Page 66 of Ours to Lose
I was a greedy girl.
Chapter Seventeen
Gabe
We layon the small cot in the corner of the office that served as my bed most nights. Aubrey’s naked body was warm against mine under the blanket. I wore my boxer briefs since the weight of her head on my chest already felt too close to cheating on our deal.
She needed it. That had been an intense round of sex, and aftercare was an important part of the experience.
But that was all our deal was: me helping her experience good sex. She got to be naked afterward because it was what she wanted. Me being naked with her would be whatIwanted, and that wasn’t what this was about.
She played with the hair on my forearm. “How’d you know I’d like it?” she asked, glancing up at my face. Freckles almost too faint to see danced across her nose.
“Wall sex?”
“Well, yeah. But also the other thing.”
“You mean the being watched thing?”
She nodded, a touch of pink rising to her cheeks.
I kissed the top of her head. “Just a feeling. Exhibitionism’s a pretty common fantasy.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to do it for real,” she said as if thinking it through. “Like, I liked when you said those things and feeling the risk of it a little, but I think someone actually watching would make me uncomfortable more than anything.”
I shrugged. “So it’ll stay a fantasy. They don’t always have to come true. That’s what makes them fun.”
She shifted to see my face easier, her leg hooking over mine. “Do you have one?”
“Sure.” Like hers, it would only ever exist in my imagination. It was better for everyone that way.
“Will you tell me?”
I thought of telling her a different one. Something closer to what she probably expected. A threesome or bondage or something.
She sensed my hesitation. “What’s wrong? Is it really weird?”
I traced the lavender stem tattooed on her arm. “I don’t know. Maybe to some people.” I’d never cared much whether it was.
She gazed at me, waiting. Stripped naked of more than her clothes, and she’d shed those layers with me.
I blew out a breath. “I like to imagine fucking my pregnant wife.” It wasn’t a breeding thing or like I wanted to fuck every pregnant woman I saw. I wanted to fuck my wife. The woman I’d committed myself to in all ways who was offering up her body through tremendous change to bring our child into the world. Bringing her body comfort during that stage? Bringing her pleasure? It was the most erotic thing I could imagine.
Only I didn’t have a wife, and I never would.
I didn’t even have a fucking bed.
Anything I had to offer a woman was strictly physical. I could fuck against a wall, haul her on my shoulders to eat her pussy, and rip off her panties with my bare hands, but I couldn’t promise more than that. If I did, there was no guarantee I’d keep it.
The truth was, I didn’t know how to commit myself to someone the way my parents had committed to each other. I didn’t know how to fit my life together with another person’s. I’d never had to try. Never had to consider how leaving for camp might affect a partner, or even a pet. Never had to think of anyone else when making decisions. And the one time Ihadneeded to, I’d failed.
My mom had fucking cancer, and I chose to stay for a fight.
It shouldn’t have mattered that it was the final fight of the only professional tournament of its kind, and winning would have made me the kind of money only 1 percent of boxers ever earned. It shouldn’t have mattered I had peaked at exactly the right time, over ten years into my career, and was on the precipice of everything I’d worked for paying off. It shouldn’t have mattered that everyone had confidence the surgery would be easy and she had at least another year before things got bad.
No justification should have been enough. Theonlydecision I should have made was to drop everything and go be with my mom.
Instead, I’d welcomed the justifications. Slathered them on my face like Vaseline so any objections from my conscience would slide right off.
