He'd wondered back to the kitchen table after he'd watched Alex go to bed, surprised at just how much bigger the little boy had gotten as he watched his retreating form. A long hour later, he was tired of mentally kicking himself, and he let the dog out of the bathroom before going to bed. Cujo had made it a habit, that Luka had tried to break many times, of sleeping with them since he was a puppy, Luka was also more certain that it was more because of Sam than because of him, even though it was meant to be Alex's dog.
He closed the door quietly, expecting his wife to be either asleep or at least on the edges, and attempted to shush Cujo as the dog padded across the floor. The dog jumped onto the end of the bed as Luka pulled his t-shirt off over his head and tossed it to the floor, looking back down to find the bed already crowded for the night. He smiled gently at his wife's still body lying in the center of the bed, the effects from his emotional day winding down.
He gave a fleeting glance out of the window at the sound of high winds; the downside of living in the "Windy City", as Cujo's gaze followed his, the dog startled. Luka caught the dog's panic as he began to show his teeth, and he quickly snapped his fingers to bring the attention from the wind's ruckus outside. Cujo looked at him abruptly.
"It's just the wind," he whispered to the dog in reassurance, the dog's tongue flicking out as he began panting.
He turned to sit on the side of the bed, dropping his pajama pants to the floor as he did so; clad in only his black boxers, he shivered in the night from the breeze of the cold air. He hunched over, buried his hand into his hair, and pressed his elbow into the skin showing on his thigh. Slightly surprised when Cujo inched up the bed and laid his soft chin on his lap, Luka's gaze shifted back to her over his shoulder.
He gently patted Cujo's head, his long fingers tapping against the tip of the dog's wet nose, and his fingers suddenly thread into the blonde hairs of Cujo's neck. He sighed slowly as the dog rolled over on his stomach, wishing that he hadn't started the mind games that the dog was beginning to play. He glanced back at Sam centered perfectly in the bed, and felt utterly exposed at the sight of her small gray t-shirt, one that he'd often had trouble snaking his hands into.
He looked at the dog once again, the dog seeming to automatically disappear onto the floor, and lay back onto the mattress, pulling his knees up until he was staring up at the ceiling. His eyes focused on a thin crack in the ceiling, his body nearly hanging off of the small space left for him on the bed. He couldn't blame her, she'd slept alone in the bed for the past two weeks – the first few nights were always hard for them to get used to all over again, well, in some ways.
He stretched out, tucking his hands under his head as gently as possible to avoid from waking Sam up beside him, but he glanced at her as she rolled over onto her back and onto the other side of the bed. He thought that she surely would have said something by then if she had been awake all along, and seemed to shrink inside at the thought that he'd woken her up. He glanced to the floor as an escape to see Cujo lift his head and look at their bed longing.
She reached up and rubbed her forehead, glancing over at him and shutting her eyes again tight, wanting to reach over and touch him just to be close to him again. It had been two weeks since they'd even slept in the same bed, and, at the way that she felt, it seemed that they could just let Cujo sleep between them. She'd figured out long ago that when he'd had a hard or off day to let him initiate anything between them while in bed.
She threw away all of the rules written in the book.
Rolling over slightly, she reached across herself and slid her hand across his bare skinned abdomen, lightly trailing her fingertips across the skin at his hipbone just above the waistband of his boxers. He pulled a hand from beneath his head and smoothed it down her upper arm, pulling her into him until he felt her chest press against his shoulder. Noticing that he wasn't lying beneath the blankets beside her, she smoothed her hand back up his chest until her fingers trickled across his jaw line.
He hadn't shaved all day, the stubble rough against her fingertips.
"Did you just get into bed?"
Her whisper drifted through the frigid air in the room, her voice dripping with the dry sensation of sleep. She sat up slightly to look down at him, his arm wrapped loosely around her waist.
