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“Yeah. Tonight.”
With that, I grabbed my purse and walked out, my heart breaking with every step I took.
Johnny
Four months later
“Not now, Johnny.”
My body froze, and I lifted my gaze to the mirror. My eyes met my wife’s, and I knew.
It was gone.
There was almost nothing left.
For months now, Kiera and I had been playing this game with one another, a game I believed neither one of us really wanted to play.
But we were here, and it seemed she wasn’t interested in fixing it.
We were at the tail end of the holiday season, and a brand-new year was on the horizon. I didn’t think there’d be a time more perfect than now for us to reconnect with one another.
Admittedly, we’d both had bouts of work-related stress leading up to the holidays, and then any time we had off over the last two weeks had been filled with all sorts of engagements with friends and family. We’d barely had any time to ourselves.
Sadly, when we did, Kiera made it clear she wasn’t interested in working on anything. It worried me, because I was beginning to think she’d already checked out.
Several times since the start of our holiday break—one of the few times we both had lighter workloads—I’d made the attempt to seduce Kiera. We’d come back late from a party with family or friends, and when we both got into bed, I’d initiate with the physical intimacy.
Holding her, caressing her, or kissing her skin on her shoulders or neck. I was willing to do whatever it took to give us that connection back, and when I did, she turned it down. The first time it happened, I tried not to dwell on it. We’d had a long day out, enjoying the time with our friends, and I just assumed she was genuinely exhausted.
But it never turned around.
Night after night, she either fell asleep well before I would have expected, or she’d do strange things, like start cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen late at night.
Tonight, after we’d attended another holiday party at my parents’ place, I didn’t think I’d have any trouble. We left my parents’ house much earlier, so I knew Kiera wouldn’t be too tired. It was well before our usual bedtime, and she’d already gone through with cleaning and organizing all the rooms in the house.
But when I came up behind her in the bathroom as she was washing her face, things didn’t go as I had planned or hoped they would.
I came up behind her, pressing the front of my body close to the back of hers, and slid my arm around her waist. My hand settled low on her abdomen as my other hand came up to shift her hair from her shoulder.
I pressed a kiss to the skin at the side of her neck and whispered, “You look so beautiful.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
I was certain I’d heard despondency in her tone, but I ignored it, hoping I was making it up in my head. I kissed her again, and my hand that had just brushed her hair out of the way came down to cup her breast.
I squeezed her there, and in an instant, something moved through me. I loved Kiera’s body, and it had been a few weeks since we’d been intimate. Having my hands on her like this again just felt good.
Pressing my groin into her ass, my mouth still peppering kisses along the top of her shoulders, my hand at her abdomen began to drift south.
And that’s when it all came to a grinding halt. Kiera had placed her hand over mine, stopping me in my tracks, and said what she’d just said.
Not now, Johnny.
After taking a long hard look at her in the mirror, noting what I saw—or, more specifically, what I didn’t see—in her eyes, I released her and took a step back.
“Not now?” I repeated.
“Not now,” she confirmed, her voice firm.
