Kevin didn’t know the half. He didn’t know that passion had been like lightning between Edward and me. Or that since the divorce I hadn’t missed it—had barelythoughtabout it—until now. Or that by the time Friday ended with a fourth—or was it a fifth or a sixth sighting of Edward Cooper, now calling himself Ned, I was upset enough to confront the man.
I did it that night in my dream. I yelled at him, yelled and screamed, threw the kind of tantrum I had never thrown in my life. I wanted to scare him off, but don’t know if I did. The dream woke me too soon.
And still, when I left work Saturday evening, I might have avoided him if the parking lot hadn’t been surreally dark and rainy, or if the first person approaching me as I dodged puddles hadn’t worn a plastic poncho visibly shielding camera equipment. When Edward came from nowhere with his ball cap dripping, warded off the man and shepherded me to my truck, I was so grateful that when he said, “My place or yours?” I was lost.
“Yours,” I whispered.
“Lock your door.”
I did. Wipers going double-time front and rear, I backed around with care lest the photographer be lurking behind, and waited only until the Jeep Wrangler had done the same before following it out of the lot.
Lostwas putting it mildly. I was insane to be doing this. But I was exhausted after a day of back-to-back appointments, and worn down after a week of fighting the past. I didn’t know what I was looking for, didn’t know what I wanted, didn’t even know whether the simmering inside me was from anger or desire, only that it was there.
My wipers beat at the rain, muting the thud of my heart as we headed north on the Blue before crossing back over the river onto a lesser-used road. His taillights were my guide. When he put on his blinker, I did the same. Our headlights showed a brief sprawl of farmer’s porch, shingled siding and mullioned glass, but all went dark when I pulled in behind him at the side door and shut down the truck.
I had a moment then, literally sixty seconds in which I might have changed my mind. I had been so prudent,soprudent since the accident. My life was about self-control. It was about discipline. Yes, it was about self-deprivation, and my therapist had tried to change that, to no avail. Self-deprivation felt better to me than self-indulgence.
So this was out of character. I felt a flicker of hope that acting now would kill the need, but if that gave me a lofty motive, it was quickly gone. The past was knocking as insistently as Edward’s knuckle on my window, and my body ruled.
He held my gloved hand as we ran through the rain and, once inside, he quickly had me backed against the door. Our mouths fused. His kiss was forceful; so was mine. I was furious to be here doing this, but I truly hadn’t had a choice.
Clothes were in the way. He pushed my hood aside to dig his fingers into the knot of hair at my nape, and, with better traction, kissed me again. Between my wet down jacket and his sodden wool one, though, skin wastoo distant to feel. And I did want to feel. That was all I wanted to do—not think, just feel.
We pulled at clothing, hands tangling at buttons, zippers, and snaps. I’m not sure we were completely undressed when he entered me, but it didn’t matter. I gave a sharp cry. Oh, my body was ready, but it had been nearly five years without this, and the stretching, followed by his incredible fullness was a shock.
He paused only for a rough, “You okay?”
I didn’t answer, just grabbed the facial hair I hadn’t known and pulled his mouth back to mine. I was hungry. I was angry. Too much lately was beyond my control, but here, now, I was taking what I wanted. He might be larger and anatomically able to lift me against the wood with each thrust, but I was the one managing hands and mouths.
I came too quickly, still wanting more as he pinned my body to the door to allow for his own throbbing release. He was barely done when he bodily lifted me and half-walked, half-ran down a hallway, past dark rooms I couldn’t identify to one that had a bed. In the next instant, with sheets against my back, he came down on top and was inside again.
The joining was easier this time but no less startling. I had forgotten what it felt like to be totally possessed, and we both were that, in every sense of the word. I couldn’t touch or taste enough. We fought each other, rolling and shifting, and all the while he pounded into me with a fury I shared.
My release this time was no less fierce. I cried out again, a sound that erupted from some primal place deep inside. His own cry was more guttural but totally familiar. We had always been vocal, Edward and I.
Awareness of what we had just done must have hit him at the same time it hit me, because we fell apart. I assumed his breathing was as heavy as mine, though both were muted by the drum of the rain. Staring at the ceiling, I saw nothing. I turned my head on the pillow. He was looking up, too, but, feeling my gaze, turned to meet it in the dark.
For a few seconds I was bewildered, wondering where I was and howI had come to be here. This was no dream. But it was unreal. I was wide awake and, with each passing second, aware of the fact that the eyes that held mine belonged to my ex-husband, and that little had changed, on this score at least. Despite the hell that had torn us apart, the attraction remained.
That fact infuriated me, but still, yet again, I avoided confrontation. Thinking only that coming here had been a mistake, I rolled away and stumbled up.
“Don’t leave,” he said, half-rising.
“I shouldn’t have come,” I murmured and searched the dark floor for what few of my clothes might be there. Seeing none, I grabbed at the sheet that was bunched at the foot of the bed and held it to my breasts.Leave,my gut cried.Don’t talk.But I was too curious not to ask what I most needed to know.
“Why did you come here?”
He reached for the lamp.
“Don’t.”
He withdrew his hand.
“Why, Edward?” I asked again.
He was on an elbow, in a limbo between sitting and lying. “I needed a change.”
I struggled to process that and remain calm. There were many ways he would know where I lived, not the least being through our divorce lawyer. “But why would you want to be anywhere near me?”
