AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But then it just sort of happened… there were pumpkins everywhere, ridiculous coffee cups, and wildly colored blankets. She wore leggings and fluffy socks, and I’d come home to her sliding around the house in them with that smile on her face.” I paused. Fuck, those days were something. “And it turned into dancing with my wife in the kitchen while she let me cook. It was seeing her hair return to its normal texture and satin pillowcases in colors I didn’t know existed. She became… the version of herself the world had been deprived of. And fuck it if I didn’t love having a front-row seat to watching it happen.”
And it was probably the most incredible thing I’d ever fucking witnessed. That kind of growth… she was the strongest fucking woman I knew.
Chapter 71
Killian
Intimacy, on the other hand,” I sighed, “wasn’t working for us. We managed to get to the point where she stopped crying, but she wasn’t enjoying it either.”
Jesus fucking Christ. I couldn’t believe I was discussing my fucking sex life with my mom.
“Our therapist suggested an upscale lifestyle club in Olympia.” Yeah, Mom, we joined a sex club. Where was my fucking grave when I needed it? To her credit, if she could support Finn’s naked cooking endeavors, my wife and I figuring out how to have sex with each other had to be okay—embarrassing as fuck to admit but okay nonetheless. “The club put a lot of emphasis on beginners discovering… what they liked and didn’t like. We went. It took four trips out there with our therapist on the fucking phone to get Genevieve to walk into the goddamn building, but I got her in the building. Long story short, it worked.”
And that was the end of that part of our fucking story. There was no way in hell I’d break down the kinks we enjoyed. Not to my mom. I also didn’t want to fucking explain how my wife had major control issues. Except being in constant control was fucking hard for her, and she needed a space to give up that control while still knowing she was safe. I was that safe space for her—sexual and non-sexual because some days she struggled with basic functions. I liked being that for her. I liked taking care of her. I enjoyed her unabashed surrender to me that let her feel what she otherwise was afraid to.
“It took a fuck ton of emotional investment, but we figured it out,” I continued. Figured it out was an understatement. It took a long fucking time and communication to find our rhythm and boundaries. We went from barely touching to fucking every chance we got. But it was more than that. The whole fucking process taught us how to communicate with each other, how to appreciate the journey, and how to connect. Our life became lazy Sundays with music and dancing while evenings were spent cuddling in the grass behind our building as we watched the sunset. Genevieve found a calm and comfort in our routine that gave her relief from her trauma. I learned how to support her the way she needed it. We were happy—happier than we’d been in years.
“Are you okay?” Mom asked. I opened my eyes to see everyone staring at me.
“Sorry, lost in a memory,” I muttered. “Things were good. I had my job at the department, Genevieve was finding her footing in social media management, we bought the house… the most logical next step was to start a family. But Genevieve being… everything that makes her exactly who she is didn’t want to just play the fucking lottery. She bought books, talked to the doctor, bought a fucking thermometer.”
“Why a thermometer?” Finn asked.
“Trust me, sunshine, we don’t need to get into that,” Mom said for me.
“She had calendars and windows and all that shit worked out. And by windows, I mean she planned when we would fucking go at it based on what her goddamn calendar said. None of the shit you taught us ever said how weird and complicated it could get,” I told Mom.
“Not everyone gets so technical about it, baby boy.” She grinned. “Some people just win the lottery four times.”
“I like the lottery better.” Shit, the stress of trying to get it up on a schedule had been a lot. “But I stuck to her schedule like a goddamn champ. Unfortunately, some of that had to happen around my shifts with George.”
I blew out a breath of air. Yeah, this was all the shit I should’ve told them but never did.
“The thing is…” I began quietly, feeling fucking horrible for even mentioning it. Hadn’t I said enough about her? Given up enough secrets? Except, if I didn’t tell, the rest of the story wouldn’t make any fucking sense. They’d never get it. “The thing is… Genevieve’s thing… God, I feel like shit even saying this. Don’t you say a fucking word, got it?”
“How many times are we going to agree to this?” Declan replied. “If it’s said here, it’ll stay here.”
My brothers echoed their agreement.
“Genevieve’s thing is breath play… one of the things she enjoys is being choked,” I said. “Which is exactly how we ended up in the situation where my hand was around her throat when her mother popped over for a surprise visit.”
I let that sink in as I swallowed hard. The memory flashed through my mind. The start of our fucking destruction.
“Are you serious?” Mom demanded in the silence.
“That it started as an interrupted kinky sex thing between a husband and wife?” I retorted. “Yeah, but it hit her hard and deep. The shame and guilt she felt about everything came back uglier than ever. She slipped right through my fucking fingers. I lost her in an instant. And when Phillip started shouting abuse from the fucking rooftop for everyone to hear… Genevieve said nothing. She froze. The fear of how they’d respond if they knew the truth… that destroyed her before anything ever happened to our fucking marriage.
“We unraveled so fucking fast. I never got the chance to catch my footing. I couldn’t tell the truth… I couldn’t do that to her,” I admitted. And I couldn’t begin to describe the guilt that weaved its way through me for announcing it now. It didn’t fucking matter that my family wouldn’t use it against her. It still felt like a betrayal. “It had to come from her, so I kept waiting. Waiting and fucking hoping that she’d say something, but she never did. I didn’t stand a chance against Phillip. Once he got started, he was fucking relentless. And gossip travels fast in Cedar Harbor. I lost my job, I lost my friends, I lost my footing in the pack, I lost my family’s respect—”
“We never stopped respecting you,’ Sam cut me off. “We just didn’t understand.”
“Yeah, well, it fucking felt like that,” I muttered. “I started drinking. I couldn’t find a job, and I couldn’t stay at home. I’d spend the day two towns over, drunk in a fucking bar because I didn’t know what to do. And if I wasn’t there, I was still fucking drinking.”
“I had no clue,” Mom whispered. There was something in her voice—sadness? Surprise? I couldn’t place it.
“I hid it fucking well.” Too fucking well. Even Genevieve didn’t fucking know how far I’d fallen. “And then, in the middle of it all… we found out Genevieve was pregnant.”
“Killian—”
