by Kelly Rimmer
“It’s been a while, I won’t last,” he mutters, and I’m triumphant even though I know that makes me a bitch. Maybe there hasn’t been anyone since I left. Maybe he was sincere when he said he couldn’t move on so fast.
Why do you even care, Izzy? You left him. You have no right to judge and even less of a right to care.
Then my mental lecturing vaporizes because he kneels on the leather, presses my knees apart and crawls along the sofa between them. Then he’s kissing his way up my inner thighs, and I whimper and collapse back to rest my head on the armrest.
Paul is not in the mood to tease me or draw this out. He remembers me—he knows the pressure and the variation I like, and he gets straight to work. His tongue flicks against my body, very gently at first, and then with increasing pressure and intensity until I’m spiraling and barreling headlong toward my climax. I’m vaguely conscious that I’m begging, and that I want him inside me. Now. It’s not pleasure I’ve missed—I can give that to myself. It’s Paul.
“Enough,” I gasp, and I tug harder at his hair, and he rises. He fumbles for his wallet from the floor beside us, and I’m momentarily confused until he withdraws a condom.
Why does Paul have a condom in his wallet?
Paul has a condom in his wallet because we aren’t together anymore, and even if he hasn’t slept with anyone else yet, inevitably, he will. I can’t believe I’d let myself forget the reality of our circumstance.
We are not the people we once were. We’re free agents, and who knows what he’s been up to while we’ve been apart? It makes perfect sense that we’d be safe and use protection. I actually admire that Paul has had the presence of mind to think logically like this.
But of course he has. Paul is all about logic.
Yet the fact that we need to use protection startles me. The very sight of that condom is like a momentary bucket of cold water splashed over me. And if he didn’t ever so gently slide his hand along my neck and cup my jaw and move to kiss me again with that tenderness I had completely forgotten he was capable of, I might have freaked out altogether. I think seriously about pushing him away, about fleeing to my room...but I realize I don’t want to stop. I want to feel Paul, at least one more time.
Paul stretches his body out over mine and leans over me, his elbows on either side of my face on the cushion of the sofa. He stares right into my eyes as he pushes into me and I’m startled to find that in the depths of his gaze I don’t see a man I dislike or a man I resent or even a man I hate. Instead, I see every little thing that I have lost. That’s why I break the eye contact. I stare at the ceiling beyond Paul, and I force myself to focus my thoughts on the sensations in my body instead of the conflicted emotions in my heart and mind.
This is casual fucking, Isabel. You’re not making love here, you don’t need to gaze longingly at him while you do it.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, stilling. Even this shocks me. Since when does Paul read me well enough to correctly interpret my body language?
“Nothing,” I lie, and I slide my arms around his neck and bring his face down to mine so I can distract him with a kiss. He’s trembling, and there’s sweat on his skin and sweat on mine and soon we’re moving against each other faster and harder, each desperately seeking release. Paul’s stubble is short and soft, but it’s scratching my cheek a little, leaving my face feeling raw, and that’s somehow fitting. Everything feels raw right now—and I know it will feel even worse later. If the wound of our separation had even started to heal for me, then right now, I am tearing it back open with a callous disregard for my own feelings.
“Isabel,” Paul whispers.
“Hmm?” I’m too out of breath to reply properly.
“I’m so sorry, honey, I’m sorry—I can’t hold on...”
His face contorts, and when I understand that Mr. Stamina himself is so caught up in this that he’s already about to lose control, that discovery is just enough to tip me over the edge. The delicious pressure builds deep in my belly, and then it bursts, and I cry out as my orgasm breaks over me. For a beautiful moment in time, I’m not conflicted or sad or confused. It’s a singular moment of pure pleasure and joy.
As soon as I come back to earth, I’m conscious of the cold leather of the sofa beneath me, and the way that Paul is sprawled over me but still somehow half kneeling on the floor, too, and the angle is all wrong and he’s still shaking and now I realize it’s because he must be uncomfortable in such an awkward position. He’s panting as if he’s run a marathon, and so I close my eyes and I focus on the good sensations that linger—the feeling of him still inside me, the aftershocks that catch us both by surprise, eliciting fresh gasps from each of us when they hit, the pleasant heaviness of his body against mine and the scent that I want to wrap around me like a blanket that I could keep forever.
This was such a stupid idea.
And the worst thing is, I had plenty of opportunities to back out. I kept actively talking myself back into it. I was determined to make this mistake.
When Paul catches his breath, he slides gently from my body with a groan. I stay prone on the sofa as he deals with the condom, but then he rushes back to me and if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect that he couldn’t bear to be apart. He lifts me high into his arms, and I wrap my hands around his neck and let him carry me. As he walks, I sigh deeply, satisfied, riding the wave of bliss high enough still that I don’t even open my eyes to see where he’s taking me. He rests me on a mattress, and then climbs in beside me and lifts me so that I’m resting across his chest.
Maybe I’m lying over him on the bed and it’s a damn sight more comfortable than the sofa, but mentally, I hit the ground with a thud and a tremor of tension runs from my head to my toes as I recognize that I’m back in the master bedroom.
