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I sank down next to her on the couch. Just a few inches apart, but it felt like miles. Inside my chest, I could feel the anger swirl and break apart to reveal the real contents of my heart.
I was sad and tired. Just like Elyse.
“It feels pretty goddamn bad,” I finally said after a long moment. “I wanted to love you forever.”
She reached over and placed a cool, long-fingered hand on my big, warm ones. Her ring finger, where my diamond used to rest, was bare. The rings rested on the coffee table in front of me. Mine again, to save or melt down or sell or throw away. It didn’t matter.
“It’s okay to feel bad,” she said. Her thumb gently stroked my knuckles. “I did a shitty thing to you. It makes sense to feel awful. But you’ll heal, and after you do, you’ll find that there is so much more out there for you than this.”
Present day
The night passed in a hazy blur of scorching-hot sex, drugging kisses, and filthy words. Every so often, we dozed off in each other’s arms before one of us would wake the other for more. I fucked her from behind against the window overlooking the city, her tits pressed against the glass as I pulled out, dropped to my knees and finished her with my mouth while fucking her with my tongue.
Later, I woke to find her exploring my still-hard dick with her plush lips, rolling my balls in her fingers as she licked my weeping crown and sucked up and down my hard shaft. I let her play until I couldn’t take it anymore, then donned a condom before dragging her into my lap to bounce her on my cock until we both cried out with another mind-bending release.
She fucked like a goddess, with a pussy like hot silk, and every time I thought she was done, she surprised me and came back for more. My dick hadn’t been that hard since college, and I was thrilled to find out that at forty-seven, I still had what it took to make a younger woman scream.
We finally passed out for real around four in the morning, a tangle of naked arms and legs in the rumpled high thread count bedsheets. I woke up a few hours later, eyes gritty from the late night, and immediately rolled over to reach for her. I wanted to nestle her smaller body against mine, kiss her neck and ask for her name. Her number. If I could see her again. Anything.
But when I stretched an arm out to pull her close, my hand landed on…nothing.
My eyes flipped open, squinting in the morning light that streamed through the parted curtains. I looked over at the mattress next to me. Instead of a warm, sleepy woman’s body, I saw an empty expanse of wrinkled white bedsheet.
Fuck.
The pillow next to me was cool without so much as a dent in it, like she fluffed it to erase all evidence of her presence before she snuck out. I leaned down and inhaled deeply, and my heart beat a little faster when just a hint of her smell—a mix of some floral perfume, sweat and the earthy scent of our sex—wafted into my nose.
Something else caught my attention on the nightstand. A folded piece of paper. I picked it up in two fingers and flipped it open. It was a note on hotel stationery, the handwriting loopy and feminine.
Thanks for a great night, stranger. M.
No number. Not even her full name.
Disappointment clanged through me. I wanted more from her—sleepy morning sex, maybe a shared room service breakfast if she was up for it. Plans for later and getting to know her better.
I folded the note shut again, working the crease with two fingers, then folded it again into a tight square before I rolled out of bed to tuck it into the side pocket of my laptop bag.
Maybe I would throw it away later, maybe not.
Our sex was the most thrilling of my life—years of pent-up frustration, sexual aggression, unspoken needs and loneliness, and she met each one of my demands with shameless joy and desires of her own. During our first explosive fuck, when I watched her fling her hair back and ride my cock like she owned me, I knew that one night wouldneverbe enough. Whether it was a real connection or the thrill of fucking a gorgeous stranger, I wanted to take it all apart and examine each piece, to find out if my feelings were genuine and if we had something worth pursuing.
I thought she felt the same, but obviously, I was wrong.
I padded naked into the bathroom and flipped the shower on to heat up as I used the toilet. Necessary business completed, I leaned into the mirror, turning this way and that to examine the marks that she left behind. Long scratches marred my shoulders, and a delicate bite mark—two perfect little crescents—decorated one of my collarbones. Even my lips looked swollen from the brutal, passionate kisses we shared.
Jesus. I knew I was never going to meet anyone like her again and the thought filled me with regrets, that I hadn’t gotten her name or her number. Clearly, she’d wanted it that way—an illicit one-night stand with a stranger.
The hot shower felt good against my skin, washing away the sweat and stickiness of the night before. I decided to skip shaving when I got out of the shower. My whiskers used to be completely black, but these days, a few more silver hairs poked through—a perfect match to the pale hair at my temples.
I was just pulling a fleece sweater over my head and zipping it up when my phone buzzed from my nightstand. For a single second, I grabbed onto some absurd thread of hope that maybe it was her—maybe she had my number somehow, and she was calling to make plans.
I stepped closer and glanced down at the screen.
CLIVE D CALLING, it said.
Disappointment needled at me. I knew better than to pin my hopes on some kind of improbable romcom-style reunion, but the whole thing stillsucked.
“Hey man,” I said as I connected the call. “How was your flight?”
