“Well, in that case I can tell you, Je n’ai plus désiré une femme comme je te désire depuis longtemps. Ça n’est peut-être même jamais arrivé.” He pulls back, studies my reaction as if I’d be able to decode a word of it. “Est-ce totalement fou? Je m’en fiche.”
My brain can’t magically translate the words, but my body seems to know he’s said something wildly intimate.
“Can I ask you something?”
He nods. “Of course.”
“Why won’t you just annul it?”
He twists his mouth to the side, amusement filling his eyes. “Because you wrote it into our wedding vows. We both vowed to stay married until the fall.”
It’s several long seconds before I get over the shock of that. I sure was a bossy little thing. “But it’s not a real marriage,” I whisper, and pretend I don’t see it when he winces a little. “What does that vow mean anyway if we plan to break all the others about ‘until death do us part’?”
He rolls over and sits up at the edge of his bed, his back to me. He curls over, pressing his hands onto his forehead. “I don’t know. I try not to break promises, I suppose. This is all very weird for me; please don’t assume I know what I’m doing just because I’m holding firm on this one point.”
I sit up, crawl over to him, and kiss his shoulder. “It seems I fake-married a really nice guy.”
He laughs, but then stands, moving away from me again. I can sense he needs distance and it pushes a small ache between two of my ribs.
This is it. This is when I should go.
He pulls on his underwear and leans against the closet door, watching me as I get dressed. I pull my panties up my legs, and they’re still wet from me, from his mouth, too, though the wetness feels cold now. Changing my mind, I drop them on the floor and put on my bra and my jersey dress and step into my flip-flops.
Ansel wordlessly hands me his phone and I text myself so he has my number. When I hand it back, we stand, looking at anything but each other for a few painful beats.
I reach for my bag, pulling out gum, but he quickly moves to me, sliding his hands up my neck to cup my face. “Don’t.” He leans close, sucking on my mouth the way he seems to like so much. “You taste like me. I taste like you.” He bends, licking my tongue, my lips, my teeth. “I like this so much. Let it stay, just for a bit.”
His mouth moves lower, down my neck, nibbling at my collarbone, and to where my ni**les press up from beneath my dress. He sucks and licks, pulling them into his mouth until the fabric is soaked. It’s black, so no one but us will know, but I’ll feel the cool press of his kiss even after I walk out of the room.
I want to pull us back to the bed.
But he stands, studying my face for a beat. “Be good, Cerise.”
It occurs to me only now that we’re married, and I would be cheating on my husband if I slept with someone else this summer. But the idea of anyone else getting this man makes something simmer in my belly. I don’t like the thought at all, and I wonder if that’s the same fire I see in his expression.
“You, too,” I tell him.
Chapter SIX
I’M SURE I know what the phrase “weak in the knees” means now because I’m dreading having to get out of my car and use my legs. I’ve been with three people other than Ansel, but even with Luke, sex was never like that. Sex where it’s so wide open and honest that I know even after it’s over—and the heat has dissipated and Ansel isn’t even here beside me anymore—that I would have let him do anything.
It makes me wish I remembered our night in Vegas better. We had hours together then, rather than the paltry cupful of minutes tonight. Because somehow I know it was more honest and free and doubtless than even this was.
The heavy thunk of my car door slamming echoes down our quiet, suburban street. My house looks dark, but it’s too early for them to all be in bed. With the warm summer weather it’s most likely that my family is out on the back patio, having a late dinner.
But once I’m inside, I hear nothing but silence. The house is dark everywhere: in the living room, family room, kitchen. The patio is quiet, every room upstairs deserted. My footsteps slap quietly on the Spanish tile in the bathroom but fall silent as I move along the plush hallway carpet. For some reason I walk into every single room . . . finding no one. In the years since I started college—before I moved my things back into my old bedroom only days ago—I haven’t once been alone in this house, and the realization hits me like a physical shove. Someone is always here when I am: my mother, my father, one of my brothers. How strange that is. Yet now I’ve been given some quiet. It feels like a reprieve. And with this freedom, a current of electricity curls through me.
I could leave without having to confront my father.
I could leave without having to explain anything.
In an impulsive, hot flash, I’m certain this is what I want. I sprint to my room, find my passport, tear off my dress, and pull on clean clothes before hauling the biggest suitcase from the hall closet. I shove everything I can find from my dresser into it, and then practically clear my bathroom counter with a sweep of my arm into my toiletries case. The heavy bag thuds down the stairs behind me, falls over in the hallway as I begin to scribble a note for my family. The lies tumble out, and I struggle to keep from trying to say too much, sounding too manic.
I have an opportunity to go to France for a few weeks! A free ticket, too. I’ll be with a friend of Harlow’s Dad. She owns a small business. I’ll tell you about it later but I’m okay. I’ll call.