Summer Shivers

1

Genevieve

H ow was that? my husband, Harrison, asks, rolling off me to collapse on his side of the bed, still breathing heavily from his orgasm.

It was good. I sigh, trying to sound satisfied.

If I don’t, he’ll be upset.

I didn’t come. I rarely do. But it makes me happy when my husband does. Sometimes that happiness comes through in my voice, and I can play it off like that after-sex glow.

I don’t think this is one of those times.

Yeah? He turns to face me. What part?

I hate when he asks me that question. As though I was taking notes on his performance and can give him a report back at the end.

Uh—that part where you swivel your hips was really good.

Which time? His hand rests on his chest as it rises and falls with each inhale and exhale.

I don’t remember the exact time that you did that. I was kind of preoccupied. You know, making love to you. I turn my head to face him, forcing a smile to my face.

He frowns in return. What about when I put your ankles over my shoulders?

His constant need for reassurance can be exhausting. And even though I know his insecurity is one hundred percent my fault there are some days, like today, where I just don’t want to play into it.

But I still do.

I loved that part, I enthuse.

His body stiffens.

I realize my mistake at once. It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention during sex. Actually, that’s exactly what it was. Sometimes I just check out and other times I pretend he’s someone else.

I didn’t put your ankles over my shoulders. His voice is cold.

Are you sure?

Of course, I’m sure. Don’t you think I know exactly what I was doing the whole time I was doing it?

I have no response to that.

We lie next to one another in awkward silence. His anger radiates off him in waves. I know what’s coming next and I don’t want to deal with it. Not tonight. Just once I’d like to go through an evening of sex without this coming up.

You were thinking about him, weren’t you? His eyes narrow.

I was thinking about you. My voice sounds flat. Even I don’t believe myself as I say it. How can I expect him to?

Bullshit you were thinking about me. He sits up, the sheet falling to his waist. He’s in good shape for a man his age. A man who is twenty years senior to my twenty-eight. I reach out to touch his chest to soothe him, but he jerks away before I can make contact.

He’s handsome—my husband—wealthy, intelligent, charismatic. It helps my state of mind to remind myself of all his good qualities when he gets like this. All the reasons why I agreed to marry him. Because nothing throws me into a downward emotional spiral more than fighting with Harrison. I continue to remind myself that I made the right decision marrying a man I don’t desire. Usually, it reassures me. Today it just leaves me feeling empty and unfulfilled.

Maybe I should feel relieved that you still didn’t come even though you were thinking about him.

Harrison…

Don’t, Genevieve. He sighs, running his hands through his hair.

You know I enjoy being with you—being intimate with you, I say to appease him.

He stares at me, eyes blinking rapidly. "You enjoy it?"

It’s not about the orgasm, I continue, trying to make him understand. It’s about being together and loving one another and that’s what we do. The orgasm is just a side component. It doesn’t matter.

Well, I guess it’s good having a baby doesn’t rely on your orgasm or you’d never let me touch you. He gets up and heads to the bathroom.

That’s not fair, Harrison. And it’s not true! I yell after him.

It’s absolutely fucking true. You can’t stand it when I touch you. Every time you wish it was him. Just admit it, Genevieve. Admit, you still love him! he yells from the other room.

Harrison’s statement hangs in the air between us, like an albatross around my neck. He comes back into the room and begins to mutter to himself as he paces back and forth along the side of the bed. His arms gesticulate above his head as he moves, casting shadows on the bedroom wall behind him mimicking claws descending or fangs protruding. A shadow puppet monster or something equally hideous that would have terrified me as a child but amuse me as an adult.

You know I do, I admit softly. A part of me always will. But I’m with you now, and we’re together, trying for a family. I’m happy with that.

The him Harrison is referring to is my ex, Tyler Presley. The love of my life if I’m being honest. The only man to ever make me come. The man who thought it more important to put his own life in danger than to stay and live our happily ever after with me. One who continued to break pieces of my heart when he chose work over me time and again until I couldn’t take it any longer.

Well, I’m not happy with that. Harrison stops pacing long enough to face and stare me down. His chest still heaving, though now out of anger instead of arousal. His penis hangs limply between his legs. Not anymore.

