Chapter 11

A day after their rocky third therapy session, Dennis was grabbing a quick workout in the basement, hoping to burn off some of his excess mental and sexual frustration, when he heard the sound of water running in the house and frowned. There was no one home, he couldn’t be more painfully aware of that fact, and none of the appliances were turned on.

He stood there, double-checking that he indeed heard water running. With a frown, he walked barefoot and shirtless down the hallway, toward the kitchen, to investigate. His pulse started to race at the possibility that Linda had come home, but there was no one there.

A sound from outside the house brought Dennis to the front door. He opened it and found his wife in the driveway. Washing his truck.

He was so stunned by the sight, all he could do was stare. His wife was in tight black yoga pants and an old sweatshirt, hair up in a bun.

Gorgeous, so fucking gorgeous in the setting sun.

As much as he hated watching her perform any kind of manual labor, he couldn’t help but be thankful just to have her there, whether it was temporary. She’d made up her mind to go about their second chance the right way. He needed to respect that.

Their therapy session had knocked Dennis on his ass, although he still didn’t believe Linda was responsible for their situation. He was a quiet asshole who hadn’t been giving her the words she needed. She’d done nothing wrong, and no one could convince him otherwise. Watching her cry over that bullshit yesterday had been pure torture.

Still. He could admit that Linda giving him real, tangible evidence that she loved him made his heart beat faster.

While he wanted to strangle his therapist for making his wife cry, he could also maybe admit he needed some evidence that this woman still loved him. He needed it badly.

When he stopped working at the oil rig, Linda had shown him evidence of her love regularly. Spontaneous hugs, elaborate date nights at home with candlelight, or simply telling him she loved him. It was becoming obvious to him that she’d eventually stopped doing those things because he had been showing her his love in an entirely invisible way. How could she have known he had been saving up for a new house? How could she know that he had been protecting her of his precarious state of mind?

Now, having her show him she cared, that she had thought about him, flooded him with gratitude and relief. But he couldn’t accept the gesture, could he? Seriously, it might kill him.

Dennis came out of the house, letting the screen door slap against the doorjamb. “Thank you for doing this, honey, but you’re going to get sick out here. Come in out of the cold, Linda.”

She pulled up the right sleeve of her sweatshirt to her elbow and dunked the sponge back into the bucket she’d filled.

“I’ll be done in fifteen minutes. Could you grab the grocery bags out of my backseat, please?”

“When you come inside.”

There was a flash of something in her eyes that he’d seen at the therapy session. Guilt. Remorse. A little bit of sadness. He didn’t like it.

“I’m digging in my heels,” she said.

“You’ve been doing a lot of that lately.” Dennis instantly regretted his words when she broke their eye contact.

“I’ve got on two layers under this sweatshirt. Please just let me do this?” Her voice was laden with determination. “I need to do something for you.”

Warmth rolled into his chest. “Will you stay for a while afterward?”

She stopped soaping for a moment, looking at him over her shoulder. “Yes.”

That single word made anticipation sing over Dennis’s skin, but his body needed to chill the fuck out. He was horny enough to read sexual intention into a single word. If he had learned anything by now, it was that his wife wasn’t breaking the no-sex rule. And he hadn’t caved on his promise, either. Next time he got relief, it would be inside Linda.

Dennis opened the back door to retrieve the bags from Linda’s backseat. In the meantime, she had turned on the small vacuum cleaner they used for their cars and bent forward, leaving her tight, round ass on display. Her hips tilted enough that he could see the stretch of Lycra over her pussy. Pure torture.

By the time Dennis returned to the house with the grocery bags in his arms, his dick was hard enough to jimmy a lock.

He went back outside and stood behind her. “Did you come here to torture me?”

She flipped off the vacuum. “No.” She stood up. “No, I didn’t.”

“My body hurts. I miss being together.”

“I know.” She abandoned the vacuum, hands wringing at her waist. “I’m thrown off by what happened at our session, you know? Realizing we’ve both let this marriage get to this point, and I’m feeling kind of scattered.

