Do I Know You?(66)

With the same fusion of boldness and restraint, he reaches forward to run his fingers up my arm.

I can hold myself on this precipice no longer. My question comes out whispered. “What do you want?”

Graham looks right into my eyes. Then he steps forward, his hand moving with featherlight fingers to my neck, my cheeks. I lean forward, unable to stop myself, feeling like my skin is searing from the molten core underneath. Graham’s hand moves to cup my chin, his thumb gentle on my jaw.

“I want to be with my wife,” he says.

There isn’t only desire in his voice, though there is desire, unhidden. It mingles with yearning so deep it pulls my heart to him. In the moment, I realize he’s exactly right. It was the perfect thing to say. It is the perfect thing to be. While he watches me intently, intimately, I nod, letting myself slip into the real us. There’s no more pretense now. Lifting myself onto my toes, I kiss him.

His mouth moves with mine in the way it has hundreds of times. It’s familiar, like a well-learned dance. The continuation of a kiss we’ve been having for years. But right now, I’m the furthest thing from tired of the motions—I enjoy every step of this dance, leading, following, joining with him. Moving from my face, his hand slides into my hair, drawing me nearer, our bodies fitting together.

Then he’s moving his lips to my neck, his hands to my waist, where they slip under my skirt to pull the garment and tights down, past the hem of my tucked-in sweater. When skin meets skin, I hear myself exhale sharply from the quiet rush.

His hands rise, gently clutching the sweater’s hem to pull it seamlessly up and over my head. The exposure is exhilarating—while he’s fully clothed, I’m standing in front of him in only my underwear, painted in moonlight.

This contrast clearly works the same effect on my husband. With new intensity, he stares. I don’t shy away, watching him take in the curves of my bare skin. Then suddenly he’s bending down, hands underneath my thighs, lifting me off the ground. I embrace his neck, clinging to him while he walks us both to the bed in the dark.

He lowers me, laying me on the cloudlike comforter so tenderly I feel tears prick my eyes. Now he unzips his pants and pulls off his shirt, moving with sharp efficiency, like he refuses to languish one unnecessary moment before getting closer to me. Moving gently, he joins me on the sheets, his eyes like worlds of expectation.

I meet his gaze in the moonlight, knowing which Graham I’m seeing. This is the man I shared coffee with on our first date, whose law school graduation I captured with eager iPhone photos, who listened to my recordings with wonder written on his expression. It’s the Graham I know, my husband, looking desperate for me like he’s been on so many nights.

What’s more, it is exactly who I want. Not the handsome stranger I met on vacation, who’s been wonderful to me over the past few days. I don’t need the character—I need him.

I strip off my underwear, laying myself bare for him. His eyes follow my every movement like he’s memorizing them. He probably is—I know I’m inscribing on my pounding heart every flicker of lust in his features.

When I’m entirely naked, my body stretched out wanting on the bed, Graham wastes no time. He’s over me in one swift, seamless motion, one controlled swing of coordinated shoulders and flexed stomach, pinning me with his kiss into the comforter. He starts with my mouth, drinking me in, then moves with impossible gentleness to my cheek, my jaw, my neck.

My breathing begins to heave, the tops of my breasts brushing against his chest while he continues to decorate my skin with kisses. In the starlight, we’re rhythm in motion, hunger made human. I reach down, half instinct, half daring, to grasp him. It earns me the softest of disarmed sounds from him while he pauses in kissing me, smothering his face in my hair.

His whole body ripples with expectation while I guide him where I want. Where we want.

When he fills me, we gasp together. I close my eyes, tipping my head back, letting Graham hold my wrists up over my head. I’m ready to surrender to the swirl of nameless feelings, of sound without words, to vanish into the collective current where there’s no him or me—only us.

But when my eyelids flutter open, I find Graham’s gaze fixed on mine. I understand immediately, implicitly, the tender need in his eyes, past the craving for my body. He doesn’t want only us. He wants me—the way I wanted my husband instead of his character. He wants to be with his wife.

So I give her to him. I don’t shy. I don’t put up walls. Holding his stare, I stay here with him, myself, even though it’s nearly too intimate. I take with every movement he gives, give for everything he needs. We move together deliciously slowly, with more than hunger now—with love. In my eyes, tears of joy glisten.

Graham rocks inside me while I roll my hips with his, his forehead pressed to mine. When he releases one of my wrists to caress the underside of my leg, I reach up to hold his neck. Saying, I’m here with you. You, Graham.

It’s different from last night, but perfect in its own way. Instead of losing ourselves in the heat, the pounding rush of feeling, we’re deeply, profoundly present. I’m caught up in the sensation of nothing left between us. No games, no distance.

It’s only us.





40


    Graham


ON THE MORNING of our anniversary, I wake up with the rising sun. Instinctively, I reach for my wife next to me.