Bittersweet (24 page)

He
chuckled, his face buried in the hollow of her neck. They lay together for a while,
Zoe feeling surprisingly relaxed and comforted—not just in the aftermath of her
orgasms but in the warmth and strength of Adam’s presence.

They
knew each other so well. They cared for each other so much. And, for some
reason, this seemed natural at the moment rather than a huge, dramatic step.

Zoe
didn’t think very deeply about the significance. She just enjoyed holding Adam
in her arms, feeling his weight on top of her, matching her breathing with his.

She
slid her hands under his shirt again so she could stroke his back over the
lines she’d scratched into his skin before. Then she moved up to caress his
head. She loved the feel of his hair under her fingertips, the thickness, the
adorable little kinks.

He
released a long, thick groan after a minute, and she knew he liked how it felt.

So
she continued, her fingers sliding down to his neck and shoulders and then
returning to rub his scalp through his hair.

He
moaned again, very softly, but his obvious pleasure affected Zoe deeply. It
didn’t take long for her body to shift gears and go from relaxed to tightly
aroused once more.

When
Adam didn’t move, Zoe began to gently rock beneath him, instinctively reacting
to his weight on top of her and the tightening of desire at her center. She
continued to stroke him, loving when he gasped or groaned in response. She felt
him start to harden against her thigh.

Until
finally he raised himself up with a throaty sound. “Baby, you’re going to kill
me.” He gazed down at her, his eyes hot and hungry. And for a moment it seemed
like the words might actually be true. He seemed to be drowning in her,
overwhelmed in a way she’d never seen before.

Zoe
managed to smile. “Just giving your powers of recovery a little shove.”

He
smiled back at her then, and she relaxed in the fact that this was Adam, whom
she knew better than almost anyone.

Then
he reached over to the nightstand and fumbled around until he pulled a condom
packet out of the drawer. He quickly rid himself of his remaining clothes,
while Zoe undressed as well. Then he positioned himself between her legs and
stared down at her.

“Zoe,
are you sure?” he asked, his body deliciously tense again and his eyes taking
on that hungry look that was so overwhelming.

“Yeah,”
she said, her voice breaking on the word. “Oh yeah.” She reached up to pull him
down into a kiss.

It
wasn't just her body that wanted him. All of her did. And it was all of her
that gasped in pleasure as he slid himself inside her for the first time.

He
was big, and she was tight from going so long without sex.

“Oh
God!” she cried, as her inner walls clung to the penetration and her body
shuddered in reaction.

“Damn,
baby,” Adam rasped at the same time, ducking his head and holding himself
perfectly still, braced on his arms above her.

They
lay that way, joined together, on the cusp between desire and action, for a
long stretch of silence.

It
seemed impossible that this was her—intimately entangled with Adam Peterson,
with the cousin of her husband. But, at the same time, it felt inevitable, like
she couldn’t have been anywhere but here.

She
breathed into the emotions, the need, the desire, the too-tight, too-deep
sensations. Then she finally writhed, her arousal taking control.

“Adam,”
she panted, “Adam, I need…I need…can you move?” She raised her arms to stroke
his shoulders, his neck, his hair.

Adam
opened his eyes. “Oh yeah.” Then he levered his hips and made his first stroke.

With
a little effort, they settled into a fast, pleasing rhythm. And soon Zoe’s
existence had narrowed down into the feel of Adam’s hot body above her, the
intensifying rocking of his thrusts, the hunger and intensity of his eyes, and
accelerating shaking of the bed.

Zoe
was so overwhelmed by her feelings and the sensations that she felt another
orgasm spiral up improbably soon. “Oh God!” she gasped, digging her fingers
into his neck and shamelessly pumping her hips up to meet each of his thrusts,
“Gonna come. Eh, Adam!”

He
made a guttural sound of response and drove into her harder, his body starting
to shake with its tension. He seemed to be beyond words, but his eyes were the
hottest thing she’d ever seen.

She
came, so hard her vision whited out momentarily. She must have cried out, but
she wasn’t conscious of doing so, and her entire body shook as she rode out the
spasms with her hips.

Adam
made a loud, uncontrolled exclamation and froze inside her for a moment. Then
he was coming too, jerking and moaning as his face contorted with pleasure.

Zoe
collapsed boneless on the bed when she finally came down, and a moment later Adam
collapsed on top of her. They lay tangled together, hot skin against hot skin,
both of them panting loudly.

For
a minute, she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to but didn’t seem capable of it
either way. Adam must have been in the same condition. His face was pressed
against her shoulder, occasionally kissing her skin there, but he was otherwise
limp, utterly drained.

Finally,
when she felt him softening inside her, she croaked, “Condom.”

With
an agonized groan, Adam managed to roll off her for long enough to take care of
the condom. Then he collapsed on top of her again, pulling the covers up over
both of them. She wrapped him in her arms.

She’d
never known Adam could need her—need anything—this way. But there was no way
she could deny that he did.

Any
more than she could deny that her mind, her heart, her body all cried out for
him, even more now than they had before.

He
was evidently still beyond words, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to say
anything anyway. So she held him, let him hold her. And she enjoyed the
aftermath of their pleasure and the comfort of being in his arms until she fell
asleep.

*
* *

She slept
through the night, waking up around six-thirty the next morning. To her
surprise, she was still tangled up with Adam, her face pressed up against his
chest.

She
lay for a minute, thinking she was a little hot and uncomfortable but it was
nice to wake up next to him. He seemed to still be asleep. She loved that he
slept so long and so well with her.

She
thought about waking up with Josh.

