7. Torin

Chapter 7

Torin

I gave Bella her bath, and by the time I went back out for a bottle, the kitchen was cleaned up, and Joss was tucked away in his room. She fell asleep before she even finished the bottle, which I hadn't seen her do in over a month. The weight that lifted from my shoulders was tremendous as I put her in bed and then crawled into my own bed.

Fuck, I was completely exhausted.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and if it weren't for the soft noises coming from the monitor, I would've stayed asleep all the way through the night. That would have been another thing that hadn't happened in months.

At first, I thought the voice I heard in my head was just a dream. A good dream. The kind that made me wrap my hand around my dick in my sleep and rub it as if I were with a woman.

But I didn't hear a woman. And I certainly wasn't thinking of a woman.

I was thinking of Joshua. A man. The only man I'd ever seriously thought of that way. The only man I'd kissed and touched and allowed to touch me with abandon. I was never the same after him.

After letting my fear destroy the best thing I'd had up to that point, I avoided relationships, afraid I would hurt somebody if I cared for them too deeply. So I never got close to anyone.

Stacy eventually burrowed her way under my skin, but that took years. A lot of years. And the love we had was more of a friendship than that deep burning lust I felt for Joshua all those years ago.

That last thought made me stroke myself even faster like a damn teenager.

And then I heard him again through the baby monitor.

Soft cooing filled the air, and I realized why I'd woken up. Bella needed me.

I pulled on a pair of shorts over my boxers but didn't bother with a shirt as I shuffled to her nursery.

Joss was sitting in the glider, his body slightly tilted toward the window with Bella over his shoulder. She was in different pajamas from what I put her to sleep in, so she must have woken up wet and he had to change her.

Apparently, I slept through a lot because there was a half-empty bottle on the table beside him as he softly rocked her back to sleep. Tears filled my eyes and an emotion I couldn't quite name clogged my throat as I watched this man who had once left my life so suddenly—and then reappeared just as fast—care for my daughter in a way I didn't think anyone else ever would.

Her eyes fluttered open and connected with mine. I expected her to start screaming for me once she knew I was there, but she didn't. She stared at me for a moment before her eyelids got too heavy and drifted shut again.

Within moments, she was asleep.

"That's right, Angel. Let's get you back into your bed so Daddy can keep sleeping. He's been so tired lately, but I'm here now. I can take care of you and help him out too."

Without noticing me in the doorway, Joss stood up and carefully lowered her into the crib. "You're one lucky little girl, Bella. If I had a daddy like yours, I'd be the happiest boy ever." He stood over her for another moment and sighed. "And you might still be a little bit sad right now, but someday, you're gonna be the happiest little girl ever too."

Before he saw me, I slipped back to my room. Like a coward, I peeked through the crack in the door and watched him walk out and down the hall. Even in the dark, I didn't miss the glance he spared in my direction before disappearing down the stairs.

He was perfect for Bella. Exactly what she needed. I couldn't let my confusion and loneliness mess this up for her.

Joss was definitely off-limits. I'd made a stupid mistake before and hurt him more than I'd ever imagined possible. I wouldn't do that again.

I went back to bed, but I was too awake to immediately fall asleep. For the first time in a long time, I felt the stirrings of a hard-on, so I grabbed my tablet and went to a porn site.

It was rare that I actually watched porn because it didn't do much for me. It could get me hard, but it took forever for me to get off, and for the most part, I didn't have that kind of time or energy. It just wasn't worth the effort.

But I was certainly willing to try. As I was perusing my usual horny-housewife videos, my mind started to drift to the guy in the room just below me. And instead of my attention being on the woman and what she was doing, my attention was wholly focused on the man and the way his thick cock slid right into her.

I changed the category to anal and that definitely helped get me close, but it wasn't until I turned off my tablet and thought back to those days of pressing Joshua into his mattress and plowing into him as he screamed into his pillow, that I was finally able to come.

Fuck, that felt good. Really good.

Afterward, when I should have felt shame and mortification for thinking of a man that way, I rubbed my slippery cream into my skin until I was a dry but sticky mess and then finally fell asleep with my hand still cupping my balls.

What was happening to me? Just because my wife was gone, I was suddenly into guys again?

A little voice in the back of my head knew that the truth was obvious, even if completely devastating.

Whether or not I was fully into guys, I'd always been into Joshua. I loved Stacy and didn't regret our time together because she gave me Bella, but Joshua was always the one I truly wanted.