She was most kinetic in stasis. With her energy contained by my will and her desire to please me, she was a sizzling box of energy, and the longer I kept her there, naked and still, the closer to her skin her arousal came.
She stayed still for me, the streets of Paris below, on the first night of our honeymoon, her nipples hard in the chilled air. I was behind her, which was all she knew. She didn’t know when I’d move or what I was doing. I could hear her heartbeat, and her breath, which she tried to keep even but failed.
She was mine. I owned this body, this heart. I wanted to put my fingers and tongue inside her, my cock, everywhere all at once. Every act of ownership felt incomplete to the totality of my love. I’d married her for the second time only a day before, and I’d marry her a hundred times more, but our bond was in our consummation. I was hers, and she was mine, and we only came close to the expression of the depth of it when I broke her patience, her resolve, her expectations, soothed her heart, and broke her again.
I came around her, fully dressed, to watch her naked body as it shifted, to watch her eyes try to stay focused ahead. She was so good, objectifying herself for me, becoming an owned thing so we could play the games that were an expression of our deeper truth. She owned me. I was an object for her pleasure.
I sat in the chair in front of her and brushed my fingertips across her breasts. She shuddered. My plan was to get her on her knees and take her throat, then it could go one of three ways, with every step leading to a new game plan, depending on her level of obedience. Every plan led up to the both of us quivering together. But as I ran my fingers from her breasts to her belly, something changed.
Something about her.
I kissed her navel, pulling the diamond bar with my lips.
She’d gained weight since starving herself in Sequoia. On our honeymoon, she was a little heavier than when we’d met. I knew what her body looked like and what it felt like. My hands and mouth discerned her shapes in all their perfection. And as she stood by me, groaning as my tongue traced circles around her navel, I perceived a change as subtle as the sea.
“Monica,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to alarm you.”
She stiffened. “Are you okay?”
“Shh. I’m fine. As are you.” I looked up at her. She looked straight ahead, as she was supposed to, and I stood so I could look her in the eye.
“What is it?” she asked, meeting my gaze.
“I don’t want you to get excited for nothing.” A senseless desire. No matter what I did, I was going to get her hopes up. I was going to risk causing her disappointment and pain. I couldn’t protect her from that. The greatest gift I could give Monica, a wedding gift for our life together, was hope.
She broke the silence. “Tell me, or I swear I’ll—”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
She set her mouth in a tight line and put her hands on her hips. Scene over.
I took her by her chin and risked her dashed hopes. “I think you’re pregnant.”