My mind struggled to catch up to what just happened. Not just the fact that I had sex with Lana, but the sheer magnitude of how it felt. Not since Cara had I felt anything even remotely as powerful.
I wasn’t even sure I’d ever felt this way with Cara.
Absently, I stroked Lana’s bare back as we both came down from the high.
My sex life with my wife had been amazing. Spicy and fulfilling. I’d never wished for another partner.
But what just happened with Lana took spicy to another level. Where Cara was more reserved and preferred I lead, Lana took over like a hurricane barreling ashore and whipped us both into a frenzy. The waves of pleasure that hit were like a tsunami that I didn’t see coming.
Slowly, reality returned. Lana pushed back, her hands on my chest. Messy blonde hair framed her face.
My heart clenched. She was beautiful.
“We can move to the bedroom now if you want,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m sleepy.”
I hadn’t been until she brought it up. It was like the mention of sleep reminded my body what it had been through, and suddenly, every muscle fiber I owned felt like it weighed twice my body weight.
I yawned, unable to stop it.
Lana chuckled and got up.
A chill whispered over my skin. I sat forward, using the movement to cover myself with the robe, then picked up my underwear from the floor.
She reached for my crutches and held them out. “Come on. Let’s get some sleep.”
Taking them, I tucked them under my arms, shaking my head when she turned away—still completely naked—and walked toward her bedroom.
I was in deep shit with this one.
After Cara died, it took me three years to spend the night in another woman’s bed. A one-night stand I met at a bar near Fairbanks. Some tourist passing through. It hadn’t been guilt that kept me from doing it again for another year. It had been the piss-poor pleasure I got from it. Sex with someone besides Cara just wasn’t the same.
The next time I hopped into another woman’s bed, I’d had time to think about what happened and to try to make it better. My body craved the intimacy, the release, and I was determined to try to get it right.
That time had been better, but by no means the same. Over the next couple of years, there had been two others and one repeat. I gave in when I couldn’t fight the need for intimacy any longer.
Lana was the first one to actually make mefeelsomething. Something other than physical release.
I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
My crutches creaked as I thudded over the floor behind her. I wasn’t going to fight this tonight, though. The need for the physical connection after what we’d been through overrode any emotional response I had over my feelings for her and for my dead wife.
Lana left the light off as she walked into her bedroom. Outside, the midnight sun still burned in the sky giving just enough light around the edges of her blackout curtains to see the bedframe. She pulled the covers back and slid between the sheets.
I propped my crutches against the wall, took off the silly lavender robe, dropping it and my boxer-briefs on the floor, then got in beside her.
For several moments, we just laid next to each other, saying nothing.
Then she rolled onto her side and put a hand on my chest. I could feel her gaze on my face as she studied me for a bit.
“Tell me about her,” she finally said.
I didn’t have to ask who she meant or how she knew my wife was on my mind. One thing I’d noticed about Lana was her intuitiveness.
“Cara and I grew up together.” I covered her hand with mine. “She was the only girl I ever dated all through high school. We got married almost immediately after graduation and started a life together.”
I played with her fingernails while I let my mind wander, and I talked. “She ran a small homestead store from our property with the meat I hunted and the goats and chickens we raised. She’d never wanted to be anything other than a mom and a homesteader.” I turned my head to look at Lana. “She got the homesteader part, but never the mom part. Two years into our marriage, we were having trouble conceiving, so she went to the doctor. They found a mass in one of her ovaries. When she wentin for surgery, they ended up taking both because the other one ‘looked funny.’” I made quick quotes with my free hand.
“Oh, Toren. I’m sorry.”
