Strong Enough

I closed my eyes, inhaling and exhaling. Never again. It didn’t matter what the walls had done, because there were more important things at stake than sexual satisfaction. My career. My reputation. My self-image. My relationship with my family. My plans for the future. Allowing myself to be with Maxim that way jeopardized all of that.

I’d told Maxim last night that I didn’t have a dream, but that wasn’t true. My dream was to be normal. To live the kind of life people around me approved of and admired. To be seen as someone who had it all, even if he knew deep down it wasn’t true.

What good had truth ever done me, anyway?

I hadn’t fallen asleep until nearly three o’clock in the morning, so I let myself sleep in, which was rare. Usually I’m up and about pretty early on weekend mornings, getting things done. But today it was almost eleven when I finally got out of bed, and I didn’t even feel all that rested. My head was aching and my mouth was dry. I’d definitely overdone it with the whiskey last night.

I stepped into the shower, trying to plan out exactly how to handle Maxim. Poor guy—he had to be so confused, maybe even angry. I’d been so totally out of line to take advantage of him like that. To use him as a weapon in this fight against myself. He was totally innocent.

Well, not totally.

My blood heated and my dick started to rise as I remembered looking down at him last night. Oh my God, he’d looked so hot with his mouth on me.

No. This is what gets you into trouble. Stop thinking about him that way. Frowning, I went completely still, closed my eyes, and thought about the least sexy thing I could conjure up—my second grade teacher back in Ohio, Sister Mary Ruth, and how she used to call us all liars and snap our hands with rubber bands when she thought she’d caught us fibbing. God sees you lying, she’d say. God sees everything you do.

Thirty seconds later, my body was my own again, and I continued soaping up and wondering what to do. Should I apologize? Should I pretend it hadn’t happened? Should I say I was drunk and don’t remember a thing after dinner? Part of me wanted it to be that easy: What? A blowjob in the kitchen? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

You fucking coward. You can’t do that. At least be man enough to own what you did. Tell him you’re sorry. Tell him you don’t know what came over you. Tell him you’ve never done anything like that before and never will again.

Grimacing, I rinsed off and stood there under the spray for a few more minutes, delaying the inevitable. This would be the most uncomfortable conversation I’d ever had. Fucking brutal. But at the very least, maybe it would deter me from ever giving in to those feelings again.

I got out of the shower, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and brushed my teeth. In the mirror, I noticed my eyes were bloodshot, and the circles beneath them were dark. I put some drops in them, but told myself I deserved to look like shit after what I’d done. Then I took a few deep breaths, pushed my shoulders back, and opened my bedroom door.

The guest room door was open too, but I didn’t hear anything downstairs. Slowly, I made my way down the steps and into the kitchen, bracing myself to find him there.

But he wasn’t. And I saw no evidence that he’d been there at all—no coffee made, no dishes in the sink, no smell of breakfast lingering. Confused, I checked the back hall and noticed his shoes weren’t there. What the fuck? Had he just left? How? He didn’t have a car or any means to get a cab. Had Ellen picked him up? From the corner of my eye, I caught movement in the yard. I pushed open the back door and went outside in my bare feet.

He had lined up my potted plants on the driveway and was standing over them with

the hose.

“Morning,” I said, walking over to him.

“Morning.” He glanced at me but returned his focus to the plants a second later. His expression was unreadable.

I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Sleep okay?”

“Great. You?”

Shrugging, I made some noncommittal answer, something between a grunt and a murmur.

“I think I finally beat the jet lag. I woke up around eight and had all this energy, so I came out here to finish up what I didn’t get to yesterday.”

I surveyed the yard and realized how much he’d done—the beds had been weeded and watered, the roses had been deadheaded and cut back, the patio had been swept. “Wow. Thanks.”

“I enjoyed it.”

I studied him again, my insides tightening. He wore my jeans again, and one of my shirts. He hadn’t shaved since he’d been here, and his stubble was growing in slightly darker than the hair on his head. No gray in sight, of course. And under that shirt I knew his skin was perfectly smooth. Abs perfectly taut. He was so young—and I was old enough to know better. Here I’d lectured him about actions and consequences, and it had been me who’d gotten carried away by my feelings. Who hadn’t thought before he acted. Who sincerely regretted what he’d done, even if it had led to the best orgasm of my life.

Don’t think about that. Do what you came out here to do and move on.

“Maxim, I owe you an apology.”

“No, you don’t.” He didn’t look at me.

“Yeah, I do. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

No reaction.