What does that mean?

He ignores my question, instead disappearing into his walk-in closet.

Harrison? I call after him. He emerges wearing swim trunks.

Are you—

How can you just admit that to me, your husband, so easily? he interrupts asking about my feelings for Ty. Which, in the beginning of our relationship, he swore would never be a problem. Something he has most definitely changed his mind about in the past couple of years as I’ve continued to not ‘get over it.’

Why are you acting like this is something new? I counter.

Why haven’t you gotten over him? he throws back at me. We’ve been married twice as long as you were even with that guy.

I don’t have an answer to that. It’s like asking why my old black and white checkered Vans are still my favorite shoes, even though I’ve got a closet full of designer, red-soled high heels, the worth of which could probably buy a small house in most areas of the country.

I shrug as my response.

I care deeply for Harrison, but I’ll never feel for him the way I (still) do for Tyler. With Tyler it was like he was the very oxygen I needed to breathe. If he was away for any length of time without contact, I would slowly shrivel up and start to die. Which is what I would have done after Ty and I broke up if Harrison hadn’t saved me.

A breakup I’m still not over. Even though it was four years ago, and he and I were only together half that time. Tyler, the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, growing a family together. The father of my stillborn baby—a baby who would have been three and a half in two months. My mind never quite able to stop counting the days, weeks, months since I lost her. The age she would be today. How long it’s been since she was conceived. A pang of longing scissors through me. Longing for the baby that never happened and for the man who helped create it.

Why aren’t I enough? Harrison’s voice cracks, breaking up my thoughts and piercing at my heart. A cloud of despair falls over his face that makes me want to wrap him in a hug and never let him go.

I open my mouth to respond, not even yet knowing what I want to say. He holds up a hand to stop me from talking, even though I haven’t begun.

Harrison knows he and I will never have the passion that Tyler and I did. We spent a lot of time together as employer and assistant before we were married. It’s actually how we met. And that time together helped to develop a strong friendship. Which is all I’ll ever feel for him. Though that same friendship, for him, quickly turned to love.

Why can’t you be satisfied with the man you have instead of yearning for the one who doesn’t want you?

The question stings even though the words ring true. Again, I have no response. At least not one that will help him to feel better. Despite that, the phrase tickles at my brain, as though I’ve heard it before but can’t remember.

Until I do.

Did you just quote the main character from one of your last chapters? I ask, furious with myself for not recognizing what he was doing.

He doesn’t even look ashamed. The words aren’t any less true if I did.

My husband, Harrison Daniels, is a world-renowned, chart topping—hell chart-breaking—thriller/horror writer. He’s written/co-written more than 200 novels in his (so far) twenty-five-year career. Most of which have been New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and/or USA Today bestselling novels. I’ve been his assistant for the last six years and have read pretty much everything he’s ever written.

That said, this wouldn’t be the first time he’s worked a scene into our marriage or vice versa. He likes to hear the words said aloud, but in realistic settings. He says that’s how he knows they ring true.

Which is why he’ll pick a fight, like the one tonight, that has originated from a scene. Or one like last week, about where we should vacation this year, that he can tailor into a scene. I’m more used to it now, being manipulated like this, so much so, I shouldn’t even be surprised.

But I am.

He continues, Let me and the baby we want to have be your future. Let go of him and the past.

Harrison and I are trying to have a baby. Not in a fertility drug or in vitro kind of way, but in an if it happens, it happens kind of way.

Because even though all my dreams of my life included Ty as the father to my children, I still want them. And Ty is no longer an option. Because when I gave him an ultimatum, he didn’t cave. And I didn’t even know I was pregnant then, or I may not have given it.

Finding out I was pregnant after the break up is why, when Harrison convinced me to marry him, I went along with it. For him, it was his dream come true. For me it was a solid foundation in which to raise a child whose father would never know they existed.

I’ve been honest with Harrison every step of the way, about my feelings and my lack of sexual attraction to him. He still gets offended when I don’t climax. Which is how fights like tonight’s start.

 Harrison is right to accuse me of still being in love with Tyler.

I am.

Are you going to answer me? he asks, interrupting my