The Solitude of Passion (26 page)

It feels like we’ve stepped into a time machine—easily this could be five years ago in the bedroom he built for the two of us.

He fumbles with the buttons on my blouse, and I don’t fight him. Mitch drops to his knees and looks up as if to venerate me. His fingers fall into the lip of my jeans, and he peels them off, watching with careful attention as if he didn’t want to miss a beat. He presses in a kiss over my bare stomach and I take in a breath. The long, hot tracks of his tongue incinerate me from the inside. It’s nothing but forfeit as Mitch pushes me back on the bed. It feels strangely familiar—like a memory playing out in real time.

Mitch lands on top of me, straddling me with his knees. The room glows like a candle with just enough light for me to see his beautiful face.

My fingers float to the scars on his chest. I can’t ignore the welts rising up all over his body. I’m so frightened for him, but I’m thankful he’s here. I’m glad God figured out a way to pull him out of my heart and land him miraculously in the western hemisphere. I’m so glad this fantasy has taken shape in flesh and bones, even if it is just one long dream. I glance down at him lost in his lust with his lips fused just below my belly. We both know this isn’t real. We both know he’s long since dead and things like this just don’t happen. It’s hard to know what’s up and what’s down, what’s real and what isn’t when you’re still trying to pick the pieces of your heart off the ground.

Mitch rises up my chest, my neck, with a trail of feather-soft kisses. I push all thoughts of this gargantuan puzzle out of my mind as he bears down at me with a look of relenting lust.

“Lee,” my name streams from his lips like a poem. Mitch meets me with his mouth, diving over me with a kiss that tastes like eternity branding itself from his soul to mine. “I’m going to love you,” he whispers, gliding down my body and burying a string of kisses over my stomach, trailing lower until he presses my knees apart.

A groan escapes my throat as he lands the hot of his mouth over the most intimate part of me, and a flare of heat spears through me. He moves his mouth in a steady intoxicating rhythm while kneading my thighs.

Mitch peels off his jeans and rises above me like a phoenix. He crashes his lips over mine and kisses me through a lust-driven smile. I open up for him like a flower—Mitch is the sun I’ve craved for so long. He pushes into me with a pronounced thrust, and a small cry escapes me that’s been building for the last five years. Mitch pushes in, deeper still and fills me with all of his carnal affection—a hard-won groan wrenches from his gut.

“God, I love you,” he pants hot into my ear.

“I love you, too, Mitch.”

There’s not another person in the universe who exists right now.

It’s just Mitch and me, lost in our love as his body moves in rhythm to mine.

But Max hovers over us like a ghost.

And, now, nothing will ever be the same.

Mitch

Breakfast turned into lunch, and that turned into dinner, and the only thing we feasted on was each other. All of those lonely nights, every carnal fantasy played out in one luscious exchange—making love to Lee—
fucking
Lee. The explosion of lust went on for hour after blissful hour.

Lee didn’t say more than two words as she drove me home. She blinked back tears at every turn, hoping I wouldn’t notice. I know she was thinking about Max, how much she hurt him with me of all people.

I wait until her taillights take off from my mother’s driveway before bolting upstairs. I can’t shake the feeling we just sneaked one in under the radar of parental supervision and it’s not right. What Lee and I shared should never feel dirty, illegal,
sinful
. It was pure and innocent, love at its best.

It doesn’t take long for me to gather the meager belongings my mother laid out on the bed and toss them into an old backpack I manage to excavate from the closet. Mom is already in bed asleep, so I leave a note on the kitchen table,
I’m going home. Borrowed the truck.

I catch up to Lee before she crests the hill. I don’t think she realizes it’s me or that she’s being followed. She rides all the way up the driveway then hesitates before killing the engine. I get out of the car and meet up with her on the porch.

“Did I forget something?” She looks bewildered, far more animated than she did the last half hour.

“Just me.” I give a lopsided grin and hold up my backpack.

“
Mitch
.” Her mouth falls open, breathless. Her cheeks light up like a Christmas tree as if she’s unsure what to do with me, embarrassed by the entire exchange.

“You can’t stop me,” I say it low, filled with seduction. “Well, you could. But I don’t think you will.” I give the loose impression of a smile.

Lee fueled me—gave me the ammunition I need to dethrone Max off the king size bed upstairs. If it were anybody else—anyone in the entire world—I would have held back, thought twice about what happened today. But being with Lee, touching her that way, burrowing inside her and never wanting to leave, invigorated me. There’s no way in hell I’m rolling over for Max Shepherd, letting him run away with everything I worked for just because life decided to swallow me up in its asshole.

She spins the key in the lock and struggles to open the door before it swings wide, revealing a pissed-off Max on the other side.

She gives a nervous laugh and tries to conceal my backpack with her knee.

We’re met with a stone cold expression, nothing but raging hatred directed at yours truly.

“I’m so sorry.” Lee attempts to speed past him, but he catches her by the waist.

“Kids are asleep,” he says, reeling her into his chest. “It’s ten-thirty.” He’s examining her, waiting for an answer. “And what the hell is he doing here?”

I breeze past the two of them. “I’m home,” I say it mostly to myself. This is all so surreal. I’m not sure how to measure the depth of emotion just being in this place invokes in me. “Like the floor.” I’ll rip it out if he had anything to do with it. I head to the kitchen. Everything is the same—same appliances, same L-shaped couch in the family room. I glance out the window. It’s too dark to see the water, but the slider door is open with the ocean breeze penetrating the air and every breath is so wonderfully sweet. It’s so good to be back, right here, in the house I built with my own two hands.

A hard shove comes from behind as Max spins me, turns the collar up on my shirt, and pulls me in.

“You want me to kill you? I will,” he pants. “I swear to God I won’t mind.”

