Page 31 of What He Doesn't Know

Our moans echoed off the walls as he carried me through the hall to our bedroom, and before I registered what was happening, my back hit the down comforter of our bed, the soft gray fabric puffing up around me.

Shakily, I pushed up on my elbows, watching with appreciation as Cameron yanked his pants and briefs to the floor in one fell swoop. He sprang forward, hard and ready, and I bit my lip at the sight.

His eyes were hooded and dark, his jaw set with the intention to bring me back to him. The want rolling off him in that moment was the most intoxicating drug, one I’d craved for so long. And though it was the same drug, it was a new high, one much more powerful than I remembered.

He tugged on my jeans next, pulling me to the edge of the bed, and then his hands flew over the button and zipper. The denim I wore was so tight, almost like it had been painted on me, yet Cameron was able to peel it off of me as if his hands were liquid heat and the denim was butter. My simple nude panties came off next, the lift of my hips the only help he needed.

And there was no body worship, no soft kisses on my thighs or at my core, no time spent working me up to his touch. That was how he touched me on our wedding night, how he made love to me the night we’d moved into our new home. But tonight, he was claiming me.

So once I was naked beneath him, Cameron gripped my hips with passionate force and yanked until my hips hung slightly off the edge of the bed. He positioned my ankles on his shoulders, himself at my entrance, and with his eyes hot and needy on mine, he flexed his hips with a groan, filling me to the brim.

I arched off the bed, the thickness of him stretching me all at once after so long of being empty. I was overcome with a searing pain that faded quickly into an electrifying pleasure as he pumped in and out of me, fast and quick, taking what was his. My hands gripped his strong forearms, nails digging into the skin, and he bit the tender hollow of my ankle before kissing that same spot.

There were no words. There never were with Cameron.

It was only his lips on my skin, his eyes capturing mine, his hands tightening around where he held me, as if one loosened grip would let me slip right through his fingers like sand. I lived inside that moment with everything I desired. My husband wanted me, he loved me, I was his and he was mine.

For that hot moment of passion, I was the woman I once was, and Cameron was the man I remembered.

I hoped we’d both stay.

Cameron bit the skin at my ankle, snapping my attention back to him as he used both hands to spread my legs wide. His fingertips trailed down the inside of my ankles, calves, knees, thighs, until one hand wrapped around my hip and the other moved to work my clit. He wasn’t easy, wasn’t slow. No, he worked my clit like he hated it, like he hatedme, and my orgasm didn’t build like a slow tide but like an earthquake.

I arched up off the bed, reaching for his neck and pulling him down into me as he bent to fill me even deeper. I climbed him like a tree, and he never stopped moving, never stopped flexing, pushing my climax to last longer than it ever had before.

“Oh God, Cam,” I moaned, biting his neck to keep from screaming. He growled at the sensation, and just as my orgasm receded, he found his own, pumping into me with force before stilling completely. Cameron held me there in his arms, our bodies hot and slick and stuck together as he moaned. I felt him emptying inside me as I kissed all over him — his neck, his chest, his jaw — before finally claiming his mouth with my own.

When he was finished, he trembled, falling to the bed with me still in his arms, with him still inside me. We both panted until our breathing evened out, his hand sweeping through my hair, my fingertips tracing the soft hair in the middle of his chest.

It was what I’d wanted. I’d gotten exactly what I’d wanted.

And as I came down from the orgasm my husband had given me, I saw the face of another man I’d given a piece of me tonight, too. The apathy I’d had downstairs vanished, replaced by a painful guilt.

I couldn’t deny I’d done something wrong. If I hadn’t, the guilt wouldn’t be there. If I was innocent, I wouldn’t have felt dirty in the clean bed I shared with the man who put a ring on my finger eight years earlier.

I cringed, curling into Cameron’s arms and burying my head into his chest in a mixture of shame and apology. Of course, Cameron didn’t know I even had anything to apologize for.

As he pressed a loving kiss to my forehead, I knew only one thing.

I had to stay away from Reese Walker.

Reese

I skipped into the halls of Westchester bright and early Monday morning, two piping hot cups of coffee in hand. Thoughts of my Friday night with Charlie filled my head as I whistled, nodding a hello to the few other teachers who were already unlocking the doors to their classrooms. I knew she would be doing the same — she always came in earlier than I did.

I’d spent the weekend overthinking every second of that night we shared together. Sure, she and I had both been drinking, but something had been different about Charlie that night. From the very first moment she walked through the bar doors until the last wave over her shoulder when I dropped her off early the next morning, she wasn’t wearing the same mask she’d had on since I’d been back. All this time, I knew she was hiding something, I just didn’t know what.

I couldn’t haveimaginedwhat.

Charlie finally let me see inside again, she let the sixteen-year-old girl out that I used to know.

But she also let me see the broken woman she was now, andthatwas the woman I wanted more of.

I recognized, very distantly, that I was playing with fire. She was still very much married, and I would have been lying to myself if I said my intentions with her were completely innocent. But, it wasn’t that they were completelynotinnocent, either. I wanted to be there for her, to be someone she could talk to, someone she could lean on.

I wanted to make her realize that she deserved the world.

Past that, I knew I wanted more, but I wasn’t ready to admit those things to myself. Not just yet, maybe not ever.