“Come here, you,” he said, pulling me into his arms.
I buried my face against his chest. “God, I feel good right now,” I told him.
“I'll take that as a compliment on a job well done,” Eric said smugly. “As it happens, I'm not feeling so bad myself.” He shifted so that he could see his watch and groaned. “I need to get back to Helen's place to pick up Emma. It's already getting late.”
I frowned, wishing he could just stay there with me and cuddle. And maybe go for another round of this. But I knew that he had Emma, and I had to respect that fact. Still, before he left, I wanted to just clarify one thing: “So, was this a one-time thing, or is there a possibility for a repeat performance?”
Eric blinked down at me, his eyes already darkening at the thought, and I could feel his dick twitch against my side. “This was good,” he said hoarsely.
It didn't exactly answer my question, but I didn't want to press him. At least if we were both clear that we wanted to do this again, there was a high probability that it would, in fact, happen again. Especially since I'd see him nearly every day as he came by the daycare to drop off Emma or to pick her up.
I smiled at him. “Good,” I said.
I leaned up to give him one last, chaste kiss on the lips, then watched as he slipped out of bed and started putting his clothes back on. He paused, once he was fully clothed, looking back at me. “Tonight was fun,” he said.
“It was,” I agreed, smiling as I snuggled into the sheets. “Thanks.”
Eric continued to linger, looking like he wanted to say something else, but whatever it was, it stayed there in his head. He raised a hand in farewell and then slipped out, leaving me alone in the bedroom.
I collapsed back against the sheets, thoughts spinning frenetically in my head. I liked Eric, as a person and as a lover. Our date had been fun, and our tumble on the sheets had been even more fun. I didn't think that I had ever been so attracted to anyone as I was to Eric. He had played my body with practiced ease, despite the fact that it had been our first time coupling. I could only imagine how things might be between us if he started to know my preferences, the ways that I responded the best.
I shivered at the very anticipation of that.
Of course, that was implying that we would do this again, and I had no idea what he was thinking. Did it still count as a rebound, if I was the first person that he'd been with since his wife had died? And could he possibly be having regrets about this whole thing?
I swallowed hard, pushing those thoughts out of my mind. We'd just have to see how things went; there was no use worrying about them now, though.
Chapter Eleven
Eric
I tucked Emma into a nest of blankets at Helen's house, feeling mildly guilty about the swell of relief I felt that I wouldn't have to drop her off at the daycare for the second day in a row. And with the weekend beginning the following day, that meant two more days until I had to see Olivia.
I wasn't avoiding her, per se. But I had a lot of thinking to do.
I hadn't been able to get Olivia out of my mind since our date on Wednesday. We'd had fun, and things were so comfortable between us. And the sex had been good. It left me feeling guilty, though, in ways that I hadn't expected. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had never connected with someone quite as deeply as Olivia and I were connecting...not even my former wife.
I had managed to come to terms with the idea that Emily would have wanted me to go out and date someone else. My mourning period didn't have to last for the rest of my life. But that didn't mean she would understand if I went out and replaced her with someone that I cared even more deeply about.
I wondered if maybe the reason why I could care more deeply about Olivia was that I had been hurt in the past. Maybe Emily's death had opened me up to a whole new level of feeling that I could never have expected to experience. Or maybe I now understood how precious every second of a relationship was, not knowing when the other person could be permanently taken away from you.
But no matter how I tried to rationalize things, I couldn't help feeling guilty. I didn't regret what Olivia and I had done the other night. In fact, I was so happy that the other night had happened. But I wasn't ready to face all the consequences of the other night just yet, not before I ha
d a chance to figure some things out in my head.
I left Emma dozing on the sofa and headed out to the front hall before calling Olivia. “Hey Olivia,” I said when she answered the phone. “I'm sorry to say that Emma won't be coming in for daycare again today; she's still running a fever.”
There was a long pause. “Okay,” Olivia finally said, heaving a small sigh. “Look, Dr. Jones, I'm sorry if I did something wrong the other night, but we're going to have to interact at some point, given that you are my mother's physician. You can't avoid me forever.”
“I'm not avoiding you,” I insisted. “Emma is sick, and I wouldn't want her spreading her germs all over town. Besides, it's no trouble for Helen to watch her when really all she's going to do all day is sleep, eat crackers, and maybe watch a little TV.” I ran a hand back through my hair. I was wishing that I’d said goodbye to Helen before starting this call so that I wouldn’t have to have it here in her front hallway where she might overhear. I could only imagine how she might take the news that I had finally gotten over her daughter.
There was another pause. “I knew we should have waited,” Olivia said bitterly.
I blinked, taken aback by her tone of voice. “Did you not enjoy the other night?” I asked.
“Of course I enjoyed it,” Olivia said, sounding frustrated. “God, it was amazing, Eric. You were amazing. You know how good I felt afterward; I made that very clear.”
I smiled a little, remembering her vehemence when she told me that yes, she was okay. “I just need some time to process,” I told her quietly. “It's not that I think we should have waited. Or that I didn't enjoy it because I hope you know that I did. I really did. I just need to process it.”