#chapter Twenty-Seven
Maura woke with a start, her heart pounding, every muscle tense. The memory of the dream’s pleasure still coursed through her, though there were no physical signs of her orgasm beyond an extra slickness between her legs. It had been entirely in her head.
Still, she must’ve moaned or said something in her sleep, because Daniel pushed up on an elbow to look down at her. “Mo?”
She’d grown out of that name a long time ago. In fact, he might’ve been the only person to ever call her that. She shifted in the bed, seeking the comfort of his warmth even as the uneasiness of having him in her bed made her want to curl away from him.
“Bad dream?” His breath wafted over the back of her neck. His hand pressed flat to her belly. This was the third night this week he’d slept over.
“No.” She couldn’t lie to him, even if it felt shitty to be dreaming about another man and climaxing so hard it woke her up. “Not bad.”
He nuzzled against her, and Maura relaxed into his affection. They’d been spending so much time together over the past month, they’d fallen into the habits of a long-term couple. Hand-holding. Kissing upon greeting and leaving. Most everything but the sex part. They hadn’t talked about exclusivity, and Maura had never asked if Daniel was seeing other women when he wasn’t with her. Maybe knowing that even if he was, he surely wasn’t fucking anyone made it easier for her not to worry.
Or maybe she didn’t quite care enough.
Either way, she hadn’t opened her spreadsheet in a couple weeks. She still answered texts she got from the few men she’d liked enough to exchange phone numbers with, but she hadn’t even logged in to her Luvfinder account to check if she had any offers. She’d thrown herself into work and catching up on the myriad home projects she’d promised herself she’d finish…she’d given up quickly enough on the crocheted afghan she’d wanted to make using all the leftover yarn she’d inherited from her grandmother, but she was the proud owner of completely reorganized cabinets.
There was a sense of relief, she couldn’t deny that. She couldn’t compare it to ripping off a bandage. It was more like the cessation of a long-term pain that had grown so deep, become so much a part of her, that she only noticed when it was gone.
It hadn’t left her unscathed, of course. Like a bruise she couldn’t leave alone, the memories of Ian still ached…so long as she pressed them. That was the hardest part. Getting herself to stop.
Daniel helped.
“Want to talk about it?” Now his quiet tone twitched her back from the edge of sleep.
For a moment, Maura lay quiet with his arms still around her. “It was about Ian.”
“I figured.” His mouth brushed the back of her neck, sending a chill through her that had nothing to do with the cold air pressing down on them outside of the sweet cave made of her comforter.
“I’m sorry.”
He laughed a little. “Don’t be sorry. You can’t help what you dream about.”
Except that she thought about Ian, too. Almost all the time. Before she went to sleep. When she woke up. Random moments during the day reared up like snakes and bit her, poisoning her with memories.
“It must’ve been a good one.”
Maura cringed a little. “Was I…?”
“Moaning? Yes. A little. That’s why I couldn’t tell if you were having a nightmare or not.” Daniel paused. His fingers made a slow, small circle on her belly, and she realized he was touching the sliver of bare skin between the bottom of her pajama shirt and her pants. “I guess it could be a nightmare, even if it was good. If you were dreaming about him and you woke up to remember you weren’t with him any more.”
Maura tensed a little, not sure what to say, but Daniel continued.
“I dream about my wife a lot. Not…um, not dreams like the one you were having. Stupid things, mostly. Sometimes she’s in the background. Sometimes she’s part of what’s going on, sometimes not. I don’t always even realize it’s her or think about it, sometimes I wake up and only remember it later. But that’s the worse, I guess. When I wake up and remember she was in the dream, but I didn’t talk to her. I missed my chance. Because dreams are the only place I’ll ever see her, you know?”
Maura put her hand over his and wriggled her bum closer into the curve of his body. “I can’t compare missing Ian to that. I mean…”
“I know what you mean,” Daniel said against the curve of her shoulder. His fingers drifted across her skin. “She’s dead. He’s not, you just broke up. Does it feel any better?”
“Well, knowing he’s out there in the world somewhere, that I might see him again. That I could see him again,” she amended. “That it’s at least possible. How can I compare that to you losing your wife forever?”
