Another Man's Baby (6 page)

“If you’re lonely we could help each other out, no strings attached.” The woman looked down, saw the ring on his finger and continued. “Your wife need never know.”

She pressed her body against his. Eric didn’t move. He felt frozen in time. The woman rubbed against him, running her finger down the front of his pants, finding the zipper and slipping her hand inside. Damn, it felt good.

Then she leaned into him and he took a whiff. She smelled like stale cigarettes and booze mixed with sweat and cheap perfume. She didn’t smell like sugar cookies. A chill traveled over him, bringing him back to reality. He pulled the woman’s hand from his pants. His penis jerked at the loss of the warmth.

“I’m not that lonely,” he said softly.

“Don’t you want to?”

“Yeah, I want to.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because I have a wife I love and if I want to keep her I can’t diddle around with you.”

“She’d never know.”

“She’d know because I’d tell her.” Eric smiled. “Thanks just the same, and hey, you were good for my ego. I needed what you offered, even if I can’t accept.” He plunked down several bills on the bar and beckoned for the bartender.

“Have a good time,” he told the woman. “Your next few drinks are paid for.”

With that, Eric walked out of the club, wanting to go back and take the woman to a cheap hotel someplace and drive hard into her body. But that wouldn’t erase his pain and would only create more problems.

***

“Where you been?”

“I needed some time alone to just think about things so I went to a club with Mike.”

“You mean you needed time away from me?”

“I guess I did.”

“Tell me why.”

“There isn’t always an answer for everything.”

“But in this case I think there is. I don’t understand what’s happening to us. You’ve been home for a little over three months and we’re living like strangers.” Gabi put her hand up to silence her husband’s rebuttal. “I’m not trying to start a fight with you.” She closed her eyes slowly, trying to continue breathing, trying not to cry. “If you found someone while you were gone…”

She stopped a lump pushing its way from her chest to her throat. She pressed past it and ignored the welling tears. She would get through this. She loved Eric, but she would get through this.

“If you have someone else, just tell me. Let’s make a clean break.”

Eric blinked.
Make a clean break
? What the hell was Gabi talking about? “I don’t have anyone else.”

“I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Have I ever given you a reason to think I was cheating on you?”

“Yes,” she answered, almost whispering, her voice getting lost in the vastness of the room. “You use a condom to make love to me when you do, but most time you won’t enter me and you ask if you’ve ever given me a reason to doubt you. Try right now.” She lifted her eyes to his.  “The smell you’re reeking of…it’s perfume and it’s not mine.”

Gabi stood firm, determined not to cry. If it was true, if they were over, she wanted him gone right now, like ripping away a bandage. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. She watched as he sniffled his body. Then a smile broke out on his face.

“You think this is funny, you come home smelling like…” Her hand shot out.

“Baby, I’d never cheat on you,” Eric whispered, holding the hand she’d intended to slap him with. “Don’t you know how much I love you?”

“I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure.”

“The one thing you never have to doubt is my love for you.”

“Then where did you pick up this smell?”

“I was offered.” Eric held Gabi to keep her from backing away.

“And?”

“And I was tempted.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I needed to be with someone who didn’t give a damn about me, someone I couldn’t hurt.” He stared into Gabi’s eyes, holding her angry, hurt-filled gaze, not breathing for the space of a heartbeat. “Gabi, baby, I’m sorry. I’m all screwed up and I can’t seem to shake it.”

“You thought making love to another woman would help you shake it?”

He hunched his shoulder. “I was told it would.”

“What did you do?” Gabi’s voice was laced with steel as she glared up at Eric. Her eyes narrowed as she readied her knee. “Tell me now, Eric, what did you do?”

“I thanked her for the offer and bought her a couple of drinks.”

“Let me go.” Gabi shoved against her husband’s chest. She was so angry she was shaking. For two months she’d put up with his nonsense, trying to be sensitive, trying not to upset him, to give him time to adjust. What she should have given him was a good swift kick in the behind. She didn’t play that, she didn’t care what the reason was. She’d not stepped out on him while he was gone and she expected the same loyalty from him.

“Nothing happened.”

“That’s a lie, something happened.”

“Nothing.”

“Think again, you wanted to. Why would you even want to? I don’t understand that. It’s not as if I’m not here for you.” She couldn’t help it, the tears fell. “It’s not as though I haven’t been practically begging you. Is that it, you no longer respect me? I don’t blame you because it’s getting hard for me to respect myself.”

“Gabi, it had nothing to do with us. It was just…she just…” He saw the fire in her eyes and changed his mind. Honesty was cool but at the moment she wasn’t in the mood for total honesty. He’d best keep what she’d done to himself, for the moment. “I didn’t do anything with her, not even dance. I never touched her.”

“She was close enough to you to leave her scent.” Gabi glanced downward at her husband’s crotch. “For the moment let’s say I believe you, that you didn’t touch her. What did you have her do?”

She ignored the glare her husband was now sending her. He was in the wrong. How dare he act so indignant.

“Are you asking me if I had sex with her?”

“Since you men have a way of thinking that someone giving you oral sex is not having sex or cheating, let me be straight about this. I do consider it sex. Now back to my question. Did she do you?”

