Or rather, it does, but not for the reasons he seems to be thinking. It’s more of ahot and botheredsituation.
“It’s not an excuse,” he says.
He reaches for his shirt and pulls it on without looking at me. Grey sweatpants next. Then his sneakers, laced with quick efficient movements. I think about those fingertips squeezing my breasts. Rubbing across my nipples.
Three minutes ago his hands were all over my body and now he can’t even look at me.
“I’m going to go for a run,” he says. “Feel free to get breakfast without me.”
“Okay,” I say quietly.
He stands. At the tent flap, he pauses with his hand on the canvas.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. To the tent flap. To the mountains. To himself as much as to me.
Then he’s gone.
Sitting in the middle of the bed in the cold morning air, I listen to his footsteps on the wooden platform outside, brisk and deliberate, the walk of a man who needs to be somewhere else immediately. Then the shift to gravel, and then nothing.
Just the birds calling out from the trees. Probably calling out for their mates.
I press two fingers to the place on my neck where his mouth was. My pulse is still racing.
I lie back against the pillow and stare at the peak of the tent. That murmuredbabyis still echoing in my ears. My whole body is still humming with heat and frustration.
Three more days of this honeymoon. Three more days, and then we go home and I sleep next door to him for a year.
I’m going to need a way more powerful vibrator.
Chapter 22
Storm's Coming
SLADE
Irun until my lungs burn.
The resort path loops through the pine forest and back along the creek and I run it twice, my breath coming in clouds in the chill October air, my shoulder aching from the jarring of the trail. I don’t slow down.
I run because it’s the only thing I know how to do with the physical energy vibrating inside me from what just happened in that tent.
My wife’s round lush tits beneath my grip. The softness of her skin. The sound she made when I?—
I run faster.
I’ve been in high-pressure situations before. I know how to compartmentalize. I know how to put my feelings in a lockbox and close the lid and carry on.
The box isn’t closing this morning.
Control. I’ve always prided myself on my iron self-control. I’ve spent years honing my body through punishing physicallabor, honing my mind through strict meditation practice. I’ve gone years without indulging in sex or rich food or alcohol or drugs. It wasn’t even hard to resist temptation.
Now resisting temptation seems like the hardest thing I’ve ever done, all because of her. Day one of being married and all that self control has apparently just… vaporized. Even my subconscious is down bad.
By the time I get back to the tent Lila is gone, at breakfast, presumably. I shower and change and stand in the middle of the canvas structure that I put us in like an idiot and look at the bed. Housekeeping has already made it up neat and tidy with fresh sheets.
Like nothing happened.
Because nothing did happen.
