Page 6 of Naughty Desires

The squeak of brakes startles me. By some miracle, another 401 pulls up beside us. “I have to go,” I say, turning away. “I might actually not get fired today.”

“What’s your favorite flower?” He follows me to the door.

“Roses. Why?”

He gives me a cheeky grin. “Curious.”

I grab the overhead rail as the bus pulls away, wondering why he wanted to know about flowers instead of asking my name.

I tug on the paper wrapped around the package and guilt gnaws at my chest. Dr. Steadman said this was something Chris and I might enjoy—something naughty. Even though I’ve never felt further from Chris than I do now, I can’t open the package alone. Despite everything that has gone on between us, I’m still a two-feet-on-the-ground kind of girl.

With the package and a pair of scissors in my arms, I head back to the dining room. How will he react if I disturb him again? If it’s a set of his and hers toothbrushes or a year’s supply of floss, he’ll probably lose it, although the Chris I used to know would laugh. But so what? Things can’t get worse than they are now, and the thought of opening a mysterious package stokes the fire in me that has been smoldering since this afternoon. Chris might have checked out of the small pleasures of life, but that doesn’t mean I have to check out, too.

“Is that dessert?” he says, as if he hadn’t snapped at me only ten minutes ago, breaking the last straw on this camel’s back. If not for the package, I might have finally walked out the door.

“No.” I place the box on the table in the vast empty space between our two seats. “It was a gift.”

His brow creases in a frown. “It’s not your birthday.”

My stomach twists all over again. Alexis’s husband never remembered her birthday, but even this year, in his darkest days, Chris didn’t forget.

Usually Chris comes up with something creative, but this year he gave me a gift without any of the usual fanfare. No little clues for me to follow to find his hidden present. No crazy experiences he’d arranged for me to try. No rose petal trail to a bath surrounded in candles. No hours celebrating in bed. Instead, he handed me a small cardboard box with a necklace inside. I’m not really a jewelry person, and on the rare occasion I do dress up, I would never wear anything quite as showy as the string of deep red beads he gave me. Although I thanked him and told him it was lovely, the necklace made me wonder if we had grown so far apart that we would never find our way together again.

“Dr. Steadman gave it to us. He said it was something we would enjoy. Together.” I decide against mentioning that he gave us the package because I’d been my usual clumsy self and damaged it. Nothing I do is right anymore, and I don’t want to add to Chris’s litany of complaints.

“Why didn’t he give it to me at his office?”

“It only arrived at the post office this afternoon.”

Chris studies the parcel from his chair. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why us?”

“I don’t know.” I give a noncommittal shrug, although my heart is pounding. This is the longest conversation we’ve had in months, the most engaged Chris has been, save for the front he puts on when we have to attend company parties. “We were busy this afternoon so there wasn’t much time to talk. He picked up his parcels and gave this one to me.”

“It’s damaged.” Chris puts his phone down and comes around the table to stand beside me, pointing at the smashed corner. “Look here. Does he know someone tampered with the box?”

“Yes. He said it would be fine.”

My pulse kicks up a notch as he pulls the package toward him, his long-dormant curiosity piqued by the dentist’s mysterious present. He is so close I can feel the heat of his body, breathe in his scent. If I move an inch to the side, I will feel his skin on mine.

I ache for his touch so much it hurts.

Chris stopped touching me shortly after he was laid off. He lay on his side of the bed and I lay on mine, and every time I tried to cross the barrier between us, he would gently move my hand away, telling me he was tired or ill or not in the mood. Although I never confronted him, I knew the excuses for the lies they were, and I relive them each night when I lie on my side of the bed alone.

“Let’s check it out.” I hand him the scissors and he cuts the twine around the package.

“It’s probably dental supplies,” he says, his gaze flicking to the television.

“He said it was naughty,” I offer, trying not to sound desperate.

“Naughty?” His eyes widen. “What did he mean by that? I’ve heard the rumors. Dan told me about him the other night at the bar.”

Dan is a partner at Revival’s biggest law firm, and the husband of Kylie, who works in admin at the local hospital. They have two boys, who are big into hockey, and she and Alexis are hockey mom besties. After Dr. Steadman moved to town, Kylie encouraged Alexis to visit his office and get her “teeth cleaned.” Unfortunately, despite eating vast quantities of tooth-decay-causing sugar in the weeks before her appointment, all Alexis got was a polish.

Who says small towns are boring? Chris never thought so, which was why he was happy to move back to Revival with me after we got married.

“What did he say?” I almost wish I had Alexis on the phone, because I know she’s going to make me repeat the conversation word for word. She thrives on gossip, especially anything to do with Revival's hottest dentist.

Chris gives an exasperated sigh, but he snips the tape. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“But it had something to do with naughtiness?”

“Actually . . . ” He tears the paper away. “It had to do with kink.”

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