by Maisey Yates
“No. But if you’re expecting...that,” she said, pointing to his stomach, “to be under here—” she pointed to her own “—then you are sadly mistaken.”
“Rachel Henderson,” he said, his voice a growl. “I have had inappropriate thoughts about all the things that might be under your clothes for a lot longer than I care to admit. Based on the amount of time I’ve spent looking at your body, I’d say that I have a pretty fair idea of what I’m going to find there. And when I do, I’m not going to be disappointed—I am going to say a damned prayer of thanks. And then I’m going to touch you, everywhere. And I’m going to taste you, everywhere.”
The erotic thrill those words elicited sent a shiver through her entire body. She wasn’t inexperienced, not by any stretch. She had been married for years, and they’d had a fulfilling, uninhibited sex life during most of that time.
But that was him. Jacob. And this was Adam. And it was like two completely different things.
Jacob, she had known. Jacob she had loved.
Their intimacy had grown and increased and changed over the years.
They had learned sexuality with each other, and they had honed it to something perfect between them.
He knew just how to touch her, and she knew just how to touch him. Desire created and satisfied between just the two of them. She knew all the things he liked.
She had known how to speed him up when he was taking too long, and she had also known just which way to move to help herself get where she needed to go if she was having difficulty.
They had a routine. A dance. Something that had been raised to high art after all that time together.
This was an unknown, and she felt both inhibited and secure in the moment. And utterly, completely captivated by the promise in his words and his eyes. No matter how afraid she was, she couldn’t stop now. Didn’t want to. And while all her experience might be reduced to essentially nothing as she stood before this man, there was something to be said for age.
Because at the base of it all she didn’t fear rejection. She didn’t fear disappointing him. She was more afraid of her own disappointment. Of putting herself through this monumental event, and having this brilliant body at her disposal, and it not living up to what it promised.
She reached behind her back, ready to undo the zipper on her dress, but he stopped her.
“Let me,” he said. “You’re a gift I’ve been waiting to unwrap for a long time.”
He approached her, grabbed hold of the zipper tab and pulled it down slowly, achingly so. And what she hadn’t told Anna or her daughter was that she had gone to even more care choosing her underwear for the evening.
It was black lace, and her bra matched her panties, because just in case.
She had also shaved and waxed herself within an inch of her life, so that everything was neat and orderly and smooth. And she wondered who she’d had in mind when she’d done that. Wondered what she’d been thinking in her subconscious.
Especially when she’d driven over here.
He let out a curse, short and sharp, as her dress pooled at her feet.
“You’re perfect,” he said, pulling her body up against his again. His skin was hot, his body hard, and his chest hair beneath her palms was...just right.
“Beautiful,” he whispered as he kissed her mouth. As he stripped the rest of the clothes from her body, and the rest of the clothes from his. As he laid her down on the bed, those rough hands skimming over her body. Unfamiliar hands, unfamiliar movements. But they brought out a response in her, all the same. So intense, almost too intense. She was so afraid she was going to cry. And almost more afraid that she was going to come with him barely having touched her.
She had missed this.
This intimacy.
Skin on skin, a kiss that could take you to a deep, heavy place, transport you somewhere new. Desire that knotted up your stomach and made you feel like you couldn’t breathe.
It had been so long since she’d felt this.
So long since she’d allowed herself to feel it, and she hadn’t even let herself acknowledge how much she missed it.
She’d just pushed it away, brushed it to the back of a cupboard to be dealt with later, because there were too many big things in her life that needed doing. Needed mending and caring and loving.
And this hadn’t mattered. She hadn’t let it.
She’d forgotten it, and she’d done it on purpose.
Now that cupboard had been pushed on its end and this had spilled out before she was ready and maybe it was all the better for it.
Because for her, sex had always been linked with love, with intimacy. And they didn’t have that. But they had chemistry.
And it was real.
Terrifying.
Wonderful.
She’d never known this before. The heat that could exist between two people built with nothing more than their desire.
Everywhere he put his hands, it was like fire. Desire that she hadn’t realized still existed in her. And everywhere she put her hands on him...
Learning the landscape of a new male body was intense, so bright and sharp and brilliant. She wanted to memorize the moment, him, every dip and ripple in his muscles, the texture of his skin.
She wanted to live in the moment, this moment, for as long as she possibly could. Because everything felt so good.
And she wasn’t sad.
She kissed his face, his chest, his abs, and he turned her over onto her back, strong hands pinning her to the mattress as he made good on his promise, and kissed her everywhere.
As he wedged apart her legs with his broad shoulders and pleasured her with his mouth until she shattered.
Until she was nothing more than a scattering of bright, brilliant pieces that she didn’t even want put back together.
And when he surged inside of her, his face filled her vision. And his body was so deep in hers that she didn’t know where she ended and began anymore.
