Page 50 of People Like Us

The cord that had been winding tighter and tighter in my stomach for weeks finally snapped, and I bit into his shoulder as he somehow still moved in slow circles against me with one hand while the other pushed my hair out of my face. I opened my mouth, but no sound left me. I locked eyes with August as my body contracted around his fingers, and saw nothing but awe there.

A long moment passed, filled only by our heavy breathing, before he broke the silence.

“Pretty sure that’s blasphemy,” he said gently in my ear. My hips thrust involuntarily against him, and he let out a soft shushing noise. “It’s okay, Sin. I build temples for you in my mind all the time.”

A sudden alarming thought tugged at my soul then: I didn’t just want August honest anymore.

I wanted him to be mine.

Chapter Nineteen

Ihate when men sweat. I did my best to ignore the feel of it as I splayed my fingers wide in the thick patch of hair at the center of my husband’s chest. My thighs were beginning to burn as I circled my hips against his. I think I’d done the alphabet twice already, and he still hadn’t come.

He was waiting on me, and I knew it. I don’t know why I didn’t just fake it—I’d done it plenty of times. But I felt a strange anger in me that night at the entirety of the male race that wouldn’t allow me to simply arch my back and let out a loud moan just to get it over with.

“Come for me,” he pleaded, breathless. He dug his thumbs into the supple skin that folded over my hip bones, where they used to have a deep indentation, but child bearing and living off soul food for five years had taken that from me.

I was beginning to lose momentum, and I knew my knees would hate me for my stubborn behavior tomorrow. He gripped my hips tighter, pulling me back and forth against him, suddenly doing the work for me.

My husband was handsome. Incredibly so, if you asked the ladies at bible study—which I hadn’t but they’d told me so anyway. So I don’t know what prompted me to close my eyes, and picture August.

Maybe if it had been his younger face, with the scruff he used to get if he skipped shaving a few days; or even the way his body looked back then: not overtly muscular the way Andy’s had been, but lean and toned; it wouldn’t have made me feel guilty for the heat that suddenly pooled between my husband and I.

But instead it was his face as it had been in that damn video. Blonde curls, and laugh lines present at the corners of his mouth and eyes. Those brilliant green eyes. And those god-damned cheeks blushing coral.

A guttural sound escaped me. I can’t imagine what it must have sounded like to my husband—like some wild beast had possessed his wife. It was nothing like the high pitched breathy sounds I had perfected over the years. My vision began to swim, and my chest felt tight as the pleasure wracked through me.

My husband groaned, a near pain-filled sound as he lurched forward, his hands flying up to wrap around the backs of my shoulders, forcing my body to press against his. His hips jerked upward a few times as he came inside me, his breath hot and panting against my neck.

“Fuck,” he breathed out, ragged. “I haven’t seen you come like that in ages,” he smiled widely, so proud of himself.

By the time I got out of the shower, he was asleep. I padded softly out of the bedroom across the hall to the tiny office. I open my laptop, having a flood of fresh thoughts I’d gathered while in the shower that I was begging to be added to the manuscript I’d started earlier.

But when I opened the document I was not met with the story I had been cultivating, but a thick passage repeating the same phrase over and over:

I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest. I want you honest.

It went on for pages, sometimes breaking up formation between single lines, in and out of quotes, and varying lengths of paragraphs. I stared at it for a long time, tracing my fingertip over the screen like I might be able to reach inside and feel the scratch of the words.

It might’ve been the best thing I’d ever written.

Chapter Twenty

My heels clacked together as I swung them from my fingertips, walking on tiptoes through Paul’s yard to make my way back to the party. A high-pitched voice emerged from the shadow covered driveway, startling me.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Emily was leaning against Andy’s vintage truck, her arms crossed over her chest, features pinched.

“I was hooking up with the guy across the street. Have you been waiting on me this whole time? That’s so romantic, Em,” I said dryly, still upset with her about earlier.

She glanced around to make sure there was no one in the yard to hear us, before crossing the lawn and got right in my face. She sneered, “Do you want to ruin your life?”

“High school doesn’t last forever, Emily. We have to get over ourselves at some point,” I said, exhausted.

Her eyes flickered in panic. “Andy is going pre-med next year. If you mess this up now, he’s going to go to college and find someone who deserves him,” she said like it was a threat.

“Yeah? What’s Jack doing next year? Think you’ll finally let him off his leash, or are you going to spend the rest of your life hiding from yourself and force him to do it with you?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment before answering, “It’s not the same for us, and you know it.”