Still Into You (7 page)

Chapter Eight

Seth and Leila walked through the thick quiet of the night without a word. People moved past them on the dirt paths that led to the various parts of The Ranch—some guests nodding and smiling at them, others too wrapped up in their thoughts or their companions to notice the silent married couple trudging back to their cabin.

Seth had opened his mouth a few times to say something . . . anything, but the words seemed to get lost on the way from his brain to his lips, the thoughts tangling and sticking in his mind like spiderwebs. He’d screwed his wife in front of a crowded club while she blew some other guy.

And he’d fucking gotten off on it.

But the gentle kiss and soft whispers Ian had given Leila afterward had made Seth want to swing a right hook square into the chiseled jaw of their new friend. The moment had shifted everything from being some crazy fantasy experience to the frigid cold of real life. He and Leila had just broken their wedding vows on purpose. Some other man was exchanging intimate postcoital murmurings with
his
wife. Seth had let someone else saunter into the sacred space of their marriage and touch what he held most precious.

And Seth had no idea what to do with the paradoxical reactions of being turned on by everything that happened while at the same time being scared shitless by the inevitable consequences. And worse than that, he had no idea what Lei was feeling because he couldn’t find the right words to ask her.

They made their way up the three wooden steps at the front, and he unlocked the door to their cabin. Leila stepped inside and flipped on a lamp in the living room, breaking the safety of the darkness that had cocooned them during their walk. The soft light revealed the smudged state of her makeup and the swollen curve of her lips. Lips that had been around another man tonight.

She looked beautiful. And like a stranger.

She crossed her arms over her chest, her bottom lip giving the slightest quiver. “You said no shame, Seth. No consequences.”

He turned his back to her and shut the door, the quiet snick of the lock like a clap of thunder in the charged silence.

“What? So now you can’t even look at me?” she asked, her voice in a battle between angry and tear-choked.

He took a deep breath and turned to face her. “Come on, that’s not it.”

“Oh, really?” she said, taking a step closer to him. “Then kiss me.”

“What?”

“You always kiss me after sex. And you didn’t tonight.”

He sighed and ran a hand over the back of his head. “Lei—”

“Afraid I’ll taste like him, Seth? Is that it?”

He winced, her words like flecks of glass digging into his skin.

Her jaw flexed, unshed tears gathering in the depths of her eyes. “You son of a bitch. This was your idea. Yours! And now you’re going to look at me like you’re disgusted? Like I’m some tramp?”

“What was I supposed to do? You were going to fucking leave me,” he said, his voice rising. “It’s not like I’ve had this on my goddamned wish list. Watch my wife suck another man’s cock. Check!”

“You sure were enjoying it while it was happening.”

He tossed the keys on the table by the door and stormed past her. “That’s because for the first time in I don’t know how long, you actually seemed to want me. To need me.”

“Maybe that’s because it’s the first time you’ve really noticed me in a year,” she challenged, following his retreat into the bedroom. “You don’t even
see
me anymore.”

He turned around, all the unspoken shit of the last few months welling up inside him and bursting forth like a creek overflowing its banks. “That’s because you won’t let me! You’ve shut me out. I can’t even look at you naked unless the lights are off. And during the day, the lights might as well be turned off, too. All we talk about are the kids and the big house you want but don’t have.”

“Oh, right, the conversations we have in the half an hour you’re actually at home at night,” she said, her tears officially tracking down her cheeks now. “You have no idea what my life is like. I’m alone, Seth. Alone. All. The. Time.”

The sight of her crying and the ache in her voice cut his anger off at the knees. He sank onto the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands, the weight of it all pressing down on him. “I have to work, Lei. For us. For the kids.”

I’ve promised you more than what I’ve given you.

She didn’t respond, and for a second, he thought she might walk out right now. Walk away from their marriage and not look back. But after a long moment, she knelt down in front of him, and laid her cheek on his lap, surrendering to the crush of pressure along with him.

With a tired breath, he lifted his head and sifted his fingers through the silky strands of her hair as he stared down at her. She used to fall asleep with her head in his lap when he’d come home from work late and she’d insist they watch a movie together. She never made it through the first thirty minutes. But he agreed every time anyway so he could watch her like this.

Long minutes passed, only the sound of the ticking clock and their breathing filling the space. He traced the shell of her ear. “I think somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the people we were meant to become.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, but she stayed quiet. Waiting.

“I made you a mother way before you should’ve been, and it forced you into this mom role that is a beautiful part of you, but not the whole of you.”

“The pregnancy was both our faults.”

He frowned. Yeah, but he’d been the one who had been careless. The one who hadn’t checked the expiration dates on those condoms. “Tonight I got to see a part of you I had no idea was even in there.”

She lifted her head and sat back on her knees, wary. “Seth, about tonight . . .”

He lifted his palm. “No. Let me get this out. Tonight you were amazing and confident and so fucking sexy that I could get hot all over again thinking about it.”

Her eyebrows crept upward.

“Seeing you so uninhibited was like my own fantasy come true. And knowing how much those other guys wanted you turned me on.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know what to do with that. But there it is.”

“But then why the weirdness afterward?”

He shrugged. “Because seeing some other guy kiss you was like showing me a glimpse of the future. Made me realize that I’m not ‘it’ for you anymore. That in order to get us that hot and bothered for each other, we needed someone else’s help.”

She laid a hand on his knee. “Ian wasn’t the one making me that way. I turned him down the first time he offered. It was you I wanted.”

He gave her the side-eye. “Yeah, so two guys and all that exhibitionism had nothing to do with it. Sure.”

