AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It was a real marriage to me, Eliza,” he says. “Every part of it. If anything, it got too real too soon.”
What the hell does he mean? “Well, tell your lawyers that I won’t be needing any alimony,” I say. We never signed a prenuptial agreement, so I know I could really fuck him over if I wanted. But I don’t. I won’t.
“I don’t give a shit about money. I just want to take care of you somehow,” he says, and there’s a hint of affection in his voice.
I shouldn’t, I really shouldn’t, but I erase the distance between us and nod at him. God, am I so pathetically needy that the slightest act of humanity from him gets me going? “Look, we’re here for a few days. Let’s make the most of it, right? Maybe that just means not harping about the past.”
“That sounds good to me. Want to hug it out?” he says, and I accept this small measure of truce, and let him hug me.
Oh, I forgot how nice his embrace is… he holds me and I’m sucked into this vortex of warmth, his chest like a sexy muscly wall. Being plastered against his hard body only makes me feel softer, more womanly if that’s possible. It’s an odd experience, one that no one else has ever given me. It’s like re-acquainting with a part of myself that was missing.
I sigh into his arms, and push in his scent.
There is a satisfaction whenever I finish a design, or nail a contract with a big department store. Little ripples of excitement pop through me, awakening every part of me. The same sensation I feel whenever he holds me like this.
He makes a circular pattern on the small of my back, and I’m sure he means to be soothing, but it turns me on. I haven’t been with anyone since Beck, so any small touch ignites my libido. Especially coming from him. Or if I’m being honest…onlycoming from him.
Sparks of awareness course through me, and I circle my arms around his torso. He kisses the top of my head, and the brief contact of his mouth with my scalp sends tingles all the way to my curling toes.
I should move, end this madness, kill the butterflies taking flight in my stomach.
When he touches my hair, his fingers gliding down my waves, I find it impossible to think straight or manage to do anything that’s adequate.
“Eliza,” he whispers my name with an undercurrent of despair in his voice.
He’s hard.
I swallow. I can feel his erection poking, and a shudder rolls through me. Despite all that he’s done wrong in the end, there was one area he always did right. So very right.
No. I need to be stronger than this. I disengage from him, and step back. “I need to change,” I say more to myself than to him.
“Of course. I’ll sleep on the couch,” he says, pointing at the loveseat across the bed.
I blink, confused. Won’t he be super uncomfortable on that couch? Yes. Yes, he will. I toy with the idea of inviting him to share the bed, with pillows in between us like some silly rom com movie. Then I remember what just happened.
He hugged me.
I hugged him.
He got turned on. And I’m trying super hard not to blur the lines.
I’m doing the right thing, even if my body, and maybe his, want to do the wrong one. Nevertheless, I have to think straight. “Sure, that sounds good.”
5
Beck
“Oh, I am loving this,” Mimi says, gesturing at the open sea in front of us. We’re on the sundeck aft of a mega yacht that she rented for the day. Mimi is sitting on a comfy chair as a few guests play water sports and go down the huge slide into the ocean, and others eat in the buffet inside.
“Turning eighty isn’t that bad after all,” she says.
“You make it seem like a breeze,” I say.
Mimi takes a sip of her margarita and her personal assistant Paula wrinkles her nose, probably chastising her for mixing alcohol with whatever meds she takes daily, but she waves the woman off and shrugs. “I’ll be fine,” Mimi says, fixing her cat eye shaped sunglasses. “I swear I’ll dance on all of your graves.”
“On that note, I’ll get in the water,” I say, and stand.
I go to the edge and jump, ignoring the deck hand who offers me a life jacket. Shit. Mimi’s rebellious streak runs in all of us, and if I’m being honest, my mind has been all over the place since last night.
