by Anthology
“I made us some coffee,” he said softly.
That touched me. He’d gotten up, made coffee, and slipped back into bed to hold me. I turned to look at him, perched on the edge of the bed. “Thank you,” I whispered. My voice came out hoarse, and I realized my throat was raw from screaming and crying the night before. I took his hand and kissed his knuckles, and he looked surprised but pleased. I don’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. I didn’t let go of his hand, and he didn’t try to pull it away.
Finally I tugged my hand back and smiled. “Coffee would be great.”
“I also have a spare toothbrush. I left it on the sink for you.” He got up and padded back into the kitchen. “Don’t laugh, though.”
I stretched and slipped from the warmth of the bed into the bathroom. When I saw what he’d left for me on the edge of the sink, I couldn’t help but giggle. “Are you serious?” I called.
“I bought it for my nephew. He’s four. But it’ll do in a pinch, right? I can always pick him up another one.”
“It’ll do in a pinch.” I picked up the Batman toothbrush, broke it free from its tiny package, and spread some of his paste on it to brush my teeth. I had not imagined any bit of this morning, not in my entire life, and the unexpectedness of it was glorious.
When I walked back into the kitchen, teeth clean, Wyatt poured me an oversized mug filled with rich, delicious coffee. There was a typewriter printed on the side of it, along with the words, “Write drunk, edit sober.”
“You’re getting the best mug in the house,” he said with feigned gravity as he handed it to me.
“Ah, a writer?” I exclaimed with delight. “You must be. And a Hemingway quote and everything.” I took a sip and he sighed.
“It’s attributed to Hemingway, but those aren’t his words, actually.”
“Really? I always thought he was the one who said it. And this coffee is delicious, by the way.”
“I’ll spare you the boring story. Actually, I’ll spare you both boring stories - the quote and the coffee each have their own.”
“I’m sure both are fascinating,” I teased, and that earned me a wide grin.
“Probably only to me.” He shrugged.
“So you’re a writer and a bartender?”
“I think it’s the East Coast equivalent of actor/waiter. I have to do something to keep a roof over my head.”
“Yeah.” I drank my coffee and wondered briefly what I would do to keep a roof over mine. Dust off my marketing degree? Work the cash register at Target? Sell Avon? I had no idea. Outside of a few internships, I’d never even worked.
“What do you do?” he asked.
“Nothing.” At the confused look on his face I felt compelled to say more. “I mean, I have a degree. But I…uh…got married pretty young and I’ve just been home.”
“Kids?”
I shook my head and he didn’t try to hide his relief. “No. I can’t… I mean, I’m not sure I can—”
“Maybe that’s for the best, considering what happened last night.”
I swallowed, unsure of how to respond to that. I hadn’t had time to process what had happened last night. Not the party, not meeting Wyatt. I had merely escaped from one unknown to another. The only difference was Wyatt was safe. And I felt that, even though I didn’t really know him well enough to be sure of it. “Probably,” I agreed.
So…” Wyatt looked at me sheepishly. “I realize I brought you here and I can’t take you anywhere for a few hours, because I really have to write. But you can use my phone, my tablet, anything you need if you want to contact people or whatever, and in a couple hours I’ll take you anywhere you need to go.”
“I don’t—” I choked on the confession. “I don’t have anyone.”
He tried and failed to wrap his mind around that. “I know you said you don’t have anyone close by, but—”
“No.” I cut him off before he could say any more. “I mean, I don’t have anyone. My mother is dead. My father is…gone. I’m an only child. I’ve been married to Kip since I was twenty-two. I haven’t spoken to my friends from school in so long I’m not even sure where they are. I have no one.” Saying it out loud to another person felt shameful.
“How did that happen to you?” Wyatt was incredulous. And he’d hit the nail on the head without even realizing it. I let everything just happen. Last night was the first night in years I’d made any sort of a real choice.
“I did it to myself. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Leila,” he sighed, moving toward me. I slipped into his arms without hesitation, and when he wrapped himself around me I felt a little bit less alone.
