ragged. “What do you care more about? The house or your hand?”
I cough a little. “My entire hand? Which one?”
He mulls it over. He knows I’m left handed. “Your right hand,” he finally decides.
“Well, this is a tough one.”
He smiles. “You can still do a lot with one hand,” he points out. “You probably won’t be able to knit. But you could still teach, paint, read, cook,” he says, his hand trailing higher to my thigh. “You could even…you know.”
“You know what?” I ask, completely oblivious. Like I’ve said before, I’m not the fastest horse on the racetrack.
He wears an impish smile. “You know…”
I gasp, still confused. “What do you mean exactly?”
He cocks a brow. “You know…what you do sometimes when I’m not there.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t do that.”
He laughs. “Oh, you do. Don’t think I don’t know,” he teases as he tickles my hip with a gentle touch. “I’ve seen your toys.”
My first instinct is to pull his hand away. But he tickles me again, and suddenly he’s over me, and his face has taken on a whole different expression.
I want him to kiss me. I know he wants to. I can feel it, literally. “Of course you have,” I breathe. “You’re the one who bought them for me.”
“And I know you use them,” he teases, his hand under the skirt of my slip. I bite my lip, wanting him to stop playing games and pull off my cotton briefs…now.
“Okay,” he says, “back to the game. That one was too tough. How about this,” he says softly, his mouth inches from mine. “What do you care more about? The house? Or me?”
I laugh, but my laughter is jagged. I’m so aroused as I feel him still pressed against me. I want to play a little. “Why, that’s a tough one,” I tease. “This is a really nice house.”
He laughs but doesn’t say a word.
“But you… you’re a very nice man; a good husband, a good father,” I tell him as I trail my hand to the band of his sweat pants. He closes his eyes and moans as I travel further south and feel his hard-on through the thick fabric. “A good lover,” I go on, “and you do have rather impressive attributes,” I add with a cheeky smile.
He groans and laughs at the same time, the sound is slightly odd.
I smile and bite my lip. “You, of course,” I finally reply.
He smiles. “Good answer.”
I pull him to me and kiss him.
Finally.
His lips are warm and soft, and his kiss warms my entire body. I feel myself soften in his arms. I trail my hands under his grey t-shirt and glide them along his smooth skin. I want to touch every inch of skin. I suddenly wish I had ten pairs of hands.
I don’t quite understand when he pulls his mouth away from mine. I know he wants this as much as I do.
“Uh, Ella,” he says as he pulls away. “We should stop. I don’t want to start anything we can’t finish.”
I sit up on the bed. “What do you mean? We can’t finish?”
“It’s only been five weeks,” he reminds me. “The doctor said up to six weeks.”
“Yes, up to six weeks. It’s not an exact science.”
He bites his bottom lip. “I don’t want to risk it. I don’t want to hurt you or give you an infection or something. I think we should wait.”
Ugh.
“Fine,” I scoff.
He smiles at me, seemingly amused. “And besides, I need to go take a shower. I’m so sweaty. I probably reek.”
I smile. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ll be doing in that shower.”
He laughs, bouncing off the bed. “You know me too well.”
“Tease,” I mutter under my breath and crash back down on the mattress in a heap of pent-up sexual frustration.
CHAPTER TWENTY
And he does what Gabe does best.
“Hi, Mom,” Chloe cheers as she enters my classroom. She’s in charge of getting her little sister and bringing her to my classroom every day after school. And she’s very responsible, does a great job without fail.
I smile at her. “How was your day, girls?”
“Fantastic,” Claire tells me.
“Epic,” Chloe says.
When did ‘epic’ become a word?
I gather my things and head out with the girls, keys in hand.
As soon as I step out, I see a tall shaded stranger, looking like the back of a fashion magazine, a glossy black and white ad for Calvin Klein. This time I know who he is. It’s like déjà-vu. An unwelcomed déjà-vu.