HANNAH

I bit my lip and backed away from the front window, drawing the curtain closed again. I wasn’t sure where we’d end up—upstairs was out, since I didn’t want to risk waking Abby, but we’d be in plain view on the couch if she heard something and wandered down the stairs. I had every window in the house covered, just in case, and every light off. Not that his car wasn’t in plain sight, but he could just be visiting. A friendly little visit after dark. Nothing to see here, neighbors. Move along.

My heart was pounding as I hurried through the dark to the door. I heard his footsteps on the porch and opened it. The sight of him, still in his work clothes, tie a little loose, hair a little disheveled, made my insides clench.

“Knock, knock, little girl,” he said, stepping across the threshold. His voice sounded deeper and more intense than usual. “Are you all alone?”

Nervous excitement shimmied up my spine, the feeling you get with the click click click of a rollercoaster climbing uphill on the track. “No.”

He pushed the door shut behind him and walked toward me, backing me deeper into the dark hallway, loosening the knot of his tie a little more, then pulling it off. “Then we’ll have to be very, very quiet. Can you do that?”

Given the hunger in his eyes and the don’t fuck with me in his voice, I wasn’t sure I could. And I liked the slow, predatory way he moved toward me in the dark, like a lion that knows his strength far outweighs that of his prey but hopes she might put up a fight anyway. “Maybe.”

“Don’t worry,” he said in his doctor voice, slipping the tie through his fist. “I’ll help you.”

I eyed that tie, my breath coming fast. Drew had never been into games or anything kinky during sex. He’d been a straightforward lover, generous and passionate, and had always made sure I had at least one orgasm. But he didn’t talk during sex, never expressed any interest in toys or other bedroom props, and when I broached the idea of being tied up one time, just to introduce a little play into our routine, he’d said he couldn’t imagine doing that to me and enjoying it. I was his wife; he thought of me a certain way, and it wasn’t as a sexual object. He wanted to take care of me, not mistreat me. I’d been too embarrassed by the reproach to try again.

So when Wes backed me into the tiny hallway bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and turned me to face the mirror, I shivered with anticipation. What would he do to me? The little nightlight by the sink was on, lighting us from below with soft gold light.

He slipped the tie through his hands again as he met my eyes in the mirror. The possibilities enticed me. My eyes? My hands? My mouth? I was utterly seduced by being powerless, for once. Go on, I thought. Do it. For a moment I thought he might ask for permission and ruin the entire fantasy.

But he didn’t.

He slipped the tie between my lips and worked it between my teeth, tying it at the back of my head. Immediately my heart rate accelerated, and I began to panic, but Wes’s warm hands running down my arms and his soft voice in my ear were soothing. “Shhhh,” he said. “It’s just to remind you to stay quiet. I don’t want to hear any sound from you, no matter what.” One hand moved around my stomach and down between my legs, rubbing my clit in a steady, gentle circular motion.

I whimpered and he took his hand away. Both arms caged me tightly to his body. “Hush,” his whispered in my ear, his eyes pinning mine in the mirror. “I said no sound.”

I nodded and reached behind me, feeling his erection through the material of his dress pants. He stepped back and unbuckled his belt, pulling it from the loops. I thought he’d toss it to the floor and undo his pants, but instead, he caught my wrists and wound the strip of leather around them. I sucked in my breath.

Our eyes stayed locked in our reflection, which gave me the odd sense of watching two people that weren’t us. This couldn’t be us, this shadowy fantasy unfolding in the mirror. His eyebrows rose in question and I gave a tiny nod.

A moment later my wrists were bound.

“Now,” he said, his voice quiet but burning with need, “I’m going to make you come twice, first with my fingers and then with my cock, and you’re not going to make a sound. Understand?”

I nodded, but I had zero confidence in my ability to remain silent.

Turns out I was right—I gasped and moaned so much as his fingers worked their magic that he brought his other hand to my mouth, clamping it over my lips. And he kept it there as he fucked me hard from behind with deep, punishing thrusts, muffling my strangled cries.

But as he brought me to the brink that second time, as I felt my insides tighten and my knees go weak, my wrists straining at their bonds, I felt one more piece of me return to myself. The part that enjoyed being a sexual object when the objectification brought me to such heights. When I was choosing to be the instrument of someone else’s pleasure. When I felt empowered by the strength of his desire. By the heat of his breath against my ear as he whispered to me—Open your eyes. I want you to see this. You’re so fucking beautiful when you come—and by his orgasm, which thickened and throbbed achingly deep inside me, shaking me to the bone.

