Allure: A Spiral of Bliss Novel Read online

  As if he knows what I’m thinking, Dean slides his palm down to my belly. I put my hand over his.

  “We’re going to have to read a lot of books,” I say.

  “My life’s work involves reading books.”

  “We’ll probably have to take some classes.”

  “I’m at my best in a classroom.”

  “And I hear we’ll need to buy a ton of stuff.”

  “We can afford stuff.”

  I look up into his chocolate-brown eyes.

  “I just wish I knew where to start,” I whisper.

  “Right here, beauty.” And he presses his lips to mine.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DEAN

  JANUARY 8

  m a guy. When I first saw Liv five years ago, I didn’t think I would really like to understand that woman.

  I thought: Damn, she’s pretty.

  I thought: I want to kiss her.

  I thought: What does she look like naked?

  I would have stayed on that lusty train of thought if she hadn’t turned her brown eyes on me, and I realized she was on the verge of tears. Then my protective instinct kicked into high gear, and I thought: I need to help her.

  I ended up not doing a damn thing for her at the university registrar’s office where she had a problem with transfer credits, even though she thanked me afterward. I knew I wanted to see her again, but not because I was being chivalrous or useful or sensitive.

  I wanted to see her again because when we stood there on the sidewalk, a few strands of hair swept across her face and clung to her cheeks. Because I noticed that her mouth had an indentation in the upper lip. Because I tracked my gaze to her breasts moving with her breath under a white T-shirt and ragged gray sweatshirt, and my blood got hot. She had rounded hips. Legs encased in faded jeans with a rip in the denim exposing a pale strip of thigh.

  She was curved. Sexy. Alive.

  My chest filled with heat when I looked at her. It had been a long time since I’d had that rush. I wanted to feel it again.

  It hadn’t happened with the business administrator I’d dated a few times over the summer. Rebecca was my age, an attractive brunette with short hair and a serious face who could talk about finance systems and process analyses as if she were discussing what to make for dinner. She read books about the economy, power-walked every morning, and always looked like she was thinking about something important.

  She reminded me too much of me. Never once did my heart pound harder when I saw her. We went our separate ways as soon as the semester started. Shortly before I met Liv.

  Olivia. That was how I thought of her those first couple of weeks when we’d see each other at the coffeehouse where she worked. Olivia R. Winter. I wondered what the R stood for.

  One day she stopped next to the table where I was sitting at Jitter Beans. I’d been pretending to work on my laptop while actually sneaking glances at her. I liked the way she moved, her long ponytail swinging every time she turned to fill a mug, the bend of her body as she reached to take something from the dessert case.

  “Free sample,” she said. Her apron was tight across the front of her body, dusted with cocoa powder and streaks of chocolate. “Our new peanut-butter brownie. Would you like one?”

  She held out a tray of tiny paper cups filled with squares of chocolate. A speck of chocolate clung to the corner of her lip.

  She tries the free samples. I tucked that bit of information away along with the other things I was learning about her.

  She smiles at every customer.

  She sits at the corner table during her breaks and reads one of the magazines.

  She wears a pendant on a silver chain around her neck.

  She’s older than most other undergrads, but no more than twenty-five.

  She’s not a flirt.

  She doesn’t notice when men look at her. Or she turns away from them.

  She doesn’t turn away from me.

  “Sure.” I reached out to take one of the paper cups. I wanted to ask her when her shift ended. Wanted to ask her to go somewhere with me.

  I couldn’t yet. Though I knew the university’s policy about dating students, knew it was acceptable if the student wasn’t subject to the professor’s authority, I needed to make damn sure Olivia R. Winter and I wouldn’t cross academic paths for the rest of the year.

  “Was it good?” I asked.

  “What?”

  I gestured to the crumb on her lip. Wished I could wipe it away. “Looks like you tried it.”

  “Oh.” She rubbed her fingers across her mouth. “It’s delicious, sure. Peanut butter and chocolate—can’t go wrong. Right?”

