Holly closed her eyes briefly as she recalled the first time James had tried to make advances in that area. It was the night she’d got home. Bill and Elaine hadn’t been able to join them on such short notice and they’d gone to dinner alone. It was when they got home that James had tried to start something. Holly had been surprised when he’d suddenly started to kiss her in the hallway inside the front door. It wasn’t Sunday after all, but she’d gone along with it.
Unfortunately, James had had a couple beers with supper and garlic Alfredo for his meal. The smell and taste of that combination as he’d kissed her had been overpowering to her new and heightened senses. Equally unfortunate was the fact that rather than offend him and gently suggest they both brush their teeth, she’d tried to suffer through it . . . and that hadn’t worked out so well. After several minutes while he’d been kissing her, one hand squeezing her breast and the other fumbling at the zipper of the jeans she’d changed into, she’d had to push him away and make a run for the bathroom to toss up her own meal.
Afterward, Holly had lied and claimed that her tummy was upset and that her own meal must have been off. James had been sweet and bundled her off to bed to recover, but she’d read the disappointment in his thoughts. And what disappointment there had been. Here he’d been really interested for the first time in a long time and she wasn’t up to it. It seemed that prior to her leaving on her “internship,” he’d been bored to tears with their routine sex. That he only bothered on Sundays as a rule because he hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings or make her feel unwanted. Besides, he’d felt that for their marriage to work they should have sex at least once a week even if he had to imagine it was Elaine to get it up since Holly had gained those extra twenty pounds.
That last bit had left her gasping and in tears. Fortunately, James had put that down to her feeling unwell and had been even sweeter to her. But come Sunday, when he’d made the usual overtures, she hadn’t been able to forget his words and despite reading his mind and knowing he wasn’t imagining Elaine then, and that it was her new figure that interested him, Holly just hadn’t been able to get past her hurt and work up any interest herself.
She’d tried to fake it and pretend interest, hoping that some small response might follow as they proceeded, but had felt nothing but disappointment. She’d inhaled the citrusy tang of James’s aftershave, and found herself thinking she preferred Justin’s more woodsy scent. And why couldn’t he kiss her like Justin had? With passion and desperation instead of the wimpy nibbles he used. She wasn’t even sure James knew his tongue was good for more than pushing food around inside his mouth.
Despite her pretended interest, there had been no spark at all. In truth, there had never been much spark to begin with in her marriage bed, but Holly hadn’t known then what she was missing. Now that she had experienced the fireworks and passion Justin had produced in her with just a kiss, then in their shared dreams, she hadn’t been able to stand the lack of it with James.
Of course, he had picked up on her lack of enthusiasm and had backed off. While she’d lain awake, feeling guilty for wanting a man other than her husband, he’d gone down to play video games through the night.
After a week of reading his thoughts and finding out other little things she really wished she didn’t know, last Sunday had been a repeat of the previous. And this past week had been just more of the same. It wasn’t that James’s thoughts were deliberately cruel or unkind. It was stupid little things, like he suspected she was OCD because she was determined to keep the house clean. And he hated her meat loaf, which she’d always thought he liked . . . and her eggs were too runny, and her cookies were hard as rock . . .
Then there were bigger things, like while he appreciated that she’d worked while he finished his courses, James wished she’d hurry up and finish hers so that he wasn’t carrying the lion’s share of the burden when it came to supporting them. And why couldn’t she have waited until he was making better money to switch from full-time work to part-time and start back to her classes? He felt guilty for these thoughts. After all, they had agreed to do it this way when they’d decided to marry, but he was tired of living hand to mouth. James felt her having to wait a couple years to go back to school wouldn’t have been that big a deal, and they could live so much better now if she was still working full time.
Another big issue she’d discovered reading her husband’s mind was that her discomfort in social situations embarrassed him and made him feel put upon. He felt he couldn’t leave her alone at parties or she’d sit in a corner like a wallflower looking miserable. That had stung her and all Holly could think was that she hadn’t been socially awkward at the nightclub with Justin, Gia and the boys. But then they hadn’t spent the night giving her reproving looks, or censoring everything she said.
Holly had spent a lot of time the past two weeks thinking of her time with Justin and the others. Despite the situation, she’d laughed more and been more relaxed around them than she’d ever been in her life. She’d enjoyed her budding friendship with Gia, and had often found herself laughing at the twins’ teasing as they trained her. She’d even enjoyed Justin’s attempts to woo her. More than that she’d missed talking to the man. She kept recalling their chat on the way back from visiting his parents, and the others they’d had on their shared dream dates. They’d laughed a lot while bowling and then at the fair, at least they had before passion had overtaken them. She missed that laughter. She missed a lot of things. But mostly, she missed Justin . . . which made her feel guilty as hell and didn’t help anything.
It seemed clear to Holly that unless she wanted to lose her marriage, she needed to stop thinking about Justin, banish him from her mind. She also needed to get past letting James’s thoughts affect her. But it was hard. She knew she wasn’t perfect and shouldn’t think James would believe she was. She even had complaints of her own about him, but she still loved him, and she was quite sure he loved her despite the mild criticisms and complaints she’d read from his mind. But knowing he probably had complaints, that all husbands did, and actually knowing what those complaints were . . . well, it was two different things entirely. And Holly didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
At this rate, it was looking like Gia, Justin, and the others were right and she was going to lose her marriage and her childhood sweetheart and then what would she do?
An image of Justin’s laughing face came to mind and Holly forced it away. She couldn’t let him affect her decision. She would not leave James for Justin. That could not be the reason. And she couldn’t give up on her marriage this easily. Marriages took work. She needed to work at it. She would get past her memories of him, or find a way to block them. She had to.
“So?” Elaine said as Holly finally settled on what she would order and lowered her menu. “Tell us about New York.”
Seventeen
“Bill was really weird tonight.”
Holly watched the lights flickering past the car and shrugged with disinterest at James’s comment. In her opinion, everyone had been acting weird tonight: Bill, Elaine, the waiter. Dear God, they’d all acted like she was Marilyn Monroe or something, fawning and sucking up to her, and hugging her too long as they’d left. Someone should have warned her about that side effect of being an immortal. She supposed it was handy when it came to feeding, but she had bagged blood to work with. Having everyone practically drooling on her was just embarrassing really when she knew she was the same person she’d been just a couple weeks ago. It had been bad enough when Bill had flirted with her lightly, but then Elaine had started jokingly suggesting that they have an orgy . . . well, Holly had been glad when they’d finished eating and could leave. Fortunately, James had seemed just as eager to go home as her.