No Ordinary Love...What Comes Next?

Shut Up And Deal

Barely Gone left us with a lot of questions and a whole lot of angst...

So I thought I'd start wading through that angst...

The chapter was suggested by Em...

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It was the first time in months that he felt the stiffness around his neck, ease a little. She was proud of him, she said. And that made him happy. That was a start, right? Because when his wife was smiling, his world was a better place. And Christ knows she didn't seem to do too much of that around around him these days.

" Do you wanna stay in tonight? Fix some food and maybe watch a movie?"

Stella put her station bag down and headed for the bedroom for a post shift sleep, undoing the buttons on her shirt as she went, her head turning over one shoulder, to ask him the question while Kelly hung up his jacket.

"Yeah.... I'd like that." Surprised to hear her offer, his smile was uncertain, the awkwardness that had been there ever since they got back from Alabama months ago, ever present.

It had been like this between them, when she had gotten back from Boston, and it was him then who had struggled to deal with her ghosting him. But after a few tense weeks of Stella tip toeing around him, they had navigated it. But this felt harder, maybe because this time he was on the other side of it. Or maybe because it had been six months, and they were still trying to find their way back to where they'd been.

Kelly didn't quite know how to tell her that he was desperate to make things right, but in doing so, he was really hoping he could do it without losing a piece of himself.
He sighed quietly as he went to follow her into the bedroom, beating himself up with his daily bout of self cursing. How had he been so fucking stupid?

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After getting some much needed sleep, Stella had woken first, but his mouth had curved upwards, his eyes still closed, feeling her ass wriggling against his groin, a tell tale sign that she was horny and trying in a not so subtle way to encourage him awake, and to be fair he hadnt needed too much persuading, reaching round to slip his hand under her T.

Sex was the one thing that continued to bring them together, neither able to resist the temptation of intimacy, because when they were coming together this way, loudly and aggressively, it was the one time when hurt and regrets were lost to the greedy and hungry needs of the body and they could temprarily forget the emotional chaos that him going to Alabama and his subsequent defection to an AFT investigation had brought.

But it was the bit after the sex that they still needed to negotiate, the part where they used to lie and continue touching, whether it was his hand running up and down her thigh, or her head tucked into his shoulder, her fingers drawing indiscriminate patterns on his chest. That part he couldn't stop missing... or needing from her.

But today, for the first time in months, she didn't maneouvre away, and he felt her soft sigh brush his ear post sex, her lips dropping a loving kiss on his neck, and his hand tightened around her hip. For the second time in twelve hours, he felt a thawing in Stella, and he put his hand in her hair to get her attention.

Losing himself in the deep brown of her eyes, stupidly, he felt his throat tighten, an overwhelming tidal wave of feelings for her threatening to consume him.
At times like this, they were able to say everything without saying anything. Stella put her hand up to his face and cupped his cheek. She had done this sometimes over the last months, and each time, he would see the same shadow of hurt behind her eyes, wishing he could take it away. But today, instead of turning away from him, she snuggled back down, putting her nose into his chest, and breathed him in, one leg sliding between his, and he gratefully held her closer.