With Paul.
Naked.
Sated.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Don’t,” Paul whispers into my hair. “Don’t think about it. Not yet.”
He should be asleep now. That’s what he always did—came, rolled away from me, dropped into a deep sleep. We didn’t talk at all after sex the last few years...and my God, did I need to. I’m a woman who needs a cuddle and some pillow talk, but the intimate conversations and cuddles Paul and I had shared in our bed across the early years gradually faded away to nothing. By the end, he barely stayed awake long enough to embrace me at all.
I tried to fix that dynamic between us. I tried to shake him awake to hold him, especially toward the end, when he seemed so determined to retreat from me. Sometimes he’d turn the light out after we made love and I’d get right back up and turn it on again, but he’d still roll over and go to sleep.
Nothing worked—and eventually, even as I longed for the way he made me feel while he was inside me, I’d dread the way he made me feel afterward when he rolled away from me to sleep. I was lonely. Coupled, married, partnered—but always alone. By the time I left him, I was avoiding intimacy with him altogether. Meaningless sex was fine and fun when I was single. From my husband? It was fucking insulting.
Sex did not come easily to us at first. I’d never been the kind of woman who climaxed easily, and it took us weeks to find our rhythm when we first started sleeping together. But Paul mastered sex with me like he masters any task he commits to—with an intense, singular focus. Every time we tumbled into bed together, Paul was on a mission to learn my body and how to pleasure me.
I remember the struggle we had to work through once we stumbled upon the discovery that I reached orgasm much easier if he stared into my eyes when he was inside me. That level of intimacy was difficult for him, but sex with Paul was never just sex to me. I needed the added closeness of eye contact when we made love, even though I didn’t want to need it, because I could see it was difficult for him.
Looking back, those moments of tension almost sum up our entire relationship. I desperately
craved an emotional connection, but Paul only tolerated it because I needed him to. I tend to think of him as a man who never compromises, but I’m struck by a sudden realization that when it came to sex, he did more than meet me halfway. It was a challenge for him to let me see him when he was losing himself to pleasure. But he did it. For me.
Why didn’t I stop to appreciate that at the time?
“Isabel,” he says, and he shifts me a little, then tilts my chin until I’m looking into his eyes again. “Stay with me here. Don’t freak out.”
Stay with me here. He’s wide awake. He’s staring at me with visible concern.
Concern.
I’m not alone right now. I’m not even lonely.
And not feeling lonely right now is about the most confusing thing I’ve felt in my entire life. I’m so bewildered by this, the urge to lash out almost swamps me.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” I say. My throat is tight and my voice uneven.
“I know.”
“That was so fucking stupid,” I say.
Paul brushes my hair out of my eyes, and that’s when his wedding ring flashes in the moonlight. I squeeze my eyelids closed. I’d actually forgotten all about that in the tension and confusion this afternoon, but what the hell does it even mean? Is he hoping we’ll reconcile? If that’s the case, why hasn’t he tried to reach out to me this year?
Oh my God... am I leading him on right now?
To do so would be unforgivably cruel. And I hurt him tonight at the waterfront. It was shocking, and it was shameful, and I simply cannot bear the thought of seeing that kind of pain on his face again. Maybe, just maybe, I don’t hate Paul Winton as much as I like to tell myself I do. Or it’s just way too hard to hate him when I’m actually looking right at him.
Perhaps it’s just easier to hate someone you don’t actually have to face, because you can forget about their humanity when you don’t have to see the consequences of your actions.
“Yeah, it was probably stupid,” Paul murmurs.
“Why are you so calm about this?” I ask, pulling away from him and fixing my now-customary scowl back in place on my face.
He hesitates, then shrugs. “I just figured something out.”
He’s always two steps ahead of me. That was part of the problem. Light-years behind me emotionally, intellectually my superior in every way.
“What’s that?” I ask stiffly.
He pauses before he answers me, but we’re still cuddled close, and as I wait for him to speak I listen to the steady rhythm of his breath—he’s genuinely at peace, so his inhalations and exhalations are easy and relaxed. Meanwhile, I’m now so tense that I’m positively vibrating in his arms and I’m actually terrified of what he’s going to say. Because he’s going to say something cold and dismissive, and it’s going to shatter me. He always did that—I’d try to open up, to make myself vulnerable to invite him to do the same, and he’d either walk away or dismiss me and shut me down.
“Worrying about this tonight is redundant. We can’t undo what we just did, and honestly, I don’t even want to. Maybe we have some unfinished business between us. Maybe we were never meant to part on such bad terms. I’ve changed this year, and I’m sure you have, too. We both came here this weekend because we felt we needed to do something before next Wednesday so we could move on. Maybe tonight is just our way of saying goodbye to each other.”
Huh.
That is the least Paul-like diatribe in the history of the world. I expected something spawned from cruel logic, like it was just sex and it didn’t mean anything, or something rational, like don’t be hysterical, Isabel, if you make a big deal out of this, you’ll make it worse.
I’m so confused. None of this feels like our pattern.
