by Cambria Hebert
Copyrighted material. Do not copy or share.
He leaned back against the railing and looked at me. “I’m not available emotionally. I live here for solitude, to be alone. I don’t have room in my life for someone. I can’t hang out. I can’t talk about my life. I just… I can’t.”
The veiled pain behind his words caused my heart to constrict. What happened to him?
“But you can have sex?” I said. Gavin might have had a rough time, but he wasn’t the only one. And he wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.
“I’m a guy,” he said, as if that explained everything.
I guess it sort of did. He had urges, needs. Wasn’t it the same with me? Hadn’t I been starving for human contact, for a body-ripping orgasm? I couldn’t judge him for something I was guilty of as well.
“I’m not available either,” I said. “Emotionally.”
He nodded like he already figured that out. “I shouldn’t have been a jerk to you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, meaning it.
He studied me for long moments as a strong gust of wind came up off the sea. I shivered and tucked the blanket just a little bit closer. Gavin moved, crouching down in front of my chair, reaching out to grasp the ends of the blanket.
From this close, I could see the intensity of his eyes. I could see the vulnerability he felt from coming here… I also could see desire.
“I can’t offer you anything,” he whispered. “But I’m asking you for something.”
“What?” His closeness was driving me wild. Want burned through my veins as I studied the way the T-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders. Need eclipsed my thoughts as his hand tightened around the blanket and carefully drew me a little bit closer.
Excerpt 2
I hadn’t had sex in six months. Six months. I was practically a born-again virgin. I mean, seriously. They say when you get married, your sex life goes down the toilet, but I didn’t know who “they” were, and I thought for sure my sex life wouldn’t go downhill until I was some old lady.
I was not old.
And I kind of wanted to punch “they” in the face.
I’ll blame my aggression on sexual frustration.
Weren’t men supposed to be a bunch of horn-dogs? In my experience, they sure were. My husband and I used to have sex all the time, but it slowly began to dwindle and then it pretty much fell off the face of the earth.
But that was going to change. I was going to do something about it. The way I saw it, I could let my insides shrivel up from lack of pleasure, or I could take the bull by the horns (or penis).
Shriveling up didn’t sound so appealing so I took the afternoon off from work (no loss there) and decided to go home and set the stage for a night of getting it on. On my way, I stopped at the store and picked up some candles, a see-through hot-pink nightie, and some edible massage oil.
I let myself into the apartment and shut the door behind me. Just as I made it to the kitchen counter, I heard a sound.
A moan.
I set the bag on the counter, soundlessly, and cocked my head, listening. Another moan floated through the apartment, and I wrinkled my nose.
Had I left the TV on when I left for work this morning?
And if so, what the hell kind of daytime shows did they play these days?
I padded down the hallway, over the plush carpet, and stopped in front of my partially closed bedroom door.
The sounds of heavy breathing and the bouncing of a mattress were unmistakable.
I was really trying not to think bad thoughts.
Really.
But I mean… it smelled like sex out here. A deep, musky scent that clung to the air.
I laid my palm against the door and pushed it open, stepping slowly in the doorway.
It took me quite a few seconds to register what I was seeing. Shock rendered me motionless. All I could do was stand there and gape.
I hadn’t left the TV on this morning.
And now I knew why my husband hadn’t pleased me in the past six months.
He was too busy pleasing someone else. Someone who was not his wife.
They were so involved in the act that they didn’t even know I was there. So I watched them. This was my house. That was my bed. And frankly, a part of me thought I was dreaming.
The white combed-cotton sheets that I had shopped for diligently where all wound around the legs of the couple in the center of the king-sized bed. The pillows I lovingly picked out were all skewed from the thrusting and movement going on, and the dark-gray comforter was half falling off the bed and onto the floor.
There was a woman sitting on top of my husband. Her hair was very long and thick, the color of chestnuts, and it waved down her back wildly like they’d been at the deed for a while already. As I stared, she pushed up off him and sat up, titling her head back and letting out a very loud moan as she moved over him, grinding her body against his.
I watched as my husband reached up and grabbed her breasts, giving them a little squeeze and grunting with pleasure.
Pain sliced through my belly.
How could he do this to me? How could he tell me he loved me, ask me to spend the rest of my life with him, and then bring another woman home and into our bed?
The pain I felt might have been incapacitating, but it didn’t stay long enough. It was quickly replaced by anger. Hot, furious sparks ignited inside me and my feet began to move.
I walked farther into the room and stopped at the edge of the bed.
Excerpt 3
He began to draw lazy circles over the inside of my elbow with his fingers. He didn’t play fair. How was I supposed to keep up with a conversation when he did things like that?
And why did he affect me this way?
He was maddening, bossy, and he lived off snack cakes for goodness sake.
“Talie?” he said, my name ripping from deep within his throat.
“Oh, um… Vacation.”
“Who takes a vacation alone?”
“Who lives in a beach house alone?” I answered.
“I like my privacy. I’m not a social guy.”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding absolutely mystified.
“I’ll go,” I declared.
He nodded.
