Her husband doesn’t want her anymore. The man next door would give up everything to have her.
He squeezes me closer. Moves his hand up and down my bicep. “You’re shivering.”
The driver looks at us in the rearview mirror. “You guys are a cute couple.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Finn arches an eyebrow, pleased—because she thinks we’re together, or because I didn’t correct her? I don’t even want to correct her. I’ve missed the look she’s giving us, the one a woman makes when she’s more envious than jealous. I get it all the time with Nathan. That feeling, coupled with the heater blasting from the front seat, leaves me slightly woozy.
We’re just like actors in a movie, I tell myself. This isn’t real. It doesn’t count. After a few minutes, the urgency to get warm lessens, and the door opens to another less pressing, but still basic need. Because that’s how my arousal feels—essential. The more it’s ignored, the fiercer it grows. I snuggle into his side. All it takes is his hand on my upper thigh to invite an assault of graphic fantasies. Finn shoving me down on the backseat because he can’t control himself anymore. Thrusting his fingers under the hem of my dress to find me ready for him. The lower half of my body aches with sudden demands.
“Some of those photos we just took were for me,” he whispers in my ear. He couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to tease me. My legs are jelly-like. “Does that make you mad?”
I check to see if the driver is paying attention. She must know I’m married. How can something so vital and concrete in my life be hidden? “What if I say yes?” I ask.
“I’ll delete them. If you’re sure it doesn’t . . . turn you on.”
I try not to pant. “Why would it?”
“Imagining me looking at them later.”
I turn my head. Our mouths are a breath apart. One more inch, and they’ll touch. Again. Those lips are the color of sunburnt rock but whisper soft. We’ve done it once. Would one more kiss hurt? I can’t stop the image of him looking at me, my exposed, white throat on his computer, his cock in a firm fist. It should disgust me. It makes my panties damp instead.
“No response necessary,” he says as the car pulls up to the curb. “I can read it on your face.”
Jessica Hawkins grew up between the purple mountains and under the endless sun of Palm Springs, California. She studied international business at Arizona State University and has also lived in Costa Rica and New York City. To her, the most intriguing fiction is forbidden, and that’s what you’ll find in her stories. Currently, she resides wherever her head lands, which is often the unexpected (but warm) keyboard of her trusty MacBook.