Somehow it was sacred. A prayer in the dark stillness of the bedroom, even though it shouldn’t have been. A vow made with their bodies. That he’d give her pleasure if nothing else. That his strong arms would hold her together even while she was afraid she was going to fly apart.
She was so acutely aware that it was him. It hit her then that she hadn’t been afraid, not for one moment, that she wouldn’t be. That she would wish it was Jacob, or have difficulty not fantasizing about him.
No, this had been different. He had been different, from the very first kiss. And it had been needed. Necessary. A gift and a blessing.
Adam, with nothing between them, not so much as a breath, and certainly not a counter.
And he drove home that point.
Over and over again, until she shattered in his arms, and he broke apart right after, her name on his breath, on a kiss that she took for herself.
When it was over, she lay next to him for a moment. Her body was bare, pressed against his. Lying next to him in bed like this felt as intimate as him being in her, and she couldn’t figure out why.
She studied the lines of his face, all the tension gone now. His arms were slung over his head, the blankets barely covering his beautiful body. She wanted more time. But she couldn’t stay out all night. Emma and Anna thought that she was out with Mark and...
She really had to go home. She couldn’t stay here.
She couldn’t sleep in his bed. That was... A faint glimmer caught her eye, and she realized that it was her wedding ring. She was still wearing it. She had worn it on her date. She had worn it to bed with another man. She couldn’t sleep in the same bed as another man while she still had this ring on her finger.
Pain crowded her thoughts, her chest, her heart.
Hannah’s words roared back to her.
How she’d been here with Adam while Jacob was dying...
>
Kissing him had been so easy. So easy to let him lean forward and close that distance between them. Like part of her had been waiting to do it for years. Like a secret piece of her had wanted that mouth on hers for far longer than she should have.
“I have to go,” she said.
He mumbled something, then his eyes open slowly. “Why?”
“Because I can’t be gone all night. People will... You know. People will talk.”
She hadn’t cared about anyone else this whole time. Only herself.
She didn’t care much about them now.
But she was terrified of something and she needed to run. Otherwise it would all spill out of her here and she couldn’t handle it.
He nodded slowly, then he reached up and wrapped his hand around the back of her head, pulling her in for a kiss.
Feeling raw, her eyes stinging, she collected all of her clothes and dressed, acutely aware that he was watching her. She dressed quickly.
He got out of bed and heat flooded her as she watched him stride across the room completely naked.
He didn’t have a thing to be embarrassed about. She didn’t know they made men like him, not in the real world.
“Let me walk you to your car.”
He tugged on his jeans with nothing else underneath, then pulled his T-shirt over his head. He followed her down the stairs, barefoot, and she kept her hands clasped in front of her, deliberately not holding his hand. He opened up the front door, and walked her across the street. The street was completely empty, but she was still nervous about being seen.
“I’ll see you,” he said.
She nodded slowly. She thought about kissing him again. But... No. She shouldn’t.
“Good night, Adam,” she said softly.
“Good night, Rachel,” he said.
She got in her car and started driving back toward the inn, and that was when she started to shake. She had... With Adam.
Another truth clicked into place.
He’d been her escape this whole time. Her break from life. From reality. When she’d needed out of her real life, he was there, and when she added this to it, an attraction that had been simmering beneath the surface—even if it had gone unnoticed by her—it made her understand Anna all the more.
There were a thousand rationalizations spinning in her head. That she was more ready for sex than she was for a relationship—true enough—and that it made sense that it was him, because they did have some level of trust in each other.
If she couldn’t have Adam’s hands on her, she needed to be numb, though.
Better to be numb than to be in pain. And if she couldn’t have Adam’s hands on her...
Well, numb was the best thing.
She drove all the way home like that, and at some point she started to sing. To drown things out even more. Reality.
Tonight, and everything that had happened before it.
She was singing a hymn, which she thought might be somewhat sacrilegious, but she couldn’t think of anything else. She could use a solid rock to stand on, anyway, so it was as good as any other song. If not better.
She pulled into the darkened, private drive that led up to the Lighthouse Inn, and she parked her car in front of the Captain’s House. And she sat there for a moment, not quite able to absorb what it was that was wrong with the place.
The light was on in the kitchen.
It was late.
It was all right for the lights to be on in a guest space, because people had free run of the house. But they locked the kitchen at night, and no one was supposed to be in there.
Which meant, either her mother or Anna was in there, or the light had been left on.
Without giving it much thought, she parked the car and got out.
What she was doing was delaying the inevitable. The moment that she was going to have to be alone with her thoughts.
This gave her an errand to do. Maybe she would bake something. Maybe she would stay up, forget trying to go to bed.
She used the code to let herself into the Captain’s House, and began to head toward the kitchen. And just as she did, she heard a door open upstairs, and footsteps on the first landing.