Then
she thought about one of the last things he’d said to her, shortly before he’d
slipped into unconsciousness. He’d been so thin, so pale. But he’d given her
the irrepressible smile she’d known since the very first moment she’d met him.
He’d said, “Just so you know— you've made me so happy.”

Zoe’s
eyes burned with tears at the memory.

She
managed to control her emotions, but she gently pulled away from Adam, having
to displace one of his legs and having to pull her arm out from under his back
in the process. She pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the bed, naked and
a little sore, and she tried to fight through the tumult of her feelings.

“Is
it bad?” Adam asked, his voice fully awake, utterly neutral.

She
gasped in surprise and turned to study his face. There was no reproach, no indictment
in his gaze. Just something like empathy.

She
shook her head. “No, not bad. It was so good, Adam. It was amazing. I don’t
regret it.”

He
nodded, still composed, but she thought she saw a flicker of relief in his
expression.

“It’s
just…” She cleared her throat and crawled back into bed next to him. “It’s just
hard.”

“I
know it is. I’ve been trying not to rush you.”

“I
know,” she whispered, pressing a kiss on his bare shoulder. “Thank you.”

Then
she sat up in bed, the covers bunched around her hips. “I’m sorry it’s taking
me so long.”

He
lay with his head still on the pillow and gazed up at her. “You have nothing to
be sorry about.”

“I
don’t know. I feel like maybe I do. I feel like everyone is expecting me to
bounce back quicker than this and secretly judging me for making you wait.”

“No
one is judging you, Zoe.”

She
opened her mouth, thinking of a few of her friends.

“No
one has any right to judge you,” Adam went on, evidently predicting her
objection. “You can’t make everything better just by wanting to. It’s real
life, and it takes time, and anyone with sense knows that.
I
know that,
and I’ve never blamed you for taking time to heal. It has sometimes been hard
for me, but not because you should have done better. Just because
life
is hard…when someone dies.”

They
stared at each other silently for a while, and Zoe could tell that he meant it,
that he didn’t resent anything and so she didn’t need to feel guilty about him.
She couldn’t speak immediately, so she just gave him a rather shaky smile.

He
reached up for her and pulled her back down so she was sprawled on top of him. When
she lifted her head, he pulled her down into the sweetest, gentlest kiss.

Zoe
hugged him hard, and her chest ached when he hugged her back.

It
was a long time before they pulled back. But, when they did, Zoe settled at his
side and looked up into his face. “Is it hard for you that I was married to
Josh?”

His
lips parted with a taken breath. “What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t
it feel a little weird to you? Or guilty or something? Like I was his and so I
shouldn’t be yours?” Her cheeks burned at her final words, thinking they might
be too presumptuous.

But
Adam didn’t seem to think there was any presumption about the words. He
obviously took them seriously. He glanced away from her as he reflected.

Then,
after a long stretch of silence that grew increasingly tense, he met her eyes
and admitted, “No. It doesn’t. But it's different for me. I never really felt
like you were his.”

Zoe’s
heart did a weird, nervous skip. “What do you mean?”

Adam
met her eyes and then glanced away. He looked almost trapped, like he'd said
more than he'd intended and just realized it. His lips parted, as if he would
answer.

But
he didn't.

“Adam?”
she prompted, after a long moment.

Before
he could say anything, she heard a familiar wail, muffled by doors and the
hallway.

She
gasped, “Logan!”

She
scrambled out of bed and grabbed her pajama pants and tank top from the floor, feeling
awful for thoughtlessly leaving her poor little son to wake up in a strange
room all alone.

“Is
he all right?” Adam asked in concern, sitting up in the bed after he heard
Logan’s crying grow louder and more anguished.

“He’s
scared, poor baby.” She stumbled on her own feet as she tried to hurriedly put
on her pajama pants.

She
was leaving the room as Adam got out of bed, and she couldn’t help but notice
that his bare shoulders and back were marked with faint red lines from her
fingernails.

She
flushed hot as she remembered how shamelessly eager she’d been the night
before.

But
she also felt horribly guilty for letting her own personal issues get in the
way of taking good care of her son. So she moved quickly through the hall,
bursting into the guestroom where Logan had slept the night.

They’d
put him to bed on a mattress on the floor so he wouldn’t roll off a bed. So now
he was sitting in the middle of the mattress, surrounded by bunched up
blankets, looking red-faced and very unhappy with his fine hair sticking out in
little kinks.

He
wailed even louder when he saw her.

“I’m
here, sweetie,” she said, reaching down to pull him into her arms. “I’m right
here. I’m sorry you didn’t know where I was.” She sat down on the other bed,
where she’d started sleeping the previous night, and she hugged Logan in her
lap.

He
burrowed against her, gurgling and hiccupping his reproach, but the wailing
stopped as she stroked his back and murmured soothing words.

“Momma,”
Logan mumbled at last, fisting one little hand in the fabric of her top. Having
evidently recovered from the trauma, he looked up at her with a tear-streaked
face and wide brown eyes.  “Wake up Momma,” he informed her earnestly. Then he
babbled out a few more syllables she couldn’t understand.

“I
know. You woke up and Mommy wasn’t here. But I wasn’t far away. And I’m here
now. You’re all right, aren’t you?”

Logan
stared at her for a moment, as if he were thinking through the question. Then
he gave a firm nod and repeated something garbled that Zoe took to be
affirmation.

Zoe
chuckled and gave him a hug. Then she happened to glance over to the doorway of
the room and saw that Adam was standing there, watching them. He’d put on a
pair of pants and a white t-shirt. She wasn’t sure what to make of his
expression, but he asked, “Everything all right?”