There is a knock at the door of our bedroom and I know it’s my husband come to apologize for being a jerk. For getting upset over something so small. For taking all this way too seriously.
But when I open the door it’s not him on the other side.
Nothing in this world matters more to my husband than this Christmas party. He throws his whole effort into this one yearly tradition. Everyone close to him is thrown under the bus to make it a success, including me.
It’s his best friend come to make sure that I’m okay. He comes in and we talk, and the more we say the closer we get until it’s clear that there is something here. Even if it is so wrong.
It took my husband screaming at me about something minor to get me to storm out of the party to get some air. Going upstairs to my bedroom to clear my head and evaluate why I was doing this. To ask myself whether this man that I had married with worth all this heartache.
When I look into my husband’s best friends eyes I see a love and affection that I haven’t seen for years. I see a man sitting before me who could care for me, who could make me truly happy.
And I see a man who is so much more of a man than my husband. I see a man who is hot and handsome and built. I see a man who could be enough for me.
Not my husband, but a man who can satisfy me.
Excerpt
“Don’t leave me,” I said quietly, “Please don’t leave me alone.”
I know that I was making a choice here. I know that asking him to stay meant only one thing, could mean only one thing.
I was asking Patrick not only to stay but to stay with me. I was asking him to look at me the way he did.
I was asking him to help me betray his best friend and my husband.
Because if he stayed we both knew what would happen and what it would lead to. We both knew the lines we were crossing and the rules we were breaking.
But I needed it. So help me god I needed it. I needed him to need me, to want me.
And I didn’t give a damn about right and wrong.
Patrick looked at me, this time asking me with his pale blue eyes if I was sure. I nodded and pulled him into me, pulling him onto me as we fell back to the bed in each other’s arms.
We were all over each other right from the moment we hit the bed. It was like years of pent up frustration and need were spilling over all at once, like we couldn’t control ourselves.
I felt him breathing on me, his lips connecting with mine. I felt his hands on my hips and running over my body, pulling at me with an eager urgency as we rushed to touch and feel as much of each other as we possibly could.
God, it was glorious to be with him.
To feel him on me and near me. To feel the need within him, the need that had been built up for so long.
Patrick. I couldn’t believe it was Patrick.
Patrick who had always kept me at arm’s length. Patrick who Sam had always spoken of with a bit of disdain. Patrick who I’d always thought hated me but who turned out to have feelings so deep and a loyalty so true that it kept him from what he really wanted.
Thinking back now I realized that I’d never really seen him with another woman. He’d have the occasional date, but he was nowhere near the player that Sam made him out to be.
Was that another lie of Sam’s? Some sort of unconscious protection that he put around himself, to keep me from realizing the man that I wanted and needed was so goddamn close this whole time.