Authors: Astrid Lee Donovan
Dinner sat in her stomach like several bricks stacked up on one another, and she didn’t know if she could fit the dessert she knew was warming in the oven into her poor, stretched abdomen. Elaine was glad she’d worn the skirt with a stretchy waist and not her jeans.
“I think I’m going to explode if I eat one more shrimp,” she complained as she sat back and patted her stomach.
“Nonsense; you’re skinnier than a blade of grass! You need to eat one more shrimp or you might perish!”
“Mom,” Ethan said with a light tone of warning as his mother tried to scoop more into Elaine’s bowl.
“You have a nice home, Mrs. Mack.”
“Marjorie, dear,” Mrs. Mack corrected. “And it’s thirty-two years in the making, so I suppose it ought to have a little something to show for itself.” She smiled kindly as she began to clear off the table. Elaine stood and began to help clear up her dishes and Ethan’s. He took her hand when she tried to grab his plate and winked at her before he snuck it away with his free hand.
The three of them walked into the kitchen where the smell of apple pie and coffee brewing assaulted Elaine’s olfactory system. She found she was inhaling deeply even though her stomach was telling her enough had been enough. It didn’t seem to protest at the thought of a fresh cup of coffee, though. They enjoyed their coffee in the sitting room, without a television, and Marjorie told Elaine all about how she had moved all the way from Louisiana to Pennsylvania.
“He was a soldier and his family was up here, but he was stationed in Louisiana. I thought it was a fling and was content with that, but he showed up on my mama’s doorstep after the war was over with a ring and some flowers. Boy, my mama’s jaw about hit the floor and my brother, well, he threatened to haul poor Joe off to the looney bin because no one in his right mind would show up on a girl’s doorstep asking for her hand in marriage without asking the man of the house first. Not back then down in Louisiana!” Elaine smiled as she imagined the man in the picture frame on the fireplace mantle randomly showing up on Mrs. Mack’s doorstep.
“So what did you do?” she asked as she leaned forward and grasped her coffee cup in both hands. Ethan had his arm around her waist and she could feel the brush of his finger against the bare flesh of her hip as his thumb snuck up her shirt.
“Well, I turned around, told my mama and brother goodbye, and ran off with him, of course! What kind of girl wouldn’t? Boy was I a fool for doing that, but we did make a good pair, Joe and me.” There was silence as they all thought about the long story and Elaine thought back to how she had meant her late husband. The memories were too fresh and painful for her to go too far, so she blocked them out with memories of meeting Ethan at the party a few months prior. It wasn’t as romantic as Marjorie’s story, but it worked for her.
“I’m going to turn in for the night. My bum is killing me from sitting on that plane seat and I’m too old and tired to stay up past seven anymore.” Elaine wanted to point out she was only in her sixties, but the woman probably didn’t need a reminder.
“Good night,” Ethan told his mother. He stood to give her a kiss on the forehead before she headed up the stairs to bed. Then he sat down where he had been and put his thumb back where it had been wandering.
“We need to talk,” he murmured in Elaine’s ear. She swallowed as she set down the coffee cup and turned to face him. The anger he had been suppressing was back, and somehow she feared it was aimed in her direction and not Jody’s.
“About?” she asked as she scooted away from him. Ethan growled under his breath and pulled her close to him again, cradling her as he leaned back into the cushions.
“You know I wouldn’t ever hurt you, or Thomas, right?” With his breath that close to her ear, he could have told her he’d murdered the president and she would have been okay with it. But he was talking about her baby boy, and he was the most precious thing in the world to her. Not even Ethan could come before Thomas. Not even her late husband would have come before her son.
“I know that, Ethan. But you understand why I don’t bring you around him yet, right?” He was quiet a moment and she could feel the beating of his heart strong in his chest.
“I know, but eventually you’re going to have to let me in, Elaine.” His words were soft as if he were talking to a wounded animal. She took a deep breath as she thought about what would happen when that day came. “But not today.” He told her as he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his palms on the flat of her stomach.
She could feel his wet kisses trailing up the back of her neck and sank into the feel of his hard chest against her back. “Not with your mother upstairs,” she whispered playfully as she tried to scramble away from him.
“She wears headphones every night before bed and she’s almost deaf. Did you hear the way she was practically yelling at you in the car?” She felt a smile tug at her lips and turned to him. “I missed you so much, please,” he whispered as his lips connected with hers. His words came out mumbled and hushed, and she didn’t push him away when his hand started to climb up to find the edge of her bra.
Elaine’s breath hitched and caught in her throat when his thumb gently slid beneath the rim of her bra and caressed the delicate flesh. Her nipple grew erect and begged for him to run the rough pad of his thumb over it, but he bypassed her nipple and ran his hand up until his fingers were wrapped around her throat gently. She let him put pressure there as he claimed her lips again, feverishly nipping at her lower lip and running his tongue along her upper lip.
Her panties grew wet with want and she was glad she’d worn a skirt to dinner. When her mind wandered to what his mother would do if she found them on the loveseat together, Ethan reached his right hand up her shirt as he kept his left around the back of her neck and slid his palm around to her back. He caressed her bare flesh, revelling in the feel of it heating up beneath his palm wherever he touched her.