  She smiled. My heart thumped against my ribs.

  It was a strange feeling, foreign, that anticipation making me feel like a teenager with his first crush. I couldn’t even remember my actual first crush. I’d been too busy training for the football team or burning my brain out studying for AP classes.

  My girlfriends in high school and college had been the same way. They’d had to be. Ivy League universities, scholarships, the right classes and majors, junior years abroad, grad school, fellowships, published papers, guest lectures, prestigious jobs…

  Driven. Focused. Serious. So freaking tedious.

  Like me.

  There was nothing tedious about this girl with the long hair and pretty smile who blushed when she met my gaze.

  I thought: I want to get you alone.

  When I finally did, the night of a lecture I was giving at a local museum, I discovered there was something contradictory about her, a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Like she wanted to be brave but wasn’t sure what would happen if she dared to let herself. A mouse peering out of its hole, whiskers vibrating with the urge to dart out.

  I’d never wanted to prove myself to anyone the way I did Liv. I liked her too much. Liked the way I didn’t feel cold inside when I was with her, the way I didn’t think about anything except her. I liked that she was a mystery. I liked the way she looked at me, as if she knew I would protect her. That I could.

  Until… I couldn’t.

  The admission still lodges like a blade inside me.

  “Oh, look, Pirates of Penzance is playing at the Civic Center.” Liv’s voice breaks into my darkening thoughts. She’s sitting across from me at the kitchen table, peering at the local section of the newspaper. “Want to go?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Or Cats will be there this spring, if you’d rather see that,” she remarks.

  “I’m not really a cat person.”

  “More of a pirate person, huh?” She glances at me with amusement. “Okay, I’ll see if tickets are still available. I love that ‘Modern Major-General’ song.”

  It’s a measure of how much I love my wife that I just agreed to sit through two hours of dancing, singing pirates.

  This, at least, is where Liv belongs. Here in this apartment that she’s made into our home with her houseplants and decorating touches. She belongs across from me at the breakfast table, bundled in her ridiculous robe that has enough padding to keep her warm in a blizzard, her hair all messy around her shoulders.

  Having her back at home, easing into the post-holiday routine of our daily lives, even things like breakfast—the familiarity of coffee, toast, the newspaper, her—I can almost forget the hellish past month.

  Almost.

  I can almost believe nothing has changed.

  Almost.

  Liv takes a sip of coffee and grimaces. “Not to be rude, Dean, but this tastes really bad.”

  “It’s a different kind of decaf with no caffeine at all.”

  “Figures.”

  “Don’t want to take any chances when you’re pregnant.” I still feel like I’m speaking a foreign language I don’t understand. You’re pregnant.

  My wife is pregnant.

  I watch her as she spreads jam on a piece of toast. She’s so pretty with her thick-lashed brown eyes, the sprinkle of freckles across her nos
e, her skin like cream. All that straight, brown hair that I wanted to touch the minute I first saw her. She looks the same as she did five years ago—still beautiful, sweet, glowing.

  It hits me suddenly, the realization that she’s going to change. Physically, sure, but also in ways I might never even know.

  “You still feel okay?” I ask.

  “A little nauseous every now and then, but nothing horrible.” She licks a drop of jam off her thumb. “I heard back from Dr. Anderson, my therapist in Madison. She recommended a counselor in Rainwood who does both individual and marriage counseling.”

  Liv glances at me, wary. I grab another piece of toast to avoid responding.

  “Dean.”

  “I said I’d go with you.” I sound irritated. Shit.

  “I think I should go alone first,” Liv says.

  “You want to go alone?”

  “At first, yes.” Her throat ripples with a swallow. “Figure out some stuff on my own.”

  My chest tightens—part frustration, part anger, part relief—but I know there’s only one response to this.

  “Just tell me when you want me to be there,” I say.

  I hate this. Hate that she’ll have to relive everything, spill her guts to a stranger. Hate that she’s going to cry and battle emotions I’ll never understand and can’t protect her from.

