16. Play

CHAPTER16

Play

Remy

Sunday evening, Remy sat at his piano playing “Clair de lune” while Wyn sat curled into the corner of his couch, reading a book.

On the one hand, he loved this. It was peaceful, and he knew how much Wyn enjoyed his playing, specifically this piece. It was her favorite.

On the other hand, with all their kids gone, the third family supper in a row consumed, and Wyn firmly establishing herself in his life and his home, he’d prefer to be doing other things with his wife.

He watched her lips tip up softly and called, “Good book?”

She looked up at him.

“It is, but I was remembering The Right Stuff.”

Remy didn’t miss a note, even if he remembered that too.

She had to know he did, but she laid it out anyway.

“We watched that movie at your place in New York, and during the fan dance scene, I started crying. You teased me. I said I’d never heard that song and it was the most beautiful song to ever touch my ears. You paused the movie and got right up, went to your piano and played it by memory. I was so impressed I could barely stand myself.”

He kept playing, now smiling, as he reminded her, “I got that, since, when I was done, you tackled me, and we had sex under the piano.”

Her face grew soft. “You had that tiny loft. A bed, a couch, a TV. All of that barely fit because you had a grand piano.”

He did.

Because his mother bought it for him, saying, “Uprights are common, Remy.”

He looked down at his hands moving on the keys.

Wyn kept reminiscing. “So when I moved in, we were totally scrunched.”

That memory was a load better.

Only when he finished the piece did he turn back to her, and this time he did it fully shifting his body on the bench to face her.

“What’s going on with Manon and her guy?” he asked and watched her head tick at the change of topic.

But she went with his flow because she was determined to go with his flow because she was determined to treat him like he was china now that she knew what his childhood had been like.

He loved her sitting right there.

He’d bleed before she was again anywhere but with him.

But that shit was beginning to piss him off.

“She tried to reschedule their date for last night, but he said he had something on. According to Manon, he’s playing games. Apparently, he was upset she cancelled the plans they had Friday night. She said two can dance that tango. So instead of going home yesterday, they stayed until today, because they also had brunch plans for this morning.”

They did stay, with Sabre, oddly, having no qualms falling in with her plans to the point he horned in on Wyn and Manon going shopping yesterday, declaring, “I need new jeans,” when Remy couldn’t remember the last time his oldest son had gone to a mall. This to the point he gave his sister money and a shopping list to do for him for Christmas, and since Manon could happily live in a mall, she had no problem fulfilling his orders.

And because Sah went, Yves went too.

Remy did not. He wanted to give them time with their mom, he had a delivery he needed to be home for, and like his eldest, he hated the mall.

It wasn’t shopping, he just wasn’t a crowd person.

“Did Sah get new jeans?” Remy asked.

Wyn nodded.

“Did you tell Manon she needs to dump this guy?” he asked.

Wyn’s lips tipped up again. “You think your daughter needs to dump every guy.”

“Only when she dates putzes. And this guy is a putz, if he gets in a snit when it’s more important she be with her family.”

“According to you, they’re all putzes.”

“Because they’ve all been putzes.”

Her smile came back.

“Do you think Sabre is acting strange?” Remy asked.

The smile went away, and she nodded.

“Yes. For Sah, he’s being…” she looked like she was searching for a word before she found it, “overprotective of Manon, when Manon is handling learning what happened to you a lot better than I expected.”

“He’s giving me a break, or he thinks he is.”

“Sorry?”

“He thinks I need to deal with Mom dying and he knows, usually, I’m overprotective of Manon. So he’s taking that on because he feels I need to have time to deal and not worry about my daughter. And he made a show of making sure I knew he was on the job.”

“We’ve got good kids, Remy,” she said softly.

“The minute she was out, I bought new mattresses,” he announced. “They were delivered yesterday while you and the kids were shopping.”

That made his wife look like she was going to bolt.

Since she didn’t, he went on, “Even so, I hadn’t slept with her in that bed in weeks.”

