Coming Around Again Page 4

  “Oh, darling, I’m not hungry. Honest.” She sat down next to him and pulled Will from his lap. The calmer of the twins, Will snuggled against her breast with a sigh of contentment. “I just want to close my eyes a little.”

  “Then sleep. We’re not going anywhere.”

  Cuddled up on the sofa, she did feel briefly like the luckiest, if not the most exhausted, woman in the world. And mostly how this, her, Niels, the boys, could never, ever be better.

  ***

  Stella hid behind her wine glass, trying not to shame the poor man attempting to chat up an unrepentantly irritable Eden. “Look, nothing about you says you’re any different from the idiot who already takes up far too much time as my boyfriend. Thank you. But no, thank you.”

  The banker glanced in Stella’s direction and Eden quickly put paid to that. “She’s married.” It didn’t make him move. “Seriously do one. Now.”

  “Eden,” Stella chided. “That wasn’t nice.”

  “Like you’ve never done worse! I remember a bloke you utterly decimated. He’s probably still in that same bar wishing for death rather than the extension of yet more torture.”

  “Oh, that guy. Come on, he deserved it.”

  Eden topped up her glass with more red. “How are you, really?”

  The only real downside of having a friend deal with your divorce was the constant questioning every time a stinging letter arrived from Niels’ solicitor.

  “I’m good. Ish. I suppose.”

  “I know you spoke to your mum the other day.”

  God, how disastrous that had been. “She wasn’t happy that I hadn’t tried hard enough to stay married.”

  Unhappy being an understatement. Eden sighed heavily. “She’s worried about you.”

  “She has no idea. I’ve been married ten years. Better than she fucking well did. And I’d have stayed married longer, but Niels decided otherwise. Bastard.”

  “Speaking of my other lovely-looking friend…” She trailed off suggestively. “Have you talked to him about the house? There’s still a substantial mortgage on it. He hasn’t said anything more than he’s more than happy to make periodical payments.”

  “I don’t need that jackarse’s money,” Stella declared boldly.

  “Well, quite, but you really should understand his current situation…”

  “Are we talking shop? I thought we were out so I could have a break and not think about what the hell that arse is telling my sweet babies.”

  “You’re getting drunk. Best way I can get things out of you these days,” Eden said, without a hint of repentance.

  “That’s my house. He’s got a house. Why are we fussing?”

  “Because from the gist of what his solicitor says, the situation for both of you is pretty tenuous and you have a large mortgage on your house. If you stay there, you need to show you can afford it.”

  “Course I can.”

  “The thing is, Stel…”

  “Niels is sitting in a mortgage-free house. He’s such a cunt,” Stella spat. “Tell him he can pay for it, but I am staying put.”

  “Fandabidozy,” Eden muttered. “Anything else?”

  “He’s got naked pictures of me.”

  “Erm…”

  “You know what? Lemme tell him.”

  Eden reached for her phone, but Stella snatched it out of the way. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Stella burped loudly. “It’ll be fine.” She’d changed Niels’ number on her phone from Husband to The Prick.

  What’s happening with the house? Why haven’t you said I can have it?

  Good evening to you, too, Stella. What do you want to happen with the house?

  Obviously I want to stay in it.

  And?

  And just tell your solicitor so she can back off. You’ve got your own house.

  True, but the house you’re in is larger. Five bedrooms. You don’t need five bedrooms.

  I am not selling the house.

  You don’t need that much space.

  Fuck. You. I earned that house.

  Whatever do you mean by that?

  “Oh my god, he’s so fucking frustrating!” Stella cried, reading through the messages with Eden. Her friend covered her eyes with her hands.

  “I told you this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “He’s such a bastard.”

  Stella typed faster, her fingers flying across the keyboard of her phone, venting her fury and feelings where Eden had told her not to communicate anything to Niels in writing. Nothing that she wouldn’t be embarrassed by a judge seeing. She lost her patience.

