Five Years of Marriage to Mr. Bradford novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Imogen Brings Soup

Imogen visits, warm and helpful, and Leonard becomes attentive; Leah takes him to bed for the last time, and his phone lights with a text that says tell her tonight or I will.

Imogen came to our house on Tuesday with a pot of soup and a garment bag.

I had never met her in person.

In five years, she had been a voice on speaker and a signature on Christmas cards, and I had made her into someone tall and cruel.

The woman at my door leaned on a silver-handled cane and smiled at me warmly.

"Leah. Finally. I brought chicken and rice, because Len says you never eat when he's away."

"He says that?"

"He says everything about you. You should hear him."

She was thirty-five, with an ash blonde bob and long hands, and she moved slowly across my kitchen without once complaining about the knee.

I liked her.

That was the worst part.

She put the soup on the stove and asked where I kept the bowls, and she knew without being told which cupboard held the good ones.

Then she unzipped the garment bag.

"For Thursday. I couldn't let you walk into the Harbor Society benefit in that grey thing."

The dress was dark green silk with a high back.

"It's yours," I said. "It's too nice."

"It was mine before the knee. I'll never get into heels like that again. Please. It would be a kindness."

I held it against myself in the hall mirror.

Imogen watched me over the top of her cane.

"Perfect," she said, and her voice went soft. "He'll lose his mind."

On the shelf behind her was a photo of Danny at nineteen, grinning, with his fiddle case over his shoulder.

Imogen's eyes landed on it, and she looked away quickly, toward the soup.

I thought she was being polite about my grief.

She stayed an hour and ate half a bowl and told me three funny stories about Leonard at twenty, none of which I had heard.

When she left, she kissed my cheek.

"Thank you for sharing him with me," she said.

I stood at the window and watched the car service take her down the street.

Leonard came home early.

He walked into the kitchen and stopped.

"She was here."

"She brought soup."

"What did she say to you?"

"That I should eat more. That you talk about me."

He loosened his tie slowly, his eyes on my face.

He had not looked at me this carefully in a year.

All evening he followed me from room to room.

He washed the bowls, and he never washed bowls.

He asked about my day, and I said it was fine, and he waited for me to say more.

At ten I stood in the bedroom doorway in the green dress, which I had put on only to see how it moved.

Leonard sat on the edge of the bed with his shirt open at the collar and went very still.

"Leah."

"I wanted to see if it fit."

"It fits."

I crossed the room and stood between his knees.

His hands came up and stopped an inch from my waist.

I took his wrists and put his hands on me.

I wanted one more night.

I would not be the wife who left without having him once more, with the lights on, knowing exactly what it was.

I pushed him back on the bed and climbed over him, silk bunched at my thighs.

His mouth opened under mine and he made a low sound that went right through me.

"Slow down," he said against my lips.

"No."

I pulled his shirt open, button by button, and put my palms flat on his chest.

His heart was pounding.

I kissed down his throat and he gripped my hips hard enough to leave marks.

"Leah, please."

"Please what?"

"Touch me."

I reached between us and opened his belt and took his cock in my hand, hot and already hard.

He hissed through his teeth.

I stroked him slowly, the way he liked, and watched his face come apart.

His eyes were wet and I did not understand why.

"Look at me," I said.

He looked.

I pushed the green silk up around my waist, moved my underwear aside, and sank down on him in one long slide.

We both gasped.

He was thick and deep and he filled me until I shook.

His hands slid up my back and pulled me down against his chest.

"Leah," he said again, into my hair. "Leah."

I rode him hard, my forehead against his, his hips meeting mine with every stroke.

The bed knocked the wall.

I bit his lower lip and he groaned.

"Harder," I said.

He rolled us over and pinned my wrists above my head and drove into me until I was crying out his name.

I came first, clenching around him, my whole body arching off the sheets.

He followed with a rough shout, buried to the hilt, his face pressed into my neck.

We lay still, breathing.

His hand stayed locked around my wrist.

"Stay," he whispered.

I closed my eyes and did not answer.

Later, when his breathing slowed, I slid out from under his arm and went to find water.

His phone lay on the dresser, face up, and it lit as I passed.

The preview showed Imogen's name and one line.

Tell her tonight or I will.

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