What She Didn't Know (What She 1)

My heart lightened. Charlie and I left there together that day and Charlie stayed for a week. We had one full week of learning one another’s bodies, our likes and dislikes, and I learned how to get her off. I learned how to dominate her in the bedroom without feeling like I’d hurt her. At the end of the week, when she had to leave, I was sorry to see her go. I kissed her goodbye.

“Thank you,” she said.

I nodded, my nose brushing hers. She kissed me, and then she left. She didn’t come and see me for a long time after that. She stayed away so long that I missed her. I wished for her soft skin and her cries of pain. I wished for her to come back, so I could throw her on the bed and pretend to take what wasn’t mine. I wished for her fantasies to come back to me often.

And now, here she was. Mine. Here. For me.

19

I rolled onto my back on the bed, gasping for air. I turned my head to look over at Charlie, a grin stealing across my face, unbidden by me, but there nonetheless.

She chuckled, her chest heaving. “Damn, Mason. I forgot how good that could feel.”

Charlie rolled onto her stomach, and I could see the red handprints I’d left on her ass cheeks. I reached out to massage one, and she gasped. “Easy, Mason. It’s sore.”

That wasn’t the only part of her body that was sore, I’d wager. “You like it sore,” I reminded her. I bent and nibbled the cheek of her ass. Her butt flexed and rippled as she squealed and rolled away. I reached for her, but she scurried across the bed and then walked naked into the bathroom. She didn’t close the door all the way as she stopped to pee, and I listened as she washed her hands.

“Can I ask you something?” I called toward the bathroom as she turned the water off. I lifted the sheets to cover my lower half and rested the back of my head in the palms of my hands.

She came back out and walked, still naked, toward her canvas bag, which was sitting on a luggage rack in the corner of the room. She ignored my question as she rummaged through it for a minute, and then she gave up and picked my t-shirt up from the floor and pulled it over her head. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed it. “I have missed the way you smell, Mason,” she said quietly.

“Next time, don’t stay gone so long,” I said with a smile as I motioned her toward me. She crawled across the bed until she sidled up next to me, and then she leaned against my hip, her knees curled up.

“It was necessary,” she said.

“What was?” I lifted one hand from behind my head and set it on her naked thigh, so I could draw little circles on her skin. Really, I just wanted to be close to her.

“Staying gone so long,” she said. “It was necessary.”

I stopped moving my hand. “Why?”

“You and Lynn,” she said softy, “you have something special, and I was afraid this thing we have going on would mess it up.”

“How could it mess it up?”

She adjusted her legs nervously.

“Tell me,” I coaxed. I needed for someone to tell

me something.

“Lynn’s my best friend,” she said, wincing as the word friend left her lips.

“And she’s my wife,” I reminded her.

“And after that week we spent together, I felt kind of like…” She shook her head and bit her lips together.

“What?”

“I felt like we got too close. That’s all.” She nervously got up and went to dig through her bag again. Then she went to the mini fridge and turned back to me. “Want a beer?”

“Sure.” I noticed she didn’t get one for herself. She got a lemon soda. Charlie could drink with the best of them. “What do you mean, we got too close?”

“I was—” She bit her lips together again and shook her head. “Never mind. It’s foolish.”

“Hey,” I said softly. “It’s not foolish to talk about your feelings. You have to be honest with me.”

“I was falling in love with you,” she rushed to say in one big breath. “I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t what I wanted. It was supposed to be just sex.” She stopped again. “Actually, it wasn’t supposed to be sex at all, but you were there in the house all alone, and Lynn was gone, and you were everything she’d said you were.”