  There had never been a time when she hadn’t been able to vent to her husband before, and after three glasses of wine on the emptiest stomach in the Western Isles, she wasn’t about to start now. His reply to her rounded her eyes and she turned her phone off.

  “He’s, erm… a little stuck on the details. But there’s no reason to sell the house when he has his own.”

  Eden didn’t lift her hands from her eyes. “What did you say to him?”

  “I may have mentioned something about him owing me for anal sex.”

  “And what was his response?” Her friend’s voice was barely audible, above the chatter of the bar. Stella guessed Eden muffled her voice with her embarrassment.

  “That I needed to refresh his memory. And that’s not happening, so…” Stella painted on a brilliant smile. “Onward with writing to his solicitor and laying it out that the house is mine.”

  Eden’s head dropped to the table top. “I knew I should have passed this job to my boss.”

  ***

  Four years married

  Skin pearled with sweat, her heart rattling against her rib cage, Stella closed her eyes to centre herself after the third tremulous orgasm. Exhaustion puffed her breaths from her swollen, bitten, and spanked flesh. She turned away from the mirror, shamelessly reflecting the tight arcs of Niels’ arse driving between her parted thighs. Reaching up, she placed her hands on his hips and held him away from her. His cock glistened with her cream, pulsed with power as he withdrew from her to a shiver.

  “I can’t!” she gasped, arching her back. “I’ve run out.”

  “Of orgasms?” Niels asked, laughter mingling in his suspicious tone. “I don’t believe it.” His voice lowered as he dragged the underside of his hard-on over her clit. At the same time he stroked a digit along that sweet patch of skin beneath her opening to circle her delicate and untouched rosebud. She was relaxed to the point of falling asleep and where she’d slapped his hands away before, post-three explosive orgasms, she could easily be persuaded that tonight could be the night.

  “If I let you,” she breathed, resting her hand against his wrist and stilling his movement, “and you ever, ever leave me… You owe me.”

  Niels leaned down and pulled her into a deep kiss, pushing back inside her pussy until he filled her to the hilt. Both his ample palms grabbed a handful of her buttocks and parted them ever so slightly. Tiny little shivers raced over her whole body, echoes of her previous climaxes shaking her. Each time he thrust inside her, his finger penetrated her rear. The sensations of the dual insertions were unreal. She lifted her hands and fisted them through his hair, gripping the blond strands tightly. He briefly lifted his head and reached for their bedside table. Scattering kisses over her neck and chest, he took out a small clear bottle and flicked open the lid.

  “I know you want me to,” he demanded, his voice dark with untold desire. “I barely need this, you’ve soaked our sheets.”

  If she let him, there’d be nothing else to bargain with. Wait, if he enjoyed it enough, then she would. Marriage power struggle. She always needed a backup. “Fuck me,” she whispered. He didn’t need telling twice. With an ease of practice and familiarity, he edged her legs over his shoulders and poured the lubricant over her rosebud. Flinging the bottle over his shoulder, he pressed the head of his bulbous cock to her arse and slowly he entered her. Her eyes flew open
and instinctively she tensed against him. Using his left hand, he stroked her clit once more and whispered to her, “Let me in.”

  No, he was going too deep. She touched her fingertips to his hips and he pulled back from her in understanding. “This way,” he coaxed, pushing her legs from his shoulders and sitting her on the edge of the bed. She looked at their reflection in the full-length mirror, Niels with a red wine flush over his broad chest, his thick erection spiking against his stomach. Stella’s skin looked glossy with sweat and arousal, her navel piercing sparkling in the light, and a tell-tale love bite began to bloom over her breasts. He caught her hand and eased her onto his lap. She watched as he spread her legs, hooking them on either side of his huge thighs before his arm anchored her to his torso. He trailed his lips over her neck, lifting her slightly and allowing her to sink onto his cock.

