Page 22 of The Satyr Next Door
I lurched upright, panic slicing through the haze. My dress tangled in the sheets, my panties lost under his pillow. My hair was wild, my lips swollen, my thighs aching in ways that would make dinner an exercise in not squirming.
“They can’t see me like this!”
“Bella—” He reached for me, still gloriously naked, eyes soft with understanding. “They’ll only see their mother.”
But I was already scrambling into my clothes.
I made it across the gardens and upstairs in time. I stuffed my wrinkled dress into my hamper, then threw on my robe, clutching it like flimsy armor as I stumbled downstairs, tying the belt with shaking fingers. The bus wheezed to a stop out front. Seconds. I had seconds. The front door banged open. Backpacks hit the floor. Aria froze at the sight of me hovering in the doorway. “Mom? Why are you wearing a robe? It’s like a hundred degrees outside.”
I forced a smile, words tumbling out. “I wasn’t feeling great earlier. Took a shower. About to lie down.”
Her frown shifted to disgust at the magic phrase offemale troubles,and the crisis passed. But guilt clung heavier than therobe. Because I wasn’t just a woman glowing from incredible sex. I was a mother lying to her children, covering the scent of a satyr’s skin and fur with terry cloth and excuses.
And as I stood in the kitchen with dinner still to make and laundry waiting, the afterglow of Cal’s touch tangled with the weight of responsibility. Not shame. Not regret. But fear. Fear of what wanting him might cost me.
Chapter 13
Gina
I thought the guilt would drown me.
Through dinner I played the part. I made a nice, guilt-ridden carbonara with garlic bread from the freezer, nodding and smiling like a woman who had her life under control. I even swapped my bathrobe for leggings and an old Georgetown t-shirt, pulled my sex-tangled hair into a messy knot and hoped it read intentional instead of desperate.
But underneath the costume of normalcy, my body still tingled from Cal's touch. The phantom weight of his hands on my skin, the memory of his mouth traveling paths that made me shift uncomfortably in my kitchen chair. Every nerve ending seemed hyperaware, alive in ways that felt almost indecent sitting across from my children.
“Mom, you’re not listening.” Aria’s voice cut sharply through the haze. “I said I need poster board for my science project. Tomorrow.”
“Right. Poster board.” My smile felt brittle. “What’s the project on again?”
Her look said everything: you’re hopeless. “Ecosystems. I told you last week.”
I had no memory of it. None.
"Of course," I lied smoothly. "We'll get it after school tomorrow."
Luca looked up from where he'd been methodically separating his spaghetti from his sauce, a ritual that usually drove me crazy but tonight barely registered. "Can I go to Jake's house this weekend? His dad's taking us to the Orioles game."
Another thing I should have known about, should have been planning for. "We'll talk about it later, baby."
The guilt was acid in my veins. What kind of mother missed the details of her kids’ lives because she was too busy replaying the ways her neighbor had made her scream his name? What kind of mother lied about being sick to cover whisker burn?
Aria was still talking… something about her lab partner and unfair group assignments, but the words seemed to come from underwater. All I could focus on was the way my thighs ached, a sweet soreness that reminded me of being spread beneath Cal'spowerful body, of the sounds I'd made when he'd taken me apart with infinite patience.
Heat climbed my cheeks. I drank water to cover the tremor in my hands.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Aria’s voice softened with concern. “You look… weird.”
Weird. If only she knew.
“Just tired,” I lied. Another pebble on the pile.
By the time homework was done, dishes washed, bedtime rituals ticked off like items on a list, the stone of deception pressed heavy on my chest. I kissed Aria’s forehead, whispered "ti amo" into Luca’s hair, and retreated to my room, closing the door like it might hold back the flood.
But it couldn’t. Not when my body still hummed with him. Not when I could still feel his reverent hands mapping me like I was worth remembering. Not when every part of me still whispered yes.
I should have been horrified. Instead, I was furious.
Furious at the voice in my head telling me I was selfish. Furious at the years of dutiful sacrifice that had left me invisible. Furious that for the first time in years, I felt alive, I was supposed to feel ashamed.