  And I really fucking hate that I’m to blame for it all. Four months ago, when Liv brought up the idea of us having children, I finally confessed what I’d kept secret from her for five years—that I’d been married before when I was in my early twenties.

  I hadn’t told her because it was a shitty part of my life that I wanted to forget. I haven’t seen my ex-wife since the divorce fifteen years ago, even though Helen is still friends with my sister and mother. And Liv has always had enough to contend with between both our families. She didn’t need to hear about my first marriage that crashed and burned like a fireball.

  Finally, though, I had to tell Liv why I was reluctant to try for a baby. The revelation about my former marriage caused more trouble between us, which led to us separating for three of the worst weeks of my life.

  Now Liv is home again. Pregnant. And I’ll fix this if it kills me.

  “Can I at least have one tiny sip of your coffee?” she asks.

  I hold out my cup of full-octane and watch as her mouth closes around the rim. Lust spears through me. I take the cup back and try to focus on the stock market page of the paper.

  “Hey, I asked Kelsey if she wants to go to an early dinner with us next week, maybe one day after I get off work at the bookstore,” Liv says as she pours a bowl of granola. “She got back a couple of nights ago.”

  “Fine.”

  “Sounds like she had a good holiday visiting her mom.”

  “Good to know.”

  Liv tilts her head, regarding me. “So… Kelsey said she kissed you.”

  I can feel a flush creep up my neck, which irritates me. “Uh… yeah.”

  My embarrassment seems to amuse her.

  “Kelsey is a spitfire, but she’s also a wise woman,” Liv says.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  She doesn’t say anything else, which makes me edgy on top of embarrassed. How am I supposed to tackle this one? What did Kelsey even say? When Liv and I were separated—I still hate that word—Kelsey decided to prove some stupid point about male-female attraction by kissing me.

  I shove away from the table and go to refill my coffee.

  “You’re blushing,” Liv remarks.

  “I am not.”

  “It’s cute.”

  “It is not.”

  “She said you’re a great kisser.” Liv arches an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, so’s she.” I swallow some coffee. “If you like kissing pit vipers.”

  Liv grins. I drum my fingers on the counter. She gets up and slides her bathrobe-padded arms around my waist. Her warm lips press against my neck.

  “If it’d been anyone but Kelsey, I’d be upset,” she admits. “But she’s different. She’s like my older sister.”

  “That is so amazingly unhelpful.”

  “Will it make things weird between you and her?” she asks.

  “Considering her technique, no. She was like a spider attacking a defenseless fly.”

  She laughs. “I’d hardly call you defenseless.”

  “It was a surprise attack.”

  “Really, Dean.” Her expression sobers. “You’re not mad at her?”

  “Nah.” I turn to put my mug in the sink. “I’ve known Kelsey too long to be mad. And it did kind of change my thinking. But don’t tell her I said that. I’d never hear the end of it.”

  “Where did you and Kelsey meet anyway? I mean, I know it was in college, but she was in the sciences, and you were in the history department, so how…?”

  “I dated one of her ex-girlfriends.”

  Liv’s eyebrows lift. “How very modern.”

  “Not really. I went out with the girl a few times before she decided she wanted to get back together with Kelsey. Didn’t make me look too good.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We saw Kelsey at a bar, and the other girl went up to her and made a scene. Crying about how she shouldn’t have broken up with Kelsey and wanted her back. Kelsey wasn’t having it. The girl left in tears. Kelsey told me I must’ve been a lousy lay, then bought me a beer. We’ve been friends ever since.”

  “And she never knew about your first marriage?”

  “No.” I shove away a flood of bad memories. “We lost touch for a few years in grad school. Reconnected through a mutual friend when we both started looking for tenure-track positions.”

  “She’s lucky to have you.” Liv pulls her hands through her hair and yawns. “So am I.”

  “Not as lucky as I am to have you.”