“You didn’t answer my question.” He kissed the back of her neck.
“No,” she said finally, sort of hating herself. “It doesn’t feel any better. God, Daniel. I’m so sorry.”
He laughed against her. “I told you. Don’t be sorry. I’d rather have you tell me, anyway. It’s not like I couldn’t guess. You get lost, sometimes. I see it in your face. You go a little blank.”
Horrified, mortified, Maura shook her head. “Oh. Wow. I’m sorry!”
“I figure you’re missing him. I just wait until it passes. I know how it feels,” Daniel said. “It’s not a problem, Maura. Really.”
“It’s so rude. So insufferably rude. And useless. And horrible.” She drew a hitching breath.
He nuzzled her again. “Shh. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
They were quite again for a while, until she started to drift again. Something seemed important to tell him though, something she wanted to say before she went back into dreams. “I’m glad I have you in my life, Daniel.”
“Ditto, kiddo.”
It made her laugh. A second later though, she gasped when his hand slid under the waistband of her PJ bottoms. “Daniel —”
“Shhh,” he said again. “You need this.”
Oh, yes. She did. Dreams aside, she hadn’t had an orgasm in weeks. Sexual pleasure was as much a necessity as brushing her teeth or drinking coffee in the mornings. Normally, she didn’t let more than a couple days pass without a climax, even if she had to go solo. But she hadn’t felt up to it.
Still, she murmured his name like a protest, stopping when he nipped at her shoulder, bared a little by her neckline. The pain flipped her switch. When he slid his fingers lower, across her clit, she lost all words. Her thighs parted as she arched, one hand going behind her to cup the back of his neck. Daniel dipped his fingers inside her, bringing them up again to circle her clit. That little bit of pressure inside, so fleeting yet delicious, eased a moan out of her.
“Oh, you like that?”
“Yes.”
“This?” Again, his fingers pressed inside her. Then deeper. In. Out. Up to circle her clit, then inside again.
In a minute, her hips were rocking. Cunt clenching. Her clit throbbed and when he rubbed it, and sparks of ecstasy made her shudder.
There was no fighting it. No resisting. Pleasure filled her, and Maura let it take her. She cried out at the end of it and put her hand over his to stop him from moving. When the tremors had eased, she rolled to face him.
She kissed him, and he kissed her back, but when she nudged a knee between his legs, it was clear he wasn’t hard. She put her hand there, touched him. He didn’t tell her to stop, but he did put his hand over hers.
“It’s not you,” he whispered into her mouth a moment later when she broke the kiss but hadn’t yet pulled away. A few seconds later, he rolled onto his other side, away from her. The soft sounds of his breathing told her he’d fallen asleep a half-minute after that.
It wasn’t her, and yet…of course it was. Maura stared into the dark for a little while before she slipped out of bed, grabbing her phone from its dock. Without turning on any lights, she padded through the cold night air to the living room, where she curled up on her couch under an afghan someone else, at least, had managed to finish.
Many late nights like this she’d spent with her phone in her fist, messaging with Ian. Sometimes talking to him, but most often, at least in the beginning, she’d had to type everything she wanted to say. It had made it easier, sometimes, to reveal herself to him. Something about the anonymity of that distance between them, the comfort offered by reading and writing instead of having to say it out loud. It had been harder, too, because when you were writing and not talking, there was never any excuse for sentiment to simply slip out.
If you said something, you had to mean it.
She had deleted, unfriended and removed him. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t find him. With cold fingers, Maura downloaded the instant message app she’d deleted.
“Idiot,” she murmured.
It took a few seconds for the app to finish downloading, and only a few more after that to log in with her account information. She held her breath. Hoping. No, more than that. Praying to any god or goddess who would listen that even though he hadn’t texted or called her, that he’d sent her a message. She watched the small spinning gear with her heart in her throat.
Connecting. Connecting. Connecting.
Her profile picture appeared. Her list of contact names. Her hands shook. She couldn’t look. Maura closed her eyes, forcing herself to count to ten. Then another ten, giving the app plenty of time to populate itself with messages, should there be any to list. At last, she opened her eyes.
“Please, Ian. Oh, please, please, please.”
But even in the “blocked messages” list, there was nothing.