Then his fingers deftly undid her bra, undoing her in the process. Elaine leaned back as his hand slid around the front and easily slid her shirt up. He pulled her bra strap down and revealed her right nipple, begging for him to touch the tip of his tongue to the hard, pink tip. He bent his head down, whispering her name before he wrapped his thick lips around her nipple. Her back arched so that he could take her in and she gasped when she felt his other hand slid down and pull aside the thong she’d wear.
But he didn’t touch her, not yet. He held her thong to the side as his right hand left her breast, but his lips continued to suckle as his tongue flicked out. When she slipped from his grasp, he pulled her back in with his teeth and held her in place, exercising complete control over her as he unbuttoned his jeans. His erection freed, he slid the tip of his penis against her swollen clit and ran it in circles.
“I want you to be wet when I enter you,” he whispered as she whimpered, wanting him to thrust into her then.
“I am wet,” she protested, but he abstained.
She was about to protest again when he pulled her left nipple in and pinched the right one hard with his right hand. Elaine had imagined it would be sweet and gentle, their first time together after an entire week of being away from one another, but it seemed he wanted to tease her and make her scream. His tongue darted out to perform circles around her nipple, and when his teeth released, she thought he was going to thrust into her. Instead, he lowered her to the arm of the loveseat and pulled her legs open.
Her skirt pushed up to her waist, he pulled her panties aside and gently breathed on her labia, bringing them to life. Her heart thudded in her chest as he looked up at her, putting his finger to his lip to hush her before he gently slid that same finger into her pussy. Ethan stroked up once, finding her g-spot. Then he ran his finger around it in gentle, tiny circles, stroking up to put pressure on it. As he did so, Elaine’s chest and her face flushed and she threw her head back, her hands seeking out the top of his head.
He allowed her to push him down so that he took her clit into his mouth and suckled gently, tugging on it with his teeth. When he inserted two fingers in, she felt the pressure building inside of her and uncontrollably thrust up as she came close to climaxing, but he pulled his fingers out and left her hanging, only for a moment.
The tip of his shaft plunged into her hard and deep, all the way, and she had to bite down on his arm to keep from screaming. Ethan grunted at the pain of her bite, but he didn’t stop. He pulled out and thrust into her hard, looking down at her with a feral expression of ecstasy. She wasn’t having him dominate her completely. Elaine slid out from under him and pushed him down onto the couch.
She straddled his waist and slowly lowered herself onto his wet cock, letting her clit rub against his pubic bone as she gyrated on him. He groaned loudly as his hands found her hips and pulled her up, only to bring her back down agonizingly slow.
Elaine pulled off her shirt and allowed her bra to fall to the floor. She pulled his hands up to play with her nipples as she reached down to gently rub her clit, and then the pressure released and she felt her pussy clenching around him, over and over again until she was spent. But he wasn’t done.
Ethan wasn’t having her collapse on him, so he pulled her hips up and thrust her back down. Her breasts bounced as he thrust up to meet her with every downward pull, pushing into her to the hilt and prolonging her glorious orgasm. When he was almost finished, she stopped him and gently gyrated on him in small circles, pulling and pushing her hips back and forth until she came again.
His hot come spilled into her and she gasped as she felt his climax pulsing with hers.
“Fuck,” Ethan whispered with a smile on his face. “I really missed you.” He told her before he pulled her up and began to pull her back down again, thrusting into her as if he had never come.
When he came a second time, she collapsed onto him and tried to get her breathing under control as he wrapped his arms around her. “I missed you, too.” She whispered to him as she yawned and stifled a giggle
.
“Why are you humming like that?” Priscilla asked as she sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and hugged a mug of coffee with her hands.
“Oh, I’m sorry, does happiness in the morning upset you?” Elaine asked cheerily as she flipped a pancake and smiled down at Thomas, idly watching her make his breakfast.
“When my daughter, who’s never happy in the morning, is humming, I’m worried that she’s going to commit a heinous crime. Maybe she’s thinking about burying me in the backyard six feet under right now.”
“What’s six feet under?” Thomas asked innocently, ever observant now that he was older and able to understand all that they said.
“Nothing,” the two of them chimed at the same time.
“I’m just happy, is all,” Elaine answered as she plopped the pancakes onto a plate and sat Thomas down at the table. She held the glass mixing bowl over the hot griddle questionably as she looked at her mother. Priscilla shrugged a shoulder and Elaine took that as a yes.
She was nervous about bringing up Ethan with her son around, but she was going to have to eventually. Just not today, so she didn’t tell her mother that he was home. “So are you working today?” Priscilla inquired like she did every morning.
Elaine looked at her son and felt a pang of guilt, but she had spent a lot of time with him and she figured it would be okay that for one day she took the day off and spent it with someone else. She still didn’t want to break it to him, so she didn’t answer her mother right away. Thomas swung his feet back and forth as he ate, but she knew that despite his engrossment with the pancakes, he was still listening.
When he slid out of his chair and washed his hands and face at the sink, she sent him to change for his play date with Jacob. “I’m not working today,” she told her mother quietly as she cleaned up her morning mess.