  We give each other a couple of goofy, cornball grins. My unease settles. For now.

  “So you’re about eight weeks, Liv?” Dr. Nolan, our family physician, takes a circular calendar from her desk and twists it around. “When was the first day of your last period?”

  “Um, November seventeenth or eighteenth, I think?” Liv glances at me from her perch on the examination table. A flush colors her cheeks. “Actually, I know the date of conception.”

  A combination of heat and guilt goes through me. I know the date too. December first. Explosive as it was, it hadn’t been a night of hearts and flowers. Anything but.

  “December first,” Liv tells the doctor.

  “We prefer to figure out the date based on your last period.” Dr. Nolan checks the calendar again, unconcerned with our sexual history. She’s an older, gray-haired woman with a no-nonsense attitude that both Liv and I have always appreciated. “Okay, so your due date is August twenty-fourth. You’ll be eight weeks on Saturday.”

  She punches a few keys on her computer. “Let’s get some medical questions answered, then we’ll do a physical exam. My nurse is getting a prenatal information package for you. Afterward you can go downstairs to the lab for blood and urine samples.”

  “Do you need me to leave?” I ask.

  “Only if Liv would be more comfortable alone,” Dr. Nolan replies, her fingers moving with brisk efficiency over the keyboard.

  Liv shakes her head at me. She looks a little nervous, but Dr. Nolan is so matter-of-fact about the whole procedure that her anxiety seems to ease. We both answer a host of questions about our medical and family histories. Dr. Nolan gives Liv a physical exam and asks about her current symptoms.

  “Do either of you have any questions for me?” Dr. Nolan swivels her chair to regard me through her glasses. “Dean?”

  “A few, yeah.” I pull a notebook from Liv’s satchel and open it to the list of questions I’ve written out.

  Liv rolls her eyes at the doctor, who cracks a smile.

  It’s been fifteen years since I last knew anything about prenatal care, so I have a lot to learn. I won’t let any stone go
unturned.

  I review my list and ask questions Dr. Nolan hasn’t yet answered—do we need a prescription for prenatal vitamins, what kind of exercise is off limits, what should we do if Liv gets sick, how often should we come in for prenatal visits, if it’s okay for Liv to travel, how much folic acid she should take.

  Dr. Nolan patiently and thoroughly answers everything. I take notes.

  “What about sex?” Liv asks when I’m done.

  “What about it?” the doctor replies.

  “Well, we’ve been having it.”

  “Good.” Dr. Nolan grins. “Sex is entirely safe during pregnancy, Liv. You’re healthy, very low-risk. As long as you’re both up to it, it’s fine. In fact, many people find sex during pregnancy even more enjoyable.”

  I glance at Liv. She winks at me. If sex with her were any more enjoyable, I’d lose my mind.

  “Why is that?” she asks the doctor.

  “Women have increased blood flow to the pelvic region, more vaginal lubrication,” Dr. Nolan explains. “Hormonal changes influence their libido. There are no worries about birth control. A lot of women have an intense sex drive during pregnancy, especially during the second trimester.”

  “That sounds promising,” Liv remarks as she gets off the examination table and disappears behind a curtain to get dressed.

  After she’s done, the nurse comes in with a large packet of prenatal information. Dr. Nolan goes over it all and instructs us to make a twelve-week appointment and stop at the lab for samples. As we’re leaving, the doctor pats my arm.

  “Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any other questions,” she says. “Everything looks great, so don’t worry unless there’s something to worry about.”

  I thank her again and push the door open for Liv. Unless. That means there could one day be something to worry about.

  It’s a dark fear, blacker than any I’ve known. I shove it down deep, not wanting to think about it, not wanting Liv to sense it.

  She checks in at the first-floor desk and follows the attendant back to the lab. I sit in the waiting area and pull a loop of string out of my pocket. I cross it over my palms, then loop it around my thumbs and middle fingers. Thumbs tucked under. Lower index loop. Pull. Release. Twist. Loop.