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Good sex is a gift; everyone should experience it. Is there anything that is more natural and more important in life than the body’s ability to pleasure another?
I see her face again as she fell apart, her eyes rolled back in her head, her mouth clamped shut, her nipples hard beads thrust forward, her skin goosed all over...and an animalistic surge of power throbs through me.
I did that to her.
And I’m going to do it again.
* * *
I don’t know if I expected to hear from him. I know he knows how to email me. I know he has my number. And as Sunday bleeds into Monday, which gives way to Tuesday, I have to face the fact that perhaps he is choosing not to contact me.
I have always been analytical, perhaps too much so, and in the last three days I have found myself going over every single detail of our time together, reliving his words, touch, mood. I wonder at the way we came together, at the euphoric sense of heaven that overtook me, and the way I stole out of his home.
By Thursday, I am contemplating calling him. Worrying for him. Wondering if he is okay. It is absurd and stupid and I have learned not to let a man weaken me—I am not who I was five, six, seven years ago.
If Noah doesn’t want to call me, if all he wanted was one night with me, then it is better to learn that truth now than in a year’s time. Right?
I tell myself I am grateful that it only got this far, and I congratulate myself for the escape from possible disaster. I focus on what is right in front of me, and what matters. I concentrate on Christmas and Ivy and the fact she’s asked me about her father for the first time in her life—this is a day I have dreaded. I have no ready-made answer to respond to her question. I don’t know how to discuss Aaron with her.
Old-fashioned platitudes, like We both love you very much, but we were better living apart, don’t seem to apply here, seeing as he tried to kill me when I was pregnant with her.
Instead, I focus on the fact her father is a beautiful musician and put on one of his CDs for her to listen to, even though it sends shivers of panic rioting through my body.
I hate his music.
I hate him.
On Friday afternoon, it has been a week since I saw Noah Moore. My heart drops at the thought that it’s simply the first of many weeks I must tick off in this fashion. I know from experience that it will get easier—that I will become more adept at sidestepping this ache of need.
Besides, I took a step out of my comfort zone and I’m glad for that. I’m glad to have slept with him. I walked into it with my eyes wide open and I got what I wanted.
As if on cue, heat floods my body and my nipples tingle with remembered pleasure. I smile.
It was an incredible night. Morning. Whatever.
I tidy my desk, sort my files, answer emails and, near seven o’clock, I go to close my computer down. Out of nowhere, in my mind I see Noah. I see him as he was—so beautiful, so strong, so handsome, so mysterious. I remember the tattoo on his shoulder, the one that frightened me and weakened my knees and stirred my gut all at once.
What had he called it?
Malingee?
I can’t do justice to the way he pronounced it, but it was something like that.
I open a browser and type Malernguy into the computer. I get a Danish computer company. That’s not right. I try three more variations on spelling before I hit on something that sounds close enough.
Malingee: an Australian Aboriginal spirit, both nocturnal and malignant, that terrified humans. While it didn’t seek to engage them, it would ruthlessly slay any who crossed its path, using its stone dagger to kill. A terrifying spectre.
A frisson starts at the base of my skull, tingling and pulsing and running down my spine like wildfire, spreading unease and doubts anew.
Why would Noah have this tattoo on his shoulder?
Dozens of new questions open up inside me. There is so much about him I don’t know—so much I will never know, if last week was the end for us.
The thought is like a detonation and it fires me to stand. I shut my computer down and grab my bag, locking up my office.
I am reminded then of closing Noah’s door as I left his apartment—and I wish I could go back in time and stay, as I had contemplated. I wish I hadn’t left.
I want him—all the more because I have felt him move inside me and the reality outstripped every single one of my fantasies.
