back.
“I was so bad,” she whispered. “I wanted you to touch yourself, and I wanted you to catch me watching you. I wanted you to punish me for it.”
“Yeah? How would I do that?” I pinched her nipple hard enough to make her gasp and slid my middle finger along the crack of her ass.
She went still. “Actually, I don’t know. I didn’t get that far.”
“Never mind. You couldn’t dream up anything close to what I’d have done.”
“Tell me,” she begged. “I want to hear it.”
“Nope. I’ll let it come as a surprise.”
A slow, sly grin stretched her lips. “Fair enough.”
I moved fast, flipping her onto her back across the bed and pinning her wrists to the mattress, anchoring her body with my hips. “I don’t always play fair.”
The grin vanished.
But her eyes glittered.
When we were finally sated—no easy feat, Margot had an appetite for sex that nearly matched my own—we collapsed on top of the twisted sheets, her head on my chest, one arm and leg draped over me. I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.
“This OK?” she asked. “I don’t know if you’re a cuddler or not.”
“It’s OK.”
“Night,” she murmured sleepily.
“Night.”
She fell asleep in minutes, her breathing deep and rhythmic, her body relaxed. I lay awake for a while, listening to the rain, in awe of her and this night and myself. It hadn’t been an easy decision, coming back here. It hadn’t been easy asking her not to leave tomorrow. It hadn’t been easy climbing into bed with someone other than the woman I’d married.
But everything else…everything else had been so easy. Talking to her. Touching her. Listening to her. Being inside her. Why was that? How was it possible I was this comfortable with someone I’d only met days before, someone so completely different from me? It didn’t seem real.
So let it be a dream, then. Don’t analyze it. Don’t scrutinize it. Don’t look for meaning that isn’t there.
I closed my eyes, content to be with her in a temporary dream world where I wouldn’t be judged—where neither of us would be judged—for what we wanted.
For the first time in years, I fell asleep in the dark.
And slept through the night.
Margot
The mattress shifted, and I reluctantly opened my eyes. Blinked. In the pale gray morning light, I saw Jack sitting on the bed, dressed. His hair was a disaster.
I smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey. I have to go.”
“Are your animals missing you?”
He mussed my hair. “Yeah. And I have to get my truck still.”
“Oh, right. What time is it?”
“Just after six.”
The conversation we’d had last night filtered through my wake-up haze. “I need to tell them I’m not leaving today.”
“I was hoping you’d still want to stay. How much longer do you have?”
I had to think for a second. “What day is it?”
“Wednesday. The twentieth.”
“I’m here until the twenty-eighth. So eight more days.” When I’d been faced with the prospect of eight more days here having to stay away from him, it had seemed an interminable amount of time. Now it seemed short.
“Good.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Don’t get up. I’ll let myself out and catch up with you later, OK?”
“OK.”
After I heard the front door shut, I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t. Was it possible things had changed so much in just twenty-four hours? If Jack hadn’t been here when I woke up, I might have thought I’d dreamt the whole thing.
Rolling onto my back, I stretched out my arms and legs, pointed and flexed my feet. I was sore in places I didn’t expect to be—my back and arms and neck. I was also sore in the expected places. Holy moly, that man could fuck a woman into next year! And his tongue, oh my god, he was good with his tongue. I’d had four orgasms last night—four! That was more than I’d had in the last six months of my relationship with Tripp!
I had to tell someone. I had to.
My phone was still in my purse from last night, which meant it was probably dead. Was the power back on yet? Hopping out of bed, I darted naked into the front room, grabbed my phone and the charger, and plugged it in next to the bed. It took a minute, but eventually it buzzed on and began charging. As soon as it would let me, I hit Jaime’s name in my recent calls.
“Hello?” She sounded nervous.
“It’s me.”
“Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
“Because it’s