I may have done one or two bits here and there.”
“I love you, Harry Forest, you know that, yeah?”
After stroking Mary’s mop of brown hair from her forehead and leaving her milk on the side, ready for when she wakes in the next hour or so, he comes over to our bed and sits on my side by my feet. His brow pinched and his lip folded between his teeth in thought.
“You okay?” I ask, sitting straighter and reaching for his arm.
“I’m fine.” He sighs, turning to face me, pain in his eyes. “Lis, what’s going on with you? I know something’s bothering you. If it’s something I’ve done, I’m sorry. I’ve tried to think back but I don’t know what it is. But if you tell me what it is, I’ll do everything I can to make it better.”
My heart breaks a little. This is what Nel was talking about. He thinks this is his fault? The worry etched into every contour of his face tugs at my chest and all I can do is shake my head. “Harry, you haven’t done anything wrong. You really think I wouldn’t tell you if you’d pissed me off?”
He shrugs looking all kinds of uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t think so, but I know something has been bothering you, and you haven’t talked to me about it and I was worried that…” He trails off, resting his elbows on his knees and hanging his head.
I shuffle out from under the covers, coming to sit next to him and gently cupping his cheek to bring his face to mine. “You were worried what?”
“Worried I’d said or done something wrong, and you didn’t feel you could talk to me because I’m not so good with talking about stuff like that.”
I frown at him. “Harry, you and I have never had a problem communicating.” He chews on his bottom lip and won’t meet my eye and a thought crosses my mind. “Is this because of you and Nel talking last year?”
He swallows hard and his voice cracks slightly over his next words. “I honestly never knew how much I was hurting her when I used to joke and tease her. Her whole life I thought we were close and just had a bantering dynamic but for years she’d avoided spending time with me, withus, because I made her feel like shit about herself. I couldn’t bear it to discover the relationshipwehave isn’t what I’d always thought it was.”
I can’t help the smirk curving my lips. “Babe, you know our relationship is slightly different to your relationship with your sister, right?”
“You think?” he asks, completely straight faced.
“Pretty sure.” I nod. “Harry,” I say softly, bringing both hands to his face now. “You and I are solid. We can talk to each other about anything and if you were being a douche, I’d be the first to tell you.”
Turning his head, he kisses my palm. “Then what’s been bothering you, Lis? And why haven’t you talked to me?”
My chin trembles. “Because I’m embarrassed.”
“About what?” He pulls me to him until I’m forced to straddle his lap. When I look down and say nothing, he crooks a finger beneath my chin and forces my face to tilt to his. “Angel,” he says with stern gentleness. “Talk to me.”
