Dear Reader, This story is my Valentine's Day gift. If it pleases you, I ask for your vote in return. Many thanks to SecondSamuel for making me go all the way. ~Alice Rosaleen
*This is a work of fiction. All characters are 18 or older.
***
No matter how many men Josslyn Atwater had been with, none had ever made love to her the way her husband Michael could. That wasn't to say none of them had bigger cocks or made her cum harder, but none of them expressed their love so well with their body and still had so much in their hearts. And Joss could feel hers spilling over with Michael inside of her. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and matched his thrusts, gripped his hands, met his lips, until they came.
"Oh, Michael," she moaned, still shuddering.
A moment later he was holding his wife from behind, her back pressed to his chest, which was coarse with hair and slick with sweat. "I love you, Joss."
Josslyn went to take her husband's hand and press it to her breast, but she couldn't find it. Not again... Even before she rolled over, Michael's firm body was becoming insubstantial, his scent disappearing, his warmth fading away. Joss put her hand out and touched cold sheets. He was gone. It was just another dream.
Wiping away her tears, Josslyn started to see an indistinct silhouette in her bedroom doorway. A man's.
"Michael? Is that you?" Her throat was so dry, she barely made a sound.
The shadowy form stepped forward and solidified into one she recognized. "No, Mom, it's me."
"Nicky- I'm sorry, I wasn't-"
"It's okay," her son interrupted, taking a few steps closer. "You were dreaming about Dad, weren't you? I heard you calling his name."
Joss was glad it was dark so he couldn't see how red her cheeks had gotten. She wondered if that was all he'd heard her say. It wasn't the first time this sort of thing had happened, but it was the first time since she'd stopped binge drinking to ease the pain.
"I was. He seems so real sometimes that it's not fair."
Nick took another step. "I know. I miss him too."
Remembering that she'd fallen asleep in the nude, Josslyn pulled the sheet up before it slipped below her stiff nipples. The air seemed to crackle between them, though she was sure it was just her sex-deprived imagination.
"You should get back to bed, honey. You need your rest."
"Yes Ma'am." Her son had said this countless times, but there was something about his tone now that made Joss quake.
"Good night, Nicky," she said, rolling over, eyes wide open.
"Good night, Mom."
And after what seemed like an eternity, his footsteps retreated down the hallway.
It had been a year and a half since Michael passed away and even though he wasn't Nick's father by blood, he was by choice- and that almost made their bond more painful to sever. Joss had spent the first year and then some drowning her sorrows in alcohol. It was a selfish and ultimately self-defeating coping mechanism, which is why she'd been sweating out her sorrows at the gym for the last few months instead. She hoped that as she got herself in better shape physically, she could get healthier on a deeper level.
For her son's sake as much as her own.
***
Josslyn was no stranger to heartache. She'd loved and lost countless times, been cheated on and cheated with, seduced, abused, strung-along and abandoned. But when Joss was in her late-twenties, raising a kid on her own because his scumbag father had left them high and dry, she met a man named Michael Atwater who showed her that hearts aren't just made to be broken. Not only did Michael want to take care of her, he wanted to be there for her son Nick too- show him what it was like to have a real dad.
After several months of intense courtship, he proposed, she accepted, and the three of them became The Atwaters. There would be no more violent boyfriends or crappy apartments with Michael in their lives. Nick was even calling him "Dad" before the adoption was finalized. It was everything Josslyn could have hoped for and more.
And then, when he was only forty-four, the unthinkable happened. On his way home from work, Michael was killed by a drunk driver- died before the ambulance even got to the scene. Both Josslyn and Nick were devastated. Furious, even, that he'd been taken from them so soon. He was the only father her son had ever known, and the only man who'd made her feel like a Queen. Just considering the prospect of inviting someone new into their lives made her feel like she was trying to replace him.
After a lot of bad, sloppy sex, and some really good sex but a bad, sloppy breakup, Joss decided she'd be better off alone than settling for less. It had been several months since she'd had a date (or sex) and many of her friends and family had started to notice. "You're only thirty-seven, Joss. Your life isn't over. Don't give up on love," these well-meaning interlopers would say. But Josslyn was beginning to think it wasn't she who had given up on love, but love that had given up on her.
***
Joss arrived at the office the next morning in a gray pencil skirt and a sapphire blue blouse that set off her eyes. Now that she'd been working out, her hourglass figure had gotten slimmer in the middle, making the surrounding curves even more apparent. When she was in the break room, Raymond, who got especially chatty whenever she showed a little leg, asked what Joss' big Valentine's Day plans were.