“We were in a bar, for God’s sake.”

“And I repeat, did she do you? Don’t play with me, Eric, I’m not in the mood.”  And she wasn’t. The long dry months were all that she could think about. The times her husband had flatly refused her advances, making her think there was something wrong with her, that she was oversexed or some such nonsense. Sure, they’d made love a dozen times the night he’d returned, and almost that many every day for the next month. But if she had known he was shooting his entire load and they would be doing without for a month, then nothing but a hit or miss thereafter, she would have called a halt to that glorious month of passion.

And to look at him standing before her, telling her calmly that he’d thought of having sex with another woman. Un-unh, that wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t going down like that. She prepared herself, gritting her teeth and taking a stance that meant business. “I asked you a question, Eric. Stop wasting time trying to think of a lie. You’d best answer me.”

“You’re giving me orders?  Woman, have you lost your damn mind? Who do you think you’re talking to, some little kid?
I’d best answer you?”
She was ticking him off royally. Eric had done nothing to make her act so crazy. Hell, he was telling her the truth.  Women. “It sounds like there’s a threat in your words.  Is there?”

“No threat.” Gabi stood wide-legged, her hands on her hips. “Just a promise. Don’t ever screw around on me or…”

“Or what?”

“Do I need to spell it out?”

“Yeah, I think you do.” Eric moved toward her. “Handle your business, baby.”

“In that case if I ever even think you’re screwing around on me it’s over.” She gritted her teeth. “But it won’t be over before I do the same. Tit for tat, baby. You play me and I will make you regret having ever thought about it.”

Eric’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he moved even closer to Gabi. “Are you threatening me with having an affair?”

“Again, not a threat,” Gabi said with not a sign of worry. “You hurt me, I’ll hurt you. Simple as that.”

This was nuts. They were fighting and he’d done nothing. Then Eric thought again of the woman’s hand in his pants. Well, at least he hadn’t done what Gabi thought. He rested his gaze on her, saw the hurt mixed with the anger and decided to give in. He was wrong in the way he’d been treating her and he was wrong to have allowed a woman to get close enough to him that her scent would be carried home to his wife. He sighed, hoping Gabi would accept his letting the matter go. “And if I love you?” he asked.

“Then I’ll love you.”

He noticed that her voice caught on the words, that her eyes became glassy with unshed tears, and he winced inside. Hurting Gabi was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. “I’m sorry. No, she didn’t do me. It was a thirty-second conversation. She touched me, I will admit to that, and she leaned into me. Hell, that I couldn’t stop because when I turned around she was there. She offered, said you never had to know, but I told her I would have to tell you. I told her that I love you and no thanks. Then I paid for a couple of drinks for her, thanked her for the offer and I left. I swear that’s all it was.”

“She touched you?”

“And I removed her hand.”

“And you gave a woman that touched you our money and you thanked her?”

“Baby, I didn’t want to be rude.”

“Are you crazy or just drunk? Which one?”

Eric grinned. Gabi was no longer in her battle stance. “Maybe a little of both, baby, but not enough of either to actually allow anything to happen. It just kind of took me by surprise. I’ve never had a woman so boldly come up to me.”

“Was she pretty?”

“I’d be damn if I know.”

“Didn’t you look at her?”

“To tell you the truth, not really. Like I said, it was thirty seconds or less. The woman didn’t even tell me her name or ask for mine. The moment I realized what was happening I removed her hand. I walked out of there and never looked back, so I can’t tell you if she was pretty.”

Eric took a tentative step toward his wife. “Besides, no one is as beautiful as you are.”

“But you were tempted.”

“For a minute, and not because of her. It’s been a long time since I’ve really made love to you.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“I know, baby, it’s my fault.” Eric looked at her, reaching out his arms for her. “Baby, I’ve been having a hell of a time feeling normal. A lot happened while I was gone. I missed you so damn much that I ached every night. Now I’m home and I can’t get the war out of my head. So much happened there, so much I don’t want you to know about.” He held her tight.

Gabi took a deep breath, wanting to tell her husband that he needed a shower, that she didn’t want to rest her head on the spot where another woman’s head had been. She didn’t want to breathe in another woman’s scent, but she didn’t say it. What Eric needed now more than her complaints was her love. She wrapped her arms around him.

“I’m here, baby, I can handle it. If you need to talk, talk to me. We’ve been through so much together.  I may not know what things you went through but you also have no idea of the things that went through my mind while you were gone, how much I worried about you or the dreams that seemed so real.”

She laughed a little. “At one time I even thought I could feel you holding me, kissing me, but I knew I had to be going crazy.”

“You could feel me kissing you?” Eric was looking at her strangely.

“That’s not important now. What is important is that when you feel a need to talk, talk to me. You never ever have to go out looking for another woman to take away your pain. That’s what I’m here for. I’m your wife.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Hell, no matter how bad I was feeling I knew you’d kick my ass to the curb if I screwed around.” He felt her loosening her grip. “Besides, you’re the only woman I want in my arms. No matter how tempting the offer I would never jeopardize us.”