“Do you love him?” he asked into my hair.
“I don’t even like him,” I admitted, shocked by how good the confession tasted on my tongue. “I don’t think he likes me, much, either. He’s in love with someone else.”
“You’re beautiful and sweet and interesting and smart. Why would you subject yourself to that?”
“I tried to make it better, but—”
“Hey.” He pulled back to look at me and cut me off, his fingers over my lips. “I don’t know much about your husband, but I know enough to tell you that any guy who pulls the kind of shit he pulled last night is not worth your efforts. Yeah?”
“Yes. But I’m not a victim. You need to know that. He didn’t force me, he didn’t make me stay with him, I just—” I tried to give him words he’d understand. “I just gave in. I just let myself float.”
Wyatt looked like he had more to say, but I smiled brightly and patted his chest. “Go write. I’ll see what I can do from your tablet, if that’s okay.”
I spent three hours online trying to figure out my next move. I wasn’t afraid to go back to the house and get my things - Kip would be too lazy to change the locks, and he’d be at work by 8 a.m. Monday morning like clockwork. I’m sure he was furious about the embarrassment I’d caused him, but Kip’s fury wasn’t particularly worrisome. No, I’d be able to go home and get my things. I would do that right thing and send Kip an e-mail so he didn’t think I was dead, and then we could discuss how to amicably part.
The parting wasn’t the issue. Freedom was the issue.
I had been the obedient daughter my mother had demanded and the good wife Kip had wanted me to be, but I had never made my own decisions. I had never even tried to live my own life. When I finally began craving freedom after a couple years with Kip, I was paralyzed by fear. I kept waiting for him to make a decision about me - waiting for him to divorce me for being unable to have a baby, waiting for him to leave me for Dorothy, waiting for him to say something to release me from my bonds.
Now I wasn’t bound by anything. I may have unintentionally voided my marriage vows by not being able to conceive a child, but Kip had maliciously violated the laws of our union by offering me to another man, something he had to have known would humiliate and terrify me.
And it did terrify me. Being sexually bartered for Kip’s promotion terrified me far more than being alone. It had to be easier. It had to.
I searched for jobs and apartments. I verified that my few thousand dollars were still in my personal account, and I thought about what came next. But the prospect of so many decisions exhausted me, so around noon I lay down on Wyatt’s bed to think and fell asleep to the quiet rhythm of his clicking keystrokes coming from across the apartment.
When I woke again there was a plastic shopping bag on the bed next to me. I peeked inside to find a pair of rubber flip-flops, sunglasses, and a tank top and shorts that looked my size. There was also a pink (adult) toothbrush and women’s deodorant.
“Are you saying I smell?” I called across the room.
Wyatt looked up from his laptop and grinned. “Not at all. But you might after a few days. I’m just being proactive.”
“You didn’t have to do this, you know,” I admonished him. “I’m fine to wear my dress again.”
“You needed shoes that wou
ldn’t hurt your feet, which are already covered in blisters. And I want to take you somewhere later. The dress might be a bit too fancy.” He spun in his chair and studied me carefully. “How are you doing?”
“This second, I’m okay.”
“Good. That wasn’t an existential question, by the way. I meant this second. You hungry?”
I nodded.
“Come eat, then. I was waiting for you to wake up.”
He sat me at the tiny round table and pulled a plate out of the refrigerator laden with fruit, cheese, and some tiny pastries. “You’re going to need a big appetite later, I’m warning you,” he said.
“Oh?” I grabbed two blocks of cheese and an apple slice off the plate. “Where are you taking me?”
His eyes gleamed. “Surprise.”
“I’m done with surprises after the last twenty-four hours,” I said.
“That.” He pointed at me. “That right there. You’re funny. You’re sharp. I still can’t reconcile the girl in front of me with…” He trailed off, unsure how to proceed. “I’m trying to work it out.”
“You can’t figure out how I got here.”
“I can’t for the life of me figure out how you got here.” His hazel eyes searched my face. “I’m missing some pieces.”