“Remy—”

“Because I fucked her, are you never going to touch me that way again, Wyn?”

“I think maybe we should get into this when—”

“She was my first, and only, after you.”

Color came into her face, and yeah.

He was getting pissed off.

The worst part about it?

He had no right to.

Not about that.

He’d done that to himself.

Regrettably, it didn’t make him any less pissed off.

“So you had a first but not an only,” he guessed, feeling that knife sink into his gut.

“I think maybe this is something we should both let fade away,” she suggested.

He didn’t take her suggestion.

“How many were there? One? Two? Five?” he pushed.

“Remy.” That time his name was a warning.

He wasn’t sure ever in their lives together he’d heeded one of her warnings.

She also never heeded his.

And this time, it was no different.

“I know it’s on me. I’ll have to live until my dying day knowing I made it so you took another man…or men. But since you did, I don’t think it’s fair you make me pay for having another woman.”

“This isn’t about being fair, Remy, or making you pay. It isn’t about her either. It isn’t about…the others.”

Fuck.

Others.

Plural.

Fuck.

“It’s about me seeing to you,” she finished.

“Seeing to me?” he asked.

“When you hurt…like that…you want affection, not sex.”

What was she talking about?

“Sorry?”

“When you get hurt, when your feelings hurt, or you get sensitive or emotional…”

Jesus Christ.

“…you like to cuddle and get in your head playing piano with me close,” she concluded.

“This is one of the major reasons I did not want to tell you about my parents,” he growled.

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t want to cuddle, Wyn. I’d much rather be buried in you than buried in Debussy. You like me to play. You like to cuddle. I do it for you.”

“Do you…not like to play? Does it…remind you of your mom?”

“For fuck’s sake, Wyn!” he exploded, standing. “I’m not some wuss-ass bundle of fragility you have to coddle just because my mother was fucked up. Every piece of my life is not about her, every part of me is not about her.”

She uncurled her legs on the couch to sit straight, but she didn’t stand up.

And she said pacifyingly, “All right, honey.”

This, of course, made him angrier. “And don’t do it now, for fuck’s sake.”

“You use the F-word a lot when you won’t let your sons do it,” she remarked.

A diversion tactic.

He wasn’t diverted.

“That’s because you let me be just who I am and I have a foul mouth, and yeah, maybe that’s because my mother used to smack it when I got older and started to defy her. But that still doesn’t mean everything about me is about her.”

She looked stricken.

And it gutted him.

“She used to smack your—”

“Jesus Christ, let it go, Wyn!” he roared.

She closed her mouth.

“You do see me standing right here?” He slapped his hand on his chest to emphasize his question.

“Yes, Remy, I see you,” she said gently.

He had a bad taste in his mouth as he spat, “Don’t be docile and meek because you don’t think I can handle shit.”

She shut up again.

“I’m not exactly a hundred-pound weakling,” he pointed out.

“No, you’re not,” she agreed.

“I had a growth spurt at thirteen, started filling out at fifteen, but before then, all that shit stopped mainly because she pushed me into a wall when I was eleven, and I got ticked. So I pushed her back.”

Her eyes got round.

“She lost her shit, dissolved onto a chair, howling with crocodile tears, asking me what kind of son she raised and threatening to tell Dad I put my hands on her. My response was, ‘Please, Mom, tell him.’ She read that threat for what it was, shut shit down immediately, gave me a good look and realized that particular reign of terror was over.”

“That particular one?”

“You don’t go from taking all your perceived woes out on your child to being a functional parent. She found a different way to take her shit out on me, and I became her recalcitrant son. I didn’t listen. I had no respect for my mother. I wasn’t polite. I didn’t love her, or I didn’t love her enough. It was relentless. And that was almost worse. Sometimes, I wished she’d go back to hitting me, because it seemed I could never do anything right. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make her happy. I couldn’t settle her down. I couldn’t be what she needed me to be to make her normal, to make her love me.”

