We had about three day's notice to prepare for Nate to come stay with us, and James was not happy about it. 5 years ago, shortly after we'd first started dating, Nate got married and disappeared. OK maybe "disappeared" is dramatic, we knew where he was (Alaska), but he kept in touch irregularly and James was so mad about the whole thing he rarely brought it up. To be honest, and this is terrible, but by the time Nate wrote to say he wouldn't make it to our wedding, I had sort of forgotten he existed. So yeah, disappeared.
Then one day, out of the blue, their grandmother died. Even more out of the blue, Nate decided he'd turn up for the funeral. From the moment James got off the phone with their mom and turned to tell me Nate would be staying with US, he had taken on a low grumble that was more or less constant.
"He must think there's money" James said, for the 100th time, the morning before the funeral. Nate was due in at 5pm, just in time for us all to turn around and go to the viewing and then dinner. I traced my fingers idly down his arm, up and down each finger, and back up to his shoulder. As he talked, I focused on his handsome jaw, and was keenly aware of the warmth of his body lying next to me.
We were trying to have a baby, and at first we'd just tried and tried and I was happy to keep trying forever, keeping track of my cycles in a little notebook and feeling like every fuck was a mission. Eventually we realized we needed some professional advice. I didn't want to do a lot of medical intervention, but we decided to try some hormone therapy. It's not that I didn't want to have a baby, but I liked our life as it was and I felt like if it was supposed to happen it would happen. The hormones seemed like a reasonable step though, and it was a good thing James wanted to keep trying because once I went on them I was Horny. All. The. Time.
"What do you think?" James asked, while I dragged my finger down the center of his sternum, and he caught it and brought it to his lips to kiss it and looked into my eyes with a question mark.
"What do I think about what?" I hadn't been listening, and I couldn't even pretend. I was only half awake, and like I said, horny.
"Do you think Nate is up to something?" James asked, eager to have his fears soothed or confirmed. I wasn't sure which.
"I think," I said, as I rolled over and shifted a leg over him so I was straddling his middle and looking down at him, "that I'm ovulating." I stared into his eyes as my hair fell around his face to create our own little world. It was a move that always worked. Almost always. I leaned down to kiss him.
He met me with a peck and rolled me off of him. "Sorry babe," he said as I groaned. "I know making a baby is serious business," he said, mistaking the source of my disappointment, "but I hope you understand why I'm not up to it?"
"Of course I do," I said. Of course I did. But I was still so horny. I cupped my hand over my crotch and squeezed it with my thighs, plotting when I'd be able to get some alone time to take care of the throb I'd woken up with. James saw me and leaned over to kiss my forehead.
"Why don't I jog down to the coffee place and pick up coffees and pastries for us while you shower," he said, standing up. He arched his eyebrows when he said shower, and I knew he'd read my mind.
"My husband is the best," I thought, as my hand dipped below the waist of my panties.
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Nate had gotten in a little late, making us a little late out the door, making James spin out. I could tell he was directing a little bit of his grief at his brother, and I thought maybe it was sort of a relief, but I made a note to reel him in if he got too angry. The viewing and dinner passed without incident though, and by the end of the evening when Nate suggested stopping for a six pack on the way home, James didn't object.
The beer store near our house was closed, and we were all too tired to trek across town, but we had some wine at home, so we decided to get changed and meet in the backyard around the fire pit.
"This is going well," I said to James as I pulled my dress over my head and pulled down my tights. "Nate seems nice and you guys are getting along."
A frown flitted across James's face, and then was gone. "I still think he's up to something" he said, as he pulled up a pair of flannel pants and reached for a tshirt. "But yeah, it's going well." He walked over and pulled me into him from behind, wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing my bare back against his still bare chest. For a moment we stood there together, as if under a spell. I was just wondering how long we could keep Nate waiting when James stepped back.
