Tears bite his eyes; he hates himself for his wishful thinking: that Ethan and Abigail’s marriage is a farce, a sexless thing that Ethan is trying to escape.
And now he’s gotta find a way to creep back out of here, get away unnoticed.
Abigail is rocking even harder now, her face contorted with pleasure, her moans skidding across the water. Evidently, this woman’sfeminine divinecapacities are in full effect.
Jackson is transfixed. He can’t stop watching, though he knows he should, even as it cracks his heart, but he needs to watch. Not for pleasure—this is not a turn-on to him; it’s torture—but in order to sear this into his brain. That Ethan very much wants to have sex with his wife, is still evidently quite passionate about her. Watching for a sec longer will help him get over it more quickly. This fantasy of him and Ethan.
He’s about to pull his eyes off Abigail when she wrenches Ethan up from the dock to kiss him, clasping the nape of his neck so forcefully, it’s like she’s riding a mechanical bull.
But it’s not Ethan who rises from the dock, straddled by Abigail.
It’s another man.
Long torso, lean back, a shock of short blond hair.
What the hell?
Jackson gasps for air a second time.
Sticking near the pines whose trunks bray in the breeze, he creeps closer to the dock to get a better view.
The pair is locked into a kiss, Abigail writhing faster, her form enveloped by the ropy arms of the man whose body thrashes against hers.
He can hear the man’s grunts, can see his bare ass against the slats, but can’t glimpse his face.
Shit.
He’s gotta get even closer.
He takes advantage of the swell of sound between them, the fury of the pace they’re keeping, and crunches over the carpet of pumpkin-colored pine needles that litter the ground.
As they unlatch their lips, the man turns his head ever so slightly in Jackson’s direction.
And Jackson gasps a third time, so audibly that he slaps his hand over his mouth to quiet himself.
Because he knows the man that Abigail is mounted on, is pleasuring with each jolt of her hips.
It’s Alexander, whose eyes are thankfully screwed shut, his hips continuing to sway as he jolts Abigail into ecstasy, her moan twisting into a full-throated cry.
Whirling around as fast he can, Jackson staggers along the edge of the forest, all but high-fiving the pine branches.
Dueling emotions swirl in his gut, joust in his mind.
First, elation. Because the man fucking Abigail isn’t his Ethan. Because Ethan’s wife is having a torrid affair on him, cheating. Their marriage is, indeed, a farce, the sexless thing that Ethan hinted about. Which means that what he and Ethan shared the other night was real.
The other emotion? Pure horror.
His best friend’s husband is fucking another woman.
And not just some other woman, butthiswoman—Abigail. The very bane of Charleigh’s existence.
How could Alexander do this to Charleigh?
42
Charleigh
“I’m thinking Black Cats, gold sparklers, Roman candles, that sort of thing,” Charleigh says to Jackson over the phone. “Just buy as much as they’ll sell you. I’ll pay you back when you get here.”