When it was over, he wrapped both arms around my waist and held me close. A moment later he untied his tie and I moved my jaw, licked my lips.

“You okay?”

I nodded.

He pulled out, and a second later I felt his hands working at his belt around my wrists. When it came loose, I took one wrist in the other hand and cradled it as I turned to face him. I was almost surprised to see he was still fully clothed. Somehow I’d forgotten. But it added another layer to the power play, and I liked it. It felt so good to choose vulnerability and helplessness, rather than to be an unwilling, unwitting victim of fate.

He reached for me. “Come here.”

I let him take me in his arms, press me to his chest. I could smell the starch on his shirt collar and a lingering trace of this morning’s aftershave or hair product. Masculine smells I’d missed. I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I wish you could hold me like this all the time.”

He kissed my head. “Me too.”

“Do you think the time will ever come when you can?”

“I want that more than anything.”

It wasn’t exactly the answer I’d hoped for and cast a little shadow over my post-sex glow. I released him and reached for my clothes while he removed the condom I hadn’t even realized he wore. Thank God, I thought. We really couldn’t afford to be careless in our situation.

“Want some water?”

“Sure, thanks. Should I—” He glanced at the small trash can under the sink.

“Oh. Yes, that’s fine. I’ll take the bag out later.” I left him alone for a moment and went to the kitchen, turning on the light before filling two glasses with cool water from the tap. I was chugging mine when he came into the room, all put together again.

He picked up his glass and took a few swallows. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” I leaned back against the sink.

He set the glass down and stared at it like it hadn’t tasted right. Immediately I was on high alert.

Something is off. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Wes. What is it?”

“I’m just—” He closed his eyes a second, his lips pressed together. “Frustrated.”

“About us?”

“Yeah.” Silence. “I had a conversation with my mother earlier.”

A siren went off in the distant reaches of my mind. “Oh? What did she say?”

“I shouldn’t worry you with this. It’s pointless.”

“Just tell me.”

“She’s got me worried about what people will say when they find out about us. I know I said ‘fuck people’ before, but I think I underestimated the degree to which people can be shitty to others.”

My heart beat clumsily in my chest. “Does she know about us?”

“No. Not that I know of.”

“Well, what did she say, specifically?”

“She thinks we spend too much time together, and when she heard I took you to the new house and then ate dinner here, she got weird about it.”

Of course she did. But Drew and I had gotten into enough arguments about his beloved mother to last me a lifetime. That was a part of my marriage I did not want to revisit. And I was working on being more understanding of Lenore, anyway. I could be the bigger fucking person. “Maybe she was hurt you didn’t take her first,” I suggested.

“I think there’s some of that for sure,” he went on, turning to lean on the counter beside me, “but then she started in about what people will say if they notice my car here, or see me coming and going all the time, or see us out in public together. She thinks people will gossip about how tacky it is, and even though she knows there’s nothing unsavory going on”—he did his best dramatic impression of Lenore—“the rumors and name-calling will be out of control.”

I nodded, my eyes on my toes. “Right.”

“She claims to be concerned for your reputation, and for Abby’s well-being. She’s worried that kids Abby goes to school with will hear their asshole parents talking and repeat what’s being said.”

My stomach turned. I looked up at him. “Do you think that’s true?”

“I didn’t at first. But then she went on about how people are more forgiving of the man in these situations, how they’ll excuse him because we’re all just Neanderthals following our dicks around and trying to stick it in whoever we can find, but that woman are held to a higher standard and judged more harshly.”

I started twisting my ring. “She’s got a point.”

“The moment I thought about someone calling you a name or saying anything that would hurt your feelings or Abby’s, I wanted to fucking put my fist through the wall.” Wes spoke through clenched teeth.

That almost made me smile.

“The conversation ended badly between my mother and me, so I stormed out and went to have a beer so I could cool off. But then this group of women came into the bar, sat at a table right behind me, and proceeded to talk about half the town, including me, in a way that made me feel like maybe my mother is right.”

I picked up my head. “What did they say about you?”

The color in his face deepened. “Nothing much.”

“Tell me.”

“Just a bunch of stupid hot doctor jokes.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but I let it go. “Yeah. Drew used to get that, too.”