“Like I’ve been seeing everything all wrong and I’ve just ... I’ve fallen hard off my high horse. And I don’t know how or if we’ll make this relationship work, but I know when I woke up feeling lost this morning, I wanted to be near you. Can we just spend some time near each other for a little while tonight?”

“Yes,” he said, voice resonating. His whole body resonating. “I want that.”

“Me too.” She wet her lips. “I’m going to finish up here. Can you go inside and preheat the oven for me?”

Backing away from her was fucking agony, but he did it. Anything to not screw up this chance to have her cross the threshold of their home, even if it was just for a few hours. He stopped to glance back at Linda on his way into the house and found her watching him from beneath her lashes.

Dennis dropped the groceries off on the counter and adjusted his hard cock through his sweatpants. He planted his hands on the edge of the kitchen counter and breathed in and out. “Okay, not jerking off was a bad choice. But I can do this. I can be in the same room as my wife and not fuck her until she screams the town into a power outage.”

He was still fighting to control his urges when Linda walked in.

“Your truck was already pretty clean,” she said, tucking loose hair into her bun. “I feel like I cheated on my homework.” Her laughter was kind of skittish, reminding him of those first few middle-school dates to the coffee shop when they were just getting to know each other. “Wow. Why am I so nervous?”

“This is your home. I’m your husband. You shouldn’t be...” Dennis dragged a hand down his face, laughing without a drop of humor. “I’m nervous, too, Linda.”

Her breath caught. “You are?”

“Yeah.” Now that they’d returned to the scene of the crime, it became even more obvious how drastically their communication had dwindled. Their voices sounded almost foreign filling the kitchen together at the same time. “You see me as less of a man knowing I’m nervous?”

“What?” She pressed a hand to the center of her chest. “God, no! It makes me feel like I’m not crazy. It puts us on the same team.”

Surprise prickled up his spine. “I want to be strong for you at all times,” he said hoarsely. “Isn’t that my job?”

Her features softened as she regarded him. “Marriage isn’t a job, love.”

She hadn’t called him ‘love’ in so long, his insides jolted upon hearing it.

Linda crossed to the counter, close enough to Dennis that he could count the goosebumps on her neck. “It makes me feel closer to you when you let down your guard. Makes me feel like I can do the same.”

Dennis was barely aware of moving closer. He found himself behind Linda, zeroed in on the freckle behind her ear as she unloaded shopping bags and prepared dinner.

“Tonight is about you, Dennis. I want to make you happy.”

The simple statement that she wanted him happy made his chest expand to the size of a marching band bass drum. Watching her prove it? Even better.

Linda had come over, cleaned his truck, and now she was cooking him his favorite dinner.

“Dinner is on the oven,” she breathed, fidgeting as she faced him. “Do you want to watch TV or...”

“Can we dance, Linda?” before she could answer, Dennis stepped into the warmth of her space, capturing her left hand in his right.

“Dance?”

“We used to do that all the time,” Dennis turned on the stereo, selected a compact disc, and seconds later, some soft romantic music filled the room.

“I don’t know i-if that’s a good idea.”

“You don’t? The therapist said we’re allowed to kiss. Dancing must be on the approved list, right?”

“First you want to dance and now kissing. You can’t just throw all of that out there,” Linda grinned at him.

Dennis grinned back and rubbed his right thumb in a circle around the palm of her hand. “I didn’t ask to kiss you. I said I wanted to dance.” He slipped his left hand around the small of her back and eased their bodies together. “You made that leap. I forgive you for sexualizing me.”

“Shut up,” she said on a giggle, then cut herself off with a gasp when she realized they were dancing. “Oh, you think you’re slick?”

“Did you seriously forget how much game I have, Linda? Maybe you need a reminder.”

He brought her tighter to his body, groaning inwardly over the tits that poked into his chest, the press of their thighs.

“Maybe I do,” she whispered, her breath fanning over his mouth. “Just remember the rules, okay?”

It was amazing to simply hold his wife again. For the last five years, whenever they touched, he got impatient almost immediately to satisfy her. Please her. Now he wondered if he’d been trying to overcompensate for not giving her what she really needed. Affection. Intimacy without sex.

For the love of God, don’t fuck this up.