He spent the evening avoiding Shelly and doing homework and playing with Emma. Shelly went on and on about the plans for the wedding. She talked about the flowers, the caterers, the tables and chairs she’d ordered to be set up on the back lawn. He didn’t care about any of it.
When he thought about Marti, he was hard as stone. When he thought about Shelly, his rock-hard cock turned into a limp noodle. He wondered if he’d spend his marriage thinking about Marti in order to make love to Shelly. He wondered if he’d ever be able to make love to her.
After putting Emma to bed, he went to Shelly’s room to talk to her. The minute he’d stepped through the door, she complained her back ached from the pregnancy and would he rub it for her. He’d have a lot more nights like this once she rounded with the pregnancy. She claimed a headache and refused to engage in more than a few words, despite his best efforts to talk to her about their future.
She tried to seduce him, but the more she tried, the less interest he could muster. Eventually he grabbed her hands, stilled them, and pulled her next to him on the bed. He covered with a lie, telling her he hadn’t slept well since George’s death and he was exhausted.
How many lies would he have to tell over the coming years?
Marti, and his thoughts about her, were the reason he hadn’t slept, not George. After he’d made love to her in the rain and she’d left telling him he’d left her no choice, he’d stayed up wondering what she meant. She planned to leave, which made it even harder to sleep. He was afraid he’d wake up and she’d be gone.
He woke up in Shelly’s bed, the woman he didn’t want snoring at his side. Disgusted with himself, he rubbed his hand over his tense neck. He was supposed to be happy about marrying her. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about another woman, or wanting another woman. A man in his prime with a beautiful woman in his bed, he should have been able to make love to her hard and fast and long.
He rolled off the bed. His jeans weren’t even buttoned and he didn’t have his shirt on. He glanced at the clock. After one in the morning, he didn’t want Emma to find him in Shelly’s room. After the wedding, he’d explain to her a wife and husband slept together, but not until then. He didn’t know why he was putting it off, he just was.
He walked out of Shelly’s door and ran smack into Marti in the hall.
“Well, I guess I don’t have to ask what you’re doing up.” She looked at his unbuttoned jeans and the shirt in his hands. “Well, I guess you aren’t up anymore. I’m sure Shelly took care of it for you.” She couldn’t help it. She was angry. He was on her side of the house and sleeping with Shelly right across the hall from her rooms.
“I wasn’t doing anything. If you want to know the truth, I couldn’t.”
“Sure. It’s one in the morning and you’re half naked and sneaking out of her room because you didn’t sleep with her. I’m not blind, or stupid.”
“I did not sleep with her.” Frustrated, he dropped his head and stared at the floor and her pretty bare feet. “What are you doing up anyway?”
“Working. Why do you even care?”
“I care about you. You’re working every night and into the morning. You’re pale and you look ill. You don’t take care of yourself. You hardly ate anything tonight. And what the hell where you doing eating pie and olives for lunch? That’s not a proper meal, or even a good one,” he said and made a face of disgust over her choice of lunch foods.
“Like I said, why do you care?”
He pushed her up against the wall and held her there with his body. “I care, dammit. Don’t you think I wish and hope everyday for you? Don’t you think I’d rather it was you who is pregnant, rather than Shelly?”
“Wish granted.” She planted both hands on his hard, bare chest and shoved him away. She tried to move on to the stairs and head for the kitchen for something to eat, but he stopped her.
“What do you mean, ‘wish granted’?”
“You want me to be pregnant and not Shelly. I am, and I’ll