He takes them and throws them across the room, metal clinking against the hardwood floors. I look up at my escape, wrap my legs around his waist, and sling my arms around his neck.
“Fuck me, Alec.”
Between one heartbeat and the next, my entire life changed.
I no longer know who I am anymore. I used to be me, but that was then, and this is now.
I’ve lost myself completely.
I live in a constant state of quiet despair.
I’m not quite sure how I got here, and I have no idea where I’m going.
I’ve been sleeping with Alec for over a month now. My hunger grows the more I feed it, and I can no longer see a way out of this. I’m at his loft every chance I can get, multiple times a week. If he can only get away from work for fifteen minutes, I take it. In those moments, we fuck each other like rabid animals, fiending for our fix. Alec is inside me more than Landon. He’s always on my skin. He’s always on my mind.
The days I know I won’t see him, I’m anxious and panicky, but he’s still with me because I spend those days texting and talking to him over the phone. Somehow, we always remain connected.
With Landon, I’ve become good at disguising myself. To him, I’m a wife who made one mistake and is doing what I can to fix it. We go to marriage therapy every week, but at this point, it’s a total sham. We talk about ways to build trust and rekindle the flame we lost. We make goals and promises, and when we walk out, we kiss before each getting into our own cars. He goes to work, and I get on my phone to call Alec.
If you asked me if I still love my husband, I couldn’t answer you. How do you know the difference between love and familiarity after thirteen years and two children? But if you asked who it is that beats inside me, it’s Alec. He’s the one that pulls me through to the next day.
But I can’t lose Landon because I can’t do that to my girls. I don’t want my family to be broken. I can’t break their little hearts. So I stay. I stay and I play my part.
To the outsider, Landon and I are on the mends. We fight less, and he’s extending me more trust, all the while, I’m secretly drifting farther away from him.
Our therapist wants us to go on dates every week, but I spend the whole time thinking about what the date would be like if it were Alec that I was with. We talk about future plans, but what if there is no future for us?
My head is all over the place as I wander through this clandestine turmoil, and living these two lives has become so time-consuming that my work is suffering. It’s impossible to get my head in the right space to write. And even if I could, there’s no time between juggling two men and being a mom. I had to ask my editor for an extension, but even with the extra time, I’m so far behind that I doubt I’ll be able to meet the new deadline.
And then there’s Brooke. She knows what’s going on with me and Alec and is beyond appalled. Our interactions have been sour at best, and as of late, she’s been up my ass because she’s drowning in my social media that I haven’t cared enough about to keep up with. I’ve lost track of everything that it’s now too overwhelming, so I avoid it. I can see my world slowly crumbling around me, but it isn’t enough to make me stop.
Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could.
“What are you thinking about?” Alec asks as I lie in his arms, the smell of our sex still lingering in the air.
I tighten my arm that’s draped over him as sadness blooms inside me. Today is a hard day. I’m emotional and clingy and dreading the thought of going back home.
He kisses the top of my head, pulling my naked body closer against his.
“You don’t have to go,” he says.
“I wish it were that easy.”
“Tell me what you want.”
Leaning my head back, I look at him through misty eyes. “I want everything to disappear, everything but you.”
“You know how much I care about you?”
I nod because I can sense it without him even having to tell me.
“I’m crazy about you.”
“Why can’t this be easy?” I weep, and he catches my tears that slip out, wiping them away.
“Nothing good in life is ever easy.”
“Is that what you are?” I ask. “Are you what’s good for me?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Tell me. Tell me what I should be thinking.”
He shifts his body on top of mine, and I love how small he makes me feel when he traps me beneath him.
“I could be good for you,” he says. “You need a man who can make choices for you, a man who will take care of you. You wouldn’t be so lost with me, because I’d never allow you to lose yourself.”
A few more tears fall, and as I feel the strength in his words, he grows hard between my legs.
“Who are you crying for?”
“You.”
He kisses me deeply, and when he pulls back, he tells me, “I love that you cry for me.”
His intensity is my elixir. “Touch me.”
I watch as he cracks a subtle smirk. “I want you to do something for me.” He reaches over to the nightstand, picks up his cell phone, and turns us over so that I’m now on top of him. “I want you to suck my cock.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Film you.”
“Uh-uh,” I say with a shake of my head.
“You know I like to watch, and when you’re not here, I want to have this to watch when I need to get myself off.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded, and when he twitches his eyebrow, challenging me to give in to his request, I abandon my insecurities in an effort to take another step into his world.
“Wrap your sweet little lips around me.”
I slip down between his legs and wrap my fingers around his shaft. The moment I hear the beep that indicates he’s turned on the camera, I drop my head over him. Knowing he’ll be watching this later, I want to make it worthwhile. I take my time, moving my mouth slowly over the silky smooth skin of his thick cock, rolling my tongue over the tip before sliding back down.
“Look at the camera, baby,” he directs, and I do.