His scrutiny made the back of my neck prickle. “I swear, there aren’t missing pieces. Maybe I was too lazy to leave him. Definitely I was too scared. And you don’t even know me. How do you know I wasn’t just after his money?”
There was a brief pause. The corners of his mouth twisted and his eyes were dark when he said quietly, “If you were just after his money you would’ve helped him get that promotion.”
I pushed the plate away and got up from the table. “I should go.”
But he was faster than I’d bargained. “Don’t,” he pleaded, grabbing my wrist before I could turn to leave. “I know there’s more. You don’t have to tell me what it is. But for yourself, Leila, figure it out.”
I tried to evade his gaze, but he stood and cupped my face with his free hand. He held my wrist tightly, using it to leverage me toward him. His breath was soft on my face, sweet from the apples, and I couldn’t bear his proximity, but I didn’t want to pull away. Every inch of my skin knew exactly how far his body was from mine.
“I don’t know what it is about you,” he murmured. “I want to save you, and I want to watch you save yourself. I want you to let me kiss you, and I want to try to kiss you and have you slap my face. I want things that don’t even make sense. Fuck, Leila.”
My heart rose and lodged in my throat, and my voice cracked when I said, “I’ve never slapped anyone in my life.”
The heat of his lips brushed my mouth without any contact. His face hovered close enough that I could feel the kiss that hadn’t yet happened. “I’m a writer. I’m probably not like other guys, because I have a lot of weird shit in my head. But right now I want very basic male things.”
I sighed, and his mouth was there to receive that sigh and swallow it whole. His tongue traced my bottom lip and I stopped worrying about freedom or missing pieces. I could only think about the taste of apples between us, the warmth of his mouth, the way his fingers felt around my wrist. His hand slid to the back of my neck, holding my head steady so he could explore my mouth with his. That strange, unfamiliar intimacy was back. As if I had kissed him a thousand times before, my body responded instantly. Every nerve ending sparked to life, every vein hummed with awareness, and my heart galloped as if racing toward home. I fisted Wyatt’s t-shirt with my free hand and flattened myself against him, my hips tucking against his, eliciting a starved groan.
He released my wrist and splayed his hand across my lower back, holding me as close as he could get me while he kissed my mouth and then started a trail of exploration down my throat. When his hand closed around the swell of one buttock and squeezed, I stopped thinking. I hadn’t desired Kip like this - not ever. I was riding a wave the size of which I’d never even seen, and I should’ve been terrified, but all I could think about was how good it felt.
Wyatt backed me up across the room until he was close enough to tumble us onto the sagging couch. I straddled him, my hips moving on their own in a rhythm we hadn’t yet set. My nipples rubbed against the material of the t-shirt I was wearing, and I could feel myself growing slick inside the shorts. I wanted him to touch me, any naked part of me. I wanted him to sate his hunger with my body, and I wanted to slake my thirst with his. His hips arched to meet mine as he slid his hands into my shirt, rasping his thumbs over my painfully hard nipples. I moaned softly, and he did it again, answering with a groan that came from the depths of his throat. “Fuck, I love that sound.”
I allowed him to slip the shirt over my head, leaving me wearing nothing but a pair of his basketball shorts. Slowly, reverently, he touched every inch of exposed skin above my waist. My collarbone and the pulse point at the base of my throat. The bottom swells of each breast. My torso, trailing down the faint vertical indent of where my halves fused to make me whole before my birth. We were both breathless by the time he reached the waistband of my shorts with a very clear question in his eyes.
“How long has it been since he touched you?” he asked quietly.
“Over a year.” It was shameful to admit, but Wyatt looked slightly relieved before he frowned.
“Jesus, your husband is such an idiot,” he breathed. “I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you.”
His eyes darkened as his fingers traveled along the waistband of the shorts, a feather-light brushing that made me quiver. “And I damn sure wouldn’t share you,” he growled. His fingers trailed back up between my breasts, and he tweaked my nipple. “No one else but me would ever touch this body.”
