Looking for Love

3. Madeline

3

MADELINE

Hudson hadn’t initiated s*x in weeks.

But neither had I.

Our loss had left a gaping hole inside me, and nothing functioned as it used to. My lips rarely curled upward from welling happiness. My heart never thrummed with anticipation or excitement about anything. My body no longer warmed from my husband’s gentle touch.

Even though his sensitivity to my lingering depression comforted me, arousal seemed beyond reach no matter how hard I tried to focus, to feel more than the connection between our souls that hadn’t ever lacked, thank God.

He held still, buried inside me, his hot breath on my ear.

I squeezed my inner muscles around his thickness, and he groaned, stuffing himself a bit deeper. “Love you too,” I promised through the tightness of my throat.

“I could stay here all day long.” Hudson pulled out a fraction and burrowed back in, the heat of his thighs and groin pressing against my backside.

“What about work?” I asked, going for lighthearted, something I definitely didn’t feel.

He chuckled. “I’d rather be here with my woman, enjoying the hell out of her curves and sweet pussy.” Hudson palmed my breasts through my shirt and b*a, but his words and touch that used to make me burn didn’t ignite need through my core.

I swallowed hard and shifted back, creating space for me to prop my upper body onto the counter. Arms resting on the granite, I laid my cheek atop them and wiggled my a*s.

Hudson groaned and slid his strong hands to my waist, grasping tight. “You feel so f*****g good wrapped around my d**k, love.” He pulled out to his thick head and slid in to the root once more.

“Sorry I’m not wet,” I whispered, and he leaned over my back, nipping my earlobe.

“You’re f*****g perfect. So hot and tight. The most unselfish woman, letting me love on you in the middle of the day even though you probably have a hundred things to do—I don’t deserve you, Mads.”

Warmth spread through me at his words, but the numbness toward anything s****l held strong over my body, keeping me from enjoying his slow, lazy thrusts, eased by his pre-c*m.

I didn’t deserve him. His patience, the daily assurance of his love, his empathy, and his intuition. He knew I needed to be treated with kid gloves without my having to say a word.

I should have gotten turned on by every display of his unconditional acceptance, but I remained a dried-out husk of the woman I used to be.

Hudson would apologize once he finished, same as he’d done the handful of times he’d made love to me in the previous couple of months, and that knowledge hurt me as much as my body’s inability to appreciate his touch.

I was broken.

All because of that asshole…

I clenched my teeth to will away the memory of Peter’s beautiful blue-green eyes and his soft smiles that used to tingle my insides.

It had been his betrayal that had shifted our world off its axis, and the resulting stress had taken a tight hold on my body.

The doctors claimed the loss of our baby had nothing to do with external circumstances, and they had also assured me I hadn’t been at fault, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to blame our ex. He’d torn out our hearts, and in my opinion, taken our baby’s too.

“Mads.” Hudson ran his hands up my back beneath my shirt, his warm touch pulling me into the present. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and relaxed again, not having realized I’d tensed up.

“Are you uncomfortable? Am I hurting you?”

“No,” I whispered, overcome with love for my sensitive husband.

“I can stop if you want.”

Tears stung my eyes, and I shook my head. “I want you to finish, Hud,” I murmured through the thickness in my throat. “Want your c*m dripping out of me so I’ll never forget how much you love me.”

“Jesus Christ, Mads.” He backed out and thrust in deep, his hands once more grasping at my hips. “Your filthy mouth makes me hard as fuck.”

Evidence of his claim stabbed into me with steady thrusts of his hips, and I arched, wishing I could draw him in farther, so his soul entwined with mine even more than it already was.

I should have been soaking wet, sloppy sounds of f*****g filling my ears. My body should have been burning with l**t, my pulse throbbing and ears ringing as he whispered his desires, his appreciation of my body.

My heavy breasts swayed regardless of my suffocating b*a, and the backs of my legs began to ache. Unlocking my knees helped a bit, and I focused on staying relaxed. Pliant. Soft and open to the love my husband showed me.

But I longed for more.

Once I’d lost my uterus along with the baby we’d been waiting years for, thoughts of s*x and pleasure had dissolved like sugar in warm water.

Until two weeks earlier when a young man knocked on our door, his dark lashes framing bedroom eyes that should have soaked my panties the second they’d landed on my face.

A twinge had woken between my thighs that morning, a reminder I hadn’t been buried alongside our baby, but it hadn’t been enough of a flame to make me initiate s*x again with my husband.

I doubted anyone’s ability to fully rouse me if that young man from Harper’s Construction hadn’t been able to. He had the raw beauty, the s****l awareness that Hudson and I used to enjoy when playing with other men, but it seemed my body held little interest in intimacy outside that initial flicker.

Even the knowledge he worked a few feet away with nothing but a wall between us didn’t turn me on.

I opened my eyes, catching a movement of shadow along the edge of the screened slider.

Did he watch?

That tingle, an awareness of s****l energy, once more flickered inside me, and I clung to the feeling.

Closing my eyes again, I imagined Colton studying how I bent at the waist in offering to be used for my husband’s satisfaction. Did Colton like to watch? Touch himself while imagining it was his body Hudson thrust into? My mind reversed our roles, and I stood outside on the deck. Hudson would let loose in ways he wouldn’t allow himself with me. His thrusts would be harsher, his grip on Colton’s body tighter—bruising.

I’m going to fill your a*s with my c*m. Gonna plug you up so I’m inside you all day while you’re at work.

Arousal slid through my blood like warm molasses, and I sighed, sinking into the first hints of true pleasure in months as the fantasies continued to play in my mind.

Being squished in the middle, two d***s taking turns shunting in and out of me as Hudson and Colton chased their releases. Sprawled on the bottom, watching Hudson rail Colton as he writhed and whimpered between us.

Oh God, yes.

Riding Colton’s face reverse cowgirl and clutching the backs of his drawn-up legs to offer my husband better access to his a*s.

I’d seen Hudson checking out Colton as often as I’d done. Had we both been emotionally able, the young man definitely would have been invited into our bed.

But Peter—

The memory of his face once more flitted through my brain, stalling the need that had begun to rise inside my core.

A tear leaked between my clenched eyelids as the fantasies faded along with my desire.

Once more, I settled in to help Hudson finish.

If only I could find a way to fix what that man had broken so we could live again.