Page 33 of Yearning

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“Yes, something is wrong, and it’s you,” she said.

“I…” He could well accept this. “I am ever so sorry.”

“Oh, do not be that way. It is not even your fault.”

“You have even now just said it was.”

“No, no,” she said. “It is not anything you have done, it is simply that I think of you now. I think of you when I should not.”

“As it happens, I think of you when I should not,” he said darkly.

“Oh, no, you do not know of what I speak,” she muttered. “And I am in this hallway because I cannot look at my husband right now, and he has fallen asleep in my bed, and I had to… I know not. I could not be there.”

He suddenly understood exactly what she was saying, and he swallowed as he gazed up at her. His sorry excuse for a prick pulsed again. It was not erect. It would not get erect this way, not without manual stimulation and not so soon after he’d come. But he was incredibly aroused in a way that seemed to overtake his entire being. He coughed, dragging his teeth over his bottom lip. “I see.”

Her eyes widened in something like horror. “You do know of what I speak.”

“I… your husband is asleep in your bed? It is not entirely difficult to put that together.” He sank his teeth into his lip and released them. “You must be thinking of me before, I suppose.”

“I do not know,” she said. “Your countenance now that your jaw is… well, I like it.”

He swallowed again.

And then it was quiet.

He sucked in a breath and then he began speaking. “I think it is all right, Lizzy. I think everyone does it.”

“Does what?” she said.

“Think about things other than the person they are in bed with, I mean,” he said. “I think it’s common. Especially if you’re trying to, erm, you know, get there.”

She was shocked for a moment, and then she snickered. “I cannot believe we are talking like this.”

“Can you not? We would have talked of everything,” he said. “We would have shared everything. If everything had been different, even now, you would have been fantasizing about some young man you danced with at a ball whilst I was huffing over you, and you would not have been able to tell me. Or perhaps about Richard.” He smirked.

“No!” She swatted his arm, not hard, but with real ire. “You take that back. You cannot say such things to me.”

“I’m sure your husband does not always have you on his mind in the moment he is tipping over the edge, that is all I am saying. You need not feel so ashamed of yourself. It’s all right. And besides, he’s wretchedly old.”

“I am going to hit you again,” she said, sighing. But now she was smiling. “I do not know why that makes me feel better, but it does.”

“Good,” he said.

They held each other’s gazes for a time.

She looked back out the window. “Did you have many women in your bed before… before you could not?”

He sucked in another breath, not having expected that question.

“Oh, come now, if everything had been different, you would not have been able to tell me. But as it happens, it will not hurt me now. I am come to you now from another man’s bed. It will balance things between us, perhaps?”

Perhaps. “Not many,” he said.

“Which is to say… how many?” She gave him an impish smile.

“Three,” he said. “There was a childish dalliance—well, I was a child, she was older than me, an actress. We practically lived together while I was at university, but she eventually was done with me and moved on to handsomer, richer boys.”