Page 29 of What A Croc
As alphas went, I couldn’t have asked for a more attentive one. In between my heats, Jackson had carried me to the shower, cleaned me, changed the bedding, made sure I was hydrated, fed me bites of protein to keep my strength up.
“You’re the first person I’ve spent my heats with in years,” I confessed, not turning to look at him. Even so, I could almost feel the frown on his face. I didn’t know why I was confessing this to him. Maybe because he had shared about Levi with me. Maybe because I had never felt safer than I did in his arms.
“Jane?”
Shaking my head, I swallowed against the rawness of my throat from all my panting and shouting. “Jane spent my first heat with me after we were married, obviously. That was when we got pregnant with the baby we lost. It took a few months before my hormones evened out and on my next heat, we were lucky and we got pregnant with Wyatt. After that she said I was…” gulping loudly, Iblinked against the emotion just saying the words out loud caused. “She said I was too loud, too messy, too needy, and we had one child, which was plenty. No need to risk another pregnancy.”
Jackson went rigid behind me, before he let out a breath and relaxed his muscles, though his arms tightened a fraction around me. “Robert, how…how did you handle your heats?”
It was a personal question, too personal for the short amount of time we had known each other, but after the last three days we had gotten to know each other real well.
“I would check into a heat hotel,” I told him, “I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”
He brushed his lips against my shoulder blade, kissing softly. “I have.”
“I’d go there for the duration of my heats, but she wouldn’t allow…she wouldn’t allow another alpha to…service me.” I had never talked about this with another person. Not even my closest friends, who would discuss their heats and their alphas. I always remained quiet, a pleasant smile plastered on my face.
“Then…what did you do without an alpha?” After three nights together, I could tell the control Jackson was keeping on himself.
“They have a plethora of toys,” I explained. “Only the best for the prices they charge.”
“Toys can’t…” Instead of finishing the sentence, Jackson growled.
“It was fine,” I whispered, thinking that pretty much described my life the last twenty plus years. Perfectly fine. Pleasantly fine. Fine, fine, fine. Until it wasn’t.
“Robert,” Jackson’s voice hummed against my skin, his thigh rubbing between mine. “Can I ask what happened between you and Jane? What ended the marriage?”
I was quiet so long, Jackson tried to pull the question back. “Forget I asked. It’s not my business.”
Looking at him awkwardly over my shoulder, I gave him a sad little smile. “It’s okay. And you shared about Levi with me, which was very personal. And, if we are going to see if this thing between us is going to work, you have a right to know.”
“And are we?” he asked quietly. “Going to see if we’ll work? Because I don’t really think it’s even a question at this point, but I understand your trepidations.”
“I’m open to the possibility,” I told him coyly. “Jane and me…I’m not sure it was any one thing to be honest. It was years and years of a lot of little things, piled up so high I couldn’t see over them. But really it boiled down to Julianna. And Wyatt. We caused our son a world of hurt, that I’m trying very hard to get past with him. But that’s a story for another time.”
Jackson was quiet, before he asked, “What happened with Julianna?”
Smiling against his arm, thinking about my granddaughter, I let out a loud sigh. “We weren’t happy when Wyatt told us he was pregnant. Well, I was, I was just worried about him being a single father. He and Becks weren’t together at that time. I was thrilled when he let us know he had the baby, and wanted to fly to Sweet Alps that day. But Jane…wouldn’t allow it.”
“You use the word allow a lot when talking about Jane,” Jackson murmured, “I don’t like it.”
“It wasn’t all Jane,” I admitted. “I was very complacent in my marriage. I didn’t speak up. I was very in the background. We had a super traditional marriage, where the alpha was in charge. I should have spoken up. I wish I had spoken up. Anyway when we finally came to see Wyatt and Julianna, he and Becks were back together. Jane hated everything about Becks. Hated that he was older than us,” Jackson snorted at that and I shushed him. “Hated that he is a wolf. She has always felt wolves were beneath her giraffe for some odd reason I never understood. Hated that Julianna is a wolf, hated that she looks like Becks. Hated that Becks has creole blood in him.”
“She sounds like a very unhappy person,” Jackson observed quietly.
Nodding my agreement, I continued. “The final straw was when we had planned to come see Wyatt around the fourth of July holiday. At least I thought we had it planned. I was so excited. We had only seenJulianna once. Despite the issues in our relationship, Wyatt was good about sending us pictures of her, and she was just growing so fast. I wanted to be an involved grandparent. I wasn’t an involved parent, but I wanted to change that. Imagine my surprise, when I get all packed and Jane asked what on earth I think we are doing. When I said aren’t we going to see the baby, she looked at me and saidRobert, what on earth are you going on about? What baby?And when I said Julianna, our grandchild, she made some weird noise of dismissal and said, oh that mongrel. I’ve forgotten all about her. We have plans with…Goddess, you know I honestly don’t remember who she said we had plans with. I just sort of heard white noise. Or maybe that was my rage. I couldn’t tell you.”
“Fucking hell, I do not like her,” Jackson growled again.
“Same. I don’t even know what came over me, but I was just done,” I gave a little shrug. “I remember I went into my bedroom and sat down on the end of the bed, and just stared at my suitcases. She had told me we should surprise Wyatt and not tell him we were even coming, and I realized she never had any intention of us coming to see him. She just wanted to shut me up. Like she’d done so many times over the years, and I let her, I did. Then this calmness came over me, and I wheeled my suitcases out and told her I was leaving, and I wasn’t coming back. And I didn’t.”
Jackson raised up on an elbow, pushing a lock of my dank, sweaty hair off my forehead, because we both needed another shower. While I’d been talking, his knot had subsided, but instead of pulling out he stayed inside of me. “Wow. That’s…I’m sorry that happened.”
“Don’t be,” I smiled, “It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I showed up at the daycare, suitcases in hand, and declared to Wyatt I had left his mother. I didn’t know if he’d help me, but I had money if he didn’t. We were very wealthy and not all of it was Jane’s money, but a lot of it was tied up in investments and real estate. She cut off my credit cards while I was driving across the country, but I had one she didn’t know about.”
“Robert Cooper,” Jackson grinned, “devious.”
“Just prepared,” I told him. “I had some cash too. But Wyatt was actually really wonderful. My cabin was Beck’s. He moved in with Wyatt and the baby, while they built their house. They had just made plans to do that, and were going to keep the cabin for us to use when we visited. Not that I thought for a minute Jane would stay there, but it was a lovely gesture on their parts. Anyway, the divorce was relatively low key. Jane tried to fight my settlement, but she forgot we had a prenup. Plus, we had been married a long time. I walked away with a very nice settlement from her. I wish I had chosen my own happiness years ago, but I don’t even know if I realized how unhappy I was. Really it was her behavior towards Julianna that did it. Iknew Jane could be cold, snobbish, rather shrewish. I just couldn’t–wouldn’t–tolerate it any longer.”