"Yeah," he nodded his head firmly, loosening his arm around her a bit more. He'd fallen from the very core, and he felt like a failure. He didn't understand where he'd gone wrong in his life, but, apparently, one boy thought that he'd done something right. "I can't get to sleep – too much on my mind."
He said it as though there should be a careless shrug intact.
"That doesn't mean that you deserve to lie out in the cold," she shook her head slightly, watching him look at her with nearly dead eyes. She brushed the short hairs back from his forehead, watching as he sat up straighter, taller, and fully compared to her. "You're practically naked. The last thing that I need is for you to get sick just because you don't want to get into the bed with me."
"I was just thinking," he shrugged.
She suspected he had been.
He was thinking of how to be a better parent to his daughter; how to be the father that Alex never had; how much he wanted to touch her.
"I've missed you – seeing you, touching you, feeling you – I've missed loving you."
"Luka," she gently shook her head, a silent protest to whatever thoughts that were running through his head, and she pursed her lips. "You're not making any sense, I hope you know."
"I know, it's just been on my mind all day and I feel guilty because there are more important things to think about," he shrugged, leaning back against the bare wall because the headboard had broken last spring when they'd moved the bed to clean the normally unreachable places. He groaned as his back met the cold wall, a jolting shiver passing through him.
He breathed in deep and looked down into his lap, locking his fingers together as the weight beside him shifted when she patted the middle of the bed for Cujo to join them. He almost sighed in slight exasperation, getting annoyed with the way that she babied their dog – until the reasoning suddenly hit him.
Why else would she baby the DOG, of all things, when she had a child that she could baby perfectly?
'You want a baby,' he considered blurting, but kept silent and bit his bottom lip.
He looked up at her, his eyes glazed over and filled with something, which was definitely better than nothing, and reached out to capture her cheeks in his hands. Her attention left the dog, in all honesty – quite reluctantly, and she looked at him, noticing the complete change of emotions in his eyes.
He moved in to press his lips against hers, ignoring Cujo lying between them, smoothing the back of his fingertips down across her cheek. He'd normally be aware and respect that the dog was in their presence, or at least on their bed, but this time he didn't seem to care about Cujo lying hazardously between them. She let a muffled whimper escape from her throat as she pulled back from him – she'd missed him so much.
"This doesn't feel right;" she gently shook her head, smiling at him apologetically, "let's put the dog in Alex's room."
He laughed in surprise at the back of his throat, his eyes widening.
She treated that dog like it was her child, which, he kind of was, but that didn't stop him from thinking that she was being a bit ridiculous.
"What? Don't do that," he shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and he rested his hands on his knees. She reached out and grabbed his hands in hers, entwining her hands with his. "Alex is probably asleep and doesn't need to be woken up by Cujo whining all night."
"He doesn't whine," she spoke with laughter in the back of her throat, lifting their hands and holding them in the air.
"He does," he smiled as he nodded his head slightly; his voice deadpanned and firm while at the same time bordering playful.
"I've never heard him."
"That's because he misses you," he tugged her hands towards him, "we can just put him in the bathroom."
"Put him in the bathroom then, I'll wait," she looked at him, her lips curling slightly as she was fighting back a smile. She'd win this one, she knew it the moment he arched an eyebrow and smirked at her. He shook his head as he wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling her into him as he placed his hands on her waist. "You're just going to let him stay in here? You've never let him stay in here before."
He shook his head as he dismissed what she said, pulling his hand from her waist and patting the side of the bed for the dog to follow. Cujo jumped onto the floor, looking up at Luka in confusion as Luka stared back at the dog.
"Lay down," he whispered gently, pointing to the floor. Cujo slowly and reluctantly obeyed.
He looked back up to find her staring at him, her eyes tracing his every move and his every outline as she pulled her hands from his waist and slid them down his legs. Her fingertips, her nails dragged across his skin and touched lightly against his knees as his lips pursed in slight confusion at the look in her eyes. He reached out and covered his hands with hers.
"Luka," she said his name gently as he moved from the bed, pulling her with him.
