Pushing in hard a few more times, he stooped over me and sank his teeth into the back of my shoulder, his body taut while he came. I could feel the hot pulse inside, despite the layer of latex between us, and endless moments passed as he poised over me, panting heavily.
“Fuck, fuck. Bunny. Christ almighty.” His words were said through gritted teeth, but I heard them clear enough. He wrapped an arm under and around my waist holding me to his sweaty chest impossibly close and gave a last few thrusts inward as far as he could reach. Yannick had stuffed me full and made me deliriously happy. “I fucking hate condoms,” he finally said, pulling out gently then fumbling with his free hand between us and wrestling the spent condom from his soft cock. “Putting my cum inside of you everyday just about tops the list of things I’d like to do to you, Jolie.”
I burst out laughing, thumping my head forward. “How romantic. We’d be breeding like rabbits then.”
Wrestling me onto the bed and into a better position, Yannick grabbed up the covers from the floor and threw them over us both, our limbs still tangled together, skin damp with sweat. It was perfectly gross yet perfectly perfect too.
“I want kids, Jolie,” he said sinking backwards, his hand over his face as his chest slowly settled.
“We just met!” I protested but shut my mouth again quickly, the comment so left field. I could see a future with Yannick, it wasn’t difficult to imagine. He’d captivated my heart through sheer perseverance which said a hell of a lot about the man. But he’d just come out of a fifteen-year relationship, no matter the circumstances and it was hard to believe there wouldn’t be anyone else to catch his eye other than me. It wasn’t fair to tether him when the world was his oyster, when he could freely indulge in what he’d been missing out on for so long. By the same token, I had a feeling we’d crossed a line and Yannick was going to lay it all out for me. So, I let him, only interrupting when I had something to say.
“I want kids. And a wife, and a house with an enormous garden where we can have friend’s round. A normal life, a woman I love, one who loves me back. Loves me for me and not what I can do for her. It might be a silly dream to some, but it’s a dream I’ve been harbouring since I was twenty years old, a dream I thought would never be a possibility.” He faced me and smiled shyly. “It’s not a dream anymore, Jolie, I can have anything I want, and I want happiness more than ever.”
“That’s normal, I guess.” Because it was. I wasn’t a woman who lived with her head in the clouds but what he dreamed about were the same ordinary things I dreamed of too. I wanted love the same as he did, to have a family, to be happy.
“What if I said I wanted all those things with you?”
I thought about what he was saying, realising the best advice I could give him would be the worst advice for me. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hold on to him. I had to let him go off into the world and explore as a free man. Meet other women because there was more than just me in the world. “You haven’t had sex in so long, maybe you’re just wrapped up in the first person who’s come along,” I said carefully even though I didn’t rightfully believe my stupid reasoning.
“No. That’s not what you are, what this is. Something happens to my heart and my stomach when I’m with you, when I think of you. I’ve been with other women, lots of women, I just haven’t had sex. Not once did I ever meet anyone I ever wanted to break my contract with Irina for. But you…” He shook his head and smirked. “You I would have, over and over.”
Now there was a compliment I would take. “If you mean what you say, then we could do that. Yes, I think.”
“You’d need to be able to stomach the man I used to be, the things I’ve done. None of them I’m proud of.”
This was the moment that stretched out before us, the one that decided which direction or hearts went. “Then tell me about the man you were.” That shred of unease I sometimes felt around Yannick reared its ugly head. I had no doubt whatever was coming next would not be pretty, it was why I’d never cared for the details before. There was no sweeping it aside any longer, he needed to get it off his chest, and I had to hear his confession, no matter how it would affect us.
To move forward together meant being honest, to learn to trust. Without those two fundamental things we were as good as lame ducks in the water, floating around without direction. So, I sucked in a breath and waited for Yannick to shatter the illusion that he was perfect, even if I’d already known he wasn’t.
Yannick
I was teetering on the edge of throwing it all away. There had only ever been one other time in my life when I’d felt this terror clawing at my insides. The day I’d taken Yosef’s life, a memory I hung on to because he deserved to be remembered with pain. It wasn’t the same by any stretch of the imagination but the consequences of losing meant a broken heart of a different kind and the painful realisation I’d never get what I so desperately craved.
What kind of man was I? Jolie had finally asked, and I didn’t know where