Wyn was now pale, her gaze wounded.

But she wanted this, said she needed it, and Remy was done with it. He wanted it over, he wanted them to move on from it, so he had to give it to her.

All of it.

Thus, Remy didn’t stop.

“After I got older, after it sunk in he wasn’t going to come to my rescue, and the end was in sight because I was in high school, I could drive and I had things out of the house I could do to escape her, friends I could be with who made me feel normal and made me realize I was, but she wasn’t, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy for her. I didn’t listen. I had no respect for her. And to her, I was not polite. I put up with her because she was my mother, but I didn’t like her all that much and I wasn’t shy about behaving like I didn’t.”

“But, do you like to play piano?”

For fuck’s sake.

“I love to play,” he replied. “I love that my kids play. I love that my sons are better than me. I love music. And I love that my wife thinks it hot that, even if I like all kinds of music, if given a choice, I don’t turn on rock, I listen to classical.”

“Okay,” she said quietly.

“I’m not an idiot, Wyn.”

Her back went up on that one.

Visibly.

“I never said you were,” she retorted, and there was a snap to it.

Finally.

“I had friends,” he carried on. “They had parents. And absolutely, I worked my ass off to try to earn her love, then try to make her version of love stop and shift to one that didn’t hurt. I did the same to try to figure out the son my father needed so I could be that so he wouldn’t go away. But I saw how my friends were. How their parents were. I realized eventually that what I had was not that. Even if I didn’t understand it wasn’t healthy, I did understand it wasn’t normal and I came to understand it wasn’t about me. Obviously, with what happened with us, it dug deeper than I thought. But theoretically, I got it.”

“Right.”

“So I’m not fucking fragile. I get it. I got it a long time ago.”

“Right.”

That was not convincing.

He understood why.

“The way I blew us up was not conscious, Wyn,” he bit out. “If I knew what I was doing, I never would have fucking done it.”

“So you’re over it…but you’re not over it?”

“You never get over it.”

“Remy, you’ve got to understand I’m not in a place where I’ll ever understand,” she said carefully.

He loved that for her.

But they had to get past this.

“Do you know the man you married?” he asked.

“No.”

Okay.

Yeah.

Nope.

Not pissed anymore.

Furious.

“Are you shitting me?” he asked.

That was when she stood because that was when she lost it.

“Remy! I just found out you were significantly abused in every manner that could be three days ago. And I’ve been with you a quarter of a century.”

“Yes, and it was my choice not to tell you,” he replied.

“It was mine to have.”

Was she serious?

He shook his head. “Oh no it was not, baby.”

She asked his question. “Are you serious?”

“It’s mine to give, and only mine to give. And I have to say, I’m not feeling it I was forced to give it. Especially right now.”

“Forced?” she whispered.

“That’s not on you,” he assured. “That’s on Mom.”

“You cannot know that you’re not making a lick of sense, but trust me, you are not making a lick of sense.”

With strained patience, he explained, “If her shit didn’t cause me to do something I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t find out the woman was dying in the middle of reuniting with you, you never would have known.”

“I never would have known,” she breathed.

Again, wounded.

“Wyn, I told you I hated that I had to tell you when I was telling you.”

“Two,” she bit off.

“What?” he asked.

“Two. I slept with two men after you.”

Remy stood completely still.

“Is that not yours to know, Remy?” she asked. “It’s mine, I didn’t really want it, but it’s mine. I also didn’t want to tell you. However, you wanted to know, so I told you. Is that the same thing?”

“Right now, you’re throwing your fucks in my face?” he asked with deceptive quiet.

“The fact I had those fucks is not on you, honey, they’re on your mom,” she returned.

Christ, he hated it when they were arguing, and she was right.

“She ended my marriage,” Wyn continued. “She took you away from me. And you don’t think I have the right to know why?”

“I told you,” he reminded her.

“But you didn’t want to.”

“It hurts you!” he thundered. “Jesus, Wyn, how are you not getting this?”

