My House Or Yours?

He corrected her, “We’re not divorced, we’re just separated. You’ve had to have room to stretch, and you needed to be away from me to do that because I tend to control.” He elaborated in an aside, “The need to control is just part of being a teacher.”

“I hadn’t noticed control as much as absence.”

He chided her, “You sent my checks back.”

“For almost six years, you’d paid for my room and board, and it was because of your teaching position that I also have my master’s.”

He watched the road as he bit his lower lip in thought. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I thought of you as more than a bedmate. If I’d known you were lending me your body in exchange for your education, I’d have felt more—What are you doing? Stop that!” He grabbed her arm as he swerved the car on the isolated road and pulled to a stop. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

With the door half-open, furiously rigid, her eyes shooting sparks, she said at him over her shoulder, “I was your wife!”

“Aw, honey, I know that. I was teasing.”

“You lecher!”

“Well, yes. But I’m also your husband.” He smiled at the angry woman and soothed. “I was teasing. Honest.”

But she started to cry.

He was stunned. With the car stopped, he turned to her, gentled and concerned. “Did I hurt you?”

She gulped and her trembling voice retorted, “For years.”

He was silent for a while as she barely allowed him to hold her. Her softness was squashed by the smoothed planes of his male body. He rubbed his chest just a bit against her movable breasts, and he groaned.

Then he said in a rather foggy manner, “I hadn’t really understood how young you were.” He moved his face around on hers and his breathing became different. His hands were a little careless.