She smirked. “Okay, so that helped. But it’s not like afterward, I wanted to go back to
his
room. The circumstances only amped up the excitement.”

He shook his head, having a hard time even recognizing the woman he’d shared a bed with for the last eight years. The girl who used to blush if he slipped up and used dirty words during sex. “Is this only about being lonely, Lei? This feels like more than that.”

She unfurled from her kneeling position and sat cross-legged on the floor with a sigh. “I don’t know how to describe it. Part of this is all the things we’ve talked about. I
am
lonely. There is distance between us. But there’s also this restlessness inside me, this itch that I can’t seem to shake lately. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. All I know is that these forbidden things pop into my mind way too often. And I haven’t felt comfortable going to you to talk about them because . . . Well, you know.”

He sighed and sank back onto his elbows, considering her. “You’ve been with me since you were nineteen. All the crazy shit we were supposed to be doing in college didn’t happen for you. Maybe your unsown oats are staging a rebellion.”

She stayed quiet, running a finger along the line of the floorboards. Up and down. Up and down. “You know. I heard how wild you used to be. You had a quite a reputation amongst the girls in my dorm. Your little band groupies.”

He groaned. “I was twenty-one, Lei. Me and self-control weren’t friends yet. But then I met you . . .”

She scoffed and her finger kept tracing the lines on the floor, her eyes clouding as if she were seeing their past right in front of her. “You met me and I inspired self-control? That’s like saying you were able to diet once there was only celery available instead of chocolate cupcakes.”

He sat up and put out his hand. “Shut your mouth and come ’ere.”

She glanced his way, eyebrow cocked. “Excuse me?”

“Not a request, pretty girl.”

With a huff, she stood and walked over to him and took his hand. He guided her down to her knees, bracing her with his thighs. He tipped her chin up with his knuckle. “You think I didn’t have dirty thoughts about you, Lei? I used to lie in bed at night while we were dating, stroking myself to fantasies of all the wicked things I wanted to do with you, to you. But you were so innocent and new to everything. I didn’t want to push things too quickly. Then you got pregnant. And all of a sudden tying you to my bedposts or sharing you with one of my bandmates suddenly didn’t seem so important.”

Her mouth formed a little
o
. “You wanted to share me with one of the guys?”

He cringed. Well there was a double-edged question if ever he heard one. But he had to be honest with her. “Our drummer asked me about you a few times. He was into threesomes. But I said no. I wanted to be the kind of guy a girl like you deserved.”

“A girl like me?”

“Yes, smart, sophisticated, pedigreed. People from my neighborhood were the ones doing the housekeeping and gardening in your neighborhood. I didn’t want you to see me as some trailer trash guy who wouldn’t respect you.”

“Seth, I would’ve never thought those things. If I was so concerned with money or pedigree—”

“You would’ve never gone slumming and married me.” He smirked.

“Now it’s your turn to shut up.”

“Come on, Lei. You never think about it? When you were walking through Vandergriff’s mansion, you weren’t thinking what it’d be like if you were with someone like him instead of me?”

She pushed away from him and stood. “Now you’re just being an asshole.”

“Right,” he said, his tone turning snide even to his own ears, but he couldn’t help it. “So that had nothing to do with the temptation to cheat?”

She put her hands on her hips, her cheeks reddening in anger. “No, Seth, it didn’t. You know why it was tempting? Because he looked at me like I was beautiful, like he was ready to take me right there in his foyer. And it felt good for
someone
to do that.”

The barbs landed squarely, stinging with each harsh word.

She turned on her heel and stalked toward the door. But before she walked out, she glanced back at him. “And I could’ve fucking had him. I could’ve gone up to his room and you would’ve never known any better. But I didn’t. I didn’t do it, Seth.”

“Why not?”

She pressed her lips together, obviously fighting off more tears. “Because I’m in still love with the boy who laid me out on the picnic table. I don’t need some other guy to want me. I want
that
boy to want me. But I’m not sure he exists anymore.” She looked away. “I’m not even sure that girl exists either.”

Seth’s anger drained from him. Seeing her standing there, looking so vulnerable and lost, had his heart splintering. He rose from the bed, afraid she would run out the door, but she seemed frozen to her spot as he crossed the smooth wood floors. When he reached her, the right words wouldn’t come, so he cupped her face, swiped away her tears, and sealed his mouth to hers, letting all of the things he wanted to say pour out through action instead. She let out a little whimper of protest and then softened into the kiss, her body sagging against him.

He moved his hand to her lower back and pressed her against him, their heat and anger and hurt melting into a fire of another sort. His cock flexed as she shifted her hips against him in an effort to get closer.

“Seth,” she panted in between the kissing.

“
Shh
, pretty girl, no more talking.” He gripped the backs of her thighs and lifted her, winding her legs around his waist. Her tongue worked against his and he could taste all of her—her natural sweetness, the salt of her tears, and the earthy taste that he knew to be from another man. His cock only got harder remembering what they’d done tonight, how willing and pliant she’d been.

Seth may have thought he married a debutante, but maybe his Leila was better suited for vixen. She clearly had urges that even she was afraid to admit. He needed to stop tamping down the edgier parts of himself. She wanted that, needed to see that side of him. Needed to feel truly desired.

How had he let his wife get to this point? Made her to believe she wasn’t sexy or beautiful or someone who could inspire dirty, no-holds-barred fucking.

The whole idea caused a deep ache in his chest. He’d failed her. While off trying to be the man of the house, he’d let his vibrant wife languish on the vine, her self-esteem and sensual side left untended.

And when some other man, some fucking stranger, had made her feel special for a moment, she’d reacted to it like a shriveled flower finding rain.