"No," he shook his head gently, his smile mischievous, and he gripped her hand tighter as he turned to face the window. He glanced out the window, noting the clear skies after a rather gloomy day, and guided her to look out of the window beside him. "Look out there." His finger pointed lazily against the glass, smudging it.
"It cleared up?" She ventured, holding back a shrug.
"It did," he nodded slightly, touching her elbow.
The streetlight below created a glow on the street, and the moon reflected a light that bounced in the window and across their figures. Glancing at her, her saw the look on her face as she turned slightly to look down at their dog, looking at them with question in his eyes, and the thought of her wanting a baby shouted through his mind, again. His heart swelled when he remembered that it was the reason they didn't work the first time and recalled her saying she'd never change her mind, and smiled slightly because he knew that she wouldn't always feel that way.
"I love you, Sam."
His voice was so gentle and sincere that it brought tears to her eyes, and he saw the tears begging to slip over the brims of her eyelids when she turned to look at him. She looked at him, taking in his bare chest, legs, and arms as she noticed him shiver in the air. He was naked compared to her, wearing pajama pants, a t-shirt, and socks even.
"You must be so cold, honey," she said softly, reaching out and wrapping her arms around his torso and pulling his body into his. She smoothed her hands across his back in attempts to warm him up, and paused momentarily when his hands met her waist. She pressed her palm hard into the base of his spin, pushing her hand up the length of his back, his body flinching into hers as he looked down at her with an awkward smile. "And you're slightly crazy."
He shook his head, didn't bother with any words, and leaned down to press his lips against her, first gently and then hard.
She found herself pressed into the glass of the window, her body shivering against his as she met the cold of the glass and his hands slipped up her shirt at the back all in one moment, leaving her to rip her lips away from his to gasp. His hands dropped from inside her shirt as he slipped them beneath her and lifted her, his hands pressing into her thighs and scorching her skin with red marks of where his hands had been.
Her hands pressed into the crooks of his neck as his lips pressed into the crook of her neck and then her throat. His hands slipped back up, grabbed the hem of her t-shirt, and pulled it over her head as he pressed his body more into her to keep her from hitting the floor. Once her shirt hit the floor, inches away from Cujo, he let his eyes roam over her body as he pressed his bare chest into her naked flesh.
"Sam," he whispered, but stopped when he felt her shiver against him as he only remembered that her now bare back was pressing against the cold glass.
He stepped back and moved towards the bed, and clambered into her as she found her back pressed into the mattress. His lips found hers again for a moment, his hand finding its way to the back of her thigh, before he kissed his way down to her abdomen. He pressed his fingers into her hipbone until he hooked them around the waistband of her pants. Giving them a tug, both of his hands smoothed across her legs as he pushed them from her body.
Her hands left his body as she entwined her legs with his and slipped her index fingers into the only article of clothing he'd been wearing. Her lips dragged across his jaw line, kissing his throat, his chest, and down the trail of his stomach as he reached desperately to touch her in anyway possible. With a firm tug, his boxers were piled on top of the clothing pile on the floor.
He reached a bit further and locked his fingers with hers as he pulled her back up his body, pressing into her as soon as he had the chance. He covered his lips with hers as he did so, muffling the noise eliciting from the back of her throat.
As the sweat began grazing his skin, he pulled his lips away from hers with quicker movements and let his hands lift hers over their heads. He hissed in her ear as he squeezed his eyes tight, feeling himself close to losing control, the distant hope that she was losing control as well settling into the back of his mind.
Pulling her hands from his to wrap and arm around his torso and entwine her other hand with the hair at the back of his head, she pulled his body tighter into hers as every muscle in her body tensed.
The room went dark as the power surged all around the city, but neither seemed to notice as the room was dimly lit with only the moon.
"Baby," he muttered through clenched teeth in a raspy voice and between his rugged breaths, her hands pressing harder into his skin as she felt his chest collapse into hers. She didn't seem to know the meaning behind the single word breathed into her ear.