Love Far Away (A Spicy Contemporary Romance) (8 page)

I waited, but Matthew didn’t drink. “You’re supposed to get
me drunk,” he said. “Stuff you haven’t done, but everyone else probably has.”

“You never know,” I said. “Okay, fine. Never have I ever
passed out after drinking.”

Matthew took a big gulp of wine. “Never have I ever had a
pet.”

I sipped my wine, remembering the cat we’d had to give away
when it was apparent he didn’t like toddler Henry. “Never have I ever had a
fake ID.”

“If I’d grown up in France, I wouldn’t have needed it,”
Matthew said as he finished off his glass of wine. He poured himself another,
then topped mine up. “Never have I ever kissed a stranger.”

H
is voice had changed. It wasn’t giddy from the
excitement of stealing the wine anymore, or wistful like when he’d talked about
his favorite places in Paris. It was low, expectant. I didn’t move my glass of
wine. I looked at him.

He took a step towards me, sipped from his glass, and then
set it on a side table. Gently, he took my glass out of my hands and set it
next to his. He took my hand and lifted it up to touch his cheek. “Julia,” he
said softly.

I ran my hand up through his thick hair, then caressed his
neck. “Matthew,” I whispered. I was standing closer to him than I had ever
stood next to any man before, save my husband….my ex, soon to be ex-husband.

“I think you’re going to need some wine,” he said, and bent
to kiss me.

Every objection I could think of ran through my head- I’m
still married! I just met you! My friends are all out there! But as soon as his
lips touched mine, I forgot them all. It had been a long time since Bradley and
I had been intimate, too long, and as I tasted the wine on Matthew’s lips I
realized how much I had ached for someone to touch me the past few weeks.

His tongue lightly stroked mine as he ran his hands over my
body. “You’re so sexy,” he whispered in my ear. “The second I saw you I knew I
wanted you.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I whispered back. “This
isn’t me at all!”

“That’s what is so great about it,” he murmured. “You can be
whoever you want to be tonight.”

He was right. I would never see him again after tonight, and
I’d had just enough to drink that I knew what I wanted. I reached out to caress
the bulge in his pants, and grew bold enough to undo the button. His cock was
right there, thick and throbbing and ready to burst out if I hadn’t undone the
button myself. “It’s too bad you didn’t enter that contest out there,” I told
him. “I know you would’ve won.”

He moaned gently and reached out against the wall to steady
himself as I continued to stroke his shaft. “Oh, god, Julia...your hands are magical.”

It gave me such a feeling of power to see a strong man like
him succumb to me so quickly. I could feel myself getting wet between the legs,
and I wanted him inside me. I glanced over my shoulder at the huge, pristine
bed he’d been sitting on when I first saw him.

“Bed?” he gasped. “I need you.”

“What if someone comes in?” I whispered.

“Too late for that.”

I had an idea. “Come with me,” I said, and, cock still in
hand, led him towards the bathroom. I shut and locked the door behind us. There
was a thick pile rug on the floor that I’d been thinking of, but Matthew had
different plans. He reached out and pulled down the zipper on my dress. “Your
turn,” he told me.

I hesitated only a second before stepping out of my dress
before I fell back in to him. He flicked my nipples with his tongue until they
were erect, and I cried out. His mouth on mine was forceful and we staggered
backwards until we fell into the armchair I had sat in earlier. I ground my
hips in a hard circle against him as he slid one hand in my panties and gently
entered me with his fingers. I made a sound I’d never heard before- Matthew was
getting something out of me I didn’t know I had. With one finger he pounded at
the soft flesh while the other massaged my clit with such a gentle touch it was
like two different hands.

“Ahhhh,” I groaned, as I bucked and ground my hips against
him as hard as I could.

Abruptly, he stopped.

“Keep going,” I begged him. “Oh, God, what are you doing to
me?”

“Get in the shower,” he told me. “Come on!”

I didn’t ask questions, just followed him. With one quick
motion he turned the shower on, then grabbed me by the hand and pulled me in
after him and pushed me up against the wall. The spray from the water hit my
breasts and rolled down my stomach, where he gently kissed and licked them up.

“Careful,” he warned, as he knelt and lifted one of my legs.
He hooked it over his shoulder and gestured towards a shelf within arm’s reach.
“Better hold on.”

I grabbed the shelf for balance and leaned my head back
against the wall as Matthew’s tongue darted in and out of my folds. The
sensation of the cool tile pressing on my back mingled with the warm wetness
coming from inside me and the spray from the water almost pushed me over the
brink. The leg I was standing on buckled and I reached out to grab the first
thing I touched- his hair.

“Please!” I cried out. “I’m going to fall down!”