  Now it felt good. Different. Strange. But it was Niels. The sensation of him inside her was as familiar and natural as breathing. He began to move, slowly lifting and lowering her in slick motion that opened her with each thrust. His thumb flicked against one peaked and tight nipple, and she looked again at their reflection. The starkness of his golden-hued arm against her rich, brown breasts, his reddened cock driving between her buttocks, and just above the movements of his spike, her swollen and parted pussy. She couldn’t help herself. The view forced her to reach over his hand and catch her own clit between her fingertips and rub delicately.

  “Yes, touch yourself. You’re tightening around me again…”

  She felt otherworldly, her body imploding from the tips of her toes and a furnace in her buttocks. Her hands shook against her clit, the little kiss of flesh burning to the touch, throbbing underneath her fingers. He reared up, pushing harder into her and growling deeply against her shoulder.

  The orgasm came like a volcano, from the very depths of her belly and rumbled through her throat into a scream. Niels followed her, thundering thrusts against her buttocks until she felt scorching hot liquid pulsing into her body. The veins of his forearm strained beneath his skin and he grunted her name several times.

  “You’re right,” he panted, slowly getting to his feet and lifting her into his arms. “I do owe you.”

  “This…isn’t happening again.” Why couldn’t she speak? She sounded drunk.

  “Why ever not, Mrs. Strøm?”

  “I can’t feel my legs. Look, I’m shaking.”

  He carried her into the bathroom and sat her down on the bidet. “Isn’t that a good thing? Means it wasn’t the Stephen King novel it could have been?”

  Stella twisted her aching body around to allow the water to flow. Still strange. Almost like the last part of her innocence had been taken. Niels opened the shower cubicle and began running water. “Can you come in or do you still need me to carry you?”

  She held out her arms to him. “You may carry me.”

  With a grin, he lifted her from the bidet and into the shower. As the best husband in the world, he covered her hair with a cap and then used her netted puff to clean her skin. “Thank you,” he murmured, bending down to wash her feet.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Trusting me,” he replied, gently lifting one foot and pressing his lips to her skin. At that moment, Stella had never felt more loved, more honoured, more worshipped than she did with her husband kneeling at her feet.

  The Fight

  Chapter Four

  Six months post-divorce

  Stella’s barrister leaned over and picked up her briefcase and removed her papers. She’d never been to court in her life. For anything at all. Not a parking ticket. Not a missed train fare and definitely not for speeding. But she sat in a court waiting room, dressed in a black suit she’d bought a few days before, waiting to justify why the children she’d given birth to should live with her full time. Fucking Niels, hadn’t he taken enough from her? She’d declared war on the house, so she supposed he’d go for her weak spot. The boys.

  How had her life come to this? She’d been in love. Successful. Made her parents happy by giving them not one, but two boys to fuss and fight over. She’d taken two holidays a year with her husband and she’d done her wifely duty by him. What had been so wrong with how they’d lived their life that Niels couldn’t bear it any longer? Couldn’t bear her?

  I can’t exist in a marriage where you endure me. You put up with me. Life shouldn’t be like that. Our life wasn’t ever meant to be like that.

  God, she was going to be sick. She pressed a hand to her throat and focused on what the barrister was saying to her. Honestly, she was distracted by the fleck of pink lipstick on her pearly white teeth.

  “All right, so what you’re suggesting for the children is…every other weekend?”

  “That’s fair enough, right?”

  Her barrister made a face. “I’ll be honest. You’re probably looking at a shared care order. Equal time with both you and Mr. Strøm. The boys have talked to the court officer and they say they love you both and are happy spending time with you both.”

  Urgh, that phony guy who’d come to the house and watched as Danny took it upon himself to test Stella’s limits. Had that officer not been around, Danny would have been in his room with a sore bottom. Instead, he’d gone into the dining room for a time-out.

  Danny threw at her, “Dad does time-out better!”

