bone mother

You’re warm, too warm. The walk has left your skin tacky with sweat, the rum, tequila, and beer in your stomach coming up and sweating through your pores, clothes sticking wherever they touch. The desire to strip down and crawl between those expensive sheets is so enormous. 

The dim, more irritating responsible side of you suggests water first. Which is how you end up down to your shorts in the kitchen, barefoot on the tile, chugging water straight from the pitcher like a child, two hands and leaking from the corners of your mouth. It dribbles down your chin and soaks the front of your shirt, reminding you that you’re still half-dressed. You peel that off, too.

When you’ve had your fill, you leave it out on the counter to refill in the morning, and stumble for the bedroom. Patches of moonlight come through the tall windows in big, silver rectangles, bright enough to pick your way. The house is familiar enough by now that you don’t bother reaching for a switch.

Then, a floorboard creaks behind you.

You turn your fuzzy head. For a second, nothing makes much sense. The hallway has been bisected behind you somehow, several of those squares of light suddenly gone, erased by something your addled brain can’t account for. The gears turn and catch, and you realize that a closet door has opened, and, obviously, you hear yourself mumble, tongue thick and stupid, it couldn’t have been open before. You would’ve smacked right into it.

Then something moves in that blackness, a great shadow taking shape, and it lurches toward you.

The dress is beautiful and ornate. And you start crying actual tears of mirth and exhaustion when both you and Kyle struggle with all the fiddly little buttons. It takes ages, the two of you standing in front of the dressing table as he works the gown and you focus on the jewelry weighing you down from crown to collar bone. Through giggles, you have to tell Kyle to stop leaning down to kiss your back every time he manages to work a button open.

“You know,” he grumbles as you work on all the little pins. “Riley said he cut his bride out of her dress. I thought he was just being odd and uncouth, but maybe he was onto something.”

“Riley?”

“The Ghost,” he mutters under his breath. “His lady seemed charmed by him, and I hadn’t understood it. But now, I can kind of see why.”

Another giggle bubbles from your throat. “Oh! Do you know I thought I was going to wed him?”

That shocks another laugh from Kyle, which does not help you undress any faster. But eventually, the heavy fabric drops to the ground, leaving you in a simple chemise that feels light as a feather. You set the last of the hair pins and beaded flowers on the table in front of you before turning to face your husband.

Kyle has long stripped down to an undershirt and trousers, and you can’t help but admire the slope of his shoulders, the shape of his arms as he takes you in. His smile and laugh, the way he kept looking to you at the party, is all very much the boy you remember. But now, staring at you with hunger in his eyes, it’s hard not to see the man he’s become. But where other men’s eyes on you feel like something dangerous, Kyle’s eyes are a heat you want to throw yourself into.

“I think,” he whispers, “that tonight I want to kiss you, everywhere.”

You don’t have a chance to ask what he means before he’s sweeping you into his arms and kissing you with much more ardor than he had in front of the priest. When he starts kissing down your neck, drawing you toward the bed, you shiver at the ticklish sensation of his lips brushing sensitive skin.

It shouldn’t be a surprise when he lays you out over the sheets, but you can’t help the gasp that leaves your lips. His mouth drifts lower, pressing nibbling kisses to your collarbones and shoulders. A calloused hand smooths over your breasts until his fingers pluck gently at your nipple through silk. The way he chuckles at you makes the butterflies behind your sternum flutter.

The thin layer between you slides away as if by magic, and then his skin is really against yours. He groans as he cups your breast in his palm, and you echo the noise when his lips tease over the point of your other nipple. The appearance of his tongue surprises you, again, and you can’t help but grab at his shoulders.

“Kyle!”

He huffs a laugh and blows a cool stream of air over your skin. “Yes, my love? Feeling good already?”

Fabric bunches between your lower bodies, and he’s so hard as he rolls his hips into yours. You shiver as you open the cradle of your hips to him, have to drag him up to kiss him again, wet like you’ve only ever been after touching yourself for long minutes alone in the dark. You pant into each other’s mouths as he adjusts himself to shove away the last flimsy barrier between your bodies.

And then he’s pulling away to sit back on his heels, eyes hot as he takes you in. Whatever shyness you might have is overshadowed by your own lust as you drag your eyes down his body. He looks very different from when you were younger. All of the lankiness of youth has long been replaced, his time in the military turning him into a man capable of wielding a sword.

Your eyes dart down between his thighs.

A rather large sword. You giggle to yourself.

Kyle grins. “I never imagined how lovely it would be to see my wife smiling, naked, in my bed.”

Even as your face gets hot, you can’t look away from his eyes. “I had never dreamed I would smile at my husband in his bed.”

“Well,” he declares with a nod to himself. Shuffling back, he drops down until his shoulders are between your thighs. Strong hands arrange you until he can kiss the sensitive skin on the inside of your thighs. “I’d better give you more reasons to smile.”

You think you will be ready when he kisses you where you’re wet, except you very much are not. He moans when you grip at his short hair, and then his tongue touches gently at your pearl and you nearly jump out of your skin. You’d read about this, but even the most flowery prose pales against the reality of him using his lips and tongue to explore you, savor you.

Your husband is ravenous, you realize, as one of his fingers dips into you. The sensation is startling in its intensity, and you can’t help the way your hips pulse into it. Moans you didn’t know you were letting out stutter with your breath. Tension starts to coil in your belly, tighter and tighter as one finger becomes two that stroke at something inside of you, sending lightning up your spine.

You trip over your tongue as your peak rolls over you. “Kyle!”

“Fuck,” he moans, and then he’s up on his knees again, fingers still inside of you as he strokes and thrusts his cock against your pearl with loud, slick sounds. The feeling makes your hips jump again, jostles his fingers inside of you until you’re shivering and moaning as he spills over and into you.

“Gods.” He kneels there, panting, and slowly keeps stroking his fingers in and out. The noise makes your face heat again, and he chuckles when you cover your face with one hand. “You’re so beautiful.”

He withdraws his hand, slow and easy, and then flops onto the bed at your side. You make a confused noise when he pulls you against his side.

“Are we not…?”

He chuckles, pulling you close so he can press a kiss to your lips. “Not done with you yet, love. Got all night, and the rest of our marriage to learn exactly how to please each other.”

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