True, Deep and Forever: Part 1
Book 5 of The Dark and Damaged Hearts
One marriage ... a second chance at love
Eight years ago their love was instantaneous, all-consuming and intense. Garret Banks had to have Amy Shaw the moment he met her, and no one thought the flame would ever go out.
Now, they have everything they’ve ever wanted: great careers, a beautiful baby, and a rock-solid marriage. Or do they? Garret’s high-stress architectural job is taking its toll. Amy's predicaments would be hilarious if they didn't make her want to cry. And to make matters worse, her ex is back in the picture, demanding answers about the wild passion she left behind — answers she isn’t willing to give.
Garret and Amy grab quick, dirty sex while they can, but in between mommy wars, annoying in-laws, sleep deprivation and fears of betrayal, their marriage is put to the test time and time again. Once they were sure love conquers all, but how far can one marriage bend before it snaps?
Chapter 1
Dream or
reality? Sometimes when you’re that deep in sleep, you can’t always tell.
Though my delightful reverie involving Ryan Reynolds and myself sharing a bar
of chocolate in the backseat of a taxi whilst driving though the mountains sure
as heck seemed real. Until the shrill
sound of a wailing baby infiltrated the wonderful moment and caused Ryan to disappear,
taking my chocolate with him.
The clock
said four forty-five in the morning. Jesus, child, would it kill you to sleep
in now and then? God, I missed the newborn days when they slept for like twenty
hours a day. I sat up and looked at the mound of man sleeping next to me. His
bald head with its five o’clock shadow peeked out from beneath the duvet; a
light rumbling snore vibrated in his throat. His mouth was half-cocked open,
with the bum-chin trembling ever so slightly on each inhale.
Must be nice
to be such a sound sleeper. The whole damn Vienna Boys Choir could be playing
with cymbals in here, and Garret would sleep through the entire thing.
“Don’t worry,”
I said, louder than necessary. “I’ll get up. It’s not like I have to be at work this morning.”
“Hmmmm,” he
moaned, rolling over and offering me a view of his nice muscular back, causing
a pang of guilt to soar through me at my initial thought. He’d worked really
late last night so that he could take Friday off, crawling into bed ever so
quietly after the rest of the house had gone to sleep. All so that we could go
over to Victoria this weekend for my brother’s wedding. I shouldn’t really
begrudge him a few hours of sleep.
And yet I
did.
“Mumma,
mumma, mumma, mumma … ” And then, “Wahhhhhhhhh.”
“I’m coming,”
I whispered, throwing back the covers, then snatching the robe that was lying
haphazardly across the foot of the bed. “I’m coming, baby.” I opened the door
to Henry’s room, and red-rimmed, green eyes stared up at me as he stood in his
crib gripping the bars like a convict. His mop of curly brown hair stuck up in
every direction.
“Mumma, mumma,”
he said, trying to climb the bars but failing. His blue and yellow rhinoceros sleep
sack impeded his efforts.
“All right, all
right, angel-pie. Are you hungry?” I cooed, scooping him up and carrying him to
the glider in the corner of the room. I popped out a boob with my free hand
while he perched on my left hip.
“Mummmmma!”
he cried, pulling at my tank top, frantically trying to get at the goods.
“Hold your
horses, you little junkie. I’m going as fast I can. You’re not going to
starve.”
As I cradled
him in my lap, his mouth deftly found my nipple, and he began frantically
sucking, while his hands came up and he held on to my breast as if it were a
bottle, eyes fluttering shut with a contented sigh.
The first
thing people usually said when they saw Henry was what beautiful eyes he had and
how striking the contrast was with his darker skin and afro-esque hair. A “real
chick-magnet” or “heartbreaker,” and I was sure they’d be right. My son was absolutely
gorgeous. What with his father’s darker-colored skin and leafy green eyes, he
was a looker, all right.
But all I saw
was my sweet baby, cherubic and pudgy and perfect in every way, and I wanted
him to stay that way for as long as he possibly could. I allowed my eyes to close
as he continued to nurse, the whole experience calming and enjoyable.
“You want me to take over?” came a groggy
voice from the door. Garret stood tall in the doorway, clad only in his plaid
Fruit of the Loom boxers, knuckling the sleep out of his eyes just like his son
did when he was tired. He was a handsome specimen of a man, my husband, with cyclist’s
legs, toned arms and bright green eyes that seemed to shine in the glow from
Henry’s ocean-themed night light, to match his ocean-themed room. His stomach
was not as taut and chiseled as it’d once been—he’d put on what he liked to
refer to as “sympathy weight” while I was pregnant, indulging in my ice cream
sandwich cravings right along with me. But even with a bit of a dad belly, he
was still damn fine.
“You lactate
now, do you?” I asked, a small smile curving up at the corner of my mouth.
Henry’s eyelashes trembled against his pink cheek at the sound of his father’s
voice, but they didn’t open. He was off in a milky dream.
