by K. B. Nelson
“Oh?” My brow furrows as I approach his car and lean against the window. “Have you seen Dorothy lately, because she’s terribly missed by her family back in Kansas.”
“Nah.” He shakes his head as a beaming smile hitches from one corner of his mouth. “I’m from the other side of the river, and I’m from the other side of the country. I’m from everywhere really.”
“That’s interesting.”
There’s a brief moment of silence, but his gaze lingers on me. “Are you going to get in?”
“I shouldn’t.” I sigh, take a step back and straighten myself.
“Ignore the part of your brain that’s telling you that.”
“It’s not the voices in my head screaming.”
“Your heart?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Something like that.”
“In that case, listen to your head.” He reaches down and shifts into neutral, with his foot applied to the brake. “Listen to the part of your brain that’s reasoning with you, arguing that it’s chilly outside and you’re not wearing a jacket.”
“Fine,” I huff and slap my hand against the frame of the door. His eyes take particular notice of the ring on my finger for the first time. My heart pounds. I force a smile and rip the evidence away from his sight before stepping around the front of the car. I pause once the bright headlights are shining upon me, and find my eyes drifting to the beautiful, dangerous stranger before me, waiting for me to jump into his car so he can save me.
The only problem is he thinks he’s saving me from the chilly autumn night. He’s not prepared for the truth, and the truth is that I’m in need of saving in every way one needs saved. That’s too deep to share with a perfect stranger, and it’s too dangerous to share with someone like him.
He punches his fist against the horn, and though my vision is muddled from the lights blinding my eyes, I can make out faintly the way he throws his head back in laughter.
“Come on,” he hollers. “Gas ain’t cheap.”
I flash him a quick smile before making my way to the passenger door and ripping it open. I slide into the leather seat, and revel in the warm heat blowing from the vents. Once I’ve shut the door, I look to him to find him looking at me. He’s always looking at me. I hold my hand against the door handle, prepared to run at any moment.
“Now, do you want to tell me your name?” he inquires and switches the hand that’s holding the wheel from the right to the left, freeing his right hand to shift into gear. “Or do you want to keep pretending like you’re nobody?”
“Nobody’s good,” I say flatly, not prepared to throw the safety of anonymity in the trash.
“Okay then, Nobody.” He pulls the knob of the shifter back, and into second gear. “Where we heading?”
“Just drive,” I say and focus my attention on the road ahead, where gravel cracks under shadows from the headlights.
I remember the relief I felt the very moment I was wheeled out of the hospital by my best friend, Ashley. It had been the hardest week of my life, but I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I knew that in a mere matter of minutes, I’d be home in the arms of my loving husband. It was supposed to be a surprise for him, but it was I who was blindsided the moment I turned the key.
There he was on the couch, bare-ass naked thrusting into some woman who wasn’t me. I watched them fuck on the couch we had spent hours quarreling over at the department store. He wanted black leather and I wanted white. He won the argument, as he always did.
I knew I should have closed the door gently and saved the confrontation for another day, but even back then, I didn’t have the best judgment. I could barely stand, but I was ready to kill them both. I shouted at them, something along the lines of, ‘you stupid fucking prick’, and they pulled themselves away from each other like a fruit roll up.
It was then when I realized I knew exactly who was on the receiving end of my husband’s tainted cock. Any fire I had for a confrontation dispelled from my body in an instant, and I was out the door in a millisecond flat. I never got the revenge I so craved, but when I look at this sexy stranger beside me, I think to myself that now’s as good a time as any other.
But it’s not about revenge. Not really. I’ll lie to myself to make it easier, but deep down I’ll always know it’s about something else. It’s about being free, tired of living my life as a bird in a tiny cage. It’s about feeling something other than the sharpest fragments of glass stuck in my soul since the accident. It’s about safety, because I don’t trust myself when I’m alone, and I’m always alone, even when I’m standing in a crowd of a thousand people.
I watch my hand as it falls upon his thigh. I watch the way he first looks down at my palm, and then at me. I watch the way his throat pulses as he swallows a nervous breath.
“Aren’t you married?” he questions dryly. I don’t respond. “I mean I saw the ring.”
“I’m supposed to be,” I whisper, obfuscating the truth, but we both know it.
“Runaway bride sort of thing?”
“Running away at this exact moment seems like the best possible idea.” I turn my attention to the passing trees, and then a passing mailbox slotted beside a winding driveway leading to a house on a now haunted hill—my house. It’s like every light in the entire farmhouse is shining bright, but there’s nobody there. Nobody but him, waiting patiently for me to return home while he bottoms one bottle of beer after the next. I don’t say anything. I don’t tell him to stop. I’m past the point of no return, and I feel another fragment of my soul being chipped away, but I’m running high on the adrenaline. It’s a worthy trade off to sacrifice a small piece of my soul if for no other reason than the opportunity to feel alive for just a tiny, fleeting moment.
“It can’t be that bad,” he assures me with confidence bridled into his tone.
