Page 123 of The Wright Man

Angelica

I had fucked up.

I wasn't even home yet, but I knew it. Felt it in my bones, in the buzz under my skin that hadn't settled since I peeled myself out of Maleek's arms. My hands were still shaking against the steering wheel, my foot heavy on the gas. Not speeding enough to get pulled over—barely—but faster than I should've been going for someone trying to keep it together.

The way he looked at me…

The way he said my name.

My thighs clenched just remembering it. His voice, that voice, deep and low and sinful—like a warning and a promise all at once—was still echoing in my ears like a goddamn siren song.

And that body.

The feel of his arms wrapped around me. The way his bare chest pressed into mine. The way I could feel every solid inch of him, all muscle and heat and want, pressed right against me like he meant it. Like he wanted me to know exactly what kind of effect I had on him.

And I did. Oh, I knew. Because I felt every bit of him against my stomach—and I didn't move away.

I didn't even want to.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I turned into the driveway and threw the car into park, heart still thudding like I'd just run five miles myself. I sat there for a second, trying to collect myself, trying to pretend that my panties weren't damp, that my nipples weren't still hard, that my body wasn't humming with the memory of Maleek's sweat sinking into my skin.

But pretending didn't stop it.

I slipped inside the house on autopilot. Heard Gavin upstairs in his man cave, yelling at his PlayStation like it owed him money. The sound of his voice only made the ache worse—reminded me that the man I was married to hadn't touched me in over a year. Hadn't looked at me, not really, in even longer.

And now here I was, back pressed against the door like a woman who had already crossed a line in her own head even if her feet hadn't moved yet.

I bolted to the bathroom, stripped down so fast I almost tripped, and cranked the water on full blast—ice cold. I didn't even wait for the temperature to balance. I just stepped in, hoping the shock would do what my willpower couldn't.

Maleek is a friend.

Maleek is just a friend.

You've known him your whole life. That's all this is.

I repeated the lies like a prayer, over and over, as the cold water bit into my skin. But my body wasn't listening. My core was still throbbing, insistent and unapologetic, still clenched around the memory of his heat, his voice, the way his eyes raked over me like he was starving.

You're touch-starved, I told myself. You're sex-starved. That's all this is.

That had to be it, right?

Because I used to love sex. I used to feel alive in my own body, feel sexy, feel seen. And it wasn't that I stopped needing it—I just stopped expecting it. Gavin had gone cold after the miscarriage. Distant. Indifferent. I'd tried to reignite things, at first. Tried lingerie, tried weekends away, tried conversations that always ended in gaslighting and guilt.

Eventually, I stopped trying. But my body? My body hadn't forgotten a damn thing.

And Maleek—Maleek wasn't just any man. He was him. And I'd spent my whole life avoiding the truth of what I felt for him.

The shower wasn't helping.

I turned it off, water still running down my back, hands shaking as I grabbed the silk robe hanging on the door. I wrapped it around me—flimsy, barely-there fabric clinging to my damp skin—and padded barefoot out of the bathroom, hair dripping, mind spinning.

I didn't need another shower.

I needed to recalibrate my vagina.

And I had a perfectly decent husband down the hall.