The Kiss Thief

I woke up an hour later in a tiny pool of my drool on his shirt. He was still messing with his phone. I glanced at his screen, trying not to move. He was reading an article offline. Probably a document he’d downloaded in advance. I stirred lightly to let him know that I was awake.

“We should head back.”

I took one glance at Artemis, who was sleeping peacefully in her stall, and yawned.

“We should,” I agreed. “But I love it too much here.” Then, without thinking, I tilted my head up and pressed a kiss to his lips. He dropped his phone, taking me in his arms and positioning me with careful precision on his lap to straddle him. I felt immediately more powerful and awake than I had been in weeks, linking my arms around his neck and deepening our kiss. I began to grind against his erection, without even thinking about what I was doing. I wasn’t on the pill yet—never got the chance to book that appointment—and I knew, now more than ever, that our first time was an angry fluke. Wolfe didn’t want children, and I certainly didn’t want to have them without his wishes. Especially not at nineteen. I’d just started school.

“I’m…” I said between kisses, “I…we need a condom. I’m not protected.”

“I’ll pull out.” He kissed his way down my cleavage, opening the buttons of my navy blue polka dot dress. I pulled away, cupping his face, still in awe that I could do so.

“Even I know that’s not a valid form of contraception.”

He grinned, his teeth a row of straight pearly whites. He was excruciatingly beautiful. I didn’t know how I was going to survive it if he took another Emily to his bed in this lifetime. We were no longer two strangers sharing a roof. We were entwined and entangled, connected with invisible strings, each of us trying to pull away, only to create more knots that made us closer. And he was so sophisticated and quick-witted, I didn’t know how I could keep him, even if I wanted to. Dearly.

“Francesca, you’re not going to get pregnant from one time.”

“That’s a myth, and one we can’t believe right now,” I persisted.

It’s not that I didn’t want to become a mother. It’s that I didn’t want to become a mother to an unwanted baby. I still held on to some foolish hope he’d change his mind with time when he realized that we could be happy together. Plus, there was something so horribly degrading about taking that Plan B pill that he had left for me. I felt like he had rejected me and what my body had to offer.

“When’s your period?” he asked. I blinked.

“On the first week of the month.”

“Then you’re fine. You shouldn’t even be ovulating right now.”

“How do you know this?” I laughed, raking my fingers over his chest, frantic for some reason.

“My brother’s wife…” He stopped, a mask of icy difference sliding over his face. He was not supposed to say that. I was not supposed to know that he had a brother, and that the brother had a wife. I blinked at him, desperate for him to continue. He swallowed, put my down carefully, then stood up, offering me his hand.

“You’re right. Let’s go, Nem.”

I took it, knowing we had quite the problem.

He didn’t want to let me in.

And I could no longer purge him out.

In the cabin, Wolfe threw logs into the fireplace while I speared marshmallows onto sticks. I showed him how to make a s’mores train, which is basically a huge, ongoing sandwich of s’mores still on the stick. I taught all my friends in Switzerland how to do it, and some of the parents were livid, sending angry letters to the school’s administrator. They said their daughters gained a lot of weight since I showed them the trick, and that they had to have their fireplaces cleaned on a weekly basis.

“A rebel, then.” He grinned at me. “Could’ve fooled me with your hint of British boarding school accent and impeccable manners.”

“Oh, I was never a rebel,” I said seriously, pushing back the nagging worry that he chose me because I made a well-bred potential first lady. “I mostly stayed out of trouble, though. It was just this incident, and when I accidentally set a teacher’s toupee on fire.” I laughed in Wolfe’s arms, feeling more relaxed and happy than I ever had before. He drew me close to him and kissed me again, a serious kiss, from the variety that told me that the conversational portion of the night was officially over.

He flattened me on my back in front of the fireplace as the fire danced in orange and yellow, giving the room a cozy and romantic air even though it was extravagantly luxurious. The rustic furniture, top-notch appliances, and rich leather, deep brown sofas with the huge, wool throws were a perfect setting to what I so badly wanted to happen. We were on the wooden floor, lying over a knitted rug with Wolfe on top of me. He growled into my mouth and slid his hand into the hem of my panties under my dress, his fingers teasing my opening, and any trace of logic flew out the window. I found myself bucking my groin toward his hand, asking for more as he devoured my neck. Bracing himself on his knees, he opened the front buttons of my dress with his free hand while he still played with my arousal. When he got to the last button, he slid the dress off me, his eyes raking over my body, stripping me from my inhibitions.