Bradley lifted our daughter right up above his head. “So, miss Gabby Abbie…I hear you’re making life tough for your mommy. What can we do about that?”
Abbie squealed and flapped her arms like a chubby flamingo.
“Bradley, don’t rev her up. I’ve been trying to get her down for over an hour.”
“Oh, we don’t want to get her down, maaaaaan…we wanna peace her out.”
“Babe, you’re about four decades late.”
He pulled Abbie back down into a bear hug, then leaned over to me. He curled his strong arm over my shoulder and dragged me around to the other side of our daughter.
“Abbie sandwich!”
I rolled my eyes, but the silliness of his mood was contagious.
He kissed Abbie on the forehead, then did the same to me. “Mommy, could you please reach into my pocket?”
“Pardon?”
“I have something down there you’ll loooo-ooooove…”
“Hmph. I’ll be the judge of that.”
I slipped my fingers into the pocket of his trousers and felt a little paper bag. Inside it was a tube of teething gel and a brand new pacifier.
“And the quart of tequila? That in your other pocket?”
He kissed my cheek and took the items from me. “Go. Sleep. I got this.”
There was a big stubborn streak that told me I shouldn’t go. I should look after this myself. We’d decided — I’d decided — that I’d be the stay-at-home parent. But the thought of catching up on some sleep was more appealing to me than anything else right now.
“Husband…will you marry me?”
“Any time, wifey.”
I kissed them both and turned to leave.
“Oh, God, Tez. You have a beautiful ass.”
I’d forgotten to wrap the towel right around behind me. “That’s not my ass. I borrowed it from a pink hippo.” I still hadn’t gotten used to the changes that pregnancy had imposed on my body.
I glanced back at him, but despite my instincts I didn’t hide myself. I struggled to remember the last time I’d let Bradley see me naked. I think it was when I was laid up, pushing seven pounds of human out of me. Watching Bradley ogling me felt as decadent as my shower had. And the smile he was barely wearing was the sexiest thing I’d seen in ages.
“Sorry, Tez. I can’t help myself. But please, go. You need the sleep.”
I settled on the bed, just as Bradley’s voice came sing-songing through. “By the way…I heard you in the shower.”
“Oh, that. I was…cleaning it.”
“I bet you were.”
The bed was comfortable and the morning was warm. With the blinds closed, the room had a twilight feel about it. The night had been awful, and my beautiful husband was tending our beautiful baby. Conditions were perfect for a long and well-deserved sleep.
So it was sweet torture to realize that I was horny like I couldn’t believe. My shower interlude had done less than nothing. It was like killing one ant, only to awaken the entire colony. The tickling want in my pussy had only one cure, and it was the one that, after months of discomfort and then 19 hours of agony, scared me the most.
Bradley’s cock.
Everything was quiet in the house. Either Bradley had left with Abbie, or he’d done the impossible. Actually gotten her down.
“Babe?” I remembered my sister using that voice. The one you try to project three rooms away without actually making any noise.
He nudged the door open. Abbie was still in his arms, but with a gel-coated pacifier in her mouth she was finally, blissfully asleep. Or maybe it was the warmth and strong pounding of her daddy’s chest. Hell, I’d long ago lost count of the times I’d fallen asleep listening to Bradley’s heartbeat.
“Babe, why don’t you put her down?”
“I don’t get to hold her like this all that often.”
I drew the covers slowly down and showed him where my hand was. “Oh. Okay.”
Bradley moaned as he once again studied my naked body. “Oh, God. I’ll be right back.”
Abbie stirred as he placed her back in her crib. She let out a plaintive little moaning cry and I felt my belly tense up. That was it. She was back awake. I knew it.
There was a little bleating, and I could hear Bradley cooing at her, and then…silence. I held my breath as if the sound of it would wake her. Then, there he was. My knight in shining drool. The sexiest thing I’d seen in…forever.
“You did it. I don’t know how, but you actually did it.”
He made short work of his messed-up shirt and started on his belt. “You made the play. I just scored the touchdown.”
Unable to resist any longer, I rolled up off the bed and threw myself into him. He curled those big arms around me and slipped his hands down to cup my huge ass.
“Oh, Tez. I’ve missed this.”
With my head resting against his chest, right where his “Abigail” tattoo sat, his deep voice boomed in my ear. It wasn’t making me sleepy, though.
I stripped his belt out from his pants and pulled him free of them. His cock felt like a soldier returning from war, hot and hard and oh-so-ready. “Oh, babe…” I slipped free of his arms and fell to my knees. The warmth of the day had given him a sheen of manly sweat that spiced up the taste of his cock.
“Tez…Tez…” Just that. It was like he had no other words. His body trembled as my mouth worked him. I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to stop. This was the most powerful, and capable, I’d felt since Abbie was born. This, I could do.
Bradley cupped my head and squeezed my hair the way he always did. The way I showed him to. Not directing me, not controlling me, just holding on and enjoying the ride.
With all that beautiful upper-body strength of his, he slid my mouth off him and picked me up. He did it so easily, I felt like I was the baby. But the kiss he gave me was adults-only.
He finally came up for air. “Now, Teresa Ross. It’s ‘you-time’. I’m putting you on the bed, and then I’ll be putting my mouth on you in a very carnal way. You will not argue. You will not stop me. And you will not — repeat not — hide your beautiful body from me.”
“Oh, no, I don’t-”
“Was I not clear?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He draped me across the bed and sank his fingers into my knees, dragging me open, revealing to him all the changes that childbirth had wrought.
“My God, you’re beautiful, Tez.”
“You can’t possibly-”
He silenced me with a look. “Please, Tez. Don’t lump me in with all the men you women say ‘Men!’ about, okay?” He curled his fingertips into my wild bush. “You think because models and porn stars look a certain way, then that’s the only thing men find attractive? That all men want the same thing?”
“No, of course not.” I wasn’t sure if I was lying.
His fingers described wider and wider arcs, flicking across the tender flesh of my lips. “I’m a strong man, but you make me so weak.” He held up his hand, showing the tiny moon-sliver scars that I’d given him as Abbie came out of me. “You are more beautiful to me than you’ve ever been.”
“And you to me.”
He kissed the softness at the inside of my knee. “And this-” He pointed at me and back at himself. “This works. Because you do what I can’t. And I do…what you can’t.”
His eyes closed and he ran his tongue up the length of my thigh, stopping only when he had my cunt in his mouth.
And he was right. Oh, fuck, was he right. His tongue was magical in a way that my fingers had never been. He always did what I couldn’t. Quakes of pleasure erupted from the heart of my clit and pulsed through my body. It felt like my limbs were stretching, though they were barely moving.
Bradley’s low-level moans buzzed against my pussy. He dug his fingers into my belly, really sinking them into the flesh that hadn’t yet returned to pre-motherhood tautness, and maybe never would. I grabbed at his hand and pulled it away, embarrassed at the rippled texture and the oceanic waves.
Without missing a beat, he replaced his hand with his mouth, planting deep, open kisses all over the breadth of my stretch-marked stomach.