"Zack—"
He brushed away her hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear and then softly, tentatively, lowered his head and touched her lips. It confused her, that kiss. It was so barely there, and yet the thrill went down to her knees. She half sighed in acknowledgment of its power, and she closed her eyes, waiting for him to kiss her again. He did kiss her again, lightly again, and again she gave herself up to the thrill of it, responding to the unique sensation of having another man's mouth on hers.
He was different from Jim. He tasted different, he smelled different. Was this how women felt who cheated on their husbands? Assuming that the men
were
their husbands? A sharp surge of bitterness emboldened her, and she slid her arms around Zack, then touched his tongue with her own, tip to tip, a naive question from her to him: did he want to make love to her?
His answer was a deep, probing kiss, a silent thunderbolt through her body that drained her of thought, of motive, of breath itself. Everything was gone from her but desire. She responded with a fervor that frightened her, as if she were starving, and now she had food.
Pounding her with the force of his kisses, Zack slid his hand down
behind her and
pulled her close. He was aroused and powerful, and she realized that he had the strength to snap her in two. She made that her rationale for letting him lift up her top and pull away her bra, then drop to his knees before her.
"Wendy, ah,
Wendy
..." he said. His mouth moved with devastating effect over the tips of her breasts, making them unbearably responsive to his will.
Her eyes were closed. She steadied herself with her hands on his shoulders and swayed weakly as he unzipped her skirt and pulled it down from her hips, letting it pool around her feet on the dusty floor. Her panties came down next. He left them at her ankles, too irrelevant to bother with, as he cupped his hand over the soft
flesh of her lower torso
, drawing down a rush of
wet
.
The last vanishing impulse of decency warned her that they were on the upstairs landing, in the light, with the front door open and in full view from the porch. It shocked her, what she was letting him do, and it whipped her on. She wanted to shock—herself, her world—in the hope of somehow making things right again. It was a form of therapy, and she was aroused enough and fierce enough to embrace it. If he were to pin her to the wall right then and there, so be it. She was ready. She was willing.
But Zack wasn't. "Not here," he said. He lifted her up as if she weighed no more than a bundle of shingles and carried her into her old bedroom.
She clung to him, her panties still dangling from an ankle, her top and bra awry, as he grabbed hold of a corner of the canvas tarp that she had
spread
over her mattress
to protect
it
, and pulled it away with a sweep of his free arm.
He laid her down on the bare mattress and began himself to undress—quickly, efficiently, untying his work boots, then shedding his socks, shorts, and boxers.
He crisscrossed his arms in a grab for the bottom of his T-shirt and yanked it over his head, revealing a flat stomach and a
tanned
and muscular chest that in every respect was unlike Jim's.
If anything needed to bring home to her that the train of her life had just gone careening off its tracks, it was the view of Zack Tompkins,
current
builder and attempted blackmailer, standing naked before her.
And she wanted him, absolutely. She said, "This might be because of Jim, Zack. I don't know."
"Don't think of Jim," he said, bracing himself on the bed as he hovered over her. "Think of me."
Her breath was ragged with tension and, somehow, sadness. "I just want to be fair to you."
"Don't think about being fair," he said. "Just think about you."
In the dim light spilling from the hall, she could see a faint smile playing on his
li
ps as he swung his thigh over hers. More than a smile, it was a promise, and she had no doubt that he would be able to fulfill it.
He positioned himself at the entrance to her and came in with a single thrust
that
took her breath away. She let it out on a moan. It was a delicious, satisfying, fiery sensation to have this man, this lover, filling her.
And the door downstairs was still open, an apt symbol for the wild disregard she was feeling just then.
Zack didn't move; his body was coiled for release that he was denying himself. His own breath, bottled up, came out in a sigh. "Coming attractions," he explained, his voice husky. "Now, where were we?"
He
began a slow move inside her, but i
t didn't take long; she was so primed to come. Her release was huge, a torrent of every possible emotion, all of them overflowing her capacity to contain them. Desire, anger, hurt, sorrow, fear, shame, revenge, humiliation and, yes, a new inclination to care—all of them were lifted and carried away on the wave of her orgasm.
She felt utterly, completely, improbably spent.
In the past, when she had had an orgasm ahead of the man who she believed was her husband, she would say, "Wait
... just
... let me be
... for a bit," and never with any success. She wasn't that experienced in the ways of men, and she had assumed that they were all alike: eager and clueless.
But Zack was not Jim. He
positioned himself alongside her
and, blithely ignoring his
own unspent state
, he stroked her hair, and kissed her fingertips, and murmured small flatteries that she immediately wrapped in silk and tucked away in the deepest chamber of her heart.
His willingness to wait made her eager to have him. Before very long, she slipped her hand behind his head and pulled him down into a deep kiss,
urging him back on top of her again.
He came in, then, filling her, and this time they came together.
Before Wendy left Zack, they embraced and kissed on the sidewalk under the street lamp in front of her house. The embrace was emotional and bittersweet, as well as a fairly public announcement to
the neighborhood that her not-
marriage was over.
In case they didn
't catch me naked on the upstairs landing,
she thought, slipping inevitably into her grim mood as she got back on the road.
The beach house was minutes away. Wendy was going to have to confront Jim over her discovery in Tillicut, and the sooner she did it, the better. Making love with Zack had delayed and dampened—but hadn't extinguished—that impulse. She might not feel like scratching Jim's eyes out anymore, but she wouldn't think twice about spitting on him.
