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Sylvie shook her head. “TMI, Alice. TMI.”
“Told you you’re a dirty perv.” Marge snorted.
“A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. I haven’t been away from Alejandro this long since we got married. It’s not natural going this long without a hootie.”
I looked at Doris and she blushed a deep crimson and sucked farther back into her chair cocoon.
“Oh, come on. Admit it, Doris. You’re missing Axel too.”
Doris peeked out from the dome of her wicker chair. “Oh, I do. I really do.”
“Okay. We’re doing it again. We’re focusing on our spouses and not on ourselves. Enough about the spouses back home,” Sylvie said, pointing a finger at us all. “We’re spending our trip with half of our minds back home. Let’s all refocus back to here and to each other. We’re in Africa!”
She opened her arms and gestured around us.
“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed. “Let’s stop talking about the spouses and talk more about what we have planned for this part of our adventure.”
The four of us got jabbering about the boat ride the next day and the safari trip planned for the following until Ndungu came and escorted us down to the beautiful, private, candlelit dinner on the floating dock. It felt like a magical fairytale meal as I sat with my three best friends, laughing and talking beneath the dark African sky.
When our delicious, coursed dinner was finished, we made our way back to our rooms. After bidding the other ladies goodnight, I climbed out of my clothes and into the empty bed. My hands drifted over the soft sheets where Alejandro would normally lay. Every inch of my body missed him.
My lips. My skin. My soul.
As much as I longed for his presence beside me, another part of me started filling up with a new emotion he’d never inspired in me before.
Rage.
As I lay alone in that bed feeling desperate and longing for his presence, I raged against the need in me he’d created ... a need I’d never had before. In the past, I’d never needed a man for my happiness. They were simply icing on an already fabulous cake. I couldn’t have cared less if Ed slept beside me or not, and after he’d died, I’d filled my bed with a lengthy list of lovers I’d enjoyed, but I hadn’tneeded.When I’d slept alone in the past, I hadn’t felt sad about it. I had chosen to be alone that night, and I’d enjoyed spending time with myself.
Tonight, I didn’t want to be alone, and because of the ring around my finger, I had no choice but to endure the empty feeling I couldn’t fill with a hot tryst.
I looked over at the empty pillow, and that pang of longing deepened.
Then my irritation about the longing itself caused me to glare at the innocent pillow, and I gave it a little smack.
“Ugh.” I rolled over, turning my back toward it and hoping it would stop taunting me.
It didn’t work.
I rolled over, grabbed the pillow, and wrapped myself around it pretending it was him, missing him so much I had to fight the tears as I clung to the Egyptian cotton. We’d never spent this many nights apart since we’d been married. I ached for him.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder,I consoled myself. But at this rate, I didn’t think I could be any fonder of my love. I had made it over seven decades of my life never really needing anyone else, and now I needed Alejandro so badly I could barely breathe without him. I’d been married for years, but I’d neverneededEd. He’d been a good provider and husband, but that was the extent of it. With Alejandro, I loved him straight down to the center of my being ... a love I never dreamed existed. Something I had thought was a fairytale made up by idiots turned out to be real.
Love.
It was infuriating, and yet I was so grateful for this new feeling he inspired in me that it caused a dizzying blend of emotions.
Excitement about my love for him and his love for me.
Anger about feeling so helpless without him.
Trapped. I felt trapped. I had a need to be filled and I wasn’t free to grab Ndungu and drag him back to my lair to have my way with him and find out if his lips tasted as good as they looked ... something I’d have found out already if I wasn’t married.
Guilt assaulted me for even thinking about another man. It wasn’t that I wanted to cheat. I didn’t. I would never betray Alejandro that way .... betray myself that way. I was too powerful to give in to a fleeting need to fill the space beside me. It was just that I hated it was no longer an option for me. And without him here to scratch all my itches, they seemed to itch so badly I wanted to tear off my skin.
That trapped feeling resurfaced again in the dizzying blend of emotions that erupted in me each night I went to bed alone on this trip. Each night away they only seemed to worsen. And tonight, in this beautiful, romantic place, I lay here with no husband to hold me and a ring on my finger stopping me from finding someone else. Stopping me from indulging in that thrill of a first kiss ... a first touch ... the excitement of melting into someone completely new. There was nothing like that feeling of the unknown, and as I struggled to quell the growing urges, I swore I would explode.
“Ugh!” I flopped over again, tossing the pillow to the side. “I hate this.”