Wes watched me playing with my ring, his expression pained. Maybe he didn’t like being reminded that I’d been his brother’s wife, but that was our fucking reality. I told you this would be too hard.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I want to protect you, but I want to be with you, too. It’s so fucking unfair.”

“It is.” Life. You bitch.

He turned toward me and looped his arms around my waist. Our hips rested together, and I played with one of the buttons on his shirt, focusing on my fingers and not his face.

“Hey.” He jiggled his hands on my back. “I’m not giving up on us. And I don’t want you to, either. I’m just irritated with my mother.”

“Okay.” That wicked little ball was building at the back of my throat again.

“I mean it. Look at me.”

I did, but it took me a minute.

“I will deal with her, okay? She is not your problem.”

“But she is, Wes. She’s affected by this. How she feels matters. And I can tell you right now, she is going to have a huge problem with us. Lots of people will.”

“I’ll handle her, I promise.” He tightened his arms around me, lowered his forehead to mine. “Don’t give up. Please.”

“I don’t want to, but—”

He kissed me, silencing the rest of my sentence. “Don’t. We’ll figure it out together, okay?”

“Okay.” When he talked to me in that quiet, sweet voice, I couldn’t refuse him.

But when I closed the door behind him a few minutes later, I felt a pit open up in my stomach. And as I plodded up the stairs, it began slowly filling with doubt, like sand trickling into an hourglass.

* * *

He came over the next three nights in a row, and each night we took another step forward. Tuesday he came for dinner and did the dishes while I put Abby to bed. He didn’t leave and come back like he’d done the night before; instead, he’d gone up to say goodnight to Abby, come back down, and we stretched out on the couch together to watch a movie. With my cheek on his chest and his arms around my back and our legs tangled beneath a blanket, I felt some of the doubt recede. I had a brief moment of panic when Abby came down the stairs asking for a drink of water, scrambling out of Wes’s arms and jumping off the couch, but she didn’t say anything about him or ask any questions. We didn’t have sex that night, but that was okay—I needed to be sure that our connection wasn’t just sexual, and it felt good just being close to him.

Wednesday night he worked late and had dinner out, and I hosted Wine with Widows. I didn’t say anything about Wes when it was my turn to talk, but Tess was the last one to leave, and when she asked if I’d seen him, I confessed that I had.

She gasped. “Spill!”

“There’s not much to tell,” I said. “We stayed away from each other for two weeks, but the feelings didn’t go away.”

“Told you.” She looked smug. “So it’s going well?”

“Yeah.” My face got hot. “It is. I mean, it’s brand new—it’s only been since Saturday—but it feels really good.”

“I’ll bet it does. So the sex was just as good the second time?”

“And the third.” I couldn’t resist. “He blindfolded me with his tie in that bathroom right over there. And tied my hands behind my back with his belt.”

She glanced at the bathroom and back at me, her eyes wide. “Who are you?”

I laughed. “I’m still me. I’m just figuring some new things out about myself.”

He came over later and we snuck upstairs, locked my bedroom door and tore off each other’s clothing before fucking like porn stars in a silent film. When the bed made too much noise, we moved to the floor, Wes on his back on the rug and me on top, riding him with reckless abandon. Before he left, around one in the morning, we laughed at the rug burns on his ass and my knees.

“Where’s your car?” I asked him at the door.

He kissed me. “I parked around the block. I don’t want people to see my car here so much, especially this late at night.”

“Oh.” It was thoughtful and sweet, but it was yet another reminder that what we were doing was something shameful to be hidden away in the dark.

Thursday Abby came home from school and showed me a picture she’d drawn in crayon of her family. There was me, with long brown hair and big brown eyes and suspiciously big feet. There was Abby, with yellow pigtails and a pink dress, holding a gray scribbly thing I could only imagine was her stuffed elephant. And there was a man, with green eyes and brown hair, whose hands seemed much bigger than anyone else’s.

Was it Drew? Or was it Wes?

I felt terrible I didn’t know. Abby didn’t say one way of the other, but she was proud of her work and hung it on the fridge with a Valentini Brothers Farm magnet.

That night Wes came for dinner again and took us out for ice cream afterward. When we got back, I told him to pull his car into the garage.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Yes. I don’t want you to park around the block and have to sneak over like some criminal.”

“I don’t mind, if it protects you.”

“Just do it. It will make me feel better.”

He smiled and did as I asked, then waited downstairs while I put Abby to bed.

“Is Uncle Wes still here?” she asked as I turned out the lamp.

“Yes.”

“I like when he’s here.”

