Passion

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

  I cleared my throat. “Thank you,” I said. “Can I get something for you inside?”

  “No, I’m just heading to the restroom. Let me get that for you,” he said as he reached in front of me for the screen door.

  “Thank you,” I said again, aware of the adrenaline zinging through me as I set the Crock-Pot on the counter. I bit my lip as I stood still for a moment. I wondered if the fact that I felt utterly forbidden from touching Hayden—much less fucking the hell out of him, which was what I really wanted to do—was influencing how desperately I felt like I wanted to.

  I went to the guest bedroom and sent Chris a text message, eager to lock myself away from people for a few moments. I waited for his reply informing me that he was feeling better before I left the room, trying not to think about Hayden happening to wander in and catch me there. As I headed back outside, I felt very grateful that he didn’t.

  Didn’t I?

  Slowly, the guests began to take their leave. The sun had turned a dark orange on the horizon, and the sky overhead was the color of smoke when I grabbed a round of gifts from a table to take inside. As I approached the wooden steps, Hayden came down them.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Valerie,” he said with a smile.

  “Are you leaving?” My voice managed to stay light despite the tug I felt inside when Hayden nodded.

  “Well, I would hug you if I wasn’t all loaded down,” I laughed as I neared him, indicating the wine-bottle-laden gift bags at my sides and feeling a wistful pull at the missed opportunity.

  Hayden hadn’t paused, and even as I spoke he reached me, his arm sliding seamlessly around my waist as my words evaporated. I caught my breath as he held my lower back lightly while I pressed against him for a moment.

  I turned my head and barely brushed my lips against his cheek as I stepped back.

  “There. I’ll kiss you instead,” I said, surprised by how unaffected my voice sounded.

  Hayden’s chuckle was barely audible. “That wasn’t a kiss.”

  Barely moving forward, his lips touched mine so lightly it was possible those behind him on the deck wouldn’t even know what was happening in the shadowy dusk around us. He backed up as silently as he had moved forward.

  My breath had seemed to disappear into the growing darkness. Though I stood stock still, my lungs surged for air as I sought my voice, which seemed to have dissolved as well. Finally a whisper came out.

  “Hayden.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  The fixation in me seemed to snap, and I smiled, suddenly feeling clearer. “I want to let you know that I find myself, um, quite attracted to you.”

  This seemed a laughable understatement, but I stayed focused. Hayden’s intense gaze was fixed on me. It showed nothing to discourage the disclosure.

  “Desperately, in fact,” I continued. My eyes flicked to the ground, then back up to his. “And I am not in a position to act on that at this time. Otherwise, I would have done so already.”

  Hayden’s expression cleared, and I could see he didn’t have to ask questions.

  I backed up. Exhaling slowly, I said, “It was a pleasure meeting you too, Hayden. I guess I’ll see you at the wedding.”

  He stepped away as well and smiled. “Yes. You certainly will.”

  He gave a wave as he turned and headed for his car. I hoisted the gift bags and walked up the wooden steps to the deck, my stomach churning, head whirling—and pussy dripping.

  I found Chris on the couch under a blanket when I walked in the front door.

  “How was the party?” he asked before I could say anything.

  “Uh, fine,” I answered. Did my voice betray me? My stomach clenched, and I reminded myself I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  I looked into Chris’s beautiful blue eyes. I loved him so much. I had made a decision to be with him, and that was what I wanted.

  Wasn’t it?

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, moving to sit at his side.

  He sat up a little. “Better. You’re beautiful.” He smiled at me as he moved a wisp of hair from my face. His expression segued into concern. “What’s wrong?”

  I had barely noticed the tears filling my eyes. I shook my head dismissively and stood up.

  “I’m going upstairs to change. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thank you,” Chris said, still watching me as he eased back against the couch. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” I pulled the blanket over him and smiled, leaning down to kiss his cheek before I turned and left the room.

