Part-Time Lover

by Lauren Blakely

  When I moved here, I felt distinctly like all my memories had come home, and all my new ones would be crafted inside the city walls. The city was like a calming hand on a shaking heart.

  At last, a part of me that had been unsettled could find peace.

  As I sip my coffee, I return to my conversation with Polly about happiness. My mind boomerangs farther back in time, to the trip to Copenhagen with Veronica. As we’d left, she talked about how happy she was after her night with the boat captain.

  Briefly, I wonder if I’m happier now for the same reason Veronica was exuberant—because of a new man. Great sex can have a hell of a halo effect.

  Best for me to be wise to that, aware of it.

  I’m especially aware of the impact Christian has on me as I remember our last night together in Copenhagen. I see his parted lips, the ripple of his muscles as he moved in me, how his hair fell over his eyes when he collapsed on me.

  As I gaze at the hotel, it gives me an idea. Hotels are made for nights of celebration, and for lovers. For arrangements. For part-time trysts.

  I grab my phone. Christian must be on his way to Heathrow now.

  * * *

  Elise: Do you want me to get a hotel room for tonight?

  * * *

  He responds immediately.

  * * *

  Christian: Next time. Tonight, I’m going to take you to your home.

  * * *

  A pulse beats faster inside me, spreading from my chest, down my legs, transforming into something else, something far more dangerous, something I don’t really know how to name. He’s never been to my house before, and it feels thoroughly intimate to let him into the place where my empty bottle of Marchesa Parfum d’Extase sits, sterile and bleached but still alive. A statue in a mausoleum. But it’s not Eduardo I’m clinging to with that bottle. It’s the reminder to never make the same mistake again.

  I settle the bill, call Joy and tell her she’s needed immediately, and head to one of my favorite boutiques. When she arrives, her red hair thick and curly, I declare, “I need a new outfit for tonight. I’m going clubbing.”

  “Ooh la la.” She shimmies her hips.

  “I need something that will make a man eat out of the palm of my hand.”

  She gives me a do-tell look with her big green eyes. “Any particular man?”

  “Hush. You know who it is.”

  By the dress racks, she leans in close and whispers, “Just say it. Just say his name.”

  “I don’t know why you’re egging me on like that.”

  She nudges me with her elbow. “You’ve got a thing for your husband, don’t you?”

  I shoot her a sharp stare. “Please. I just want to look sexy.”

  “Darling, you always look sexy, and you know it. You want to look extra special for him, don’t you, because you haven’t seen him in two weeks?”

  My heart flutters, and all these sensations popping around inside me are starting to drive me crazy. To wind me up again.

  I need something familiar. Something reliable. I understand how clothes make me feel. I know how shoes delight me.

  “It’s okay if you like him,” Joy says softly as she flips through a display of pink, blue, and neon-green dresses, shaking her head at each one.

  “I do like him. That isn’t what this is about.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  That’s the problem. I don’t know what this wild feeling is—this unclear emotion rattling around inside me. It’s a language I don’t understand.

  But this burgundy wrap dress communicates in words I comprehend. The skirt hits mid-thigh. It says take me, have me. I buy it and wander around the streets with Joy, so very grateful that this city has brought me friendships like this.

  Maybe that’s why it feels like home.

  Because of these people.

  * * *

  Later, when I’m at my house and freshly showered, I slip into a black lace bra and matching panties. As I check out my reflection, the flush in my cheeks, I understand one thing with the crystal clarity of a native language: I want Christian to want me with a raging fire.

  Because that’s how I feel for him. Like every bone inside me has been set aflame, and the heat is swallowing me whole.

  Standing in front of the mirror, I snap a picture with my phone, and I send it to him.

  * * *

  Elise: Just for you.

  * * *

  He’s probably just landed, or he’s on his way to his flat before he meets me.

  * * *

  Christian: Preparing to rip that off you very soon.

  * * *

  I walk to the club with a drum beating in my chest, with music pounding in my ears. Anticipation winds tight inside me, mingled with want, chased by need. I’ve missed Christian over the last two weeks. Missed him more than I expected to.

  As I enter the club, threading my way through the bodies writhing and dancing, my eyes adjust to the low lights, my ears to the pulse of the techno rhythm. I catalog the sights and sounds, the press of people, the clink of glasses, the smell of liquor and cherries and sweat.

  I order a vodka tonic and drink most of it down. Then, everything in front of me, all the things inside me, become static once more when I see him.

  My brain sputters, and logic and reason slink away.

  I don’t understand a single thing anymore that isn’t physical, that isn’t elemental, that isn’t this man I married and don’t live with, and hardly share anything with.

  But he’s drawn to me.

  He stalks across the darkened dance floor with such purpose, his eyes intense. He finds me at the bar and reaches for my drink, taking a swallow, then placing it down. No words are needed when he cups my cheeks and drops his mouth to mine, kissing me relentlessly.

  We say nothing, and that’s rare. All we do sometimes is talk.

  When he breaks the kiss, he speaks. “You’re stunning.”