“Me too.”

“It makes me feel cozy.”

I smiled. “Good.”

“And safe,” she added.

My smile faded a little. “You’re safe no matter what, baby. I’m always here.”

“I know. But sometimes you’re sad at night.”

My stomach clenched. She’d heard me crying. “Sometimes I do get sad at night. That’s true. But it doesn’t mean you’re not safe. It’s just Mommy trying to get better.”

“You’re better when Uncle Wes is here. You’re not sad.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Maybe he can move in with us,” she suggested. “Then you would never be sad and I can always feel safe. We could be a family.”

“Oh, Abby.” I closed my eyes, wishing I could stop time and think of the best way to handle this. Why wasn’t there a Single Widowed Parent Handbook for these moments? “We are a family. You and me.”

“But a family needs a dad.”

“Not necessarily. I didn’t have a dad, remember?”

She thought for a second. “Were you sad about that?”

“Sometimes,” I said honestly. “But I had my mom and I knew she loved me with all her heart, the way I love you.”

“But can he move in?”

Apparently all my heart was not enough. “No, Abby. Uncle Wes just bought his own house, remember?”

“He could sell that one.”

I smiled sadly. “Listen. The important thing is that you are loved and safe and sound here with me, okay? Whether Uncle Wes or anybody else is here or not.”

“Okay. Can you send him up to say goodnight?”

I hesitated, but gave in. “Sure.”

As I walked downstairs, I felt that pit open up in my stomach again. Abby was falling in love with Wes right along with me. Could I blame her for feeling safer and happier when he was around? Wasn’t I? But I had to be careful. What if she grew so attached to him she stopped feeling safe when he wasn’t around? As much as Wes and I felt for each other, there was no guarantee this would work. We couldn’t even go out for dinner or hold hands in public, let alone spend a night together or share a home. How could I protect Abby from hurt when I couldn’t even protect myself?

Wes was in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter, looking at his phone. For a moment, I was back in time, looking at another man in dress clothes after work, checking his messages, waiting to say goodnight to his little girl. Everything was good. We were a family.

He looked up at me, his forehead wrinkling with concern. “What’s wrong, baby?”

I twisted my ring. “Abby wants you to say goodnight.”

“Okay.” He paused. “Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I pressed my lips together. “No ghosts. Just a little worried about Abby. Go on and say goodnight and then we can talk about it.”

“Okay.” He dropped a kiss on my head as he walked by, then put a hand over mine. “Stop fidgeting. Everything will be okay.”

I tried to smile.

He left the room, and I saw that he had put the dinner dishes in the dishwasher while I’d been upstairs with Abby, and the pans I’d used to cook with had been scrubbed and set out to dry on dishtowels. I’ll say one thing for Lenore. She raised her sons right.

Was I doing right by my daughter?

My throat tightened. I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Wes in the kitchen doorway, his face etched with worry. “What?” I asked.

“She asked if I could be her dad.”

The room spun. “What did you say?”

“I said I couldn’t, because she already had a dad, and nobody could ever replace him.”

I nodded as tears swam in my eyes. “That’s a good answer.”

“It’s the truth.”

“She asked me if you could move in.”

His face went a little pale. “What?”

“Because she wants to be a family. Because she feels safe when you’re here, and I’m not sad. My daughter doesn’t feel safe with me, Wes. I’m not enough for her to feel safe. I’m not doing this right.” I dropped my face into my hands and cried, conscious of the fact that this was exactly why Abby didn’t feel taken care of with me. I wasn’t a real adult in her eyes, because real adults don’t cry. But it only made me sob harder.

Wes’s arms came around me in an instant, and I let him hold me, my sobs muffled in his chest. He rubbed my back and spoke softly. “Hey. Listen to me. You are doing a great job raising Abby. I’ve spent enough time with kids her age to know that not all of them are as well-mannered or kind or happy as she is.”

“How can she be happy?” I cried. “I can’t give her what she needs.”

“Yes, you can, and you are. You’re giving her a home and healthy food and unconditional love every day. You’re also showing her an example of a woman who suffered an unimaginable loss but picked herself up and carried on. You’re teaching her that life is unpredictable, sometimes sad, but at the end of the day, what matters is that you have each other. And you’ll always have each other.”

“There’s no such thing as always,” I sobbed. “It’s a lie. I thought I’d always have a husband. She thought she’d always have a father. You thought you’d always have a brother.”