“You’re not fragile, Remy. I’m not either!” she shouted that last.

“I know!” he bellowed.

“Then stop behaving like I am!” she shrieked. “I am not her!”

“I know that too!” he shouted.

“Then don’t act insulted when I say I don’t know you, Remy. For God’s sake, I just found out you don’t like to cuddle.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

He looked to the ceiling.

“What now?” she snapped.

He looked to her. “I like to cuddle, Wyn. I love being close to you. But think about it.”

“Is this another quiz?” she hissed.

Right, it sucked, but that was valid.

“When did we do that and it didn’t end up with us going at each other?” he asked, but not to make her answer, because he immediately told her. “When your dad died, and two years later, when your mom followed him.”

“You adored them.”

“Yes, I did. But not near as much as you.”

Light dawned, he watched it.

“You were comforting me?” she asked, like she couldn’t believe it.

“Baby, your parents died. Outside bed and outside anything to do with our kids, what’s your favorite thing that I do?”

Her gaze went to the piano and then back to him.

“Play,” she whispered.

“Play,” he agreed.

“Oh my God, Noel was right.”

“Sorry?”

“He told me I needed to pounce on you.”

This meant she told Noel about him.

Remy was not ticked about that. She told Noel everything.

Therefore, he didn’t get into that.

He confirmed, “Yeah, he was right.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Do you want me to pounce on you, um…now?”

“No.”

“No?”

He took the five strides separating them and held her face by her jaw.

“No,” he repeated.

Then he dipped his head and kissed her.

God.

Yes.

Wyn.

It had been too long, and they were them, so it went from a touch on the lips to serious tongue, to her tearing at his shirt in maybe twenty seconds.

He pulled away to yank it off, but he didn’t when she asked, “Is your bedroom really sunken?”

Remy didn’t answer.

He didn’t make a mental note to finally give her a full tour of his house either.

He grabbed her hand and dragged her to his bedroom.

Down two steps, whirling her in front of him, backing her to the bed, then taking her to it by falling into and onto her.

That was far as he got with “pouncing.”

Wyn took over with mouth and hands and nails, eventually rolling him to his back.

This could be about her giving him what he needed in a sensitive, emotional time.

If it was, he could not give fewer fucks.

His wife was right there with her lush body, mass of hair, gorgeous face, talented mouth and hands, and the sting of her nails.

So he took it.

But when she was getting them both naked and was down to her bra and pulling off her jeans, he lent a hand and yanked off his own.

She then moved to climb on his hard cock.

That was when Remy took over, grabbed her hips and pulled her to a different location.

His wife on his tongue for the first time in years, he ground her down on his face.

She helped, rocking against him, her low noises pulsing through his dick.

No matter what, no matter when, from the first time to the last before this when they went at each other in the foyer of their house, she was like this.

She never covered herself to hide her nudity.

She never stole glances to make sure he liked what she was doing.

She was completely into it.

Him.

His.

Everything she did, he got off on.

Everything he did, made her soar.

Not once had it been awkward and hesitant, done by habit, going through the motions.

They’d always been as they were right now.

He could live on the taste of her, the feel of her pussy.

And she could ride his face or take his cock until she stopped breathing.

“Baby, baby,” she whispered urgently. “You.”

She was almost there.

He pulled her off, tossing her to her back, and rolled onto her.

Her hair all over his bed…

Fuck.

Fuck.

He was feeling less emotionally bruised and sensitive by the second.

Holding his eyes, even if hers were dazed, she opened her legs and hooked them around his thighs.

Not breaking their gaze, he took his cock in hand and guided it to her.

“Hurry,” she breathed.

He slid home.

When she closed around him, that was when he closed his eyes.

Wyn glided both her hands up his back and into his hair, and Remy tracked every centimeter and committed it to memory.

He opened his eyes.

“Missed you, Remy,” she whispered.

