Page 93 of Just (Fake) Married
But a yes fucking rule?
I made myself crazy with my own bullshit. I knew that. Except it felt dangerous to let this relationship between us grow without rules.
Because I could get so used to the way he looked at me at the meeting, that indulgent smile coupled with proud eyes. It was a vicious combination. I could get used to the way his hand felt stretched along the back of the seat in the truck, his fingers toying with my hair.
I could get used to him. To us.
I just had to remember that everything about Ethan was temporary. This marriage was like those days between Christmas and New Year’s when time meant nothing.
My sisters and I would start eating cookies for breakfast and chips for dinner. We had Bailey’s in our coffee every morning and wine every night. We took long naps curled up on the couch watching movies we’d missed, because we’d worked so hard all the other days of the year. But that week was a stretch of time out of time. Calories didn’t count. Showers were voluntary.
We did what felt good.
Then, when it was over, we got right back to our lives. Which I always started with a New Year’s Resolution list.
Which, I’m pretty sure was how I got into this dilemma in the first place.
Weirdly, it was that thing that he’d written on my resolution list – that he would be faithful no matter what - that had cinched it for me. Total fidelity from him no matter what I did.
My ex-boyfriend couldn’t give me that. It’s why he’d dumped me.
So, orgasms and temporary faithfulness?
Why not?
I walked across the dark carpet to his bedroom door. Through the crack beneath it, I could see the flickering light of a fire and I realized it was cold in the hallway. I was still wearingmy winter coat because I’d been in a daze since the moment he’d told me I should go to his room to find out what his rules were.
Ugh. Should I go back and put it in my room? Should I take it off and hide it in the corner? Before I could make up my mind, the door opened and it was Ethan, in the blue and grey flannel shirt he’d worn tonight. His hair rumpled and standing on end. The fire burning behind him.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he murmured, all sly and knowing. I felt like I could combust right at that moment.
“No talking,” I said, and pushed him back, shutting the door behind me.
If he talked, if we talked, this would be real.
I shrugged out of my coat and it dropped, heavily, on the floor. It must have pushed a button in him, because he was on me. His hands on my face, his body against mine, pushing me into the door.
A sudden memory hit me. Us in that pantry back in high school. Him pushing me against the shelves. Feeling real desire for the first time in my life.
He lifted my face and kissed my neck. Sucking, biting kisses that were too much and somehow not enough all at the same time. I went for the buttons on his shirt and he lifted my sweater over my head, sending my hair into static land, but it didn’t matter. He looked at my breasts like a starving man in front of a candy machine.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, running the back of his hand over the tops of my breasts.
“No talking,” I said.
He looked up at me, his face hardened. “No talking, no kissing.”
I nodded.
“What if I tell you to get naked and get on the bed?”
My breath shuddered and it was an explosion of heat in my belly. “That’s…that’s okay.”
“Then do it,” he said. I wanted to ask if he was angry, because he seemed angry, but I’d be breaking my own rules. And maybe I liked him angry?
I toed off my shoes and undid the button and zipper on my jeans, pushing them down my legs. I stepped out of them, nearly tripping, but Ethan caught me. I smiled a little at the embarrassing comedy of it all, but he didn’t smile back.
An electric tension filled me. Something more than desire. More than I’d ever felt, so I didn’t even have a name for it. Something past want.