Neither of us moved. He didn’t release my arm.
It was as if we were both paralyzed in a bubble of attraction. The pull between us was so unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It was physically powerful, chaining us together where we sat. Both of us voiced the intent to break apart, to go our separate ways, but our bodies overruled our brains.
There would be no moving away.
Only closer.
In one fluid movement, Gavin came forward, sweeping an arm around my waist and pulling me to the very edge of the couch. His knees parted and my body fit between them as his lips fastened to mine.
We were Velcro. He was the rough side and I was the soft. The closer he pressed, the more tightly we fused. I swear to you in that moment I didn’t think. I couldn’t. I could only be pummeled by the onslaught of heavy desire that flooded my system like a surging waterway.
Excerpt 4
Just as the road started to gradually lift and lead onto the bridge my car made a very loud clunking sound and then groaned like it was going to come apart at any second.
Even though my foot was pressed on the gas the car slowed considerably, idling along like a turtle who had no where it needed to be. “Come on!” I yelled at the dashboard as I gave the steering wheel a smack.
Suddenly the wheel seemed extremely hard to steer. What usually was an easy, effortless task now seemed like something that required large muscles.
Did I mention I was lacking in the muscle department?
I applied the brakes and fought the Jetta to the side of the road. I wasn’t about to try and make it over the bridge like this. My luck I would plunge over the side and get eaten by a shark when I hit the water.
The loud rattling sounds the stupid car made drowned out the cadence of the ocean waves and caused some of the peace I was found on my way here to disappear.
After several long moments of just sitting there, leaning my forehead on the steering wheel and asking God why I was cursed I turned off the engine. The car stuttered and then died. I knew it wasn’t going to turn back on.
“And the hits just keep on coming,” I said out loud.
I opened the car door, letting it open so that the light would stay on for a few moments and bent down to look for the hood release latch. After I found it and popped the hood I stood there staring down in the dark at the insides of a car I couldn’t see.
Then I remembered my phone. The flashlight app was handy in moments like this. Even with the engine and innards of the car visible I had no clue what was wrong with it.
“I am so getting a new car,” I sighed. I called up the number to Triple A in my phone (I might not know how to fix cars but I knew how to call people who did) and wondered how long it would take them to send a tow.
A pair of headlights appeared traveling in my direction. I raced around the side of the car and leapt into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind me. After the way this week was going I would not be surprised at all if the person behind the wheel of that car was a serial killer out looking for his next victim.
The car slowed and pulled directly behind my car.
See? Total serial killer.
I heard the slam of the door and watched as a large dark figure approached. I could make out nothing because his headlights turned him into nothing but a dark shadow.
The only thing I knew for sure was that it was a man. Unless of course it was a woman. Judging from the sheer size of the black shape if it was a then she would have to be a professional body builder.
Seconds later a darkened face appeared at my window.
“Car trouble?” he rumbled. His voice was deep and his southern accent was strong.
I screamed.
I forgot my window was down!
I jammed the key back into the ignition and turned the engine over. It made a puny, pathetic sound and stalled out. The windows were electric. I couldn’t get it up if the car wouldn’t start.
“Please don’t kill me!” I burst out.
A laugh floated through the night air and wrapped around my body. He put one of his hands on the door, so that it rested where the window should be, his fingers falling down the inside of the door.
I snatched the keys out of the ignition and swung down to stab the fleshy part of the back of his hand. Seconds before I made him bleed he jerked away.
“I’m not going to murder you!” he shouted.
“Don’t you yell at me!” I retorted.
“You tried to stab me!”
“You tried to kill me!”
“I stopped to see if you needed help. You know, because your junker car here stopped working.”
“How dare you call it a junker.” I fumed. My car definitely was a junker but I wasn’t about to let him insult me. I’d had enough of men to last me a lifetime.
“Sweetheart, I call it like I see it.” he drawled.
Damned if I didn’t get goose bumps. His voice was like the velvet sky I was admiring only moments ago. “Well, okay, it’s a piece of crap.” I allowed. Obviously his southern accent was making me stupid.
“I’m just going to take a look,” he said. Before I could tell him no he was walking around the front of my car. The glow of his headlights gave me a glimpse of the way his hips rotated when he walked.
He had long legs, the kind that owned the ground whenever he took a step. He was tall… he had to be at least six two. Other than that I couldn’t make out anything else about him. He was wearing a baseball hat and it was pulled down low, shading all of his face from the little light out here.
A light clicked on up front (he must have the same app as me) and I saw him reaching down into the engine. The sound of something being pulled out of the car had me leaping out of my seat and rushing around the front.
“What the hell are you doing!” I demanded horrified as he pulled out this long black thing. “Is that a snake?” I shrieked. Had I somehow run over that giant thing and it got caught in my engine?
He paused and looked up at me. “A snake?” he asked like he couldn’t understand what I was saying. Then he shook his head. “It’s the drive belt,” he muttered, going back to pulling it out.
“Well if it’s supposed to be in there why are you pulling it out?”
“This way when I go to kill you, I know you won’t be able to get away.”
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