When I look back at my cell, I see there’s a new message.

Did I scare you off?

No. I spilled my wine. Had to take off my clothes.

I could have left that part out, but fuck it. There’s no such thing as a little wrong. Just like there’s no such thing as a little pregnant. I was wrong the moment I replied to the first text message two nights ago. Just as wrong as I was to agree to one night of drunken debauchery. This is wrong. We’re wrong. But I don’t know how to be right. Not anymore.

You’re naked?

I’m in bed.

I’m assuming your husband isn’t home or asleep or you wouldn’t be texting me right now.

He’s working.

So you’re all alone. And naked.

I snort out a laugh, knowing exactly what game he’s playing. Nice try, buddy. He’s trying to unnerve me. Get under my skin, in every way possible. Truth is, it’s working.

Yes. How about you?

Naked? Yes.

Hmmm, interesting.

Alone? No.

I read his response again. And again.

He’s naked, but he’s not alone.

He’s with someone. Right now. And he either just fucked her or is about to fuck her. Shit, he could be fucking her right now as he watches Kevin Spacey lift weights and smoke pot in his garage! All while texting me!

I don’t know why this bothers me, not when I have zero right to feel a damn thing about him. When just this morning, I had my hand wrapped around my husband’s dick, all but begging him to fuck me up against the shower wall. When I’m married to the man of my dreams and he is just some twenty-four-year-old horny kid who would probably fuck a tree hollow if he was drunk and desperate enough.

This should not affect me. This should not hurt me. But dammit, I can’t help the heat that flames my face, leaking into my eyes until it gets too blurry to see the words on the touchscreen of my phone. I can’t control my hands that shake so badly that my fingers go limp, dropping the device in the tangle of sheets swathing my naked body. And I can’t tame the overwhelming nausea that roils my gut, creating a hot, soupy eddy of wine and chocolate.

Clutching my mouth, I run to the bathroom and make it to the toilet just in time. I empty myself of this illness, this frustration. I purge him from my body and my soul. And when I’m finished, I brush my teeth and spit the remnants of Ransom Reed into the sink. I’m done.

I climb back into bed and shut off the television just as Ricky’s dad beats the shit out of him. Poor Ricky. He wasn’t a bad boy or a creep. He was just bored. He was lonely. And loneliness and boredom combined will push you to the most extreme of extremes. All in a quest to find some semblance of normalcy. An inkling of freedom. A glimmer of life.

I think I hear my phone chime somewhere between reality and the fiction of my dreams, but I tune it out. It’s much easier to deal with the truth on this side. I can make it up as I go along.

Chapter Thirteen

T HEN

“Are you sure?”

I look up at Tucker and smile before my fingers drift up to the collar of my white cotton shirt. My fingertips touch the smooth surface of a pearlescent button and free it from its noose. Then another one. And another.

“Wait, Heidi.” Tucker swallows and I watch the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down, pushing through the tightness in his throat. He scrubs the back of his neck nervously and turns his head, yet his eyes are still on me. He can’t not look.

“No,” I say, going for the fourth button. The button that will give him his first view of my bra. “We’ve waited long enough.”

I keep going until my entire shirt is undone, keeping my eyes trained on the man in front me. Showing him that I want this, that I want him. I don’t want there to be a single ounce of doubt in his mind. Because it just doesn’t exist in mine.

I knew that Tucker would be the one I’d give my heart and body to freely. I wouldn’t have to fight him. I wouldn’t have to fear him. Because he knew me. He knew how to love me, how to hold me. He was good and kind and gentle. He was safe.

I let my shirt fall to the floor and stand before him, silently pleading for him to touch me. It only takes him a breath before his hands are on my skin, his fingertips sliding over my collarbones, down through the middle of my chest. I feel the soft bite of his nails rake over my ribs, like he wants to claw his way inside, yet he’s holding back. He doesn’t want to hurt me.

“I’m not going to break,” I whisper, touching the backs of his hands. I press them hard into my skin¸ using every bit of my strength so he can’t pull away. “You can touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

“No. Touch me, Tucker. Feel me.”

I grasp the bottom hem of his shirt and wait for him to lift his arms. He closes his eyes and, with a huff, allows me to shed it from his body. His chest is magnificent. Hard and rippled and broad. A sprinkle of light brown hair trails his pecs and circles his nipples. I taste him and he flinches as my tongue flicks across the sensitive skin. But his hands grasp me harder, fingers digging into my skin, desperate to be inside me. I don’t make him wait any longer. I reach back and unzip my skirt, and hooking my fingers underneath my underwear, I let them join our shirts on the floor.

“I want this,” I reassure him. “I want this so bad.”

Want and longing wage war against the uncertainty and fear on his face, so I take his hands in mine and lead him to my little twin-size bed. Keyanna won’t be home until morning and the door is locked. I’m not letting this rare night alone go to waste.

Naked, I sit on the bed and pull Tucker to stand between my legs. He tries to sit beside me but I refute his efforts by grasping his hips. I take a deep breath. Then another. And I begin to unbuckle his pants.

He’s ready for me, proud and hard and scorching in my palms. I slide my fingers over the satin skin and watch as the thin layer ripples over veins and ridges. I don’t expect it to be darker than the rest of him—almost pink—but then again, I’ve never been this up close to a man before. Boys, yes. But never a man.

I slide my tongue over the tip of him and feel him tremble in my hand. The flavor of salty citrus tingles my lips and I suck more of him to taste more. He smells how he tastes, tangy and spicy, yet there’s a musky undertone. I want more of him in my mouth. I want all of him in my mouth. And I take all that I can, all that he can give.

Tucker’s trembles evolve into jerky movements of his hips, as he begins to thrust in and out of my mouth, keeping time with the suction of my lips. He groans with each stroke, growing longer and harder, and my mouth aches with every greedy suck. I pull back just to catch my breath, but before I can take a single gulp of air, he’s pushing me back onto the bed and spreading my legs. He tastes himself on my lips before his mouth roams the slope of my neck to the small mounds of my breasts. He licks my nipples with rose petal strokes, and continues to paint my skin with his warm, wet venom. I arch into his touch, needing to feel more. He rewards me with a kiss at the top of my pubic bone and spreads me even wider, seeking the damp swell between my thighs.

His fingers follow the path of short blonde hair before whispering across my heated flesh. I moan at the almost-touch, the phantom penetration, hoping to inspire him to go farther. When his fingertip runs along my clit, a shiver runs through me so strong that I feel it at the very tips of my curled toes. He does it again, pressing harder, causing pressure to build inside my womb. I gasp his name and claw at the soft strands of hair that have fallen in his eyes as he studies my sex with wonder in his gaze. Wonder and hunger and an emotion so raw, there isn’t a word for it. But when he presses his tongue against my slickness, I feel its meaning. I feel it become a part of me, digging into my soul like a branding iron. I ingest it, take it within me, and covet it like a sacred jewel. And when it is ready, ripened in madness and beauty, I release it and let it slide down his eager throat, so he can know and taste that feeling too.