I work the length of him while gazing into the lens as he watches me on the screen of his phone. My hand pumps in sync with my mouth as I bob up and down. With my other hand, I stroke my fingers along his perineum, a move he showed me a couple weeks ago.
“Fuck.” He groans loudly when I touch him back there. “Put my balls in your mouth.”
Alec is always unfiltered when telling me what he likes and what turns him on. He encourages me to do the same, but I still find it difficult to be so direct with him.
I continue to jerk him off while I tease him with my tongue. With every lick, his balls tighten, and then, with both my hands pleasuring him, I do as he instructs and take him in my mouth, sucking on him gently. His hips buck, but I don’t relent. He’s powerless in my touch, and I love that I can give this to him.
I watch as he struggles to hold the camera still, his face flushed with desire. He opens his legs wider, and I nuzzle my head deeper between them as I add more pressure to my mouth and finger. When I hear his breathing stagger, I sense that he’s close. Being with him as many times as I have, I’ve come to know his body well and how it reacts, so I move my head and take his cock back into my mouth. It doesn’t take long for him to harden even more against my tongue.
He reaches down with his free hand, and when he twitches in my mouth, he pushes me down on him. His cum shoots down the back of my throat as he holds me locked in place. I grip his thighs with both my hands and swallow all he gives me. His orgasm rages, and I relish his body as it shudders in gratification.
His hand softens on my head, and when I slide my mouth off him, he looks down at me with a smile.
I crawl up into his arms and rest my head on his chest as his heart pounds against my ear. He used to intimidate me when we first started sleeping together, but he’s been able to settle most of my nerves this past
month, and I’ve come to trust him with my body. Sex with him is a whole new experience for me. It’s always different, and he has a way of pushing me and challenging me to explore new things with him.
I’ve never touched a man as intimately as he likes me to touch him. Landon would freak if my finger got as close to his ass as Alec likes mine to get, but Alec is completely free with his body, which helps me be less resistant with mine. I allow him to touch me in places my husband never has. And because of this, I feel closer to Alec than Landon when it comes to sex.
“I want you to watch yourself,” he says, handing me his phone. “I want you to see what I see.”
I hit play, and we both watch what just happened between us. I don’t recognize the girl in the video who’s giving a blow job to a man she isn’t married to. This woman is nothing like me, but at the same time, she is me. I never would’ve found her if it weren’t for Alec helping me discover her. She turns me on as I watch. I never knew I could be so confident to allow myself to be filmed, but that’s the power of Alec. I’d do almost anything if he asked me.
When the video ends, he tosses the phone aside.
“How do you feel watching that?”
“Surprised,” I admit. “That girl doesn’t feel like me.”
“She is you,” he affirms.
We spend the short time we have left with each other cuddling in bed. We don’t speak as Alec runs his hands through my hair while I graze my fingers lazily along his naked body. With my eyes closed, I allow myself to pretend this isn’t wrong. That it’s Alec I belong to, and I don’t have to rush home. I wonder what life would be like if that were the case. Would he still be as exciting? Would I still feel the thrill every time we were together?
It doesn’t matter though, because I’m not his—I belong to someone else.
“When can I see you again?” he questions as I pull my clothes on.
“I have a signing this weekend and won’t be back until Tuesday.”
“Is this the New York trip you told me about?”
“Yes.”
Alec throws on a pair of pants and then follows me into the bathroom. While I touch up my makeup, he leans against the doorjamb and watches.
“What if I went with you?”
My eyes dart to him in the reflection of the mirror. “What?”
“You go to these things alone, right?”
I turn to face him. “If you’re asking if Landon comes, the answer is no. But Brooke, my assistant will be with me.”
“What if I got us a room of our own?”
“People know I’m married,” I tell him. “What if someone saw us?”
“I’ll get a room at a different hotel. You don’t have to stay where the signing is, do you?”
I shake my head. “But what about Brooke?”
“She already knows about me.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t approve of you or what I’m doing with you. I can’t ditch her like that.”
“You can’t or you won’t.” He steps over to me, backing me up against the sink with both his hands braced next to me on the counter. “Friday through Tuesday, you could be all mine. No running off to get home to your husband. No sneaking around,” he says. “We never leave this loft for fear someone will see us, but in New York, we’d be boundless.”
His offer is everything I’ve been wanting with him—total freedom.
“You’d seriously come?”
“I’d seriously come,” he affirms.
I feel like the worst friend for what I’m about to do. Brooke and I are about to takeoff to New York, and she still doesn’t know that I won’t be staying with her. It’s been weighing on my shoulders, but I need to cover my tracks. If I told her before we got on this plane, she would’ve refused to come. If that happened, it would have gotten back to Landon through her husband that she wasn’t with me. Questions would’ve been asked, and I’d be up shit creek.
So I kept my mouth shut, until right now.
I look over to Brooke, who’s flipping through a magazine, and when the plane departs from the gate, I’m already hating myself.