His words sank deep in my belly, igniting a pleasant burn. There was something about being half-naked while he was still fully clothed that made me feel powerful. It should’ve been the other way around - I was vulnerable, and he was a stranger, even if he felt like all my dreams combined and made flesh. But his worshipful gaze, gentle fingers, and ragged breath as he touched me let me know I was calling the shots.
When he cupped one breast in his hand and squeezed it hard I shuddered, and he shifted to flip me on my back and drag the shorts down to my knees with one hand. I clung to his shoulders as his fingers cupped my mound, fingertips resting against my slippery heat. I writhed, silently urging him to slip them inside me, but he just held me as he kissed me. I could feel myself soaking his fingers, burning his skin with my desperate need.
“Let me make you feel good,” he begged. “I want to watch you come.”
His words had the exact opposite affect we both wanted. The moment was shattered as I recalled with shame the last few sessions with Kip when, feeling completely undesirable to him, I wasn’t able to climax. He’d suggested I see a doctor about my “dysfunction.” No wonder he’d started sleeping with Dorothy.
Wyatt’s touch suddenly felt uncomfortable, and I tried to protest, clamping my thighs around his hand.
But he wasn’t having any parts of that. “Get him out of your head, Leila,” he murmured. “And I’ll make you feel amazing, I promise.”
I shook my head, tears pricking my eyelids and making me squeeze my eyes tighter, but he kissed me softly and drew his hand up, up, until his fingers stroked my cheek again. My legs went slack without his hand between them.
He brushed his fingers over my lips, and I could smell myself on him. When he kissed where his fingers had just traveled, I imagined I tasted myself on his tongue and desire roared back into me. When he whispered, “Look at me,” I did, no hesitation. And then his fingers were back between my thighs, petting, stroking, opening me until they were buried in my hot, wet flesh. He groaned against my mouth as his fingers worked me, claiming every sigh that fell from my lips, kissing away every little cry that squeaked from my throat as he built me and built me and built me so high I stopped measuring and just let myself feel. Fluttering in my stomach, a spirali
ng ache in my core where his fingers delved - I twisted and panted and when I thought I was ready to let go and fall he pulled his fingers away and kissed down the length of my body. I stiffened again. Kip had never—
But I stopped thinking as Wyatt’s mouth closed over me. Glorious shivers racked my body, and when Wyatt slid a finger inside me I broke apart. He sucked up all the little drops of me, nursing my burning flesh, devouring me as if he never wanted to stop. I opened my eyes and lifted my head to watch him, and the look of utter bliss on his face as he feasted on me broke me again. I bucked against his mouth, cried out his name, and let that wave I’d been riding wash right over me. It knocked the oxygen out of me and I lost consciousness for a long moment.
When I opened my eyes, Wyatt was tenderly wiping tears from my cheeks with my discarded t-shirt.
“What did you do to me?” I croaked.
He smiled lazily and planted a soft, salty kiss on my mouth. “You needed that, I think.”
I nodded.
“Ready to go out for a bit?”
I shifted and covered myself. “After I take a shower.”
His eyelids dropped to half-mast. “Alone?”
I shook my head and leaned up to kiss him. “No way.”
He kissed me all the way to the bathroom, stopping just long enough to turn the shower on for me. Through the steam I watched Wyatt strip off his t-shirt, uncovering the dark designs I’d seen peeking from his sleeves. They twined around both arms, snaked across his chest, and disappeared into the waistband of his cargo shorts. When he stepped out of them, he was completely naked, and since I was prepared for another layer of clothing I gasped when I saw his cock jutting proudly toward me. He reached in the back pocket of his shorts, pulled a condom from his wallet, and sheathed himself while I stood in the warm spray of the shower, watching breathlessly.
Then he climbed in and wrapped himself around me, pinning me to the wall as his mouth plundered mine. “I know I have to go slow,” he groaned. “But fuck, I really don’t want to. I want to pound you through this wall.”