Garret rolled
his eyes. “You know what I mean. I can put him back down when you’re done if
you’d like to go grab some more sleep. Or I can take him downstairs if he’s
up.”
“I think
he’ll probably go back down for another hour or so,” I said. “But thank you. You
go back to bed. You look like hell.”
“Thanks.” He
yawned, stretching up and grabbing hold of the doorjamb before turning around
and heading back to bed.
A few minutes
later Henry popped himself off and snuggled into my chest, his little mouth
making the perfect O shape while a
tiny stream of milk ran down from the corner of his lips. After laying him down
in his crib and making sure he wasn’t going to just pop right back up, I headed
back to my own room, determined to catch even thirty more minutes of shuteye
before I was forced to start the day.
Pulling the
covers up to my chin, I closed my eyes. I was just drifting off when a warm arm
snaked around my torso and pulled me across the bed until my body lay shrouded
by a dominating frame. I wrapped my arm over his and melted into him, welcoming
the warmth and comfort of his big body. And once again sleep was just about to
claim me, beckoning me into its delicious embrace, when I felt the all too
familiar poke of arousal on my butt and a curious hand wandered over my body
and beneath my pajamas.
I moaned. “Really?”
“It’s been
ages. Come on.” He growled, leaning over and biting my earlobe, a gesture that
generally revved my engines but was doing nothing for me at the moment.
“Fine,”
I mumbled. “Just try not to wake me in the process.”
“That’s
no fun,” he purred, shimmying out of his boxers and diving beneath the covers,
flipping me onto my back. “Come on, Ames, out of those jammies, I want to see
if I can beat my record.”
I
rolled my eyes. “Fine.”
I
had to admit it, my husband was an incredibly skilled lover, and his tongue
work was unsurpassed. Before Henry joined the team, Garret was able to get me
screaming his name and bucking wildly into his face in under a minute, all with
the flick and roll of his tongue and some well-placed fingers.
But
ever since Henry, things had been different. Sex wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t as
enjoyable, at least not for me. The birth hadn’t been easy, and now … things were not so easy.
So, even though I was all healed up now, and the
doc had given the go-ahead many months ago that it was okay to get jiggy with
my hubby, I certainly wasn’t enjoying things the way I used to. No one told me
that after you have a baby, you have to re-learn how to have sex. That you’re
essentially a teenager in high school again, figuring out how to orgasm and
fumbling around with your lover quietly in the dark, choosing ten minutes of
“pleasure” over ten minutes of sleep.
Only this time you’re trying not to wake the
baby instead of your parents or the neighbors in the unit next door. You and
your man pant and kiss and bump uglies under the covers, because God forbid he actually sees your body, all jiggly and
lumpy in its depressive postpartum state. Meanwhile, milk squirts him in the
eye as he kneads your engorged breasts.
Oh
yeah, so hot!
And
don’t even get me started on lubrication! Normally Garret would just have to
look at me the right way and I’d be a slick mess in my pants. Now I was as dry
as a fucking desert. Just call me Sahara or Gobi or … those were the only
deserts I could think of right now, but you know what I mean.
What
used to be fun foreplay was now like heading into the salt mines. If he wanted
to get me off, it was hard work and hours of repetition.
But
I let him try, and try he did. His diligent tongue worked my clit until it was
achy and needy. Tiny circles and long lavish licks up my cleft left me a
squirming, panting mess. I was seconds from reaching my destination when a screech
over the baby monitor jolted me to attention and out of my loopy, lusty dreamland.
“Waahhhhhh,
mum, mum, mum, mum … ” I could practically hear the tears streaming
down his little cheeks. I was pretty sure he was teething again. I tossed back
the covers and motioned to get out of the bed, only instead Garret pulled my
legs down and covered my body, impaling me in one solid thrust.
“What
the fuck, Garret?” I yelled, swatting him on the back. “Get off of me. I need
to go.”
“He’s
fine, come on. You were so close. We can get you there again,” he said with a masculine
growl, bending his head low and nipping my ear.
“I’m
not going to get off,” I said matter-of-factly, lying there like a limp noodle
as my husband pounded into me, the muscles on his arms bunching from having to
carry all his weight. “And you need to put a condom on. I don’t want to get
pregnant.”
“Come
on,” he said again with a grunt, picking up the pace and continuing to hammer
into me. He wedged his hand between us and began rubbing circles around my
clit. I wasn’t going to lie, it felt good, and for a moment I was tempted to
shut my ears off, wrap my legs around his waist and meet him thrust for thrust.
But I couldn’t. The screaming was too loud, and the way my body reacted to my
crying child killed any other feelings inside me. Even desire for my husband.
“We
can’t,” I said with remorse. “Condom or pull out.”
“It’s
not going to happen. I’ll be quick.”
