Beautiful Secret

Beneath me, Ruby fell immediately still.

“Bloody hell . . . Ruby. That was a terrible thing to say and at the most inopportune moment. I am an imbecile.”

She ran her hands up the back of my neck, lifting to kiss, possibly in an attempt to shut me up. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” I said into another kiss.

“It is,” she insisted, her voice uncharacteristically stiff. “I’m sure it’s weird to be with someone for the first time after only having been with her before.”

“It’s not that . . .” I began, and then trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished. I needed to fix this. It was bad enough that I’d gone mute when she’d said she loved me; I couldn’t let this be a disaster, too. “Ruby, my timing may be horrendous and I apologize for that, but I feel I need to explain how different this is for me.”

She nodded, relaxing a bit beneath me. As I searched for words, I struggled to hold on to the clarity of only minutes before, when I felt completely joined to her, knowing her. She’d given me something so rare—true insight into what it was to make love—and I’d fucked it up immediately.

“At some early point in our relationship, Portia read some article explaining that men needed sex at least once a week in order to not cheat. It was bollocks, but it became part of her mental relationship canon. Sex once a week. No more, no less. She was very organized, you see,” I said, hoping to add a bit of levity. “Staff meeting Mondays. Sex with husband Tuesdays. Rubbish pickup Thursdays.”

Her eyes went soft with sympathy. “Ouch.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” I said, and then tilted my head, considering this. “It simply wasn’t very good, either.” I met her eyes, swallowing thickly as the words took shape in my mind. “And see . . . that, right there. Please understand I feel uncomfortable even saying this much, particularly given our current circumstances.” I made a show of looking down the length of our bodies, as if to emphasize the point, to which she smiled. “As a general rule I don’t discuss my personal life. But now you are my personal life. I want you to know every facet of me, and how different I am with you. And unfortunately that often means knowing things about my relationship with Portia. Somehow her view on it made sex both a special occasion and a chore.”

Ruby drew one fingertip across my bottom lip, tracing the shape of my mouth as she said, “Did you ever tell her any of these things? When it ended?”

I felt myself frown. “There wasn’t really a chance. Or maybe, more accurately, we’d both grown so weary by that point, that it was easier to just walk away.”

Ruby’s question pricked at some thought I’d long since buried. Why hadn’t we ever spoken of these things? Surely if I was unhappy, Portia had been as well. I could only imagine how self-aware Ruby—with her psychologist parents and need to always express herself—would view the way I’d reacted after the divorce. There was no attempt at reconciliation, no attempts to fix what was wrong, no search for closure. I’d packed up my things and gone. The decision to end our marriage had been filled with as much passion as we’d had during it.

Always able to read my expressions, Ruby tipped my chin back in her direction. “Hey, I’m not saying you should have, everyone deals with things differently. I saw your face before the divorce, and after. I know you’re happy with me. I didn’t ask that because I’m jealous. I hate to think you didn’t get the sort of adoration you deserve, but—and as horrible as it sounds to say it out loud—it turns me on to think about how much I can give you.” Her hand ran down my stomach and wrapped around where my body seemed to return to life. “You were so different just now. Like”—she closed her eyes, thinking as she absently stroked me—“kind of dominating and rough.”

Just as I opened my mouth to apologize on instinct, she stilled me with a look, then said, “I liked it.”

Without any words, I returned to her, pressing my chest to hers as we kissed.

I felt her reach for me, guide me into her again, and just like that we were moving together frantically, vocal, grasping. I tried to restrain myself, tried to remain gentle, but the tightness in my chest over her admission made me feel demanding, possessive, and desperate to deserve her.

Fifteen

Ruby

I opened my eyes and blinked in confusion at the walls and ceiling, at the soft dark sheets wrapped around me. Everything looked completely foreign. For a moment I was wildly disoriented. I wasn’t in the hotel room in New York. I wasn’t in my own flat.