AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The young man tapped his left index finger against the knuckles on his right hand. It seemed to be a nervous tic. Webb held his breath and waited, and when the boy finally spoke, he was not disappointed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ladonnaalwaystriedtoplay it cool, but her body betrayed her every time. The sweaty palms, weak knees, trembling fingers—they all told on her, and there was nothing she could do about it. Joe had gotten under her skin.
It had all started months ago. There wasn’t a particular catalyst or event that Ladonna could point to in order to answer the why of it. Therewasno why, not really.
But as for the when: it was a sunny Saturday afternoon when she and Joe saw each other at the gas station of all places, where they struck up a polite conversation. It was the first time they’d ever been alone in the same place and, well, the attraction was palpable.
“How long y’all been married?” Joe had asked.
“Coming up on 20 years. What about you?” she’d replied.
“Sixteen. So y’all happy?”
“Um…I don’t really know how to answer that.”
He'd smiled and said, "You just did.”
There was a donut shop in the plaza, right next door to the convenience store and gas station checkout. The two decided to grab some coffee and talk more, and by the end of the afternoon, they’d already discovered that neither had ever cheated, both were ready to give it a try, and the only question was the logistics of meeting up.
The ease with which they began their affair still stunned Ladonna. She’d always thought affairs built gradually, beginning with a look, then slowly accelerating to a fever pitch until one day, you find yourself at a hotel. Kind of like the metaphorical frog in a pot that doesn’t realize the water is heating up until it’s too late. But with Joe, she just jumped right on in and boiled herself alive.
At first, she would ask herself why she did it, and she could never come up with anything. And then one day she finally figured it out. She cracked the code. It was simple. She wanted to feel wanted. Was it worth it? Only time would tell, but like all addicts, she continued to chase the feeling despite the risks.
Smoking crack would have probably been less dangerous.
But Joe had done everything he could to minimize the danger. The man was disciplined. They had been meeting once a month and no more, no matter how much they wanted it. She had even begged him once in a moment she was not proud of. But that was Joseph Darron Wilkins. Unlike Marcus, he understood the power of self-control. Recklessness is what gets you caught.
His plan was working just as he’d said it would, and she gladly went along with it because she got her reward like clockwork. She was Pavlov’s dog, Joe was the bell, and tonight was the night to let it ring.
Joe met her at the door of the hotel. When she walked in, she saw that the wine had already been poured. She downed her glass and felt a rush of excitement. He looked good. He had just gotten a fresh lineup, and he smelled delicious. He was her weakness. The only weakness. And she was powerless to fight it.
They fell onto the bed and kissed for a while, groping, squeezing, biting and sighing. Joe was like a balm for her soul. Everything else fell away and was replaced by him. All of him. His lips. His shoulders. His arms.Him.
She wasn’t one of those impassioned fools who can’t distinguish between sex and love. At this point, she was too old to pretend she fell in love. She didn’t fall into shit. She spotted it, walked up to it, calculated the distance, and then dove headfirst into it. Luckily for her, she knew how to swim, and the water was fine. Still boiling, but she could handle that.
She hoped she could handle it.
“Turn over,” he said into her ear, and she flipped over with the agility of a fifteen-year-old gymnast. They both called out as their bodies joined, and then he made love to her like it was the first time.
“Which one of us is gonna be the first one to say it?” he asked afterward, one leg hanging off the bed, sheets loosely draped over his bottom half.
“What?” she whispered, satisfied and halfway to sleep.
“Alright, I guess it’ll be me. What’s our endgame here?”
She lifted her head. “Really, Joe? You sound like a woman right now.”
“I’m just trying to be realistic. You know as well as I do that if your husband found out, it would be a double homicide.”
“Then we can’t let him find out.”
“So we just keep going like this, then?”
Ladonna stared at him. “I’m happy with the way things are, yeah. You’re not?”
“I ain’t say all that. Just trying to get a feel for where your head is at.”
