Page 34 of Bed and Breakup (Dial Delights #15)

Robin

I grab a washcloth, towel, and soap from a storage closet on the second floor and hop in the shower before the first droplets even hit the tile.

I spent my first few weeks here telling myself I didn’t really want to have sex with Molly.

It was just my brain repeating old patterns.

Then, after the kiss at One More Round, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.

But now, with what just happened in the Lily Room, knowing Molly wants this as much as I do, I’ve never been so ready.

I shower with furious speed, scrubbing at dried paint until my skin is its own shade of irritated pink.

Then, buck-ass naked because I forgot a change of clothes, I race upstairs to the attic.

True to my word, I beat Molly. I hear the water running in the penthouse bathroom.

I’m left alone long enough to wonder whether I should crawl into bed naked or put something on.

Which is less weird? Or is it weird either way, sleeping with my ex-wife who isn’t my ex-wife, with whom I’ve been sharing a bed for almost a week?

I’m still indecisively standing at the door of the closet when Molly emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in a teal silk robe that matches the streaks in her damp hair.

We both turn and lock eyes, and all my awkward feelings melt away.

There it is again, that indescribable energy pulling us together, the one I’ve been trying so hard to ignore.

I watch Molly watch me, feel her gaze like a caress moving from my dripping hair to my parted lips to the hollow at the base of my throat to my heaving chest to where my thighs meet to where my feet are planted on the wooden floor, then back up again.

She strides over to me and runs a hand down the center of my chest. Her touch is so gentle that I could almost be convinced I’m daydreaming.

Her fingers pause at a crooked scar to the right of my navel.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Old burn. Knocked a saucepan off the stove and caught it with my stomach.”

Molly winces. “Ouch.”

“I survived. And saved the sauce.” I brush my thumb across Molly’s jaw, then trail my hand down to the sash tying her robe closed. She’s had the chance to see how my body has changed in the last seven years, how I’ve settled into my own skin. I’m dying for the same opportunity. “Can I?”

She nods, and with one tug, the robe slips off of her dewy body and pools like water around her feet. I stare for a moment, frozen by the perfect shape of her, not quite the same as it was before, but still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“What?”

I shake my head. “You’re breathtaking, Molly.”

A blush rises behind her constellations of freckles. I trace the edges of flower petals tattooed below her clavicle. “The peonies and wisteria—you didn’t have those before, right?”

“I got them while I was living in Birmingham.”

My fingers venture around the sides of her breasts to find the familiar sunflowers on her rib cage, her nipples responding to my touch by coming to irresistible peaks. I follow the honeycomb and bees across her hips and down to the stained-glass pattern on her upper thighs. “And these?”

“Started them in Memphis. Added more in St. Louis and New Orleans.”

I get down on my knees to better inspect them, following the geometric lines with my thumb. “From windows you created?”

“Yes.” Her legs quiver as my fingers travel to her inner thighs.

Eager to make her tremble again, I press a little farther, following her tattoos with my pinkie so that my other fingers graze the tuft above them.

Her legs part just enough to invite me to continue.

I tease her open with one gentle stroke and find her warm, wet, and hyperresponsive to my touch.

Molly gasps, leaning against the frame of the closet door.

Still kneeling, I pull one of her legs over my shoulder.

As soon as my tongue touches her, I’m a goner.

It feels silly to say it’s like riding a bike, but my body really does remember what to do.

Her racing pulse, hitched breath, and fingers in my hair are better than any five-star review I’ve ever gotten.

Something deep inside me roars to life. I’ve never wanted to make someone come as badly as I do right now.

It doesn’t take her long. Sharing a bed for the past five nights has been the longest, most tortuous form of foreplay. I’m on the edge before she even touches me.

And touch me she does. Molly pulls me up from the ground and kisses me passionately.

I almost peak simply knowing she can taste herself on my lips.

She guides me to the foot of the bed and pushes me down on the mattress with my legs hanging off the side.

I want the weight of her naked body on top of me forever.

But then she works her mouth down the side of my neck, across my chest, below my navel, and I happily trade the warmth of her against my upper body for a different kind of heat.

I wonder if it’s like riding a bike for her too. If it’s like belting along to a favorite song after thinking she’d forgotten the lyrics. If she’s found a lost part of herself in me like I have in her.

But there’s not much room for thinking. Not with all the other sensations my body is processing.

I’ve awakened under her touch, as if the past seven years were a bad dream.

I come with a quake that probably registers on nearby seismographs.

Thank god there’s no one else in the inn, because I couldn’t have controlled the sounds I made if I’d tried.