  What he doesn’t say reverberates between my ears. He doesn’t say you look stunning. No, he says you are stunning.

  With him, I feel that way, inside and out, especially as he takes me out to the dance floor. Somehow, I manage to say in a dry husk of a voice, “So are you.”

  He pulls me close and grinds against me, his hard body making his intentions clear. The temperature in me rises into the stratosphere. I don’t think we’re dancing. It’s foreplay in the middle of this low-lit club, with thumping music and beautiful bodies writhing and twisting and crawling around each other, with sweat and music and alcohol. Lights flicker in swaths, so we only see parts of each other. I make out the cut of his jaw, the wave of his hair, the strength of his forearms, visible thanks to his rolled-up cuffs.

  He yanks me closer. I don’t know how he finds any more space between us to fill, but he does, erasing any millimeter of distance.

  I rub against his thigh. He grinds back. I tug him impossibly closer. He growls against my neck. My hands thread into his hair. His grab my ass, curling around me.

  We might be the most indecent couple on the dance floor, and we are swimming in a sea of indecency. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a black-haired woman wearing a top that’s falling so low I can see her nipples. She dances with her partner. Her lips are parted, and it’s like she’s on the cusp of an orgasm. I flick my gaze to the other side, and two men grind against each other, heads thrown back. Even though I can’t hear their sounds above the music, I can tell from their lips they’ll be escaping any second to finish off.

  I stare at Christian. “I think everyone here is about to fuck.”

  He runs his hand up the back of my neck and tugs my hair. Not hard, but hard enough to send a shudder through me. “Yes. Everyone is.”

  He slams his mouth to mine and kisses me hard once more. Like I belong to him. In this moment, I do.

  In a flash, we’re gone.

  He was right. I don’t want to go to a hotel. All I want is to take him back to my house, even though it scares me, even
though it feels far too intimate.

  But my body has taken over for my head and my heart. Everything else has the night off except my libido, a dark and dirty thing that’s making all my decisions.

  We tumble out of the cab, and I open the green door that leads into the courtyard. His hands are all over me. He’s touching me everywhere: my waist, my breasts, my hair. He can’t seem to stop. His lips travel across the back of my neck, and I can’t walk straight when he does that. I’m buzzing all over. I’m drunk on him, and yet I want to have another vodka tonic. I want to be his vodka tonic and to have him drink all of me.

  As soon as we’re inside, my purse and my keys and my phone spill to the floor. Our hands rip at each other’s clothes, undoing buttons, tugging at zippers.

  I yank his shirt out of his jeans, and he brings down my panties, saying, “I thought about you all week long. It kills me to go this long without being inside you.”

  I swallow, nodding. I don’t know how we reached this point. I don’t know how we became too desperate, too frenzied that we’re about to fuck against my door. All I know is that’s who we are.

  I push his boxer briefs down his hips and his hard length springs free. I wrap a hand around him, thrilling at how hot he feels. Hotter than the last time, and somehow, hungrier too.

  He groans. “I don’t know if there are words to describe how much I need to be inside you right now.”

  “Don’t describe it. Show me.”

  In one sharp, hot thrust, he’s inside. The sound I make is carnal. I might groan for days. It feels spectacular, his hardness against my wetness. He yanks my leg, hooking it around his hip and driving into me. We go quickly, like horses at the race, tearing around the field, aiming for the finish line. His lips come down on my neck, his teeth connecting with my flesh, nipping and biting.

  “Harder.”

  “My teeth or the way I’m fucking you?”

  “Both,” I pant.

  He bites as he fucks, and I’m filled so completely by him that I’m nothing but feelings—delicious, intoxicating, ecstatic feelings. I’m all the glittering lights in Paris, all the thumping music in the club—I’m everyone’s desire right now. I’m being fucked the way everyone else longed for.

  I get to have that coveted feeling, to bathe in erotic bliss as this gorgeous, brilliant man consumes me against the door of my house.

  Consumed.

  The thing I fear most.

  The thing I feel now.

  The thing I want badly.

  I’m consumed by his body inside mine, consumed by the way he wants me, and most of all, I’m consumed by my own profound longing for him, a longing that finds a wild sort of peace in this pleasure. I’ve avoided this, guarded against it, but now I’m giving in. I want to feel every single thing with Christian.

  We twine around each other, all hot and twisting limbs. I feel a tightening in my belly coiling higher, until the pleasure bursts and I cry out.

  He follows me there with rough, hard thrusts as my back slams against the door, as his noises drown out all the sounds in my head, and I know he’s as lost in his climax as I am.

  Sometime later, I blink open my eyes and we’re still standing at my door, disheveled and sated, cheeks red, clothes askew. “Come to my bedroom.”

  He looks down at me and brushes a soft kiss to one eyelid, then the other, whispering yes.

  Somehow that feels even more intimate than what we just did.

  27

  Christian

  “Your bedroom is so girlie.”

  “It is, and I like it that way. Being a woman and all.”

