Chapter 17 #2
But I love my husband, and I love my family.
I don’t understand why I so desperately feel this need to be free from it.
Standing in this gallery, in my safe space, I don’t belong to anyone here. I serve no one. I worship no one.
“Please, Briar,” he whispers, his breath grazing my lips. “Let’s get out of here.”
Those words feel like a bomb that detonates and takes out everything. It razes my entire life, and at this moment, I find it so alluring that I let it.
“Okay,” I mumble in return.
He slips his hand in mine and tugs me toward the door. I barely see the art we pass as we rush through the museum. Thoughts swirl through my mind as we go, but I brush them away as if we’re trying to outrun them.
Outrun the consequences. Outrun the guilt. Outrun the multitude of reasons I should not want this.
I’m not thinking. Only acting, and it feels good. After years and years of making the smart choice, the Christian choice, the moral choice, I forgot how good it feels just to make the carnal, selfish choice.
Dean and I are out on the street, hands linked and practically running to the car.
He’s wearing an expression on his face of victory and elation.
His eyes sparkle as he slips his tongue out and wets his bottom lip.
When his eyes rake over my body from top to bottom, I feel alive for the first time since college.
As we step into the elevator of the parking garage and the doors close us in, I feel my temperature rise. He turns toward me with hunger in his eyes as he corners me against the wall.
“Look at me,” he commands, and I lift my gaze to his face. “Hands behind your back,” he says, and the way he tells me exactly what to do sends chills down my spine.
Like the condensation on a glass of sweet iced tea left out in the sun, I melt under his scorching gaze. When his lips move toward me, my heart races and my head turns slightly. His kiss lands against the rapid pulse of my neck, and I forget how to breathe.
The arousal that courses through me is fervent and intoxicating. His lips are harsh against my skin, and my eyes fly wide open as his hands grip my waist with brutal need.
I’m lost in a torrent of desire.
His deep, sexy voice whispers in my ear, “You might be married to him, but you belong to me.”
Blood rushes to my core, pulsing with need. With my hands still pressed obediently between my body and the wall of this elevator, I’m powerless. I’m his.
As his lips finally find mine, I hold my breath and jump headfirst into this feeling. His mouth captures mine, and suddenly, we’re alone on a planet of our own. We are the only two people who exist. He licks into my mouth, caressing my tongue and making it so I couldn’t breathe if I wanted to.
Everything about this kiss is exquisite, like the stroke of paint on a canvas blending together to form a masterpiece.
But when I feel him grind the stiff length in his pants against me, the panic sets in. I feel his cock, and suddenly I’m flooded with dirty, terrible thoughts of what I’d like to do with it. I want to touch it, taste it, worship it, take it.
It’s so, so wrong.
Like being doused in cold water, I gasp. Just then, the elevator chimes, and the doors open.
I lift my hands from behind my back and shove Dean to the side so I can rush out of the elevator. When I reach the open air at the top of the parking garage, I suck in a breath as if I’ve been underwater this entire time.
“What am I doing?” I shout to myself as I pace the open space.
“Briar,” he calls toward me, but my mind is not open to listening at the moment. It’s too caught up in passion and conflict.
“I love my husband,” I argue. “I’m not stuck in some loveless marriage.”
“I didn’t say you were,” he says.
“Then…what are we doing? Why did we do that?” I’m practically screaming, clearly hysterical from that heated moment.
Meanwhile, Dean is as cool as a cucumber, strolling toward his car with his hands in his pockets.
“This isn’t a game, Dean!” I shout toward him.
When he spins toward me, he’s wearing a twisted expression of frustration. “What do you want me to say, Briar? That I’m sorry? Because I’m not.”
“You can’t just…kiss married women, Dean.”
“I just did,” he replies smugly. “And don’t tell me you didn’t want it.”
“I—” This isn’t fair. My body wanted something my heart didn’t.
Or did it? My heart wants Dean, too. Sweet, dominant, compassionate Dean. But wanting and having are two different things, and if loving Caleb is my crime, then not having Dean is my punishment.
His car beeps as he unlocks it. Then he opens the passenger door and looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to get in. The painful surrender on his face guts me.
“I won’t touch you anymore, Briar. If you don’t want me to, I’ll respect that.”
My throat starts to sting as I strangle the urge to cry. Without another word, I walk to the car and climb into the passenger seat. The drive back to the house is silent and uncomfortable, but there are no words to say that would erase the harm we’ve just done.