“I figured as much. So when will you be back? And when are you going to introduce him properly?” Priscilla prodded uncharacteristically.
“Soon,” Elaine told her mother before she gave her a kiss on the cheek and ran up the stairs to get ready herself.
She walked Thomas across the lawn to Jacob’s home and greeted him at the door. They exchanged hellos, goodbyes, and a young boy. Once Thomas was settled in, Elaine walked across the street to the dark car parked in between the others. She slid into the passenger seat and took a deep breath.
“Good morning,” Ethan purred as he reached his hand across the center console to take hers.
“We need to talk,” she told him quietly as she looked at him and took his hand. She didn’t want him to think that he had done anything wrong.
“I know,” Ethan said as he started the car and put it in reverse. He didn’t say anything as he drove her out of town and pulled into the parking lot of the nearby state park. It was just starting to flurry, but Elaine had read the weather report that morning and knew that it was only going to be a quarter of an inch at best.
Ethan turned off the car and they sat in silence. “Why did you bring me here?” she whispered as she looked around at the trees.
“Well, if I had taken you to a diner, there’d be people who could overhear. If I had taken you home, my mother would try to fatten you up with leftover grits. And I figured you didn’t want to go back inside with your mother because she’d force us to read the cards. So, an empty parking lot on a day where it’s snowing so no one will go hiking seems pretty good, right? Oh, I brought provisions.”
He reached into the back and pulled up a box with six donuts and leaned over the center console to grab a cup holder with coffee. Elaine didn’t have to ask why he had been driving slowly anymore.
“Can you read my mind, Ethan Mack? I mean, did you wake up this morning and know I was going to tell you we needed to talk?”
“You seemed conflicted last night, so I figured you would want to talk this morning. Besides, if we weren’t going to talk, we were going to do something else out here.”
“It’s thirty-two degrees out there!” Elaine exclaimed as she took her lukewarm coffee. It smelled like peppermint and her mouth began to water.
“It feels pretty warm when I’m between your-”
“Enough,” she chastised after she swallowed her mouthful of coffee. She smiled at him to soften the blow of her words, and he smiled back mischievously. “I want to talk about Thomas, and-” she stopped as she closed her eyes and tried to get rid of the anger building. “Trey,” she finished quietly.
Ethan didn’t say a word as he waited for her to begin. He didn’t sip his coffee either, so she knew she had his full attention. “My husband died in a fire. I’m sure you know that from around town, and I’m sure that you know it was a foolish death.”
“Foolish is a strong word,” Ethan told her quietly.
“He ran into a building to save a co-worker when he knew he had a young son and a wife at home.” There it was, the anger boiling to the surface. She tamped it down and swallowed, but it wasn’t staying down for long. “He put his life at risk and he lost, Ethan. He left me alone with our little boy and put a man’s life at risk and that man almost lost it. He almost died trying to save my husband. If he had stayed outside, that woman might have lived or she may not have, but he would have lived. He would have been able to see his son graduate high school and go off to college. Get married.
Thomas and I, we’ve been doing okay because Thomas was little and doesn’t remember the weeks that followed after his father’s death. But he knows the loss of his father every day. I can’t bring a man into his life knowing that that man might leave us someday, too. I don’t want him to go through that again, whether he knows it or not.”
Elaine bit her bottom lip to quiet her rambling thoughts and raised the coffee to her lips, but she didn’t drink it. She knew it would sit sour in her stomach if she did. Ethan was looking out the windshield of his car with his coffee between his legs. When she looked over at him, she found she admired the strength he possessed. Then she got to his face and saw the ticking in his jaw.
“I didn’t know how to bring it up, but I think it’s about time I told you. Your mother, she came to visit me in the hospital. I didn’t recognize her, but my mother did. She was there while I was in a coma fighting for my life. The scars on my back? They’re from the burns I suffered running into a burning building. I think-” Ethan stopped mid-sentence and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think that building was the one your husband was in, Elaine. I think I’m the man who risked his life to save another man’s life, and I don’t want you to ever feel guilty for that. You should never feel that way because I go to work every day knowing I might risk my life for a stranger’s. That’s a risk I take, and I’d gladly have given up my life to save his. I’d switch places right now with him to know that Thomas would have his father back and that you would have your husband back.
I can’t replace him, but I can tell you that I’d never intentionally hurt you or Thomas.”
Somewhere, deep down inside, she had known it. She had known it the moment her hands had run over those scars, not as vibrant as they must have been a few years ago, but they were still there. He never took his shirt off facing away from her, and now she knew it was because he must have felt ashamed. He must have felt guilty for not being able to save another human being when that was his job. It was written on his face, and the fear he felt that she would reject him was there, too.
“Ethan,” she said as she brushed away her tears and reached out a hand to grasp his. “I’m not happy my husband died, in no way shape or form, but I’m glad you’re here with me,” she told him. She pulled him in and cradled his head to her chest as she marvelled that she was the one who was giving the comfort when she had thought she’d be the one receiving it.
They were silent for quite some time, and as she thought and let her mind wander; Elaine realized she knew what the reading had meant. The anger she had felt was strongly diminished, and she knew what her future held.