by Roxie Noir
Too soon Seth pulls my head back, drags his thumb over my lips.
“Bed,” he says, quiet in the dark. “Now.”
He pushes me in front of him, sprawls me back onto the white expanse. Spreads my thighs and slides three fingers into me and strokes himself with the other hand and oh God I can’t stop moaning, whimpering, making desperate little noises like I’m starved for attention.
“Condom?” he asks, crooking his fingers inside me so hard my hips rise off the bed in pleasure.
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
For the first time since he walked into the bar, Seth pauses.
“Birth control,” I say again, pushing my hips against his hand. “It’s fine.”
Technically it’s an IUD. Technically those three little letters are the lynchpin of my divorce, but none of that’s important right now.
The only important part is how much I want Seth to fuck me bare.
He pulls his fingers out, licks them clean as I stare up at him. It’s something he’s never done before but holy shit it’s hot, watching him casually taste me as he strokes his huge, thick cock.
I’m alight with anticipation.
“Hands and knees,” he says, and I obey, arching my back, offering myself as he climbs onto the bed behind me.
Hands on my thighs, my hips. One rough thumb brushing past my clit and I move my hips backward with a gasp, practically begging. I know what he must think but I don’t care.
Then he’s at my entrance and his fingers sink into my hips and my fists clench in anticipation and I hold my breath, waiting, waiting.
He bottoms out with one hard stroke, and I groan. My toes curl and my face is somehow buried in the hotel bed comforter, hands fisted around the ugly floral pattern. Seth uses my hips as leverage and on the next hard, fast stroke I swear he sinks even deeper and then even deeper and I’m rocking back against him, moaning and whimpering and God, I missed him.
It doesn’t last long. I come at near-lightning speed, still shouting into the comforter, and he’s right behind me, burying himself deep and growling so fucking good goddamn while he comes inside me.
He rolls off. We clean up. We don’t get dressed, but we do turn on the lights.
Twenty minutes later, we do it again.
For nearly forty-eight hours, we don’t leave the room. I put on the robe to accept room service a few times, but it’s the most clothing I wear the whole weekend.
If think about this too much, I know I’ll feel guilty, so I try not to think. I know what people would say if they knew that practically the second I filed for divorce, I was in bed with my ex. I’ve got a feeling that if Nolan, my almost-ex-husband found out, he’d use it as grounds to drag this out a little longer.
Six months, my lawyer said. We were only married for twenty. We should’ve been married for zero.
“I should head back tonight,” Seth says from the other side of the bed, propped on three different pillows. “I’ve got work tomorrow and they might have reported me as a missing person already.”
“They?” I ask, lazily, lying flat on no pillows, staring up at the ceiling.
“My brothers,” he says, pushing himself to sitting. “I left somewhat abruptly, and my phone ran outta juice last night.”
“My charger’s on the desk,” I say, pointing. “You can unplug mine.”
“Thanks.”
He stands, walks to the desk, plugs in his phone. He’s completely and utterly naked, moving as if he’s never heard the word modesty in his life, running a hand through his messy hair, tossing his phone onto the desk, scratching his chest while it boots back up.
I just watch, because Seth is beautiful. He looks pretty much the same as the last time I saw him naked — tall, wide shoulders, tapered waist, hint of a six-pack, muscled thighs, huge dick — though maybe a little bigger in the arms and shoulders, like he’s been working out.
The tattoo is still there, the only one he’s got: the constellation Scorpio on his left arm. I’m surprised. I know he and his brothers all got star tattoos at the same time, I just thought he’d have covered up my astrological sign with something else.
“All right,” he finally says, lazily. “Be right back.”
He pads to the bathroom, closes the door. I wonder when I should go join him. If I should go join him. Sitting for two hours on the car ride back home, to the apartment I got two weeks ago in downtown Leesburg, is already going to be an adventure in discomfort.
But then again, I do remember saying fuck me so hard I walk funny, so whose fault is that?
I’m still debating a nice shower fuck when Seth’s phone buzzes on the desk. I look down at it, past my toes, vaguely wondering if it’s important and if I should at least see what it says, and then it buzzes again.
And again. And again.
Damn, Seth’s phone is blowing up. Maybe his family really did report him missing.
I take a deep breath and lever myself to sitting. I yawn. Tentatively, I pat my hands over my hair, then decide not to find out yet. Semen leaks out of me as I stand and walk over to the desk, grab my own phone, and glance down at Seth’s.
Daniel wants to know where he is. His mom wants to know where he is. Levi wants to know where he is. Caleb’s texting that everyone is worried, what’s going on? Eli says he just woke up to a hundred texts and would someone please tell him what’s going on.
In the bathroom, the shower goes on, and I lean against the desk, still naked. I tap one fingernail against the wood-veneer surface, run my tongue over my front teeth as I think.
Then, despite knowing better, I reach out and scroll down Seth’s notifications with one finger.
It’s just his lock screen. These all came up, completely of their own accord, while I was here and he wasn’t, right? I just happened to see them while I was grabbing my own phone, and besides these are publicly available, it’s not like I’m breaking into his phone or someth —
There’s a picture. It’s tiny on the lock screen so it’s hard to see, but it’s from someone named Stacey and I’ve already tapped it, gone into his texts, and now it’s taking up the entire screen and Stacey is nearly naked.
