Page 28 of Shining Pearls
Unable to look my husband in the eyes, I stared down at the sidewalk. “It was my fault. I went with him willingly.”
The tears burned hot behind my eyes over this humiliating admission. Alex reached out to lift my chin. He waited patiently until I lifted my eyes to his.
“None of this is your fault,” he said vehemently.
“It is!” I said much too loudly, before the confession came out in a flurry of words. “I had just walked Hannah to school, and I was heading home to change clothes for work. It was one of the first frosts of the year, and I was walking too fast and not paying enough attention, so I slipped on some black ice on the sidewalk in front of Kevin’s house. I twisted my ankle when I fell, and Kevin came running out to offer assistance. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and hopped into his house to get a bag of ice for my injury, never dreaming that he might reveal himself to be a monster once we were inside.”
Finally allowing one of the hot tears burning just behind my eyes to fall, I repeated the embarrassing admission on a sob. “I willingly went into that house with him.”
Alex tipped his face down to mine and kissed the tear away from my cheek. “You couldn’t have known, sweetheart. It wasn’t your fault.”
His kind, forgiving words were like a soothing balm to my fractured heart. I had relived that moment on the sidewalk so many times in my mind––each time refusing to go inside what turned out to be my year-long prison cell.
I had blamed myself for so long for going into that house. Hearing Alex relieve me of any responsibility for what happened opened the floodgate on my tears. My voice came out as a wail when I said, “I shouldn’t have gone in.”
Alex shook his head. Cradling my face with his hands, he said, “No, you cannot take any of the blame for this. You were never anything but kind to Kevin, and you’d known him your whole life. You had no reason to suspect what he was capable of.”
My gaze was still averted, so Alex demanded, “Look at me.”
Something in his firm tone made me obey his request. He was giving me a fervent look as he said, “What happened is completely Kevin’s fault. Not yours. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, aching to believe him. “I wish the police would find his body, so this nightmare would finally be truly over.”
Even through my watery eyes, I saw the guilty expression that overtook Alex’s features. “What?” I asked, already dreading the answer.
“I wasn’t sure how fragile you were, so I asked the police to update me privately on their findings.”
I was furious that he would keep anything about the case from me, but a mixture of curiosity and dread prevailed, causing me to ask, “What did they find?”
“There is a lean-to deep in the woods that the police believe Kevin was hiding in."
"Was?" I asked, feeling almost hopeful.
Nodding, Alex said, “They’ve been watching it, as well as Kevin’s house, and his father’s place, but there hasn’t been any sign of him. If he’s still alive, he’s using his survivalist skills to live in the forest. They’ve also been searching the surrounding areas in a grid pattern for his body or any signs of life, but so far, they haven’t found anything.”
Feeling numb, I stared at the ground. It seemed impossible that he had lived through the puncture wound I had made to his skull, but it was starting to feel like he had. My body gave an involuntary shiver from the cool, crisp air, but Alex evidently mistook it as fear.
“Don’t worry, the police will find him. And there’s no way he’ll ever get near you again. I have them watching our house, and I’ll kill him with my bare hands, if he dares to surface.”
This dominant posturing was very un-Alex-like, but I still found it to be sexy. I knew without a doubt that my husband would do anything in his power to take care of me, but hearing him go into full alpha-male mode made me hot.
Wanting to shift our thoughts away from my captor and get back to our intimate make-out session, I said in a husky voice, “I trust you to keep me safe, and I want you inside me. Right now.”
Alex’s eyes widened over my bold declaration. He only thought about it for a moment before taking my hand within his and darting down the sidewalk. We ran giggling toward our house and barely made it inside and closed the door behind us before I reached down and loosened his pants. Relief surged through my limbs when his cock jutted out at me––hard and ready for me.
I reached up the swingy skirt of my dress and shimmied out of my panties before kicking them aside. Alex pressed my back against the door as I wrapped my fingers around his hot length.
His mouth devoured mine as I guided him towards my opening. This was the passionate, insatiable husband that I had missed so much––even after my return.
Alex stilled then, shaking with the effort of holding back. “The baby?”
His question came out as a croak. While I was delighted that he was concerned about hurting our unborn child, impatience to have him filling me nearly overwhelmed me. “It’s fine,” I promised before adding in a husky tone, “Just fuck me.”
My usage of the uncharacteristic word must have been precisely the impetus he needed because he plunged deep inside me and did exactly as I had requested, with vigor.
It was the best, most uninhibited sex we’d had since the early years of our marriage. I lost myself in our lovemaking so completely that it was only when I began floating happily back down to earth that I crash landed and remembered that I wasn’t the only one carrying Alex’s unborn child. Our happy little bubble was getting ready to burst… again.
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