AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Should we combine our books like real married people?She was asking.
“Uh, well, you probably want to keep yours more accessible. You don’t want to have to come in here every time you want to look something up.”
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a coward.
She nodded and turned away from me, but not before I caught the light leaving her eyes.
With every swipe of the box cutter, she grew more and more distant. Colder. It wasn’t natural for someone who exuded such light, whose inner fires raged.
She kept eyeing the bed like it had committed treason against her. Like she’d never hated anything more.
“Decca,” I said, moving closer to her. “It won’t be like this forever. We’ll figure out how to make this situation work.”
Oh, Jesus, could I have been any more patronizing?
“This...situation,“ she repeated back to me. She jerked back like I’d slapped her, then left the room.
Fuck.
Marriage.I hadn’t saidmarriage. Consciously, or not, I’d chosen the wrong word, implying our marriage was a thing we’d have to endure rather than celebrate.
As much as I hated it, it was better she find out now.
I’d done it to push her away, to draw blood. I’d brought it out from somewhere deep inside the bad man I’d once been. This was my nature.
I was still a bad man.
Her soft footsteps descended the stairs, slowly fading out as kitchen sounds overtook the padding of her bare feet. I didn’t move, just stood there, listening. To the suction of the refrigerator door as it was opened, the rattle of bottles. The rush of water from the tap and the high-pitched groan when she turned it off.
She was right to leave.
It was best for both of us if we kept our distance. It would protect her from more of whatever she felt now, and it would protect me from the pain of wanting what I might not ever be able to give her.
Our marriage was a promise built on sand.
I’d felt us become one during our kiss on the altar. But last night told a different story. It was too hard to touch her without all my faults flashing before my eyes. I’d never known how to treat women.
I’d known how to look like just enough of a good guy to get them into my bed.
And I got them out of my bed just as easily.
I loved women—their smells and the softness of their skin and lips. Loved the plumpness of their breasts filling my hands. I loved the sounds of their moans and the hitching of their breaths when they were close to coming.
Women had always been on a pedestal for me. Up there. Out of reach. Impossible to truly know.
But as much as I’d loved fucking them, they were toys—very well cared-for toys that I worshipped in bed—but ultimately disposable. Once I had one, I wanted the next and the next. I needed to consume as many as possible, grateful, at the time, for each one, but playing with them for no longer than a night or two. My eye was always turned by the shiny new thing.
Then Eleni happened.
I’d tried to play with a woman who wasn’t mine.
That was the nature of temptation. It definitely wasn’t her sparkling wit or kind heart. It was her newness, the taboo taste of her, the fact that she’d been speaking a language I was fluent in. She teased me, found small ways to touch me, encouraged private jokes between the two of us so we’d have a reason to lock eyes at the family table. I knew she was hard up when she started flatout asking for it. George wouldn’t touch her. Their marriage had already been over. Practically before it even started. George had always been smarter than me.
The temptation was too great. I gave in.
The first time, it was good. Really good. She had skills, techniques, masterful moves. But by the time it was over, my smile was fading quicker than I could get the condom off. A dull ache settled into the pit of my stomach. I was too dumb to realize what it was at first. I thought it was what dad called indigestion. But at twenty-two, not only did I have a sprung cock as soon as any woman crossed my path, I had the stomach of a goat.
It got worse at night. There was a rock in my belly. Or a hole. I wasn’t sure which. I’d lay in bed, rubbing my chest, feeling my own heartbeat, unable to sleep. Fucking was the only thing that relieved the pressure. But the rock always came back bigger than before.