I stand there, naked myself, frozen. My fingertips go cold and after a long, blank pause, my brain starts shouting a thousand things at once.
It’s a selfie. She’s a brunette. She’s wearing a thong, nothing else, striking a pose with one leg up on the bathroom sink. There are toothpaste spots on the mirror. She’s got a blue shower curtain behind her, a nice enough bathroom, triangle-shaped pale patches on both breasts, a belly button ring, the thong is black, holy fucking shit that’s Stacey Hepp.
Stacey Hepp is sending sexy pictures to Seth and I want to know what the fuck that whore is thinking, sending my ex-boyfriend shit like this. I haven’t talked to her much in a couple of years, but we were friends in high school — we had a bunch of the same classes, we used to hang out sometimes. Not best friends, but friends.
Absolutely friends enough that she knows Seth is my ex.
I close the picture, and now my entire body is flushed, hot. I glance in the mirror over the desk and I’m bright pink from my face almost to my nipples, and I look back at the phone, at the text thread I’ve now opened because I guess Seth’s phone isn’t passcode-protected.
Then I stop again, because a few messages earlier is a picture of Seth’s hard dick, his hand gripped around the base.
Tears stab at the backs of my eyeballs. I’m holding my breath and I feel like I’ll pop, but I can’t seem to find the muscles that let me exhale.
Earlier texts. Another half-naked selfie of Stacey.
I’m so hard for you.
Show me.
They’re from Wednesday. Two days before I called.
He was sexting with my former friend last week and I feel like I might throw up. Stacey? What the fuck is he doing with Stacey?
My thumb is shaking as I go back to see all his texts. I’m now fully snooping in Seth’s phone but I do
n’t care, and holy shit I’m right not to care because there are a bunch from his brothers and a few from friends, but once I scroll down it’s all women’s names.
I start opening them and feel like I’ve swallowed a black hole.
Still on for this weekend?
Hey, you up?
I had a really good time last night.
Touched myself and wished it was you.
There are naked pictures, going both ways, though Seth never shows his face. There are logistical time-and-date confirmation texts and there are sexy texts and there are logistical texts that turn sexy and sexy texts that turn logistical.
This isn’t real, I think to myself. There’s some other explanation, like his number got mixed up with someone else’s and he felt bad so he just went along with it, or —
I barely even notice when the bathroom door opens.
“Shower’s free if you need one,” he says, coming back into the room. His towel is knotted so low on his waist that I can nearly see his dick, and I hate myself for noticing that right now.
“Why are Stacey Hepp’s tits on your phone?” I hear myself ask, my voice higher-pitched than usual and shaky.
Seth stops. He looks from me to the phone in my hand, then back at me, his face going hard.
“You went through my phone?” he snaps, half growl, half disbelief.
“Are you fucking her?”
“Give me that.”
He swipes for the phone but I step back, clutch it to my chest.
“Answer me.”
“You just snooped through my goddamn phone, I’m not answering anything.”
I step backward again, the charger pulling out of Seth’s phone with a light snap.
“What about Amber Stremp?” I spit, even as tears well in my eyes. “How about her? She sent an ass picture. You seemed to like it, you sent your cock back.”
Seth says nothing. He just glares at me, jaw clenching, his beautiful blue eyes furious.
“How about Jenna?” I go on. “Is that Jenna Cowles from the grade below us? I always thought she was sweet but apparently she had a real good time with you.”
Liquid spills from one eye, and then the other.
“You really went through my goddamn phone?” he asks, voice low with controlled rage.
“You left it out!” I yelp. I’m suddenly loud and there’s a hysterical edge to my voice, and I try to take a deep breath, hold it back. “You left it out and got texts and one was from that goddamn slut Stacey —"
“That doesn’t mean you can go through it!” he says, his pitch rising to match mine. “You offered to let me charge it, I didn’t know that you were going to go through it.”
“It’s not even locked!”
“I thought the people in my life were trustworthy, not backhanded sneaks,” he says, and steps forward again, hand out, the veins in his forearm practically jumping.
I whisk the phone behind my back.
“Did you fuck Stacey?” I ask.
More tears. My voice is shaking. I bite my lips together, trying to win back some kind of control, but it’s pointless.
“Yes,” he growls. “Give me my goddamn phone.”
The word feels like a punch, right below my sternum. Seth knocks the wind from me without so much as a touch.
“When?” I whisper.
Seth shrugs, the movement cruel in its carelessness, his hand still out for the phone.
“A few weeks ago, maybe? I don’t remember.”
“She sent you her tits today!”
“Then maybe I’m gonna fuck her again tonight.”
Behind my back, I try to snap his phone in half with my bare hands. It doesn’t work.
“What about Jenna?” I demand, naming another girl from the texts. “You fuck her?”
“Yes.”
I’m silent a moment. I thought he’d say no. For some idiot reason, I thought he’d say no.
“Amber Stremp?”
“Yes.”