“Henry
happened on the first try. We’re fertile. Either pull out and finish yourself
off or put a condom on and get the job done.” I knew my husband needed the
release, and even though I wasn’t going to find mine, I was willing to let him
find his. “Just make it snappy,” I sighed, the shrieking on the baby monitor
picking up vigor.
He
let out his own big sigh. “Never mind, just go deal with our child.” And with
that, he pulled out and headed to the bathroom, muttering, “Kids are fucking
cock-blockers.”
***
I
loved my kitchen. I loved my entire house. Seeing as we’d built it from the
ground up, I’d been awarded the privilege of picking out everything from
cupboards to floorboards. The morning sun burst in through the window behind
the sink and caught the green jewel-toned backsplash, making it glow. I loved
jewel tones and had decorated our home (tastefully of course) with the rich
hues of green, amber and burgundy with the odd splash of brown and plum. I
wiped crumbs off the gold-veined white granite counter before turning to face
my husband. He was still in his flannel robe nibbling on an English muffin with
raspberry jam and mindlessly reading the newspaper. His carbon-copy was perched
in his highchair with said jam smeared across his cheek and a mushed and
mangled English muffin with bite marks squished tightly in his little fist. The
other fist pounded on the tray like a slave ship drum.
“Could
you get him to stop that, please?” I asked, perhaps a bit too snippy as I
packed all of our lunches.
Garret
grabbed his son’s fist and gave him a stern look while gently saying “no.”
Henry seemed oblivious to the discipline but found interest in his sippy cup
and started gnawing on the nipple of it.
“We
should see if your parents will take Henry one night for a sleepover so that we
can have some grown-up time. What do you think?” Garret asked later, switching
gears, seeming to have ignored my bitchy snap.
I
had planned to take a full year’s maternity leave and was thoroughly enjoying
my time with my son, but the gallery I worked for had lost two employees in the
span of a week, and another one had taken medical leave. I’d been asked to
return to work three days a week with a serious increase in my pay, enough so
that it was worth giving up the employment insurance I was getting paid each
month. So I returned to work part-time when Henry was eight months old. Yet, despite
the fact that I’d been back at work for nearly two months, it was still a huge
change for our little family, especially for me as I attempted to balance work,
a social life, motherhood, and being a wife.
Everyone
demanded something of me. Always.
Some
days it felt as though I couldn’t catch a break and was failing in at least one
facet of life, whether it be friend, mother, wife or employee. Other days it
seemed as if I was failing at all of them and disappointing the world. It
helped in the transition back to work, though, that Garret’s parents had
offered to take Henry. So while I was at work, I had the peace of mind knowing my
child was being well taken care of by people who loved him nearly as much as we
did.
Three
days a week, I packed snacks and a couple of bottles of pumped breast milk for
Henry and dropped him off with his grandparents on my way to work. Then his
father picked him up on his way home around five-thirty. Our system had been
working like a well-oiled machine for several weeks, but lately Garret had been
texting me midday, asking me to pick Henry up because of an unexpected work
“thing,” and he was arriving home after his son had gone to bed. Last night had
been one of those nights.
“So what do you think?” Garret asked again. I’d
drifted off into my thoughts and hadn’t bothered to answer him. Shit. He really was the most patient
human being on the planet.
“About
what?” I wrapped up his sandwich and put it in his lunch bag, along with a bag of
chopped veggies and an apple. The same things made their way into my lunch bag
as well.
“Getting
your parents to watch the little man for a night.”
“Uh,
yeah … maybe. It’s going to be pretty hectic, what with the wedding and all.
Might not be doable.” My brother was getting married on Saturday, so there
would be absolutely NO opportunity for us to get out for drinks with him and Emma. And my mother was spazzing out, much as she
had over our wedding, and would be in no frame of mind to babysit. But I’d
already denied my husband an orgasm this morning and snapped at him at least
once, so instead I just nodded and hummed another “maybe.”
Garret
came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist while bending his knees,
our height difference making it a tad awkward. We began to sway.
“I
miss the crazy sex we used to have. I miss having sex, period. God, when was
the last time we did it?”
I
honestly couldn’t remember.
“I
miss the naughty pictures you used to text me in the middle of the day. Send me
a picture of your boobs this afternoon, would ya?”
I
smirked. “We’ll see. I’m really busy this afternoon. We have a new artist
coming in. He wants to do a show, so I’ve got a lot to do.”
He
spun me around so that we were facing each other. “Okay. Remember, you show me
yours and I’ll show you mine.” His eyebrows playfully bobbed up and down like two
dark caterpillars on his forehead before he swooped in and pecked me hard on
the lips. “All right, you’ve got the little man? I’m going to go shower.”
I
nodded before turning my back to him and then
rolling my eyes as I finished packing our lunch. I had no problem seeing his,
but like hell was I going to take a selfie of mine and have that floating around the internet. No freaking way.
LAST DAY to Enter here to win a copy of Sex, Heat and Hunger: Part 1
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