AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Actually, you can. Go home, Caroline. I am. I have a very lovely woman waiting for me at home with fresh pasta. We can pick up where we left off tomorrow morning,” I told her. She frowned at me.
“Sir, you haven't gone home for dinner in about eight years,” she pointed out, and I shrugged.
“I have never had someone at home making me pasta from scratch.”
I ignored Caroline’s pout and walked past her to the elevator, a stupid grin on my face. I actually wanted to be home, and it was all because of Nat. She had become more important to me than I had ever thought possible. Once I had set my mind on the fact that she was my wife and I needed to try to be a good husband, things had progressed quite well.
I had Seth to thank for a lot of that. He had shown me how stubborn I was about not wanting to be married. It was tough sometimes, sure, but I was getting far more out of this relationship than I ever would have thought. She wasn’t exactly the type I normally went for. She was short, brunette, and mouthy. Maybe that was what I found refreshing about her. She was different. Special.
Before I knew it, I was walking through the front door to our place, and I marveled once more at the difference she had made.
Her paintings were everywhere—making the walls colorful and bright. She painted with a lot of colors, some of which were mismatched. She painted everything from animals to figures to still life. She even had a few landscapes that had ended up in the hallway upstairs.
She had created for herself out of one of the spare rooms the coolest-looking art studio. She had covered the floor with a drop cloth and placed pieces of furniture over the edges to keep it in place. She had set up her easel over by the windows and had several other projects going at the same time, one of which was an old dresser she had found discarded on the side of the street. She had asked me beforehand if it was okay to buy the power tools and hardware needed to fix it up—as she did with every large purchase it seemed, Once she had everything, she rebuilt the back of it and fixed the broken drawers. Now, I was pretty sure she was going to paint it.
I found her in the kitchen dancing around to the music she was playing on her headphones. She had her back to me and, as she stirred the sauce, I saw her hips swaying, her butt held high and tight in the yoga pants she was wearing. Best clothing invention since the miniskirt, in my opinion. I watched her body pulse to the music and imagined her moving that way up against me. I could almost feel her ass rubbing against my hardening cock—my hands sliding up her sides to wrap around her front, cupping her perky little tits in my hands.
“Welcome home!” she said, and I snapped out of it. I hadn’t realized I was daydreaming, but my dick had. He stood up at attention as best he could in tight dress pants, and I quickly leaned against the kitchen island so she wouldn’t see the tent I was sporting.
“It smells lovely,” I said, my voice a little shakier than I had wanted it to be. She gave me a questioning look, and I waved a hand dismissively in the air. “I really appreciate this. It was a long day, and I was happy for the excuse to leave.”
“Aren't you the boss?” she pointed out. “Can’t you just leave any time you want?”
“If only that were true. I have certain things I need to attend to, and sometimes they run late. If I don’t finish them in a timely manner, I could lose a deal. Technically, I can come home whenever, yes. I could even work from home if I really needed to. But there is a level of dedication that is required from my employees to keep things running smoothly, and if I don’t lead by example, the whole thing will fall apart.”
“I understand that,” she said and began plating the food. I readjusted myself and was happy to find that talking about work had softened it again. Good. I didn’t think she was at the point where she even wanted to entertain the idea of sex. I was pretty sure she was just barely able to handle living with me and talking to me like we were friends. Who knew if she would ever want to get physical with me.
And at that thought, an image of her naked in our bed entered my mind, and my cock stirred again. I mentally slapped myself and told myself to stop getting so worked up.
It was difficult, though. Since I had married Natalia, I actually hadn’t had sex with anyone, so I was a little pent up.
She grabbed the loaded plates and headed for the dining room table, and I went for the garlic bread that was all sliced and on a platter I didn’t even know I had. It all looked so fancy, and I couldn't wait to dive in. We sat down, with her at the head of the table and me in the seat directly to her right. I didn’t want to sit across the table from her as I wanted to be close enough to touch her or see what was going on in her eyes. She had such beautiful and expressive eyes.
“Full disclosure. This is the first time I ever made ravioli, so I hope it’s okay,” she said and waited for me to take a bite. I did, and the flavor of the pasta went straight through me, it was that good. She had seasoned the sausage and ricotta inside beautifully, and the pasta was so light it was almost like a wonton wrapper.
‘Well, you nailed it,” I said with my mouth full of ravioli. She smiled at me shyly, looking down at her plate and blushing. I wasn’t sure if it was the compliment that made her blush or something she was thinking, but either way, I loved to see that look on her face.
“Thank you,” she said into her plate.
We dove right in and, as we ate, I got her to tell me more about herself. About how she got into painting and how she would love to do it for a living. She also told me about howThe Proposalwas her favorite rom-com and the movieItwas amazing. I agreed that they were both good movies but saidThe Chronicles of Riddickwas my all-time favorite movie because it was the best movie ever made, and no one was going to convince me otherwise. She laughed at me and even pushed my shoulder. It didn’t move very much, but it made her feel better.
“So, I have to tell you, I remember you,” I said, finally bringing up something I had been wanting to tell her for a while. It was linked to a sad time in her life which was why I had been avoiding it, but I felt like she should know.
“What do you mean?” she looked confused. “I had never met you before our wedding day.”
“You did, you were just very young,” I explained, setting down my fork, done with my plate. I was going to get up and get more if there was any left, but I wanted to get this out first. “At your mother’s funeral.”
She stilled, looking down at her plate. “Oh.”
“We went because your father and my father were working together even back then, and what happened to your mom should never have happened. The whole group was there. I remember the cops closing down the cemetery so we could all show up and pay our respects. There were about five hundred people who showed up.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that. I just remember staring at the casket the whole time and thinking that my mom was sleeping in there. When they put her in the ground, I wanted to run to her and wake her up because I was afraid we would forget to bring her home.”
“I remember,” I said. “I was fourteen, and it was the first funeral I had ever been to. My mom died when I was really young too, so I don’t remember her or the funeral at all. But something in me felt for you that day. You were so small and so quiet until they started lowering her. Then you cried and tried to get to her. Your dad was so distraught, and your crying was making it worse. I was the closest one to you, so I grabbed your tiny little hand and pulled you into me.”
“You were the one I was clinging to?” she asked, looking up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I thought all this time it had been my father.”
I shook my head. I had forgotten all about this the day I saw her in the courthouse because I had pushed it out of my memory. But it had come back to me a few nights ago. I dreamt about it happening all over again, only this time we were our present ages. It gutted me to see her crying like that, and I had the same dream for several nights in a row.