“Lindsay Colber?”
“Yes.”
“Alexis Minton?”
“Yes.”
That’s five. Five other women and I barely scrolled down, five women in a matter of what — weeks, months?
“Are you kidding me right now?” I ask.
Before I can react, Seth steps in, reaches around me, snatches his phone back.
“Hey!” I shout. “Don’t touch me, don’t you dare fucking touch —"
“Don’t look through my phone!” he shouts, turning away, crossing the hotel room.
Suddenly I feel naked, more naked than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I grab a pillow and hug it in front of myself, so at least he can’t look at my tits while I scream at him.
“Tiffany Finley?” I say, still half-shouting, still out of control.
Seth is facing away, doing something on his phone, doesn’t answer.
“Seth!”
“Yes!”
I squeeze the pillow a little tighter, knuckles white.
“Who else?”
“It’s none of your goddamn business,” he says, turning sideways to me, still looking at his phone.
“Who haven’t you fucked, then?” I snap, nasty and vicious.
Finally, he tosses the phone onto his bed, turns to me, paces forward.
“Your friend Lainey,” he says, bending to grab his boxers from the floor. “Your sisters. Most of our high school teachers. Anyone currently married, though I’m more than happy to fuck a divorcee. Obviously.”
He pulls on his boxers, grabs his jeans, pulls them on.
“You think you’re the first woman coming out of a bad marriage in desperate need of a good hard fuck?” he asks.
I watch him pull on his clothes in stunned silence, teeth clenched against the big, ugly, angry sobs threatening to break free.
“What the fuck?” I finally ask, my voice a frantic, high-pitched whisper. “How could you?”
Seth stops, his shirt in his hands. He looks at me in disbelief. Turns. Takes three steps forward so full of menace that I nearly fall back.
“You got married,” he says.
His voice is pure vitriol, so toxic that I close my eyes.
“So you fucked everyone I kn —”
“You broke up with me,” he says, voice rising, louder but less venomous. “Out of nowhere you broke up with me in the most careless, brutal breakup and then not eight months later you were engaged.”
I say nothing, because there’s nothing to say.
“You said you loved me and then less than a year later you let someone else put a ring on your finger and you married him and now you’re mad that I fucked someone else?”
“Everyone else, apparently,” I say, quietly.
“I’ll fuck whoever I want. You made it pretty clear I’m no concern of yours.”
Seth turns away, his shirt balled in his hands, shakes it out, pulls it over his head. I shift my stance and wipe my eyes on the pillow I’m still holding and then the stickiness between my thighs reminds me of something.
A new spike of horror drives itself through me.
“We just barebacked all fucking weekend,” I say, and my voice is shaking again. “Seth. You goddamn asshole, you’ve been fucking anything that moves and you thought it was okay to just go ahead and —”
“I used condoms with everyone else,” he says.
“That’s not foolproof!” I say, pitch rising again. “You can’t just go fucking people and not say a single goddamn thing before I let you fuck me bare. Jesus, I’m going to have chlamydia and the clap and syphilis —”
“It was your idea!” he shouts. “You’re the one who was all Seth, fuck me ba—"
“I didn’t know everyone in town had taken a ride on your dick!” I shout.
I throw the pillow back on the bed. I’m crying again, still fighting sobs as the hot ugly tears run down my face and I don’t bother getting them off.
“I wrapped it up!”
“I’ve practically had
sex with Stacey now!” I shout, snatching my underwear from the floor.
There’s a brief, tense silence. I find my pants.
“She did beg for it raw,” Seth finally says.
I look up. He’s in the entryway, leaning against the wall, face hard and cruel.
I turn away, button my jeans.
“Always wanted me to spank her while we fucked,” he muses.
“Stop.”
“Tried calling me Daddy once, but I shut that down.”
“Don’t tell me this,” I snap, searching out my bra.
“Amber likes getting tittyfucked,” he says, his voice hard, lethal.
I pull the bra on, reach behind myself to close it and look him in the eye as I do.
“I’m so glad I didn’t marry you,” I say.
It works. He looks away, jaw working, something flickering across his face for a split second.
“Why, so you could get divorced and come crawling back?”
“It’s better than finding out what a whore you are after we said our vows,” I tell him.
I’m still looking him dead in the eyes from across the room. Still crying. Still fighting sobs, but all I want right now is to hurt him so deeply that he never hurts me again.
Seth just snorts.
“Whores get paid,” he says, standing up straight. “I’m free. Bye, Delilah.”
With that, he turns and walks out of the hotel room and leaves me there, half-dressed. To my credit, I don’t open the door and scream at him down the hallway, I just get back into the bed and turn on the TV.
A few days later, I get my first tattoo: the silhouette of a flying bird on one hip.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Seth
Present Day
I wake up unmoored, like I’m floating in time. It could be midnight. It could be five in the morning. All I know is that it’s dark and silent, the room too warm from the fire, light leaking in from the other room.
Delilah’s still next to me, sprawled on her stomach, her face toward me, her hair frizzed around her like an electrical storm. The blankets are kicked down to her waist, and when I sit up, my head spins, and I spend a long time looking at her.