Leni
Waking up curled next to Ethan, with his strong arms wrapped around me is like a fever dream, one I’m terrified of shattering with my secret. I know I have to tell him, especially after he said he’ll come with me after graduation, but Dylan’s his son, and I’m a twenty-two-year-old woman he only just met. There’s no contest when it comes to his own flesh and blood versus great sex, even though that’s not all there is between us.
“I can hear you thinking from here,” Ethan murmurs, his gravelly voice thick with sleep. He presses his lips to my temple, squeezing me tighter.
My thighs clench involuntarily, and I mentally curse myself at how much my body craves the things this man does to it. I still can’t wrap my head around any reason his ex-wife would want to leave him.
“Can I…” I hesitate, wanting to bury myself in his arms and hold on to this moment a little longer.
“Can you what, little devil?” Ethan’s fingers skim up and down my arm, eliciting goosebumps in their wakeand causing my brain to short-circuit as I contemplate begging him to bury them deep inside me.
Shaking off the salacious thoughts, I steel my nerves. “Can I read you something I wrote?”
His fingers pause, and I feel him nod. “I’d like that.”
While I reach for the notebook on the bedside table, Ethan shifts until he’s leaning against the headboard. Notebook in hand, warmth spreads through me when he pulls me between his legs, and I settle back against him, my back resting against his chest. I’m dressed in his t-shirt and my panties, while he’s wearing nothing but his tight black boxers. A shiver rolls through me when his hands slip under the hem of his shirt to splay over my stomach.
He rests his chin on my shoulder as I flick to the poem I was working on last night. My biggest fear is that when he hears it, everything from last night, and the plans we spoke about for after graduation, will all shatter like an illusion. I only hope he doesn’t hate me for keeping this secret from him.
Taking a deep breath, I start to read.
“Memory is a mirror
kept face-down on the floor.
I hide from my reflection?—
the invisible bruises of my past,
hidden in old photographs.
The key that should never fit
turns in the lock,
releasing the cacophony
of jumbled chaos.
Pain. Love. Fear.
These walls,
once impenetrable,
begin to crumble.
Fault lines open up like cracks,
shining light on tortured scars.
A kiss, a touch,
a whispered promise.
And still I pretend the walls
don’t breathe his name.
