Grey Clouds On The Horizon

Ready As Ever

Christian's POV

My hands slipped over the deep doe eyes of my wife, that I'd frequently found myself lost inside. We inched forward, her hand reaching out with an excited hesitance. I leaned my face forward, nearly burying my nose in the crook of her neck to inhale her intoxicating scent. More than any other time in my life, I craved a cup of hot apple cider with a splash of something stiff to calm my nerves.

When people say home sweet home, they tend to sigh and relax their shoulders. Home is supposed to be a place to find peace and settle our racing minds. But what no one wants to admit is that home is where every dark crevice of our being is exposed without defenses. There, we are naked for all to see. Our hopes, our dreams, and our ambitions are on display for those that settle with us to judge and pick apart like chop sticks to a ball of rice.

Have I gotten this right?

Behind me, at least three paces by the way my ear was attuned to her foot steps, my harshest judge watched on. Emilia would be happy if I gave her an old hotel cot in a damp windowless cellar; Perhaps she would even tell me that she was unworthy of the candle and book of matches the crueler version of myself would offer her to find her way out of the darkness. But if I displeased Anastasia, it would be the justice of our coupling that had the most to say about it. I could read it on her lips now, as she knelt between my legs but still somehow managed to look down upon me.

She deserves more than you, Mr Grey. Are you ever going to get this right?

Dr Flynn had told me many times that the delusion of who Emilia was did me no favors. The voice I conversed with in my own mind was not my conscience, but my insecurities. And they were aplenty.

"Christian, come on. Show me." Ana's lashes fluttered under my finger tips and I could feel her cheeks pulling up into a smile under my palms.

Before I realized what I was doing, I gazed at Emilia for reassurance. Accepting the change in my very instincts was an intensely uncomfortable possibility. I trusted Emilia. And with a gentle nod, told her exactly what I needed. She stepped forward, put her hand on the door knob and snuck between Anastasia's outreached arms and the door frame, brushing against neither. With a cloudy gaze and a twirl on the ball of her foot, she surveyed the room. For a moment, it felt wrong to send her ahead of me. As if I had asked her to sacrifice herself in the event the impending disappointment would prove fatal. But before I could let it twist my gut into knots and create the itch at the base of every hair on my scalp, she smiled with approval. Those impeccably white teeth against deep red lipstick said exactly what I needed to hear.

"She'll love it." Em mouthed at me, and stepped aside with a welcoming flourish of her free arm.

I smiled back at her, knowing I likely looked pained and ungrateful. "Alright, Mrs Grey. Welcome home." My hand hands dropped to Anastasia's upper arms and I rubbed them soothingly. The handful of blinks she needed to adjust to the light in front of us seemed to take an eternity. My breath was caught in my throat and waited for even the slightest indication of her displeasure.

Instead, just as Emilia had assured me, I saw her face light up into a child like wonder. Her eyes traced the restored crown moldings along the vaulted ceilings. I'd paid more than I dated to admit to have at least seventeen layers of paint scraped off of them so they could be sanded and refinished. Much to my own surprise, I was pleased with the antique furniture that had been assigned an ashy finish for the monochrome room. "Oh my god... this is beautiful."

"You like it." I breathed out and felt relief wash over me. "I know you wanted to design it yourself but when you were sick I had to do something. I told the designers that that you'd love this, an intersection of the old and the new."

Sweet pink blush rose up Ana's cheeks and I longed to reach out and feel the heat under her flushed skin.  "They were right. You were right." She glided, almost as if she was graceful for a moment, to the oversized canopy bed in the center of the room. Her fingers danced lightly across the translucent gray curtains that hung around the bed and she turned back with me, simply beaming.

"Where did they find this bed? It's huge. I didn't even know they made them like this back then."

I met her from behind once more and wrapped my arms around her waist, resting them on top of where our son grew inside her, "I believe the pieces were found in a barn on the property of a castle in Italy. It was built in the early 1800s, but I'd have to check the makers stamp for the exact year. They didn't standardize them at this point but I was able to get a custom sized mattress and bedding for it."

"Oh Christan, this is too much." Ana nearly squeaked in a quiet wavering voice proceeding the three lonesome tears that dripped down her face. "This is unreal."

I arched my neck to kiss the closest tear from were it threatened to fall. "You deserve the world. This is just a bed."

The tapping of heels, a comforting murmur to our daughter and the click of of a door latch made me wonder if Emilia was even more initiative that I gave her credit for. I smirked, joined a moment later by Ana doing the same.

"How does she do that?" Ana laughed, turning to face me with an expectant gaze.

I feigned ignorance, shrugging my shoulders. "I suppose that all people know what a new bed means."

"And what's that?"

I reached up over her head to push aside the curtain and placed a supporting hand on the middle of her back as I lowered my beautiful bride into the silk bed spread and sheets. With care and love I made my way from the lightly reddened skin of her chest, up her alabaster neck, across her jaw that spit out wit that brought me to my knees and finally to the same lips I'd kissed on our wedding day and when I'd almost said goodbye for good. I muttered nearly unrecognizable words in a language of passion that only she and I could speak, "That a new bed  must be christened."

* * * 

Heaving breath and lust dampened skin, I wrapped my arms around my wife and resisted the urge to panic when she rested her head on my chest. Her eyes closed and I took the opportunity to straighten out her disheveled hair. 

"What are you doing?" She mumbled with sleepiness in her voice and nuzzled a bit closer, melting her flesh into may own.

I shrugged a little, scolding myself when I saw her shift in response. "I guess I'm just trying to remember this."

Anastasia's face grew taught with a wide yawn before she settled back in. "Remember what, exactly?"

Though looking back I wouldn't be proud of it, I lied to her again. "Our first time in our new home." It was only a partial lie, and then again only by omission, but there was much more that I was trying to take in in that moment than the first fuck on a new mattress and inside a different set of walls. It was also one of the last times that it would be only the two of us. Somewhere else in the house, I was sure that somehow my submissive and daughter were managing to get themselves into trouble. Despite the way Emilia grated at my last good nerve, I wasn't worried about her taking anything from Ana and I. What did loom before me, a dark cloud over the flawless garden that I'd given everything to cultivate, was the birth of our first son.

My hand moved down to her stomach, and I both reveled and feared that in four short weeks she would be giving birth. The child that had nearly torn us apart, taken my wife's life and still brought us great joy, would soon be in our arms instead of in her womb. While I hated being fearful, I could not help but worry.

I was a sadist. Watching a woman writhe for me, enduring whatever agony I could inflict, scratched the itches within me like no other. But imagining Anastasia back in a hospital bed, experiencing pain that I couldn't stop or control, unsettled me. The more I turned over the idea in my mind, the more anger built up below the surface.

How could I do it? While the beginning of Anastasia's pregnancy had disrupted our blissful beginnings, and the middle had almost stolen her from me, I hadn't had a moment to consider the end.

And it was nearing closer than I could have realized.