  Upstairs, I pulled off my dress and slipped out of my sandals. Why did the complication of Hayden have to come right at this time? I had been feeling unsettled and uncertain for the past several weeks as it was.

  Maybe that was why.

  Standing in my thong, I thought of Hayden and caught my breath. I could almost feel his hands on my waist from behind, the confidence of his arm sliding around me in the darkness. I swallowed.

  Quietly, I crept to the door and closed it, then slipped off my thong and eased onto the bed. I spread my legs and remembered the little contact Hayden and I had had at the party, surprised by the force of the arousal that resulted. I dropped my fingers between my legs.

  Breathing heavily, I pressed my clit, remembering the way Hayden’s arm had slid around me without pause, the breathlike feeling of his lips touching mine, the hunger in his eyes when I caught him watching me lick the frosting. I was astonished by how easily I came thinking of nothing else. Twice.

  I closed my eyes and imagined Hayden finding me in the guest bedroom. I could almost feel his tongue circling one nipple, then the other as he pulled my clothes off before pushing me onto the bed and shoving my legs apart as I begged him to ram his cock into me hard.

  I made myself come six times. As I got up shakily and headed for the shower, my eyes fell on the name tag still stuck to the dress crumpled on the floor. My insides twisted as I remembered that what had just happened with Hayden in my fantasies could remain only there.

  Two weeks later I woke in the middle of the night. Blinking sleepily, I glanced at the moonlight penetrating the blackness out the window and didn’t bother checking the clock. I looked at Chris, his breathing even as he lay on his side, facing me, his hands balled into fists just under the edge of the blanket.

  I had been thinking about Hayden alarmingly frequently in the weeks since I’d met him. It had been a bit surreal to feel something so encompassing that Chris had no idea about. I found the juxtaposition uncomfortable, and I had a sad feeling that Chris had no idea anything was wrong. Of course, while I knew that something was, I had no idea what. And it had been there, I knew, even before I met Hayden.

  I shifted my head on the pillow and smothered a sigh. The idea of leaving Chris, leaving the relationship, seemed startling to me, and I didn’t feel at all certain that was what I wanted. But why was I so captivated by Hayden?

  I flipped onto my stomach and faced the other direction. Moments later I felt the bed shift and was about to turn my head when I felt Chris’s form against my side, his lips dropping to the back of my neck and moving steadily to my ear. I was shocked by the goose bumps that immediately stood all over my body, by how quickly the confusion that had just seemed so paramount fell away under the heat of Chris’s touch.

  For a split second I felt compelled to contemplate that, but Chris made his way on top of me, his erection pressing against my ass, and my distraction evaporated. He didn’t say anything, just reached up and gave my hair a little tug as my whimper got lost in the pillow. His lips nuzzled my ear then moved across my cheek and finally barely reached my lips, which he kissed lightly before returning to the intense erogenous zone of my ear.

  I heard the condom wrapper and felt him shift briefly and then slip inside me, my legs together, still facedown, flat on the bed. He moved his hands to my shoulders, fucking me with a slow rhythm that seemed to fit the silence and the moonlight and the middle of the night l
ike a door clicking quietly shut.

  My eyes closed, body pressed against the mattress, I basked in the heavy warmth of Chris’s weight and his cock sliding in and out of me. I gripped his fingers as he slid his hands over mine on the pillow, and he squeezed back before letting go to slide one hand under my body. I came silently and quickly, the only outward indications the audible quickening of my breath and the tensed pressure of my body against the mattress and Chris’s fingers.

  Chris came silently, too, his grip on my shoulder tightening. When it was done, he reached to kiss me again, and I smiled sleepily, my eyes still closed. Chris slid off me, curling his arm around mine and pulling me into a spooning position. For a split second I felt his grip tighten in the darkness, and I had the instantaneous sense that my suspicion of his obliviousness had been misplaced. I blinked my eyes open as the grasp relaxed, and I heard Chris’s breathing return to the steadiness indicating sleep.

