When he eventually came up for air after assaulting Steph’s lips, mouth and tongue in the most amazing of ways, she found a response. “I thought we were talking?”
“Of course, but you were too beautiful to resist,” he told her with a bluntness that pulled her up short. Not because shedoubted the sincerity of what he was saying to her, but between his apparent inability to resist her and her own inability to stop him she was going to be seriously compromised professionally if she declined his invitation to be his mistress.
“Jon,” she began, almost in protest.
“Sorry,” he interrupted. “Let’s have dinner, and talk . . . we need to talk.”
The next hourpassed by in a blur of laughter, good food, and easy conversation that made her almost forget the real reason for their dinner, but as the final plates were cleared away and they were left alone to enjoy the sight of the moonlight shimmering from the sky through to its reflection across the softly flickering river, Steph could feel that the moment of truth had arrived.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Steph said as she gazed up at the near full orb of the moon, remembering when she was a little girl and her mother had told her the story of the man who lived in the moon. A hard swallow followed as she wondered what her mother would say about this, about her and what she was considering doing.
“I can’t offer you anything else, darling,” Jon whispered against her neck as his arms wrapped around her middle and he pulled her back against him. “I wish I could . . .”
His voice trailed off.
“You’ve made your position clear,” Steph replied with a curt edge to her voice and fought every instinct and desire to ask why? Why couldn’t he offer her something other than this crude and dirty arrangement?
“Hey,” he whispered, his lips moving to her ear where the sensation of his breath turning cold against her skin only servedto heat her body from the inside out and confuse her even more. “If I could . . .”
“Don’t, please,” she pleaded, already softening into his touch. “Don’t say things. Things that give me false hope. I know what’s on offer here. An affair, nothing more. No emotions nor feelings, sex, just sex.”
“Steph—” he began but she had already cut him off again and spun around to face him, albeit still in his embrace.
“This would be an easy choice if I was slutty Steph. I could take whatever was on offer and bang you into the middle of next week at every opportunity, but I don’t know if I can do that. If I can sleep at night knowing that I am allowing you to betray your wife.”
“Tell me you don’t want to and I will leave you alone, never mention this again and we can form a purely business relationship. I like you, I want you, but I want you to want me too. I could have a dozen mistresses who wouldn’t have any second thoughts, who had no conscience, but I don’t want them. I want you.”
With a shake of her head, Steph was unsure what to say next, but before she had time to deliberate further he continued to speak.
“I won’t lie to you or use my marital status as some kind of weapon to be used against you. I won’t allow the world to view you in a negative light because of me . . .”
“I don’t care what the world thinks,” she said, although she kind of did. “But I care what I think of me and I care what you think of me. By even considering this I can’t help thinking that slutty Steph is who I am when the truth is that I never thought I was her, never truly identified with her, but this . . . shagging you behind your wife’s back makes me sluttier than either of us might have thought I could be.”
Tears were beginning to form in her eyes as she realised that this wasn’t an easy decision, that no matter which way she jumped she wouldn’t be truly happy. She didn’t doubt that if she agreed to the proposed arrangement she would enjoy her time with Jon, but how would that leave her feeling when he went home, when he went back to her, the wife? If she said no, would she always regret what might have been between them?
“The term rock and hard place has never been more apt,” she told him as the first of her tears rolled down her cheek too quickly for him to capture.
“Oh, darling.” He sighed, already pulling her in, to hold her and rock her gently until there was nothing but silence around them.
“I can’t give you an answer, not yet. I want to say yes, I really do, but if I do I need to know that I can live with it. I need to somehow make it acceptable in my mind and if I say no then I need to know that I won’t regret it for the rest of my life.”
Pulling back, Jon gazed down into her eyes that were glimmering with the remains of unshed tears and nodded but was already beginning to hope that her reluctance to simply say no meant that she was going to agree to this, to be his. He knew what he was offering was unfair and inadequate, that she deserved far more, but he really didn’t have any more to give her, couldn’t ever imagine being in a position to offer more. He didn’t want to sell her a sob story or for that story to influence her decision, and the story wasn’t entirely his to tell, not yet. If only he could go back in time and make things different, but he couldn’t, so he’d have to just hope that Steph would be able to make this right in her head because like he’d told her, ‘he always got what he wanted’ and he had never wanted anyone or anything more than he wanted her.
With her hands sliding up to link around his neck allowing her fingers to gently tug at the ends of his hair she told him,“I want you, like I have never wanted anyone in my life. Please don’t think that is the issue here, it’s really not.”
Despite her own objections and confusion of exactly how to proceed and which way her decision would go, Steph pulled Jon’s head towards hers where she allowed her lips to soften against his in a gentle kiss that reassured her that she wasn’t about to be thrown across the dinner table but a kiss that also scared her witless that this was going to be more than sex. That this kiss told her the feelings and emotions she’d told herself couldn’t be involved were already there. This kiss offered affirmation that she wanted him, a promise that she would think about his offer and a realisation that they were both already in too deep.
“I should go,” Steph announced as she broke their kiss.
“Let me take you home,” he suggested but Steph was already at the door.
She shook her head firmly knowing that if he took her home she’d be naked and all over him like a rash before the door had even shut. The realisation that there was no doubt in her mind that he would definitely be coming in forcoffeewas enough for her to continue making her way out through the door.
“Dinner, tomorrow,” he called after her. “Please, we can talk some more after you’ve slept on things.”
“Okay,” Steph agreed but was now running towards the exit, to her car and the safety of her bed, alone, because if that final kiss was any indication, she had already made her decision and as much as the prospect of her and Jon together scared her, it excited her more, but dinner, was safe, kind of, but sleep? She was unlikely to get any as her mind began to whirr with all the possibilities, good and bad of starting an affair.
Eight