"Oh, we're going to see Hamilton, followed by dinner at Il Mulino and dancing til mIdnight. The
yooszh
." she deadpanned, using the abbreviation for 'usual' that her son used so often. She'd meant this for Raymond's amusement (and as a gentle rebuff) but resident gossips Mary and Christina had walked in.
"Sounds romantic, Josslyn." Mary's voice was oozing with sarcasm. "Who's taking you on this exciting adventure?"
Joss fought the urge to say "Your husband." But she didn't have to say anything because someone else replied.
"A lucky guy, whoever he is." It was shy, bookish Eric.
"Thank you, Eric." There was a hint of guilt in her voice, since Eric never said much and he'd invited her out for coffee before. He was attractive in his well-groomed, soft-spoken, thick-glasses kind of way, but Joss had learned her lesson about mixing business with pleasure. Several times.
The truth was, Joss didn't have a date for Valentine's Day and doubted that she'd get one in the next couple of weeks. Her regrettable foray in online-dating and several singles' mixers had been way too discouraging for an encore. Not that Joss expected flowers and love poems, but there had to be something slightly more romantic than dick pics and bad come-on lines. Flirty messages, dirty phone calls and one-night stands were fun, but ultimately she found them tedious and hollow.
Why had it seemed so easy to hook up and fall in love when she was younger? Was it because men seem more manly back then? Not in that macho way, like guys overcompensating for something else, but in that inexplicable way handymen or lumberjacks or good fathers have about them because they don't need to? The last so-called paragon of the male species she'd dated was Chase Richards, and he ended up being the reason she took up celibacy.
The first time they met was just as indelible in her mind as the last time she saw him: Josslyn was having a mind-numbing conversation with a guy ten years her junior at a nightclub, trying to get drunk enough to go home with him, when a stunning silver fox interrupted.
"Excuse me, but if you're not going to ask this gorgeous lady to dance, I certainly will."
Chase had such skill on the dancefloor that Joss was sure he'd be phenomenal in the sack; and he more than exceeded expectations. In a sea of players and posers, he was the real McCoy, like her husband had been. Not that the two of them were particularly similar, but there were times when Chase would say something or look at her in a certain way that reminded her so much of Michael that she wanted to cry. When Chase's hands were on her, and cock inside her, Joss often would.
But there were also those times when he reminded her of Nick's biological father, Drew. He could be aggressive and domineering in a way that pushed all the right buttons. Making love with him was spectacular, but getting fucked by him was transcendent. When Chase took control, he meant it, and he always made it worth the pain that laced the pleasure.
For all these reasons- his charm, her loneliness, the crazy sex- Joss ignored every red flag he waved: the late nights at work, the scent of perfume she never wore, getting texts at odd hours and vague talk of "being busy" over the weekend. No, Josslyn had to see it to believe it. And of course she'd be in a public place when it happened, so her total humiliation could be witnessed by strangers.
She was out drinking with a group of friends when one of them leaned over and whispered, "That isn't Chase over there, is it?"
"No, he's home sick," Joss replied, even as her stomach started sinking.
"Well if that's not him, he must have a twin," her friend Samantha muttered.
Steeling herself with another double-shot of tequila, Josslyn got up and strode across the crowded room and low and behold, there was Chase with a girl at least half his age. His hand was on her knee and he was leaning in to say something with that familiar sly look on his face. When he saw Josslyn standing there, her arms crossed, he didn't even have the decency to act ashamed.
"I'm glad to see you're feeling better, Chase."
"Josslyn," he drawled, appearing vaguely amused at her presence.
His blonde date smirked, giving the older woman a withering look.
"You cheating bastard! How long have you been fucking her? Is she even twenty-one yet?"
"Please, let's not make a scene," he said with infuriating calmness, as if Josslyn was a defiant child.
"Oh, I'm not making a scene. I just wanted to know if you have anything to say for yourself before I never speak to you again."
Chase leveled her with his cold grey eyes before he even said a word. "It's kind of hard to cheat on a woman who's still married to her dead husband."
Joss could hardly see through her tears as she stumbled out of the club, not bothering to apologize to all the people she bumped into on her way. It felt like there was a knife twisting in her heart, courtesy of Chase, and of Drew, and most of all, Michael.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" the bouncer asked when a very tipsy Josslyn slumped down on the sidewalk, flashing him in the process.