“I did, Hannah. And there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to have him back again, even if it meant giving you up. I know I said the worst thing I ever did was walk away from you, but if I could trade places with him and spare you and Abby the pain you’ve suffered, give you back the life you wanted, I’d do it.”

“Don’t talk that way.” Suddenly scared of losing Wes too, I wriggled my arms free and threw them around his neck. “I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t. Hannah, you won’t.”

“I need you.” I clung to him, desperate to get as close as I could, craving the physical reassurance of his body.

“You have me.” His arms were warm and solid and strong. His voice held nothing but strength and certainty. “I’m here.”

I started kissing him everywhere I could—chest and shoulder and neck and throat and jaw. He took my head in his hands and sealed his lips over mine, a kiss that promised always and made me feel like it was real as long as I could feel him next to me. Our hands moved frantically over each other’s bodies. When our passion pushed us past the limits of resistance, and our clothing made us feel like we were trapped in two separate cages, Wes grabbed my hand and pulled me out the back door.

We ran across the lawn to the garage and slipped inside through the service door. Wes yanked open the passenger door to the backseat of his SUV, and I jumped into it. As soon as he got in and shut the door, I undid my jeans and shimmied out of them. He unbuttoned and unzipped his dress pants, shoving them down past an erection that sprang free from restraint.

“Oh, fuck.” He lifted his hips off the seat and reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet.

“Let me.” I grabbed it from him, fished out the condom, and tore the packet open.

“Oh my God, I feel eighteen again,” I said as I rolled it over his thick, hard shaft.

“So do I, so you better get over here before I come just from watching you do that.” He reached for me, swinging me onto his lap, groaning as I positioned his cock beneath me and slowly lowered myself onto him.

When my ass was resting on his thighs, I grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, panting through the deep, stabbing twinge. But we had no time for comfort. And I liked the pain anyway—there was no pleasure without it.

“We have to hurry,” I said as I began to move, rocking my body over his.

“No problem.” He grabbed my ass and pulled me tight against his body as he flexed his hips, grinding the base of his cock against my clit.

Our eyes locked as we raced toward the peak together, our skin growing damp with sweat, the car windows fogging up. It was our own little world, a secret paradise where no one could find us, no one could hurt us, no one could tell us what we wanted was wrong. We were together as one, and nothing would ever come between us. “Yes!” I cried out as my body erupted in powerful, billowing waves. Wes groaned, his body stiffening, his hands squeezing my ass as his cock pulsed with life inside me.

“Tell me again,” I said, breathing hard, tipping my forehead against his. “Tell me again I won’t lose you.”

“You won’t lose me.” His hands slid up my back. “I’m here.”

I closed my eyes. “God, I wish you could stay the night. I want to sleep in your arms. I want to wake up and know you’re there. I’m so tired of being alone when the sun comes up.”

“I wish I could, too. But I think that would be very confusing for Abby.”

Abby. My sweet girl who wanted Wes to be her daddy. I thought about the drawing on the fridge.

If only it were that easy.

“It would. And I don’t want to confuse her any further.” I sighed. “Come on. We better get back inside. I don’t want her to wake up and think I left her.”

We pulled ourselves together enough to sneak back into the house and check on Abby, who was sleeping soundly. Wes was nearly out the door when he noticed the drawing on the fridge.

“Is that new?”

I glanced at it. “Yes. She brought it home today.”

He moved closer to it, and I followed.

“I’m not sure whether that’s you or Drew,” I confessed. “But I didn’t want to ask her.”

“I think it’s me.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. She always tells me I have big hands.”

“Oh.” Part of me was glad she’d drawn Wes, and part of me wasn’t.

“They’re nothing compared to your feet, though. What’s going on there?”

I laughed, looking down at my bare feet. “I don’t know. I only wear a six and a half.”

“You look like a hobbit or something.”

I hit him on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

“I’m teasing. You know I think you’re perfect.” He moved toward the door again. “Hey, how about piano shopping on Saturday, and maybe dinner out Saturday night? You and me and Abby?”

“Really?” I smiled. “Do you think we can?”

“Yes.”

“I’d love that. I’m sure Abby would, too. I have to work, but I can probably get off around eleven.”

“Great.” He gave me one more kiss and cradled my face in one hand.

I turned my cheek into his palm.

“We’ll get there, Hannah.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. We are not going to be sneaking around in backseats forever. I promise.”

Stop promising me things, I wanted to say.

I was starting to believe in them.