AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I live in hope my wife will invite me back into our bed, sex or no sex,” he said, his voice low and seductive, his body somehow closer than he had been only a second ago. “Until then, we can have a daybed installed in the office.”
There was certainly room for one. One thing about the penthouse was that the rooms were all oversize. There was enough square footage for six bedrooms easily, but the architect had designed the apartment on a grand scale, every room oversize with lots of built-in storage.
Her husband had been overstating the case when he said they didn’t have the facilities to entertain. Parties of fifty or more? Would be crowded. But their dining table could be extended to accommodate seating for ten.
When it was kept in its current formation for six, there was more than adequate space for hosting a cocktail party comfortably, even if they didn’t have a banquet-size room like they did at Villa Liakada. And while it was nowhere near the size of the rooftop garden, their personal terrace was quite large and well situated to increase their entertainment space.
“I did not kick you out of our bed. It was a mutual decision, based on your suggestion, I might add.” She missed him in their bed.
Of course she did, but not having sex to fall back on as a distraction tactic was forcing them both to be more forthcoming and maybe even more aware of the other’s needs outside of the bedroom. She’d realized how much he enjoyed her company when it didn’t lead to sex, how important it was to him to spend time together, regardless.
She liked knowing that, but also acknowledged that there had been many times in the past she had unknowingly disregarded his need for her companionship, thinking it was all about the sex.
“One I regretted almost immediately, but even so, I think it has been illuminating in a good way for both of us.”
His words so closely resembled her own thoughts, Polly smiled. “I think so too.”
“That does not mean I want this moratorium to last indefinitely.” He said it like she might actually be thinking along those lines.
“Neither do I,” Polly assured him.
“Good.” He leaned down and kissed her.
Polly responded, letting her body relax into his.
Alexandros took her weight, sliding his arm around her expanded waist. When he pulled his mouth from hers, they were both breathing heavily, but there was no urgency to take things further. It felt too g
ood just to be held, to be needed for more than her body.
That thought hit her hard. Did she think of herself that way? Had he been right that Polly had stopped believing in the romance of their relationship? That he cared for her as more than a convenient, if very compatible, bed partner?
“So, you want to go shopping?”
“I’ve cleared my schedule for the rest of the day.”
Wow. She shifted so she could meet his eyes. “The whole day?”
“We don’t have to shop the whole time,” he said, sounding just the tiniest bit panicked.
Polly laughed. “We don’t have to shop at all. We can order everything online.”
“You don’t like ordering personal things online, unless you have no choice,” he said, showing a perception she would not have expected, but more than that, a consideration for her feelings that she’d learned not to expect either.
The fact her newly perceptive husband realized just how personal the nursery was to her touched Polly deeply.
“He’s going to sleep in our room in the bassinet for the first few weeks,” she reminded Alexandros.
“I remember Helena. I thought your mother and mine were going to come to blows over your refusal to put our newborn in the nursery at night.”
“Just because she doesn’t choose to voice her opinion over all her adult children’s decisions, doesn’t mean she can’t hold her own when she needs to.” It had helped that in that case, Alexandros had not sided with his mother.
Polly had told him flat out that he could move out of their bedroom if he didn’t like the baby’s bassinet being in there. But he’d told her he had no problem with it.
He had adored their daughter from before her birth.
“Not that she liked her bassinet at first,” Polly remembered fondly. “She only slept well when you held her on your chest.” The nights he’d spent in Athens away from them those first two weeks had been rough.
Helena had eventually settled into her bassinet and not needed her daddy’s heartbeat in her ear to sleep.