  “Yes, I very much like that you’re a woman,” I say, and part of me wants to take her to her bed and smother her in kisses and tell her how much I’ve missed her these last two weeks. Still another wants to say, “Holy fuck, what the hell did we just do against the door, because it’s never been like that before. That intense. That electric. That . . . intimate. Was it that way for you too?”

  But me playing that role—the needy lover—isn’t in our script. The casting breakdown for her part-time lover and temporary husband calls for me to keep her on her toes, entertain her, make her laugh, make her hot, and make her happy.

  No more.

  I survey her bedroom, checking out the white walls, the bright white comforter. Purple and silver pillows are piled high on the bed, giving it a feminine touch of color. Thin gauzy curtains hang down around the mattress. “This makes me feel like we’re in Africa. Do you suffer from mosquitoes?”

  She rolls her eyes as she wanders over to the bed and wraps her hand around a bedpost. She glances to the door. “You may go now.”

  I laugh. “Don’t kick me out. My work isn’t done.”

  “Well, I don’t see how you could top door sex anyway.”

  I pretend to contemplate, tapping my jaw with my finger. “True. I better take off.”

  She pretends to show me the door, gesturing grandly to the exit. I make like I’m leaving, zipping up my jeans at last, but then I grab her waist and tickle her. Laughter bursts from her throat as I carry her to the bed, tossing her on it, still in her tangled dress. I pin her, my palms at her sides. “I’m staying. Admit it. You like me.”

  She looks up at me, her brown eyes wide. “Why does everyone say that?”

  “Say what?”

  “That I like you.”

  “Everyone says it?”

  She nods against the mattress. “They act shocked that I do like you. All my girlfriends toss that out like it’s some big surprise. Why would I date you, sleep with you, marry you for three months, if I didn’t at least like you? If I disliked you, you can bet I wouldn’t be doing any of this.”

  “Only if you liked hate-fucking me.” I grind my pelvis against her. “Do you like hate-fucking?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I could pretend I hate you, and we could see if I like it.”

  “New goals,” I say, keeping it light since this is so much easier than telling her all the mad thoughts pinging around in my head. “But honestly, I don’t really want you to hate me, even for the prospect of angry sex.”

  “You’re very likable.”

  And see? That right there is another reminder to play it cool. I’m likable to her. I’m the fun guy. The man who won’t get attached. That’s why she said yes to playing my wife, and I need her to finish the show. We’re only in the first act of a three-act play.

  I glance over at her white bureau. There’s a mirrored tray with a few charm necklaces—a Chrysler building, I think, and a Broadway sign. They’re ringed by perfume bottles. “Didn’t you write about perfume?” I ask, remembering that she had mentioned a blog at some point.

  Her expression tightens, and she doesn’t meet my eyes. “I still do. From time to time.”

  “What sorts of things do you say?”

  She waves a hand airily. “This and that.”

  She’s evasive, and that’s not like her. I arch an eyebrow as I run a hand along her hip. I should be Mr. Carefree and Casual, but I don’t want to let this topic go. “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  “Let’s just say I put too much of myself in it, and I had to pull back. Make it more about the perfume and the scents.”

  I run my hand down her thigh. “Was it too much of your life?”

  She nods. “It was.”

  “So why do it at all?”

  She sighs deeply. “I haven’t written a post in a while. I could shut it down, but I miss the camaraderie with my readers. I felt close to them, this random group of strangers who honestly weren’t strangers. I met Joy through a perfume forum back when she lived in the States, and now she’s one of my closest friends. But at the same time, I think pulling back, not writing as openly, was for the best. I feel safer.”

  “Does that make you happy? Safety?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re happy with me. I make you feel safe.”

  She shoots me a curious look. “What do
you mean?”

  “You’ve drawn your lines. I don’t cross them. That makes you feel safe, and safety makes you feel happy.”

  She nibbles on one corner of her lips. “It’s funny that you brought this up, because I was thinking about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness today.”

  “So American. And what did you think as you were musing on that?”

  “I was remembering how my friend Veronica was going on and on about how incandescently happy she was after she banged this hot Danish boat captain in Copenhagen last year.”

  I laugh. “Banging hot Danish men with British accents should totally make you ecstatic.”

  “We should test this theory again. Just to be sure.” She runs a hand down my arm, and her voice turns more serious, contemplative. “You do make me feel safe. I need that. Thank you for doing that.”

  A faraway look fills her eyes, and as I follow her gaze, I see her staring at the collection of bottles on her bureau. One of them is empty. My curiosity gets the better of me. “Why are you keeping that empty bottle?”

  She closes her eyes and sighs, then rises, getting out of bed all rumpled and tousled. She walks to the bureau, plucks the crystal one, and takes it to the en suite bathroom. I lean near the edge of the bed so I can watch her through the open doorway. She drops it into the rubbish bin. It lands with a hard thud.

  “Why did you do that?” I ask.

  She stands in the doorway. “It was my wedding day perfume. I’ve needed to do that for a long time, Christian.”

  A pinch of jealousy flares in me and the feeling surprises me and pisses me off. How on earth could I be jealous of her dead husband?