Page 71 of High Water

I follow her orders. I don’t dare cross her until she gets to the bottom of whatever she has planned. She waves the letter in my face and then brings it up to her own, pulling it close and holding it far as she feigns attempting to read my chicken-scratch handwriting.

“This is going to be hard to read in the low light. It’s like a funeral home in here. I know surrendering your freedom today was hard, but I don’t know that you have to be quite so dramatic.”

“I think you’re projecting,” I answer before I can stop myself. It’s the wrong thing to say because her eyes go wide, and she takes another swallow before the glass lands back on the desk with a thud. In response, she begins to read the note aloud.

“I still have a bottle of your lotion. I’m sure I shouldn’t admit that. But it keeps me close to you. I can close my eyes and pretend like you’re there with me. I can feel your hands on me again, and I’m transported out of this place and back into our world. Just the two of us and the quiet of the night. I just wish I could be there again.”

I grit my teeth at having my own words from so many years ago read back to me. I sound obsessed. I was. But unfortunately, I still am. Hearing it so blatantly in my own voice when she speaks the words makes me shift in my seat when her eyes turn on me and narrow.

“Yes?”

“Where is it?” she demands.

Oh. Fuck.

I feel the color start to drain from my face.

“Where is what?” I feign ignorance, buying myself time, like I’m confused. I’m not though. The same habit I picked up so many years ago was renewed a few weeks ago when I was in her room, confronting her about our past.

“You know exactly what, thief.” She holds her hand out, and I close my eyes, leaning back over the side of the chair to my bag on the floor. I extract the palm-sized lotion bottle from the outer pocket. The one that I stole from her room the night I confronted her weeks ago and hand it to her. “I couldn’t find this anywhere. I knew I had it when I got out of the shower that night. I was putting it on, and then suddenly, poof. It was nowhere to be found. Then I read this and think, no, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. But guess what went missing from the first night you were in my room?” She points it at me, and then her brow lifts. “Did you use it?”

“I—” I don’t have words. But I can’t let her get the better of me. I clear my throat. “Whatever was necessary under the circumstances.”

“Is that how we’re playing things now? I guess it is the theme of this marriage.” Her eyes lift to the ceiling in contemplation as she repeats my words. “Whatever is necessary under the circumstances.” A smirk forms on her lips, and her eyes return to me. “In that case, unbutton your shirt.”

I’ve shed the suit jacket, but I’m still in the dress slacks and button-down shirt I wore for the ceremony and dinner. I was just contemplating taking them off and getting in the shower. Calling it a night and letting myself be tortured by the fact that my wife was on the other side of the wall. But then she found me instead, and I have a feeling she has a whole other kind of torture in mind.

She gives me a more pointed look before I finally reach for the top button and start to undo them slowly, carefully pulling each pearlescent disk from its home. Her eyes follow my hands, falling from each level down to the next as the shirt starts to gape wider, exposing my skin. I pull it from its tucked position when I get to my belt and then continue my work. She sips her whiskey slowly, letting it play over her tongue before she swallows it down as the last button slips free. Her legs, crossed at the ankles, swing gently back and forth underneath her.

I sweep my shirt to the side. Whatever she wants from me, it’s hers anyway. Her eyes drift over my exposed skin, studying the scars and the lines of the tattoos there for a long pause before she nods down at my belt.

“The belt goes too.” She leans back onto her palms as she gives me an expectant look, and my fingers work the leather out of the loops and unclasp the metal buckle. I lift my hips and pull the belt free, tossing it onto the bed next to her dress.

“You gonna tell me where this is headed, Jones?”

“Jones…” She repeats the nickname I’ve used on her for decades, like she’s still pondering if she’s going to let me get away with calling her that. She grabs the lotion again and rolls it in her palm before looking down at me. “An excavation—of sorts, where you do all the hard work, and I get to analyze the results.”

“Do I get a reward for all this hard work?”

My words earn me a flick of her lashes and pursed lips. But the hard look in her eyes softens, and she uncrosses her legs, slowly spreading them in front of me and exposing acres of creamy skin that I want to run my tongue over in the process.

“Tell you what. You make me wet enough watching you that I soak through these panties, I’ll let you have a taste. But you have to earn it first.”

“Fuck,” I curse under my breath. I was already turned on, but hearing that offer gets me hard as hell. I have to reach down and readjust myself from the way I’m straining against the zipper.

“Let me see. I want to know if it lives up to memory or not.”

“You really know how to set the fucking stakes. You know that?” I ask her as I go for the button on my pants.

“And you only like things when they’re difficult. So I’m just making sure you get what you bargained for with those vows.” She turns the bottle of lotion between her palms as she talks, her eyes following the descent of the zipper. “Now let me see.” She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes bright with an eagerness that sends a flood of warm awareness down my spine. She might be furious with me, but you wouldn’t know it right now.

I pull my cock free from my pants and stroke myself once for good measure. I have no fucking clue what her memory is, or if I’m going to come anywhere close to living up to it. For me, she’s every bit as perfect as she ever was. Better, if I’m honest, because where she still had the hesitations and trappings of a college kid when I left, a sweet streak of naivete and self-consciousness that made her approachable even if she was untouchable, they’ve all but disappeared. She’s stripped down to the studs now. Honest and raw. Unblinking in the pursuit of what she wants and intimidating as fuck. I’m absolutely drunk on it.

“And?” I ask. That’s exactly how gone I am. Because what man asks for the woman who wants to rip his balls off to evaluate his dick. One who can’t think straight. Me.

“Exactly as I remember.”

“No complaints or criticisms?”