“I need to talk to you about something.” My apprehensive voice strikes her attention. “I know you’re going to be pissed, but please—”
“Is everything okay?” she questions, closing her magazine.
There’s no right way to drop this bomb, and with my gut twisted in knots, I decide to just tell her straight up—rip off the Band-Aid.
“Alec’s coming to New York, and I agreed to stay with him.” I brace for her reaction as she glares daggers at me. “Please, don’t hate me. Be mad, but don’t hate me, Brooke.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she seethes under her breath.
And I am. I’m completely out of my mind.
“He offered to come, and I couldn’t say no.”
“Yes, you could’ve, but instead, you decided to ditch me. Do you even know how much I was looking forward to this trip? I wanted to spend this time with you before the baby comes.”
“I know. I’m sorry. We can still hang out.”
She turns away from me and stares out the window. I keep my mouth shut, not wanting to upset her more. The plane races down the runway, and when we lift off the ground, I become acutely aware that this trip might forever change our friendship.
“Brooke, please say something.”
It takes her a moment, but she eventually turns to me and, with an accusing tone, asks, “What is it about this guy that’s worth hurting the ones who love you?”
“That’s the thing though—I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“But you are. You’re corrosive to everyone but him.”
Her words are truth. I hate coming face to face with the reality of my actions. It’s too much responsibility for me to bear, and it only makes me want Alec more because he’s the one that can make all the despair in my world disappear.
“How much longer do you plan on carrying out this affair? When does this end for you?”
“The truth?”
“I think I deserve it,” she responds.
“I can’t even imagine walking away at this point. I want to cry every time I leave him to go back home.”
“And Landon?”
“He has no idea.”
She shakes her head at me. “I don’t want to judge you, but you’re making it very difficult.”
“I just want to be happy, but it’s a lose-lose situation. If I leave Landon, then I lose the girls and crush their world. And if I leave Alec, I’ll be miserable without him.”
“Eventually you’re going to have to make a choice or else the choice will be made for you when Landon finds out. And he will find out sooner or later.”
I already know this, but it’s easier to live in denial, so I do.
“Why do you even want to be with a guy who’s okay with this whole situation? It doesn’t say a lot about his character, Tor.”
“It’s complicated,” I tell her. I feel like I understand Alec’s position in this equation, but I don’t know how to go about defending him.
“That’s your excuse for everything these days.” She opens her magazine back up, saying, “I’m done talking.”
There’s nothing I can say to excuse my behavior—it’s inexcusable—everything I’m doing is. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to justify myself. It’s human nature to do what you can to reason with yourself that there’s a purpose to the things you do, but I’ve yet to resolve what the purpose of all this is. And until I find that reason, it’s impossible for me to rationalize this to make sense out of it all. I’m trapped in my self-created labyrinth of lies and betrayals.
When the plane touches down a short hour later, Brooke has yet to talk to me. She’s pissed, and rightfully so. We extended the stay of this New York trip because she’s now almost four months pregnant and she wanted to have a girls’ getaway before she has the baby. I keep telling myself it’ll be okay and that I can figure out a way to make this up t
o her. I know the right thing to do here, but I can’t do it. I can’t walk away from my drug of choice when he’s down in baggage claim waiting to take me on the bender of a lifetime. My skin is already tingling in anticipation.
As soon as we deplane and head through the airport to the luggage carousel, my heart begins to skip beats. Brooke remains silent with me. She just needs time to cool down, but I fuel her fire when she sees me smiling the moment I catch sight of Alec waiting for me.
I want to run to him, jump in his arms, and kiss him, but I don’t.
It’s an awkward situation with Brooke here. She wants nothing to do with Alec—her loyalty is with Landon. She’s known him since the first day I met him, and the two of them have always had a special friendship because of their shared love for me.
Brooke takes notice of Alec and veers away from us to wait on the luggage when he approaches me. He moves with caution, and out of respect for my friend, refrains from touching me.
Alec senses the tension. “Are you okay?”
“She’s hurt.”
His eyes boast concern for me and my feelings rather than hers.
After he helps me with my bags, he excuses himself to go outside and get us a cab, leaving me alone with Brooke.
“So, you’re just gonna go with him?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re fucking unbelievable,” she fumes as she storms off.
“Brooke.” I call out for her, but she refuses to acknowledge me, walking out to catch the hotel shuttle bus.
With Alec waiting on me, I let Brooke go and make my way to the taxis. He’s already loading the luggage when I spot him. I approach, and he opens the door for me, and once we get in and the cabbie starts to drive, Alec takes my face in his hands and kisses me. Despite the brick of disloyalty in my stomach, I open up to him—a kiss so deep, our souls fuck. He’s my heart’s emollient, taking away my stress in a split second. With my marriage in shambles, Alec has become the place where my soul can cocoon itself to find comfort and solace. He keeps me whole—free from falling apart.
Sliding my tongue along his, I taste the freedom we’ve been deprived of, but now it’s ours to do with as we wish.