the months when Dean and I were first dating. I want to look up from the cash register at Jitter Beans and see him standing there looking at me with that warm, gentle smile, and I want to feel the quickening flutter of happiness start deep inside me.
“Medium coffee, please. No room for cream.”
I still fill his coffee cup almost to the rim. When we went to cafés in Paris, he drank espresso, and I learned to ask for une noisette, which was an espresso with foamed milk. In our apartment, we brewed our own coffee in the mornings and always, without fail, went downstairs to the boulangerie for croissants or a baguette to have with breakfast. Even in another country, we found our café.
One bright, chilly morning in October, I bundled up the kids and walked downstairs to buy croissants. Dean had returned very late the previous night from a week-long trip to Russia and was still sleeping when Marie-Laure arrived to take Nicholas to his morning preschool and Bella out for a walk.
Shortly after they left, I heard the shower start. I brewed coffee, and arranged a tray with a plate of croissants and a scraggly little flower I’d plucked from the courtyard garden.
I was so happy Dean was back. He often took short trips to Italy, Germany, and England, but a week had seemed like an exceedingly long stretch of time for him to be away from us.
I set the tray on the table beside the bed. A warm shaft of sunlight speared through the curtains, and I stretched out against the pillows to enjoy it.
“Hmm. Which one do I get for breakfast?”
Dean’s voice washed over me. I opened my eyes to see him standing in the doorway to the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around his waist. Fragrant steam wafted from behind him, and water beaded on the taut skin of his chest and shoulders.
“Whichever one you want.” I turned, lifting myself onto one elbow so I could admire him as he walked toward me. “Welcome home. Sorry I missed you last night.”
“I missed you all week.” He sat on the edge of the bed and moved in for a kiss, the scent of his shaving soap rising from his skin in a delicious, heady aroma.
I parted my lips, meeting him in the hot rush that always followed our separations, no matter how brief. Arousal flared inside me immediately, like a struck match. He lifted his hands to either side of my neck, angling my head so he could fit his mouth more securely against mine.
“Are you hungry?” I whispered.
“Mmm.” He brushed his lips back and forth against mine. “Hungry for my wife.”
I smiled. “Me too. I’ve been hungry for you all week.”
“Yeah?” He climbed onto the bed, pressing me back against the pillows. “What’d you do about it, Mrs. West?”
“I might have…” my heart beat faster, “…fantasized a little.”
His eyes darkened. “Did you now, naughty girl?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t get to tease me.” Dean’s voice took on an implacable tone as he slid his hand down the V-neck of my fleece shirt. “You’re going to have to tell me.”
I squirmed when his hand slipped down into my bra. When I didn’t speak, he pinched my nipple.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
“Oh…I, well, at night I’d lie here thinking about you…about us,” I admitted breathlessly, which was the truth.
“And tell me what you thought about.”
“All sorts of dirty things,” I breathed, resting my hand on his bare chest. “Like how good it feels to sit on your cock and bounce up and down. And how much I love it when I’m on my back and you’re holding my legs apart so you can fuck me as deep as you can. Or when I’m on my hands and knees and you’re driving into me from behind, and I’m moaning every time your cock slams into me…and I can feel you dripping down my thighs…”
A noise rumbled in his chest as he pushed his hips against my leg, his erection already hardening beneath his towel. He lowered his head to nuzzle my neck.
“Go on,” he said gruffly.
“I’d just get so aroused,” I whispered in his ear. “So wet. I’d spread my legs and imagine you sliding that big cock into my tight pussy while I pleaded for more…but you liked hearing me beg, so you’d rub your cock over my clit and tease me with it until I couldn’t take it anymore. Then you’d push into me, so slow and deep…and