When I reached down to grip him and heard his sharp intake of breath, I once again felt in control, almost powerful. With careful precision, I moved into him, gently pushing him back on the bed, and straddled his hips. The familiar pressure as I sank onto him, dizzyingly pleasurable, brought me to the edge, and I moaned softly.
“Shh,” Will whispered with a gentle smile.
We moved in a singular rhythm together, in tune, naturally synchronized. And as I watched Will’s face, unfamiliar as a stranger’s, it occurred to me that I could be my own person, anyone I wanted to be. I felt a liberating surge of power rise up, bringing with it a long buried heat of desire. Waves of pleasure thrummed from my core. Will’s visceral cries interwove with mine as we climaxed.
Sated, I lay in the crook of his arm, our flesh moist and sticky where it met. Silently blissful. Oddly comfortable with this stranger. I half-expected him to come up with an excuse to leave, but he surprised me. Having never had a one-night stand, I didn’t know what to expect. I anticipated more awkwardness. Maybe there would have been, if I’d not known the interlude for what it was, if I’d been thinking about a future with the man. If I were single.
I realized that I had technically cheated on my husband. Mulling it over, I discovered that I no longer cared. The sex had been at least as good as the best sex Greg and I had ever had.
“What are you going through?” Will asked. His fingers traced patterns on my palm.
“What?” I looked up at him. Was I that transparent?
“Last night, you said you’re kind of going through something. And then tonight, you show up, this… lioness on a hunt.” He laughed. “So, I wondered.”
I debated on what to tell him, if anything. “My husband left me.”
He arched his eyebrows at me. “You’re married?”
“Sort of. Well, technically, yes.” I tried to stifle a giggle, which had to be from the martinis, but mortifyingly, I couldn’t. I coughed to cover it up.
He propped himself up on his elbows. “Are you laughing? At me?” He looked mildly annoyed.
“Oh, God, Will, no! Listen, here’s the whole crazy story. Six months ago, my husband went on a business trip and never came home. I have no idea what happened to him. He could have run away, or he could be dead. I found out later that he’d been having an affair, and he wasn’t really the person I thought he was anyway.” Oh, God. Information overload.
Will looked half-astonished, half-ready to run out the door, his mouth slack with disbelief.
I put my hand on his arm. “I was laughing because I feel bad for you. You didn’t know you were going to end up with me and all my… baggage.” I started laughing so hard, tears streamed out of my eyes.
Will smiled nervously, not quite getting the joke, but he had yet to make a break for it, so I took that as a good sign. I hiccupped and finally calmed.
“So, he what? Never came home?” he asked.
“Nope. Gone without a trace. New Jersey’s finest can’t even find him.”
“That’s crazy.” He stared at me for a moment. “So what am I then? An angry screw? A way to get back at him?”
“No, not really. You would think so, I guess. And I am angry. But this… this doesn’t feel angry. I don’t feel like I’m using you to get back at anyone. And I’ve discovered things, you know? Things that he’s kept a secret that a man shouldn’t keep from his wife. It makes me think that maybe he never loved me the right way.” I was rambling. I didn’t know Will well enough to explain how Greg may or may not have loved me.
Will resumed tracing patterns into my palm. “So, you didn’t answer me. What was this to you? What is this to you?”
“An awakening,” I replied, kissing him gently. “This is an awakening of the senses. A welcome back party.”
His arms went around me as he hungrily returned my kiss. I pulled him on top of me, wrapping my legs around him.
“Well, it’s a great party,” he murmured.
When I woke up several hours later, sun streamed in through the windows. I sat up and looked around. I was alone in the room. I stretched languidly under the six-hundred-thread-count sheets, enjoying my first post-coital morning in a long time. I was startled by a soft knock on the door, followed by a quiet, “Hello?”
“Come in!” I called to Sarah. “I’m alone.”
She came in carrying her black strappy sandals.
I giggled. “Oh, that must have been some walk of shame, girl. What are we, twenty-five?”
“Owen drove me here,” she retorted. “I told him no way was I walking back at nine in the morning, holding my shoes and wearing the same clothes from the night before. I am past that point in my life.”