"Better not keep Nate waiting forever," he said. Dick. "Don't want him snooping around." He turned and walked out of the room as I pulled on a sports bra and a loose sweater over yoga pants. I padded out after him in my bare feet, and grabbed three wine glasses and two bottles of red on my way out to the patio.
The boys were discussing their cousin when I walked out, bonding over talking shit about Randy's midlife crisis Tesla. They were sitting on chairs on opposite sides of a roaring fire, I sat on a loveseat between them and passed out wine glasses. We finished one bottle and were debating opening a second, when Nate raised a hand.
"I have a better idea," he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic tube with a joint in it. I clapped my hands together and looked at James excitedly - I never got to smoke weed! It wasn't James's favorite, but once in a while he'd go for it. He nodded to me, then to Nate.
"Great," Nate said, and he fished out a lighter and lit the joint. He stood up and walked it over to me, then sat down next to me on the little loveseat. No use in being so far away if we had to pass.
The joint made its way around our little circle a few times and then Nate put it out in an ashtray he scared up that I didn't even know we owned. I was pretty high and I felt like I was giggling all over my body. My whole core tingled, and I was so horny I was sure both my husband and his brother could hear my pussy throbbing the way I could hear it in my head. I held my breath for what seemed like a long time, concentrating on my body, and squeezing and letting go of my thighs until someone calling my name brought me back to the loveseat in front of the fire.
"Hey are you ok?" Nate was saying, looking in my eyes. All at once I became aware of several things - 1) my husband had gone to bed and I even vaguely remembered saying goodnight to him, 2) my brother in law was an incredibly handsome man, 3) he smelled like weed and wine and smoke from the fire and something else underneath, like the cold or the promise of being warm in the cold, 4) his hand was on my knee and 5) both his hand and my knee felt like fire.
I became aware of every part of him that was touching part of me. He sat sideways on the love seat, his knees were both pressing against my thigh, his hand was draped on my knee, his other hand hovering near my shoulder. It was all electric, heat jumping between my body and his. I turned and tilted my face up towards him.
"I'm fine," I said, with as much clarity as I could muster. "I'm just a little stoned." My head swam with hormones and wine and weed and that smell and I told myself I was ovulating but I knew it was wrong when I held his eye contact for a beat too long. A few beats too long.
"OK good," he said, and smiled. He straightened back in the love seat and rested the length of his thigh against the length of mine. He reached next to him and pulled out the ashtray and lit the rest of the joint. "You mind?" he said to me.
"No, go ahead, I don't need any more though." I tried to resist the urge to lean into him as he smoked next to me, concentrating instead on the line of fire separating and joining our thighs. I wanted to trace it.
"James told me you guys were trying to have a baby," he said, as he stubbed out the joint again. I was caught off guard by this, surprised James opened up so quickly to his brother. So much for all his suspicion earlier.
"Yeah," I said, starting to babble. I told him the g-rated, work appropriate short story we told people, all the while still hyper aware of his body next to me. I felt like he was feeding more pressure into his thigh where it pressed against mine. He rested his hands in his lap, and his arm pressed into mine as he settled back into the seat. We both stared straight ahead into the fire as my story ran out of steam.
"Wow," he said. Searching for something to say. I could tell he didn't care that much. Why would he? This shit was like dreams - unless you were the one in it getting fucked, who cared about other people's attempts to conceive. I didn't even blame him, I couldn't tell him any of the fun parts. "That sounds tough."
"Oh no, it's not so bad. Honestly the only bad thing about the hormones is they make me so horny all the time." I felt myself saying it but I couldn't slow down or stop. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I turned to look at him, horrified with myself, but he just kept staring straight ahead, so I went back to doing the same.
After a bit, we both started laughing. I apologized, and covered my face with my hands. He scooched over next to me and put his arm around me, pulling me to his chest, still laughing. My whole body tingled as he squeezed me to him, but I started to pull away and he released the embrace and resumed his position, lighting the joint again. He passed it to me and I took one very tiny puff, almost symbolic, and passed it back to him.