“That’s what I used to tell myself after the fairy tale ending was cut short.” I look back to him, and begin to caress his thigh in slow strokes. “Now, I just know better.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m a romantic—“
I cut him off because I know what he’s going to say. His words will serve as nothing more than an aggravating roadblock to me getting what I want. What I need, just like the air I breathe. “Or because you’re young?”
“I’m not that young,” he whispers and places his palm upon mine. The first real sign he’s prepared to cross this line, a line that I myself waver to and from.
“How young?” I shift closer to him.
“North of twenty.”
That’s all I need to know. “I’m Stassi.”
“That’s a beautiful name worthy of a beautiful woman.”
“And you are?”
“Kemper.” He smiles, illuminating a specific kind of innocent confidence. “Kemper Scott,” the words roll off his tongue as suavely as James Bond, if 007 himself were born and raised in the sticks, carrying out acts of espionage in farmhouses and county fairs.
His fingers tangle with mine briefly before an exasperated gasp. He pushes my hand away. “You’re a beautiful woman, but I can’t—“
“Because I’m married?”
“Hit the nail on its rusty head.”
“Is it cheating if he cheated first?”
“Yeah.” He bows his head with an uncomfortable grin. “I kind of think it is.”
“If my foot’s halfway out the door?” I stare at him blankly, losing my confidence that I can be this woman by the second. It’s all true. He cheated first and I’m more than halfway out the door. I’m ready to run with the wind.
“It’s semantics either way.” He swallows another nervous lump in his throat, and I can see the battle raging beneath dark eyes. He wants to take the leap, but he’s afraid of what it’ll mean.
“Shut up,” I command as I climb across the gearshift, and straddle his lap. It’s a tight fit, where I’m unable to maneuver my body against his and my head bangs against the roof of the car. I lower my hand to a button on the side
of the seat, and the seat slides back first, and then reclines. Cocoa blades of hair fall across my face and dangle above his. His chest heaves as he stares into my eyes, waiting for me to do whatever it is that I’m going to do.
My entire body shakes above him. I’m running out of nerve fast, and the second his palm trails to my side is the second I bolt. I pull the door handle, swing the door open, and hustle out of the car.
The cool autumn air stabs me in the throat with one sharp inhale. I look back to him sitting in the car, the overhead lights highlighting his finest features. Wanting eyes, heavy breathing, and stark confusion all wait in the shadows.
He shuts off the engine, and the headlights cut out.
He turns to me.
He spins one leg out after the other, his white sneakers digging into the gravel. I stand with a blank expression as he rises to his feet and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“You’re a confusing woman, you know?”
“I know,” I say softly.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he suggests as he takes a measured step toward me. “I love the game.”
“The game?” I question, unable to take my eyes off of his handsome, wholesome face.
“Every yard of every touchdown.”
“You’re charming—“
“Too charming, right?” He takes another step.
“And confident.”
Another step, and he’s standing within an inch of me. I can feel the warmth of his breath against my skin. “Too confident?”
“You get what you want.”
“And you want me.”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head, but my gaze remains unaffected.
“It wasn’t a question,” he says softly as he tilts a pointed finger underneath my chin.
“There’s that confidence.”
“Lets pretend that we don’t know each other—“
“We don’t.”
“And lets pretend that neither of us have a history or a future.” He gestures at the forest surrounding us. “Whatever happens here tonight, won’t have had happened in the morning. You’re going through something. I’m going through something—“
“What are you going through?”
“Shh.” He presses a finger against dreamy lips. “We don’t know each other, remember?”
“Right.” I nod and my throat drops into my stomach. My heart races, rushing like the ocean at high tide. I’m being pulled into the sea, but I’m a willing victim to the waves.
“We’re both going through our own fucked up shit, but for right now, the bullshit all ceases to exist.” He forces an uncomfortable smile, and in that faint break of confidence, I see something in him I see in myself. “I want to make you forget the world the only way I know how.”
“How is that?”
“It’s a whirlwind.”
“Sounds exhilarating.”
“It’s my body against yours.” He reaches for my hips and pulls me in close with one hand. “Touching you.” Fingers press into my back. “Caressing you.” His head bows to mine, as his fingers pressing into my back begin to caress me in slow, careful circles. “Undressing you.” His hand falls to the hem of my shirt, and he begins to pull my top upward, exposing my bare skin to the cool night air. “Kissing you.” His lips press softly against my neck, closed at first, and then open, mouthing a line from the base of my neck to my chin.
“St… Stop,” I cry and break away from his touch, spinning on my foot until he’s behind me, and all I can see are dark silhouettes of tree branches. I stand there startled and dazed, my entire body shaking and my heart… It’s always fucking racing.
His palms fall upon my shoulders, and I find myself easing backward against him. I fight to breathe, because if I breathe, then maybe I can react appropriately. My mind is ignited with the fire of reason, but my body is fueled by the flames of passion.
“You want—“
“I can’t.” I pull away from him once more, knowing the longer I stay here, the more likely I am to take the fall. The cliff is sharp and dangerous, with jagged rocks at the bottom. In no world does this end well.
“You want this as much as I do,” he says from behind me, in a tone that’s torn between complacency and pleading.