And then, she saw her mother, wrapped in a guest robe. And there was a man coming down the stairs behind her.
“For God’s sake, Mother,” Rachel said, before she could even stop the words from falling out of her mouth.
“Rachel?”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “What the hell is happening?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m getting home from my date,” she said.
And as she said that, she realized that she didn’t look any better. Half in a coat, with her hair looking like Heaven knew what, and it was... Well, it was after midnight.
“Never mind,” Rachel said. She turned and started walking toward the door.
“Rachel...”
“I’m not mad,” Rachel said. “I’m not mad.”
She stumbled out the front door and down the steps, and toward the Lightkeeper’s House. The lunacy of it. And she prayed that her mom wouldn’t follow her. Because she needed...
Not this. She needed to be by herself now.
She needed to go to sleep. Tonight had been a mistake.
A huge mistake.
You really think being with Adam was a mistake?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know what she felt, except that her insides just felt mixed up. And everything hurt.
Now that she was feeling hurt again, it was a whole new kind.
With shaking hands, she let herself into the house.
And she prayed that Emma wasn’t up still. Gave thanks that Anna’s house was far enough down the hill that she wouldn’t have seen Rachel come home.
She leaned against the door, her eyes closed, and she listened.
The house was silent.
She went up the stairs, and parental paranoia bade that she crack open Emma’s door and make sure she was in there, asleep.
She could see her daughter’s red hair spread out over the pillow, and then she rolled over once, flinging her arm over her face.
Well, that was one thing she didn’t have to worry about.
Then she opened the door to her bedroom.
The king-size bed was still made. Just as she left it this morning. The white bedspread was smooth. Because no one else had touched it. No one else had been in it.
She walked over to it slowly, discarded her coat and kicked off her shoes.
Then she lay down on the edge of it, staring across the space. At all the emptiness.
She let her hand stretch across to his side. And she pressed her palm to the cool blanket.
And she didn’t know how she could be so conscious, so bitterly conscious of just how gone he was tonight. When she had let another man inside of her body.
Joyfully. With great pleasure.
It was only in the aftermath it felt sharp and wrong.
“My mom hooked up with a guest,” she said, a bubble of laughter escaping with a tear. “I would’ve told you that as soon as I got home.”
She looked down at her left hand. And slowly, very slowly, she slid off her rings. “But you’re not here.”
She set her rings on his pillow.
For a long time, she looked at them, barely visible with the moon shining in through the window. Dark circles against the white linen.
“I still miss you,” she said.
But he wasn’t her husband anymore. And he wasn’t here.
He never would be again.
And when she finally let herself sleep, it was Adam’s hands that she dreamed of.
26
I have spent much time hating myself. I find I’ve lost the taste for it. Is it so wrong to try to find for
giveness of ourselves, and for how we were made?
—FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY STAFF SERGEANT RICHARD JOHNSON, JANUARY 1945
ANNA
Anna got out of the car, and walked up to the front door of what had been her home for fourteen years, and found that her heart had frozen in her chest. She felt like she was having an anxiety attack. Like she had returned to that life that she had left. That was clarifying. She didn’t want to be going back. This didn’t feel like home. She knocked. It didn’t even feel weird to have to knock.
She waited. And she honestly didn’t even know if he would answer the door for her.
She knew that he would have looked out his office window to see who was there, and that he had a view of the edge of the front porch, just enough to see who was standing there.
This was a splintered piece of her life. And she was ready.
Ready to deal with it, so it could be removed. So she could be remade.
She’d gotten dressed this morning, put on makeup. Put on pants that didn’t have an elastic waistband. She’d gone to the Sunset Bay Coffee Company, and she’d been able to feel people looking at her. But she found that she didn’t care. And not in that brittle, angry way that she hadn’t cared in the weeks after it happened. Not in the way that she’d stared down that cashier.
It just...felt like it didn’t matter for some reason she couldn’t quite pin down.
No one knew her. They knew a version of her. They knew a version of events. And they knew that she had done some things that were wrong. She knew that, too. And for some reason, when she left the coffeehouse, she found herself driving in a strange, familiar direction. One that had become foreign to her, because she hadn’t driven that way in months.
When she pulled up in front of the house that had been her home for fourteen years, she just sat there. It was so familiar. Painfully so. And in its walls, it contained years of relative happiness. And a lot of pain and regret. His car was in the driveway, and she knew that he was home. Working in his office.
She hadn’t thought about him very much. She’d been angry with him. She’d been ashamed at her anger.
She waited. And when she heard footsteps, she didn’t know if she was relieved or not. He pulled open the door, and her stomach went tight. She hadn’t seen him since the night before that Sunday in church, and, of course, none of them had been back since.