  Letting go of any attempt to grapple things into making sense, I took a deep breath and followed suit.

  Shopping for bridesmaid dresses with Sarah the following weekend, I noticed that anything having to do with the wedding seemed to remind me of Hayden. I sighed as I zipped up the A-line burgundy dress and stepped out of the dressing room.

  Sarah cocked her head. “Hmmm. That’s nice.” Her brow furrowed. “Could I see the blue one again?”

  I smiled, amused by her indecision. I had tried each of her three final dress choices twice; this would be the third time for the blue one. I ducked back into the dressing room and slipped on the royal blue floor-length strapless gown. She looked up as I emerged for her inspection.

  “I like that,” she said as she examined me. “Do you like that one or the short black one better?”

  “For a winter wedding, longer seems to make sense,” I responded. “Of course, it’s up to you.”

  Sarah nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, by the way, I asked Shawn to meet us here at two-thirty to go to the tuxedo store down the street so we can look at the tuxes that match the dresses I’m looking at. Do you mind coming with us to give your opinion?”

  “Of course not.” I returned to the dressing room to change back into my street clothes. As I stepped into my shoes, I heard voices outside the door and deduced that Shawn had arrived.

  I opened the door, and my breath caught as I saw Shawn talking to Sarah—with Hayden standing next to him. My heart took off like a pistol firing, and for a second I couldn’t speak.

  Sarah turned to me. “Shawn brought Hayden with him, obviously. You guys met at the engagement party, right?” Shawn said something to her before I could answer, and she turned to him.

  Hayden stood casually, his hands in the pockets of his khakis. I met his eyes, his slow smile shooting sparks through my body. I swallowed and managed a somewhat unnatural smile back.

  Sarah and Shawn started toward the door, and I snapped out of my daze long enough to thank the salesperson who had helped us, before the four of us exited the store. The bride and groom fell into step with each other, leaving Hayden and me together behind them.

  The intense attraction I still felt toward Hayden was undeniable. Guilt flooded through me as we made small talk, and I wondered if my voice sounded as stilted to him as it did to me. I also wondered if what had seemed to be his mutual interest was still there, or if what I had said at the party had—understandably, admittedly—erased it.

  Obviously it had had no such effect on me.

  As we entered the formal wear store I held back a groan, suddenly realizing that if there was one thing I didn’t need the temptation of seeing Hayden in right now, it was a tuxedo. I looked around and tried to quell the simmering in my stomach as Sarah talked to the salesperson. After a brief interim of vest and tie collecting, Shawn and Hayden disappeared down the hallway to the changing rooms.

  Moments later they both emerged in tuxedoes, and my insides melted a little bit. My pussy actually grew wet at the sight of Hayden in his black tuxedo and silver vest. There was a brief discussion of colors, during which I hoped my silence wasn’t conspicuous, before the two men went back down the hall.

  Looking at Hayden had reminded me of how I felt when I saw the decadent chocolate desserts in the bakery section of the grocery store: I was so used to depriving myself that it didn’t even occur to me to buy one—I simply looked at them longingly, and every once in a while I found myself startled by the sudden and violent urge to throw aside the glass door and shove one in my mouth before I could change my mind.

  “Sarah, can you give me a hand with this?” Shawn called from his dressing room.

  Sarah disappeared down the hall, and reluctantly I followed her. I settled on the chair near the three-way mirror as Sarah slipped into Shawn’s changing room.

  Another door opened, and Hayden stepped out in the same tuxedo with a dark red vest and tie that I recognized as matching the burgundy dress I had just tried on. I stared for a moment before realizing it would be polite to acknowledge his presence rather than just salivate over it. I looked up at him and managed a smile.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I bit back exactly what I thought, which was that I wanted to fuck him senseless.

  “It looks lovely,” I said. “Actually…” I tried to stop myself, but my body seemed to move of its own accord as I stood and straightened his slightly crooked bowtie.

  “That’s better,” I murmured.