“Come on, Bel,” he whispers softly. “At least enjoy the afterglow before you implode your brain overthinking it.”
...and, there it is.
I stiffen in his arms, but he tucks me up closer against his body, and his arms contract around me, as if he can counter the tension just by hugging me with more determination. And I desperately want to start an argument with him because I’m angry with myself—but I’m the one getting sleepy, and if anything, I want to retreat more than I want to battle. The urge to lick my wounds and find some space becomes overwhelming—it’s certainly more urgent than the urge to fight with him right now.
I tell myself I’ll just lie there until he falls asleep, and then I’ll make a nondramatic, easy escape.
Right up until sleep takes me, I’m still telling myself that I’ll just enjoy the warmth of his arms for one more minute.
Part Two
Saturday
CHAPTER NINE
Isabel
PAUL IS GONE when I wake up and the room is still and silent. I roll over and feel his side of the bed. It’s cold, but I know he was here for most of the night because I roused several times and he was always either cuddled up around me or stretched out beside me. One time, when I was lying there trying to convince myself to get up and go back to my own bed, he actually woke up, too. His voice was rough with sleep, but ripe with concern anyway as he mumbled, “Are you okay, Bel?”
I’d have done anything for him to say those words in that soft tone of voice once upon a time. It’s strange how easily the question came from him last night. What’s changed? Is it me, or is it Paul...or is it both of us?
It’s early now, close to dawn, judging by the soft light that’s filtering through the gap in the heavy drapes. I try to go back to sleep, but my mind will have none of that—it seems I am destined to ruminate today. Last night was a mistake. It was stupid and foolish and impulsive, and I can’t even say I didn’t know what I was doing.
The problem is, in the cold light of this morning, the complete lack of regret I’m currently feeling about Paul and I falling into bed together is somehow stranger than the fact that it happened in the first place.
I head downstairs to dress in my workout clothes and step onto the pavement just as the sun hits the horizon. The breeze is cool this morning and it’s a little too gusty for comfort. I’m glad I brought my hoodie, although it’s inevitably going to wind up around my waist once I get going. I stretch, then walk a little to warm up, and soon fall into the rhythm of my jog.
Here at Greenport, I’ve always run the same loop from one side of the island to the other, taking a much longer trek than the few short miles I do once a week back home. Time, like sunshine here, seems a less precious commodity and so I always liked to linger on this ritual, sometimes letting it drag all the way through a morning or an afternoon. Often, I’d stop for a coffee and pancakes at Marie’s before I made the return trip home. I’m starting to think about doing just that when I remember that Paul and I established this habitual loop together, and that it had been his idea to go for coffee and pancakes after our very first run here together all of those years ago.
I see him just as this hits me. He’s just ahead of me on the sidewalk, but running back toward me, no doubt completing the same loop I intended to take. And of course he is. Where else would he be? I’m sure he’s just following his regular weekend routine, just as I’m following my regular Greenport routine.
I wonder if it’s going to be awkward if he stops to talk to me. But for last night, perhaps he might have just flashed me a scowl as he ran past me. Now, though, I am not sure where we stand—does one encounter make us lovers again? That doesn’t feel right. Will we just ignore last night and go back to the way things were, with the two of us unable to even have a polite conversation?
Huh. It turns out, I hate that idea most of all.
Paul stops running when he sees me and slows to a walk. I’ve only just started running so I have no intention of stopping yet, and I’m not ready to dissect what happened. I decide I’ll just smile and nod as we pass one another.
“Morning,” Paul says q
uietly, then he turns and starts jogging alongside me.
“Are you following me?”
“Following you?” he repeats, and then he laughs softly. “I think you’ll find you’re following me, since I was here first.”
“Well...” I say, indignant, then words fail me. “Fine. Sorry. It’s a habit to do this loop.”
“Yep, same for me. So listen—”
“I’m not in the mood for a postmortem.” I cut him off, and my tone is a little too sharp.
“Postmortem? I was going to give you a performance review.”
I gasp in indignation, and Paul’s easy grin does terrible things to my composure. We’re jogging at a decent pace now, although not fast enough to leave me out of breath—but he’s got me so flustered I’m starting to struggle to get enough air anyway.
“Kidding. No, I have a proposition for you.”
“Oh, shit, Paul,” I groan. “Haven’t you messed enough with my weekend?”
“I think we should have breakfast together. Talk some more.”
I stop dead in my tracks, and when Paul stops, too, and turns back to me questioningly, I gape at him. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
“Hear me out,” he says, and his mild, reasonable tone enrages me. I’m further infuriated by the way he starts jogging again and, after a few steps, turns back to gesture for me to follow him. I do so—but I tell myself I’m doing it because I want to keep running, not because he effectively told me to.
“We’re getting divorced,” I remind him pointedly. “On Wednesday. People who are getting divorced in a matter of days don’t sleep together, and they don’t have cozy fucking breakfasts together.”
“If we leave things as they are now, we’ll never be friends again. But I really think there’s enough between us that if we take the time to part properly, we can undo some of the hurt we’ve caused each other, and maybe then we can actually get on with our lives.”