Page 82 of What He Doesn't Know
I pulled her flush against me, one hand at the small of her back while the other cupped her ass. I moved her faster, using that hand to grind her clit against me with every thrust.
“Come,” I commanded, sucking her lobe between my teeth again. I held it there as her moans intensified, and when she held her breath a moment before completely losing it, I moved to kiss and bite down her neck, still rocking her hard against me. She was so wet, slipping and sliding over me as she came undone, and I reveled in the feel of her finding ecstasy with my name rolling off her lips.
When she was spent, she collapsed a little, folding into me like a rag doll as I kissed her shoulder. I rolled us gently until she was on her back, and when I slipped inside her again in one of the oldest positions of time, I realized why missionary was a tried and true favorite.
The fucking view.
Her bright pink lips, swollen and parted as her breath picked up again with the flex of my hips. Her wild hair, tangled from my hands and surrounding her face like a halo. Her perfect, supple breasts, creamy white with two hard nipples bouncing with every thrust. My eyes flicked from one to the other, over and over again in a torturous circle of aesthetic magic.
When her nails dug into my back, I pumped harder, faster, watching her breasts bounce wildly, and her begging me to come for her was the last conscious thought I had before I unloaded inside her. I kept thrusting as long as I could before the sensation overcame me and I stilled, releasing inside her with the pent-up energy of fourteen years of desire.
My arms gave out when the rush seceded, and Charlie caught me in her arms, kissing my hair and smoothing her hands over my back as our breaths evened out. I kissed her breasts in return, wrapping my arms under the small of her back and pulling her into me like I couldn’t get close enough.
Words didn’t exist in that moment — none that mattered, anyway. I listened to the thump of Charlie’s heart under her ribs, counting the beats and trying to match mine with hers as the moment settled.
It seemed as though the sheets floating around us prevented true reality from invading the night, like we existed in a different universe altogether. There was no Cameron, no marriage, no age difference that had once seemed like such a barrier. In that fort, under the thin, sloping sheets, we were Reese and Charlie. We were together. We were happy.
I only hoped we could stay that way.
Charlie
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I woke to the soft, beautiful sound of Reese playing the piano.
My eyes fluttered open slowly, the dimly lit sheets coming into view first. It was still dark, the only light coming from a candle lit on the table outside the fort. I traced the slope of the sheets with heavy eyes, watching the candlelight flicker as I stretched my arms up over my head and pointed my toes.
Every muscle ached in the best way, in a way they hadn’t ached in so long I’d nearly forgotten what it felt like. I could still feel his hands on me as I laid there listening to him play.
I should have felt guilty.
That thought assaulted me out of nowhere, and I did a pulse check, trying to find that guilt that I’d felt so easily the first night we had kissed. I pressed a hand to my chest, but there was no weight there. I closed my eyes again, searching for that sinking gut feeling, for the dread of what I’d done — but it was nonexistent.
It was like I’d been swimming upstream for years and years, exhausting myself, and finally I’d let go and floated where the river wanted to take me. I didn’t feel guilty or sad or angry with myself.
I felt relieved.
Happiness surrounded me in that little fort of sheets, so similar to ones I’d built in my youth. Maybe that was part of it. I couldn’t be sure. All I did know is that the small ounce of guilt Ididfeel was only there because I didn’t feel guilty over what I’d done. It was a forced feeling, one that was born out of obligation rather than actual, organic existence.
Still, guilt-ridden or not, I’d made a choice that would change everything about my life.
And I knew, in the back of my mind, that I’d hurt Cameron. That killed me more than I could admit to myself in that moment — that sated moment in the house of another man. Maybe I wasn’tinlove with Cameron any longer, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love him, and it didn’t mean I ever wanted to hurt him.
Somewhere along the way, we’d been broken down. I’d thought for years that we’d come back from it, that our love was strong enough to survive, but it wasn’t. And I didn’t want to live an unhappy life any longer trying to make something work that wouldn’t.
I picked up the quilt Reese had placed over me and tucked it around my shoulders, padding my way into the room where his baby grand piano was. He wore only a loose pair of sweat pants that hugged his hips, and I watched the muscles in his back ebb and flow with every sweep of his fingers over the ebony and ivory keys. The melody was one I’d never heard before, a sweet and passionate one with just a hint of sadness. He finished a dramatic crescendo as I entered the room, and he slowed the keys again at the sight of me, picking up the sweet, light and airy notes from before.
The lid was already down, which I knew had probably been done on purpose just in case I joined him. I used the bench to climb up on top, sitting with my legs crossed and blanket wrapped all the way around me as I watched him play. His eyes were on his hands mostly, but every now and then they’d trail their way up my bare leg that was exposed by the blanket, lock on my eyes, and hold my gaze before they’d find their way back down to the piano.
Time slipped away like a silk thread through the eye of a needle as Reese played, one song drifting easily into another. I watched his arms, his fingers, sometimes letting myself focus on the crease between his brows. Every note seemed to pain him in a way, like he had to peel away a layer of skin each time he discovered a new string of chords that fit perfectly together. I loved how he gave himself to his music, how he felt it from the inside out.
He was beautiful.
After a while, his fingers stilled, and an overwhelming silence fell over us. Reese eyed me for a moment before he reached up for my hips, sliding me over until I was dead center in front of him. With his arms around me, he bent forward, his head to my chest, and I held him there.
So many questions existed between us in that moment, but he only asked one.
“Why did you come tonight?”
I blew out a long, pensive breath, debating how to answer that question. There was more than one answer, or rather, one long, tangled web of answers that somehow made one full picture. It hadn’t just been one reason, and the pieces on their own wouldn’t have made sense.