  The court officer had pressed his lips together and made a note before talking to Will alone, in the living room with the door open. As soon as he’d left, Danny’s sulky mood ended when he realised his mother was making a steak pie, his favourite. He liked to pick apart the crust with his fingers and rearrange his plate into order. Gravy and meat to one side, crispy crust pieces to the other.

  “Muma,” he asked. “That man asked me if I want to live with you or Dad.”

  “I know,” Stella said, fighting for calm, and battering her pastry with all the force it deserved. What a thoroughly indelicate question! Were any of these people trained to even talk to children? Understand their psyche?

  “I said I’d live with you, if you got me tickets to see Arsenal at the Emirates.”

  God, don’t let me beat this child. “Why would you say that?”

  Danny shrugged. “Are you going to buy them for me?”

  “You know I don’t even like football,” she sighed, brushing the pie dish with melted butter. “So that’s not really going to work.”

  “That’s what the man said. I shouldn’t accept bribes from you or Dad.”

  “And what else did you say?”

  Danny hesitated then wrapped his arms around her waist. “I wish you and Dad would live together again. Then no one would ask me anything stupid.”

  Stella unravelled herself from her son and crouched to look him in the eyes. “You know we both love you. So much.” She stroked both his arms in soothing motions. “We’re sorting everything out and then we can go back to normal. Okay?”

  “Nothing’s going to be normal,” he murmured, shrugging her off and disappearing into the living room.

  And he was right. How could anything go back to normal, when normal had been Muma, Daddy, Danny, and Will together? Causing mayhem (once dental and bodily hygiene standards had been met) and sharing everything. Challenge for the next normal, then.

  “What cinches everything,” the barrister continued, “is that Mr. Strøm has a house that’s very close to you. On a nice day, walking distance.” A house the man bought with their shared money. Without her knowing. In his name only. So he could deprive her of her children. The actual audacity of the man was breathtaking.

  “As if Niels would walk for three miles to a house when he can drag race in his fancy Audi.”

  The barrister raised her eyebrows. “Has he done that?”

  “No. Look, he’s upset everything. Everything. My children are my world.” She felt tears coming to her eyes and rubbed her fingertips over her forehead. Oh god, time out. “Whatever he wants. I’m not going to fight with him anymore.”


  Her barrister tapped Stella on the knee and got to her feet. “I’ll go and have a chat to his counsel and I’ll come back in a moment. We can resolve this today and then no more court. All right.”

  She gave a tired nod and watched her barrister disappear into a room with Niels’ glossy-looking counterpart. The man himself saw her sitting alone and wandered over, hands in the pockets of his perfectly cut suit.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Strøm.”

  “Never my name,” she reminded him, barely looking up from her right hand, where her engagement ring now sat. “What do you want?”

  He took the barrister’s place beside her and stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankle. “What are you planning?”

  “I’ve told my barrister to agree to whatever it is you want. I’m officially defeated.”

  He removed his hand from his pocket and flicked his index finger beneath his nose. Will did the same thing when he was about to tell the truth. Why was she fighting so hard to keep two boys so close to her who would only grow up into the man beside her and break her heart?

  “It’s not about defeat,” he sighed heavily, turning his eyes on her like gas-flamed lamps. “Since we can’t do this together, we can at least do it fairly. To the boys.”

  “And I wasn’t being fair?”

  He gave a slight shrug. “I could have asked for full residence.”

  “Wasn’t going to happen,” she said with a starkly dangerous smile.

  “Really?” His tone lightened in interest. “Tell me why?”

  He had to be joking. “If you think for one minute that I’d let you take my children away from me permanently, then you never knew me. And you have no idea what I’d do to you if you even tried.”

  “You’re getting violent again, Stella,” he said mildly. “Remember what the judge said about that.”

  “Fuck the judge,” she retorted. “And fuck you. Go and sit somewhere else.”

  “Aren’t we going to talk about this holiday?”

  He had to be mind-fucking her for old time’s sake. “What holiday?”