I glance behind him for signs of Lee. A prattle of footsteps ignite from above, so I gather we’re alone at the moment.

“Relax.” I push him off and back up. “Lose the temper. Get comfortable. I’m here, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

Max pauses. Drops his arms back to his side while examining me like a predator.

“Don’t do this,” he whispers. I like how he’s dipped his manipulation into the pathetic zone in hopes I’ll fall for the spare-the-children card. “Don’t bring this drama into my house with my kids. If you care at all about Stella or Lee, you’ll leave right now.”

“This is my house,” I correct. “
My
kids.” I’ll claim his son just as quick as he claimed my daughter. “My house. My family.” I drill a finger into his chest. “I built them both. Since you’re such a fucking bleeding heart when it comes to a family in crisis, why don’t you avert one by shacking up at the Mono Bay Hotel. Rumor has it, a room just opened up an hour ago.”

His jaw goes slack. I can see a fit of rage surging through him, then it leaves quick as it came. He’s calling my bluff. Max Shepherd won’t believe it for a moment.

He roots his feet to the floor. A minute of silence tracks by with nothing but cross-armed aggression spewing from him.

“This isn’t like you, Mitch.” You can see the fire in his eyes. You could light an entire solar system with the inferno brewing inside him. “I thought you were
nice
.” He spits it out like it was the world’s vilest expletive.

“Nice wears off after five years.” I butt my shoulder into his as I pass him.

He doesn’t bother with a response, just stalks through the living room and up the stairs to the bedroom he shares with my wife.

It’s quiet down here—downright eerie. If I wanted, I could convince myself that not a moment went by, that I never boarded that plane, that Colton went instead, and he was really dead.

Poor bastard.

I pull a soda out of the fridge and take a seat in my favorite spot on the couch.

Sorry Colt. I almost miss you.

The blue numbers on the microwave read two o’ five when Stella catches me in the kitchen getting a glass of milk. It’s pitch black in the house save for the light emanating from the open door of the fridge.

“Picture Daddy!” She throws her arms around my waist and rocks me into a hug.

“Stella,” I whisper her name like a dream before catching her little hands in mine.

“I’m thirsty.” She pulls back and looks up at me with those lawn green eyes.

My heart nearly combusts in my chest at the sight of her. I’m thrilled she didn’t freak out and scream her head off. I’ll pour her twelve glasses of milk if she wants.

“Why are you up so late?” I ask, digging a smile into my cheek. She has Lee’s tiny nose, eyes the exact shade as mine, and my heart soars just taking her in.

“Couldn’t sleep. I thought I heard a burglar.”

“Burglar, huh?” I get down on one knee as if I were about to propose. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

She shakes her head.

“Good. You need to be strong and brave. No matter what you might be afraid of, God is bigger. Just remember that.” She blinks up at me over the rim of her glass and hands it back when she’s through.

“Tuck me,” she says, digging her fists in her eyes.

I hesitate for a second as I envision Max storming out of his bedroom in a blind rage and beating the shit out of me. Not that I believe for a minute he’d be stupid enough to scar Stella like that. And, if he did, I’d throw him over the railing—eliminate a lot of problems in the process.

Her miniature gown glows like a paper lantern as I follow her all the way up to her room. She looks like a ghost, and for a moment I wonder if I’m back in detention having one hell of a realistic hallucination—that I’ll wake up in a bed of paper roses, squeezing the life out of a pen like I have so many times before.

Stella turns on the light in her room, and I snap it back off again. There’s a nightlight on, giving off a gentle glow. She hops into bed, and I tuck the covers around her before dropping a kiss on her forehead.

“I love you, Stella.”

“I love you, too, Picture Daddy.”

I bless her cheek with a tear-filled kiss, and my eyes snag on a picture set on the nightstand. It’s of me on the beach, posing with my surfboard. My insides twist at the sight. That’s what I was reduced to, paper and ink.

I head out into the hall and walk over to the master bedroom, stealth as a ninja. When I left all those sunrises ago, I never dreamed it wouldn’t be until this night I would be back. I place the pads of my fingers soft against the wood—feel the magnetism of Lee wanting to pull me in. But she can’t. There’s an intruder in the bed, and his name is Max Shepherd.

It takes everything in me to peel my hand from the door. There is definitely an energy here. I fight the pulsating desire to burst in and toss Max down the stairs, headfirst. Instead, I float back down to the family room, fall asleep on the couch—get lost in a vat of strange dreams that make me believe I’ve made my way back to Lee again. But deep down inside I know I couldn’t have.

Could I?

Max

I head downstairs early, trying to push the acid-tongued argument I had with Lee last night out of my mind. It happened. Lee confessed to my worst nightmare, and now, forever, I’ll have a visual of their bodies locked together in heat. She didn’t tell me how far they went, but I didn’t need a roadmap. And here, after I saw him, a part of me was glad that Mitch was back—
happy
—and now I see it for the horror it is. He’s out to stomp my marriage out like a kitchen fire. I’ve got two choices, fight or quit, and I can’t quit Lee.

It feels like shit knowing she succumbed to him—worse than shit.

Lee swore she was insane, that she wasn’t thinking clearly, she couldn’t even pin the year let alone understand what was happening, and tragically I believe her. I want to anyway.

Eli giggles from the family room so I head over. His laughter filters through the air mingled with Stella’s more discerning laugh. I find the two of them on the couch, cozy as peas in a pod, with Mitch in the middle reading them a book.

“Morning!” Stella sings before dipping her nose back down to where Mitch has his finger. “Picture Daddy is reading to us.”

Just fucking, “Great.” For Stella and Eli’s sake I’ll fake sanity. “Anyone want breakfast?”

“Sure.” Mitch is quick to answer.