Page 107 of Untether

No shame.

No regrets.

Her mouth is soft, her lips tear-slicked when I suck on them. I release her wrists so I can cup her jaw. My cashmere-covered elbows hit bubbles and hot water, but I don’t care, because the most captivating woman I have ever met loves me, and everything else is dust.

When I seek out her tongue, her kisses go from tentative to hungry. Then I’m invading her mouth properly, pouring my disbelief and gratitude and adoration and hope into her through the language in which I’m most conversant. She responds in kind, her body arching into me, lips and tongue sliding against mine, hands weaving through my hair.

It’s heaven, this kiss. It’s unconscionable, really, that flesh on flesh can feel so like soaring. But after a few moments I pull away, because it’s time to try out a new language for size.

It’s time to come out with a phrase I’ve never uttered to a woman before, in a language I’m far less fluent in.

I throw myself off the precipice to join her in the exhilaration of this free-fall.

‘I’m in love with you, too,’ I tell her, and I see a thousand fireworks flare in those black eyes of hers at my words.

Is this what it’s like?

Quiet, simple utterances that, when whispered to another human being, can cause planets to shift and suns to rise and stars to burst?

70

AIDA

“Two hearts in love need no words.”

—Milton,Paradise Lost

There’s a tightness, an ache, in my chest at his words, but it’s a good ache, I think. It’s the same ache I get when I check on my sleeping boys at night. When I look down at them and wonder how the hell I got so lucky. When the rush of love is so visceral and terrifying that I have to remind myself all is good.

Nothing’s wrong.

I can lean into this feeling, revel in it.

A thousand reasons to pull back are humming beneath the surface, but they can’t compete with the reality of him, right here. His words. His tone. The way he’s looking at me, the way his face relaxed as he told me he loved me, as if the declaration lightened his entire being. Changed him, somehow.

We stay like that for a moment, silent except for thefaintest lap of water and the sighs of our breaths. This instant is a bubble, as fragile as it is beautiful, and I sense neither of us wants to break it.

There’s a smile dawning on my face, though, at the understanding that Cal is in love with me, that this gorgeous, passionate, vital man who has always struck me as an untameable beast has seen something in me that makes him whole. That his soul recognises my soul.

If that’s not joyful, I don’t know what is.

His smile is breathtaking. ‘Beautiful Aida,’ he whispers, the hand on my jaw sliding around to cup my neck so he can close the gap between us again. His kiss is worshipful and incredulous, as if kissing me now is a totally different experience from before.

I yield to the perfect fusion of our mouths. My body is tired, but my heart is hopeful.

SurelyI love youcan be a new beginning as well as an endgame?

Surely we don’t have to have everything figured out right this second?

I’m not used to acting without all my ducks in the neatest little row, but if Cal and I are doing everything in the wrong order, then my only option is to trust that we can figure this shit out together.

Because we’ve known each other for a matter of weeks.

I’ve been divorced for a matter of months.

He’s spent less than a half hour with the two most important people in my life.

I’m about to release a show where apparently I’m preaching to women that great sex without love is both morally acceptable and highly recommended.

---