He felt the sting, the wet hit his eyes, but he didn’t kiss her to hide it.

He moved inside her, she moved with him. Their breath started coming faster, together. Their movements started to get more urgent, together. They held each other’s gazes throughout, and he would have liked for them to come together, but he’d eaten her, so she was closer and got there before him.

It was not a sacrifice, he got to watch.

Then he was able to give her the same.

When he came down, that was when he kissed her again.

And he did not pull out when he shifted to nuzzling her neck. He was going to stay inside as long as his cock remained hard enough to keep him there.

He smelled her perfume.

Van Cleef & Arpels Bois D’Iris.

It was in his nose and would be all over his sheets.

He had his Wyn back.

“It’s a lot to ask, but I don’t want you sleeping anywhere else but beside me until we figure this all out and get married again.”

“Are we getting married again?” she asked while drawing patterns on the skin of his back.

He heard the lilt of her teasing, but he still lifted his head and made plain how unfunny he thought that was.

She didn’t care.

“I like the idea of living in sin.”

“We’re getting remarried. It’s going to be ridiculously lavish, everything you ever wanted, completely obnoxious, and you’re putting your old rings back on your finger, but I’m getting you an eternity band to add to it. That Harry Winston one you saw in New York that last time we were there and tried not to let me see you liked it. The emerald cut one.”

“Wow.”

He’d had Lisa check the price when they got back home.

So…

“Yeah, wow.”

“No, I mean, yes, wow, to the Winston but also wow, you have this all planned out.”

“Have I ever fucked around?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “Though, honey, I’m all for lavish, but you know me well enough to know I would never be involved in anything obnoxious.”

“I’m just saying, you’ll get what you want.”

And it wasn’t like she didn’t before.

But her parents insisted on paying for everything, and because they did, Wyn adjusted what she wanted to what they could afford.

It was a beautiful, amazing day, even if Colette minced through the affair like she had to be wary just in case they didn’t clean up all the hog droppings.

But he knew his wife then and now.

If she’d had the money, it would have been vastly different.

“I know what you’re saying,” she said softly.

He moved them beyond that. “So start thinking about it because we’ll need to do it before we get close to Sabre’s graduation. I don’t want to steal his thunder.”

“You’re certainly taking a lot for granted after one very nice orgasm.”

“Just very nice?”

“Yes, though it was more like very nice. However, I have a feeling the next one is going to be better.”

He made a noise that was a lot like a growl, which meant his wife reciprocated with a purr.

Yeah, the next one was going to be fucking awesome.

“Christmas,” he said.

Her eyes got big. “Like, you mean, for a wedding?”

“Yes.”

“I am obviously going to need to be married in Oscar de La Renta.”

He grinned. “Obviously.”

“It would take a small miracle to have a gown ready for December.”

“Then New Year’s.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Remy, that’s only an extra week.”

“Good thing Monday is a workday, and you can get on it.”

Her mind wandered, he saw it in her face. “This would be a perfect challenge for Noel.”

“Baby, right here.”

She focused on him again.

“Sleeping by my side?” he prompted.

And that was when he saw her face get soft, she cupped his cheek, and she whispered, “Just try to stop me.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

He felt his stomach twist, his throat get tight, and his voice was hoarse when he said, “If I could go back—”

“Stop it, Remy.”

“I hate I hurt you.”

“I know. I hate it too, and part of that is knowing how much you hate it. But it’s over.”

“I’ll never—”

She shifted her hand, so her fingers were over his lips.

“The hurt will never die if I have to live the rest of my life watching you suffer for it. It’s over, Remy. There’s more to figure out, but we’ll figure it out. Now,” she moved her hand, “kiss me before I go clean up.”

“I love you, Wyn.”

“I love you too, Remy.”

“I know,” he whispered. “Fuck, do I know.”

After he said that, he kissed her.

But she didn’t go clean up.

He went to the bathroom to get a washcloth to do it for her.

And after that, they discovered they both were right.

The next go was even better.