“I’m married,” I yell as I twist on my foot, facing the object of my desire once more.
“It doesn’t matter, remember?”
“It has to.” I shake my head and dig my feet into the gravel, trying to find something to hold onto, but everybody knows that rocks scatter. There’s nothing firm beneath my feet. My strength and ability to do what’s right is fading fast. “I took vows,” I scoff, verbalizing the disdain I’m feeling inside, hoping that hearing my own voice aloud will persuade me to leave this alone.
“Vows that are irrevocably broken.” He rushes to me, as if he’s saving me from a certain grim fate. There’s no way he could possibly know, but the urgency in his touch says otherwise.
“I never said—“
“The implication is there.” He shakes his head and places a hand on each of my cheeks. “I can see it in your eyes. When you talk about him, whoever he is, you’re dead inside. But when you look at me, there’s passion, and that’s the most freeing feeling in the world.”
“Freeing?” I throw my arms up against his, knocking them away from me. “It’s fleeting,” I scoff, but the anger I’m spitting is directed at myself, though there’s no way he could possibly know that, but he already seems to know everything else, and then something more.
“Isn’t that the point? For one night only, throw all the fucks to the wind.” He bows his head sheepishly and sighs, and then there’s this long, drawn out pause, like he’s about to say something. He doesn’t. Not for the longest of beats, until finally he raises his head and bites into his lip. “Live again.”
And he looks at me like I haven’t been looked at in what amounts to forever. I’ve been looked at with mistrust from strangers, and contempt from those who know me. But he looks at me. Really sees straight through me, and the vulnerability lights the fuse within me.
“Okay,” I say with a barely-there nod, my resolve shattering in a fit of carefully timed explosions from within.
His brow furrows. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I assure him and press my palm against his chest, feeling for the first time the muscles beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. Thin though it may be, it’s draped across his chest like a barrier that I crave to rip apart. “Are you just going to stand there—“
“Or?”
Stop interrupting me.
“Fuck me,” I say dryly, void of emotion, but I’m not hollow anymore. Not at this moment. I’m free.
6
He leans across the short distance between us and lands a kiss against my lips, but it’s short lived. I raise my hand against his chest and push him backward. “I didn’t say, kiss me. I said fuck me.”
“No kissing?”
I nod an affirmative nod, my feet sinking in the gravel beneath us.
He takes a step back, and eyes me from my feet to my face, a slow calculation. I stand before him, watching his eyes as they pass over me, undressing me like candy.
In my twenty-four years on this Earth, I’ve never hooked up with anyone in the traditional sense. It took seven dates with my husband, back in high school, before I’d let him get past second base, and another few months until he rounded home plate. He’s been my one and only for so long that I don’t know how this is supposed to work, and it’s equally unnerving and thrilling. I’ve been called a whore and a slut, an unfit educator. I’ve been dragged out into the public square by people who only know me as an accessory to my husband or the classroom. It’s liberating to finally be who everyone believes me to be.
I avert my eyes when his gaze falls upon mine, unsure of what to do. So, I take a step forward to him, an attempt to break the ice and get this ball of adultery rolling.
“No.” He commands, an
d raises his palm. “Stay there.”
“Okay.” I obey him, reveling in submission.
He lowers his hand to the hem of his shirt, and pulls it over his head in one smooth motion, exposing steel cut abs and the physique of an aspiring model. He’s cut from a different cloth than the men I’m used to surrounding myself with in the faculty room.
His fingers flirt with the lining of his jeans, tracing a path to a row of buttons, the first of which he pops with one agile flick of his finger. Then, he lowers his eyes so that he pulls me in with dark orbs. But the gaze doesn’t last long, as my eyes fall to his fingers as he pulls the remaining buttons free. The jeans, loose around his hips, exposes a thin fragment of his skin that’s untouched by the summer sun, and is painted a pale white.
I watch him as he undresses, kicking off his sneakers, and freeing his legs from denim. With nothing left covering him except a pair of tight, black boxer trunks, he eyes me once more.
I grow nervous. More nervous than before, the kind of nervousness that ticks away like a time bomb planted deep within the bones. Moments tick by in slow motion, and with every passing second, I wonder how much time is left until I’m on the run.
“Undress,” he commands and shifts his weight backwards against the car. “I want to watch.”
“O…okay,” I stutter like a meek housewife. What the hell has become of my life? I used to be so strong, and now my strength is a trait long thrown out the window, to be felt only by the sight of it in the rearview mirror.
I lower my hand to the plaid shirt I’m wearing and pop the row of buttons systematically, with my head bowed down from either shame or embarrassment. I can’t be sure which. I drop the shirt to the ground and when I’m free from the thin purple fabric, I pull the plain white cami over my head, so that I’m exposed standing in jeans and a black bra.
Kemper waits for me patiently, but his teeth sink impatiently into his lips. I take notice of the gulp making its way down his throat, but still he waits. His eyes shift to my fingers as they fall to the button of my jeans. Soon, I’m sliding out of them and kicking them free from my feet.
