He tried to pull away, but I clung to him, my nails biting into him. “Don’t go.”
I felt his indecision. Felt his heart pounding under my fingers. Felt him move, but only to settle us on the bed, pulling the cover over us both.
“Shhhh…”
His voice was so very soothing, the lips kissing my hair so tender.
“Shhhh…”
The calluses on his palm scraped over my skin as he linked his fingers with mine.
“Shhhh…”
Suddenly exhausted, I closed my eyes, but this time, as the darkness closed over me, the abyss didn’t seem so very, very deep.
***
The light was still pouring into the room when I woke, and I wasn’t certain how long I’d slept. Gray was gone, although the pillow still bore the indentation of his head. I pulled it closer to my face and breathed in his scent before rolling off the king-sized bed. Standing, I gave my fuzzy head a few moments to clear before taking the first step, determined not to make a fool out of myself again.
I wrote about damsels in distress, but I didn’t like being one. It felt weak. Embarrassing. Like the woman I so very much wanted to be was outside my reach.
My body burned. It was as if I could still feel the blaze of heat his tongue had left on my skin. With each step, I felt where his fingers had been. Where, had I not pathetically freaked out, maybe his tongue would have followed. His cock.
It would have been so good, I knew. When I wrote about sex, it wasn’t the act of sex that I focused on. That part was easy. Insert penis. Pump a few times. Eyes roll back. Come. Any person with a computer could write about the act of sex, even if they’d never done it themselves. Books, and certainly movies, or a dive into the dark side of the internet would provide all the visual evidence one would need to understand physical intercourse.
I wrote about the emotions I hoped to one day feel. I wrote of the connection, the joining, the words and breaths exchanged as two separate people became one. I wrote of the exploration, the give and take. The power. The submission. The carnal rawness that I intuitively knew was present, even though I’d never felt that myself.
Until Gray.
The times I’d touched myself were evidence to the pleasure sex could provide. I didn’t do it often, afraid I’d turn into a sex addict. Just like my mom.
Most of my life had been spent putting a great deal of energy into being different than her. And now I was afraid I had gone so far onto the frigid side that I couldn’t find my way back to normal.
Taking careful steps to the bathroom, I placed my ear to the door when I heard something on the other side. The shower. Gray was in there. Naked. Standing under the stream of water, doing… what?
Wondering what the hell was wrong with the woman he rescued? Surely he thought I must be bipolar — just like my mom — to have asked him to make love to me in one breath while freaking out with the next.
I owed him an explanation. No. I didn’t owe him one. I wanted to give him an explanation. I’d never once wanted to talk about that night, but for some reason, I wanted to talk about it now.
My fingers were trembling when I placed my hands on the doorknob.
Own luck. Own love. Own life. Own legacy.
With the blood pounding in my ears, I pushed the door open.
CHAPTER TEN
Gray
Wrapping my hand around my cock, I tried to make thoughts of her go away as hot water pounded against my shoulders. The softness of her skin. The little gasping breaths. The mewling sounds. The passion in her eyes when I touched her. The fear in her eyes when… what?
What happened in the bedroom? What had I done to turn passion into terror so quickly?
I didn’t know. And I hated myself. For so many reasons, I hated the man I’d become.
Raising my face to the shower spray, I punished my cock, trying to force the cum from it hard and quick. Maybe if I got off, I wouldn’t carry such a hard-on for the woman under my protection. Maybe I could get her off my mind.
But even as I stroked, thoughts of her wouldn’t go away.
Her eyes turning dark with need. Her lips swollen from my kisses. Her scent. Her gasping breaths as my finger dipped into her wet core, her body tightening around it. The feel of her nails on my skin, digging into me as if I was the only solid thing she could hold on to.
Maybe I was. On this mountain, in this cabin… she only had me to protect her. And I was doing a shit job of it so far.
Disgusted with myself, I stroked harder, faster, scowling down at my traitorous cock.
Come, dammit.
Over the past two years, I’d hardly touched myself. Even that had seemed like a betrayal of my wife’s memory. But I needed this now. Not for pleasure, but for pure release. Since I seemed unable to control anything else, maybe I could control this.
From the moment I saw the goddess at her cabin down the hill, watched her on the screen as she cried and then began to smile, I knew I was changing. I could feel the change, the need, the longing for something more in my life begin to alter me.
But in that church six years ago, I’d promised to love Jessica forever. Until death us do part, I remembered saying. Death did part us, but the love hadn’t stopped. How could I still love Jess and allow another woman into my bed, my life? My heart.
How could they both fit?
“Jess, honey, I’m so sorry.”
I could so clearly imagine Jessica. Her image hadn’t faded at all. Even now, I could nearly see her mouth around my cock. In this instant, I could close my eyes and imagine her lips closing around me instead of my hand, her skilled tongue swirling around the tip. I could see her on her knees, one hand cupping my balls, the other tight around the few inches she couldn’t take into her throat.
I could also clearly remember the night she laid in my arms, still sniffling after finishing a book she’d just read. She’d threaded her fingers through mine and cleared her throat. “Promise me something.”
We’d been married for nearly four years at the time, together for over six, and I still would have promised her anything. “What’s that?”
“If anything happens to me, promise that you’ll go on. Find someone else to love you as much as I love you.”
At the time, I hadn’t thought losing her was even possible. We were young. We had years and years and years before that would happen, so the promise was an easy one to make. “I’ll promise if you promise the same,” I’d told her that cold winter night.
Then something did happen. Bam.
And I’d broken that promise. I thought I’d forever break that promise.
Until now.
Promise me… I could almost hear the whisper of Jess’s voice.
“Jessica, no,” I rasped, stroking harder, faster, closing my eyes against the pain of remembering. But I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I’d been drawn to Zoe from the moment she stepped onto that deck. And the bitch of it was, I shouldn’t have ever even known she was there.
If those two squirrels hadn’t knocked that particular security camera off its tracks, I’d never have known who lived there. Never seen her. Never… watched. Waited. Worried about her safety.