Page 52 of Tempt

Two little words. Easy. Safe. Tell him my current story, tell him my fantasy. Weave a tale that gets him hard and leads to amazing sex.

“I’ve started writing a novel,” I tell him instead. “It’s complicated.”

“All the best stories are.”

“It’s set in Toronto. It’s about love and secrets and pain.”

“I like it already.”

“You like everything I write.”

“That is true.” He squeezes my hand. “Is this book about us?”

My eyelids flutter shut for a second. Big feelings. “Maybe a little. Inspired by, but not directly ripped from the headlines.” I hesitate. “How overwhelming love is. How surprising.”

He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, halfway to my wee little house. My tiny bungalow in my quiet small town.

Sam doesn’t fit here. On this street, in my life. He’s urban and expensive. Modern and polished.

And yet right now, right here… I blink.

I was so excited to see him before that I didn’tseehim.

He’s wearing a new coat. A parka. Big, puffy, sensible. And on his feet are heavy boots. His perfect hair is still perfect, and I know his jeans didn’t come from Walmart. But Sam is dressed for winter in the country.

I didn’t notice.

“You got a new coat,” I say dumbly.

“I want to spend more time here.”

“You said that.”

“Hazel—”

I grab his hand and pull him along. I need to be at home for this conversation. I need to be naked, probably. I’m ill-prepared for full and complete honesty.

Sam doesn’t say anything else. He drops his bag in the hallway to my bedroom, then takes off his coat and boots and puts them next to mine at the front door. Coats hanging together get me all full of feels.

How surprising love is indeed.

I lead him straight to bed.

“I wrote us a story,” I whisper as we undress each other. “About a young woman who is lost in a forest. A dark, forbidden forest. And a woodcutter finds her. She’s scared and wet—it’s been raining. It’s cold. And he brings her back to his cabin.”

There is no simple analogy for love. Nothing I’ve ever put down on the page is an exact match for how Sam makes me feel. But this story is close.

“What does he do to her?” Sam strokes his fingertips over my pretty bra, raising a line of goosebumps on my skin.

“He runs her a hot bath. Tells her to get into it and warm up, but when he leaves the room, she starts to cry.”

Sam turns me around and slides the bra off my skin. “She’s scared?”

I nod. “When he comes back into the washroom, she’s just standing there. Little. Alone. Shivering. So he carefully undresses her, averting his eyes, and helps her into the hot water.”

“Does he wash her back?”

“Not that night. She just sits in the tub until she warms up, and then he dries her off. Dresses her in some of his clothes and tucks her into bed. But the next night, she needs her hair washed. The night after that, she holds his hands as he dries her off.”

---