I don’t pause before tugging Molly onto the bed beside me and going for the next round.

The second time is almost as swift as the first, and we climax together, riding the waves in a sweaty embrace.

For the third, we take our time, reacquainting ourselves with old favorite spots, lingering over the subtle changes in how our bodies respond to each other.

The fourth time is another delicious fast-paced frenzy, ending with both of us panting in a tangle of sheets.

It’s never been like this with anyone else.

The one-night stands with fans, the short-lived relationships, even the bond I had with Georgina was flavorless and stale compared to this.

It’s not just the best sex I’ve had since Molly and I split; it’s the best, full stop.

I remember our first visit to the Hummingbird during the honeymoon period, how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

Not even that can compare to us now. So much of being with Molly is like I remember it, but she’s also got some surprises up her sleeve, a confidence to her movements, a new rhythm that brings me right to the precipice, gives me a moment of breathless suspense, and then sends me careening into the unknown.

But my body needs more than Molly’s touch. As we catch our breath for a quiet moment, me stretched diagonally across the bed, Molly’s head on my chest and her arms draped around me, my stomach interrupts with a loud growl.

“We never ate dinner,” I realize, looking down at her unruly brown and teal waves.

As I start to sit up, Molly tightens her grasp and murmurs, “Don’t go” into my sternum.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Starving.”

“I’ll grab something from the kitchen.” I kiss the top of Molly’s head and promise, “I’ll be so fast, you’ll hardly notice I’m gone.”

Molly allows me to escape, then sprawls across the mattress with a relaxed smile.

I pull her silk robe from the floor and wrap it around myself.

“This is nice,” I say, admiring how it swishes against my thighs, more femme than my usual style.

I strike a pose with one hand on my hip and the other behind my head. “How do I look?”

“Better naked,” Molly says from the bed. “But still pretty damn good.”

I jog down the stairs and dig through the refrigerator, grabbing leftover hunks of cheese, prosciutto, sourdough, and pickles I brought home from Counterculture, plus fresh berries I picked a few days ago from the garden.

Marmee rounds the corner into the room with an annoyed meow, mad at me for locking her out of our bedroom for the evening.

She forgives me in exchange for a teeny bit of Brie.

I arrange the charcuterie on a wooden cutting board, grab a bottle of pinot noir and two glasses, and return to Molly.

We sit at the small table in the kitchenette, me in Molly’s robe and Molly wrapped in a quilt, quickly devouring the cheese plate. Between mouthfuls, we reminisce about the places we used to frequent in Eureka Springs, the shops we hope to revisit, the neighbors we’d still like to catch up with.

“Do you think we can snag an invite to Dorothy and Eleanor’s for dinner?” Molly asks, plucking a raspberry from the board. “I’d kill for Eleanor’s chicken potpie.”

“I bet, especially if I bring Dot’s favorite French silk tart for dessert.” I scrape up the last bit of soft cheese with a piece of bread and say, “We’ve got another three months to make it happen. After that, the inn will be in Clint’s hands, and we’ll be who knows where.”

Molly watches me take a bite, a pensive look on her face. “Dot and Eleanor thought we were together, when I ran into them at One More Round,” she says. “Everyone did. And it didn’t help that we made out on the patio.”

I shrug. “Let them think what they want.”

Molly shifts in her seat, tightening the blanket wrapped around her naked body. “They’ll be confused when we make the divorce official, then.”

The d word looms over me unexpectedly like a storm cloud. But that’s the plan, and I should get used to discussing it. I swallow, then say, “Tonight. Was it…okay?”

I hold my breath, waiting as Molly slowly, agonizingly pulls apart a piece of prosciutto. “Much better than ‘okay.’ I don’t want this to stop,” she says.

“Me neither,” I say on an exhale.

Molly reaches across the table to lace our fingers together. “We’ve spent enough time dwelling on the bad stuff that happened between us. This is our last chance to remember the good. And tonight was really good.”

I’m glad to hear it, because my hands are already itching to touch her again.

I stand, come around the table, and straddle Molly’s legs.

She opens her arms and wraps the ends of the blanket around me too, enclosing me against her skin within the cocoon.

“So maritime law is still in effect aboard the SS Hummingbird, ” I say.

“Definitely.”

I take the lobe of her left ear between my lips as my hand creeps between her thighs. “Which means we can do this again later.” Molly gasps as I suck at a tender spot on her neck, certain to leave a mark. “Or right now,” I suggest.

Molly arches her back, pushing into my touch. “Right now, please.”

I grin into her freckled and tattooed shoulder. My stay in Eureka just got way more pleasurable.