Emotionally, she was officially declaring herself a disaster area. If someone had predicted to her three hours earlier that she was going to let herself be carried to her bed by her carpenter, she would have asked that someone what he'd been smoking. And yet here she was, her flesh still burning from their mad, pumping scramble to multiple climaxes.
They hadn't even used condoms, for pity's sake. It hadn't even
occurred
to her, for pity's sake. She was on the pill and so used to having one partner that she never gave a thought to any other cautions. Her only concern was to put out the fire, and she hadn't even done that, because here she was: her flesh, still burning.
What had she done? She'd had wild, satisfying sex with Jim's brother-in-law and nemesis, that's what. Had she just used Zack as a knife to drive through Jim's heart?
Another thought: had Zack used her in the same way? That idea too was sudden and chilling. Why hadn't she considered either of those possibilities when Zack was pulling her clothes off? Her, relishing the act of being stripped naked on the landing and with the door wide open! Her aching nipples began to harden at the mere thought of it, amazing her still more.
Obviously she was in no shape to analyze motives, either hers or Zack's. Or Jim's. She didn't believe, as Zack did, that Jim had abandoned Zina simply because he'd gotten cold feet about becoming a father. Wendy just didn't buy it. Jim hadn't been that happy when she
herself became pregnant
—
and yet
he had stuck around and had been a good father to Ty.
And that was the misery of it. Everything would be so much easier to take, so much more cut-and-dried, if Jim hadn't cared about Ty. He was both harder to hate and easier to hate because of that single fact.
After the quick review of the emotional rubble that was her life, Wendy decided that, exhausted or not, she was going to have to begin clearing some of it away. So she was actually disappointed to see a second car parked behind Jim's in the driveway of their rented house in
Barrington
. She parked alongside the Dodge, trying to decide if it was the one that belonged to that dodo Alexander from Jim's old office. She had no desire to make pleasant conversation while her lips were still s
wollen with passion, so she de
toured through the breezeway entrance to get inside.
Quietly, she opened the French door and then closed it behind her. The lamp on the breezeway table was on; too useless to read by, it gave the area a cozy glow, perfect for petting a cat. She smiled when she saw Walter, curled up on the floral cushion of what
he
now considered his chair, and wondered whether Jim had been sitting there with the cat on his lap, reflecting. Was it possible? The thought made her wince. Brushing it aside, she tiptoed to the guest room at the far end of the wing, grateful that earlier she'd moved her shampoo and things to the shower there.
With the bedroom door closed behind her, she took off her clothes and folded them with care, perhaps to make amends for the rude treatment they'd seen, and then she stepped inside the freestanding glass box that seemed designed for no other reason than to display and seduce.
She turned on the shower, and the simple, everyday act accomplished what no one and nothing else so far had been able to do: it reduced her to tears. They came in a sudden, wrenching burst of sobs, wracking her chest, filling her throat, overwhelming her soul. Suddenly she was drowning in her own tears, awash in them. Shower or no shower, she could taste the salt, feel the sting, as she bowed her head and hugged herself under the downpour, sobbing bitterly.
She stayed that way for what seemed like hours before she forced herself back under control, but it couldn't have been hours: the bathroom was hardly steamed.
Okay,
she acknowledged to herself,
you lost it. That's once, that's allowed. But that's it.
There would be no more tears. Jim wasn't worth them. The tears were done with, over, gone, the evidence washed down the drain.
With a deep, damp breath, she told herself that that was that. But she knew, as she shampooed and conditioned and scrubbed herself clean, that the tears were still rolling. They just didn't hurt quite as much, that's all.
After drying herself, she slipped into her nightgown and turned out the lights. The guest wing was pitch-black. Wendy wasn't used to such darkness; she considered turning the light in the breezeway back on, but she was too drained to get out of bed. She fell asleep while lying on her back—unusual for her, but there was no longer anyone to curl up with—and woke up when she was suddenly, violently jumped from above.
Wendy let out a cry, and fat Walter scrambled awkwardly to the floor with a heavy thump. He had wanted to curl up with a human being, that's all.
"Bet you don't try that again," she mumbled after her heart quieted down, and she got up to get a drink of water.
She stood near the open window, emptying the glass, in a hurry to fall back asleep and blot out her day. She was near an open window. It was a damp, quiet night, and the sound of voices carried well. She could hear Jim's outside in front, apparently seeing his guest to the car. She wondered what time it was.
And then she heard a second voice, louder than Jim's softer, placating one, hurtling across the distance.
"You dumb
shit
! You know how long I've waited for this? You get it for me, and if you don't, I'm gonna rip off your balls and shove 'em down your throat. Fuck, I'll do it anyway!"
Shocked into wakefulness by the crude and violent threat, Wendy ducked low, with her ear cocked to the sounds of their voices.
Jim was saying something in a hurried mutter, but she couldn't make out anything beyond, "I'll do it, I'll do it."
"I could kill you now, you bastard. Right now! Right here!"
And then she heard a third voice; it belonged to Phil, her crusty neighbor to the west. "Hey! Put a sock in it, or I'll call the cops!"
Immediately after that, she heard a car door slam, followed by the squeal of tires backing up sharply and peeling off.
And then quiet. She was in a safe, peaceful neighborhood again, with only the sound of crickets to keep her awake. That, and the thunder of her pounding heart. She rushed to the phone to call 911. But what should she report? Confused, she slammed the phone back down and ran out to the entry hall in time to see Jim brush past her and proceed on to the master bedroom.