  The heat of his body was like a magnet—and I a helpless paper clip—as I pulled back with supreme effort. His steel gray eyes held mine, and confusion and uncertainty suddenly flooded through me so strongly my eyes almost filled with tears. I took another step back.

  As I did, Hayden caught my arm, pulling me into the changing room and pushing me against the wall in a single movement. His mouth was on mine before I had time to catch my breath, much less remember to resist. My body pressed into his, cradling the erection I felt beneath his trousers.

  A whimper escaped me, and abruptly I broke away, my pussy wet and throbbing as I stumbled to the other side of the tiny dressing room. I braced my hands against the wall, silently trying to catch my breath. Behind me I heard Hayden doing the same.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. I turned back to him. “Really. I know you told me. I just found you…irresistible.”

  Well, I certainly knew the feeling. He looked down, and I didn’t doubt his contriteness.

  I nodded at him, near tears. I had come very close to crossing a line.

  Hayden cleared his throat and touched my arm as he opened the door for me.

  “I’m very sorry, Valerie.”

  I smiled feebly to let him know it was all right—I knew it wasn’t all his fault, after all—and passed through to the hallway.

  Shawn and Sarah emerged momentarily, and I jumped. I barely noticed the conversation around me as I resisted meeting Hayden’s eyes. To do so felt like it would threaten my resistance to the violent urge to push him right back into the dressing room—and shove him in my mouth before I could change my mind.

  When I got home, I found myself again incessantly fantasizing about Hayden. Chris was out, and I lay on the bed and pictured Hayden and me the day of the wedding, hidden in one of the preparation rooms after the ceremony as I knelt and sucked his cock, his breathing frantic above me as he stood in his shiny black dress shoes and ebony tuxedo, shoving his hips forward and grasping the back of my head.

  His insistent pumping into my mouth would make my pussy drip, and I’d look up at his silver eyes locked on mine and let him know that as much as I loved what I was doing, I was going to demand that he take my pussy before he was done.

  I came to the image of the shiny blue satin dress bunched at my hips as Hayden drilled into me from behind.

  I caught my breath before I stood and headed for the closet. Who knew what would be going on come winter, when the wedding was? I mused absently. Maybe by then we would have the chance.

  When I realized what I had just though
t, I stopped short, my breath catching. Shock enveloped me as I realized I had just caught myself thinking nonchalantly of not being with Chris anymore. What was I thinking? That was a huge change my mind was throwing around, not some casual consideration. How could the idea have slid through my consciousness so easily?

  Tears pushed up from my core as I caught my gaze in the mirror across the room. Staring at my reflection, I jumped when the door opened downstairs.

  Chris was home.

  I had been making omelets the Sunday morning Chris walked into the kitchen and told me he knew something was wrong.

  At that moment, I knew he had known all along. Starting before I met Hayden, going back to the weeks prior when something had seemed off, when I hadn’t known what it was or whether it was him or me or both of us or neither, just that it was something, Chris had known. He had always known.

  He’d stood facing me, and I’d turned to him and told him everything. I told him about meeting Hayden, about the day in the dressing room, about how guilty and uncertain and overwhelmed I felt, about how it had started even before then but I didn’t know why.

  Chris had listened silently, and I found that just sharing it, speaking the words out loud, seemed to open something in me. A relaxation I hadn’t felt for months flowed over me.

  And when he said he had felt me pulling away for months and not known why or what to do, I realized what had eluded me for so long: what was happening in me wasn’t about Chris, and it wasn’t about Hayden. Not deep down.

  It was about me.

  Chris and I had reached a turning point. The relationship was asking me for something I had never given before. It was asking me to go deeper—deeper trust, deeper authenticity, deeper surrender.

  It was asking me for intimacy.

  The request was quiet, so subtle that I had only recognized it subconsciously. And there was a part of me that was afraid of it. That part, the part that had avoided it so many times before in my life, was loud, and it used whatever it needed to distract me.