He stopped then just long enough to lay me down on the floor
of the shower before going back down. His tongue flicked and stroked in ways I
had never felt before, and now here was a finger again rubbing hard against my
clit. With one final stroke I felt a wave come over my body and, against my
will, my back arched against the hard floor and I let out a howl of pleasure as
I came hard and fast.

“That’s it, baby,” said Matthew, and he slid out of the
spray long enough to grab a foil packet from his trousers and slipped it on.
Then he entered me. With a few strong thrusts, I wrapped my legs around him and
let him take me. Gliding and rocking with a frantic passion for what seemed
like hours, he finally erupted.

Satisfied and panting, we laid on the floor and stared at
each other. “That was amazing,” said Matthew.

“It was incredible,” I said. I’d never had sex like that
before with Bradley. I didn’t even know noises like that could come from me. I
stared up at the ceiling.

Bradley.

***

Matthew had stepped in to the
shower and was cleaning himself off. I wasn’t sure how this worked now- did I
join him? Showering together seemed such an intimate thing to do. I had to
laugh a bit at myself for the thought.

“Here’s a towel,” said Matthew, getting out of the shower
and handing me a thick, fluffy white towel. “Let’s dry off and get dressed. We
don’t want the others to have to go looking for us.”

“Sure,” I said slowly. “Thanks.”

We dried off and got dressed, and I got a look at myself in
the mirror. I had eye makeup dripping down my face, so I tried my best to clean
it up a bit. I didn’t have any more to reapply and I looked oddly naked without
any eyeliner.

Back out in the bedroom, Matthew picked up his glass of wine
with a casual nonchalance, like nothing had happened between us. “Sounds like
it’s winding down out there,” he said, nodding towards the door. “Should we
take a look and see what’s going on?”

“Okay,” I said. I stopped with my hand on the doorknob and
turned to face him. “Before we go out- I’ve never done this before. I don’t
know how it works, afterwards-“

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted, and leaned over to
kiss me on the cheek. “You’re one hell of a beautiful woman, Julia. I don’t
expect anything if you don’t want it. It was a hell of a lot more fun than what
I thought I’d be doing in this bedroom all night long. I hope you enjoy the
rest of your time in Paris.”

“Thank you,” I said automatically. “You, too.”

Matthew didn’t mean anything malicious in what he’d said,
but it left me with an uneasy feeling. I’d had sex with another man who wasn’t
my husband. It was true that my husband had told me he wanted a divorce, but we
were still married and he was still my husband. We had a comfortable home, two
beautiful children, and a happy life that we had both enjoyed up until the past
few months. With a bit of hard work, we could get back to that place, couldn’t
we? Could that still happen?

I opened the door and walked out to join the rest of the
party. The contests were over and the lights had been turned down and everyone
was dancing and mingling again, although this time much more closely. I scanned
the group for my friends, desperately wanting to go back to the hotel and sleep
in my soft bed.

To my great relief, I spotted Megan dancing in a small group
with one of the men and a couple other women. I didn’t care if I was
interrupting anything. I walked right up to her, grabbed her by the hand, and
pulled her off to the side.

“Jules! There you are,” she said, giving me a small hug. “We
were looking for you. Figured you’d taken a cab back to the hotel. Where were
you? Your hair’s all wet.”

I shook my head and could barely manage to get the words out.
When I did, my voice wavered. “I think I’ve made a huge mistake.”

To be continued...

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(Excerpt)
Love Far Away II

by

Leslie Cooper

Chapter One

I
felt like I was going to die.

I couldn’t
remember the last time I’d had a hangover this bad. The morning after prom?
Maybe after that one crazy night in college with all the tequila shots? I’d
still had my youthful vitality to help bounce back after a night of drinking. A
hangover the other side of thirty was a different thing completely. My mouth felt
stuffed full of cotton, my legs shook when I swung them over the side of the
bed, my stomach was churning, and the drums inside my head were so loud I
couldn’t think.

Sitting up
was too much effort. I collapsed back down on to my pillow and felt around on
the floor for the bottle of water I was sure was down there. With shaking
hands, I unscrewed the lid to the water bottle and chugged half the liquid
down. Then I pulled the covers over my head. The curtains were drawn, but
sunlight peeked around the edges. It was too early for that.

At least the
bed I was lying in was soft and comfortable. I slid my hand under my pillow and
found my phone. I checked the time- it was a quarter after twelve.

How much had
I drank last night? There had been a couple bottles of wine at dinner. Then
we’d gone dancing and I’d had a couple fruity drinks. And shots. I remembered
at least one or two rounds of shots. Then- oh, god, it started coming back to
me. We’d met some girls at the club and they had invited us to a party in their
suite. More drinks had flowed there, naturally. And I’d snuck away and had
stolen a few bottles of wine from the bar.

And-
Matthew.

It hit me
like a ton of bricks. What had I done? I was married. Maybe our wedding vows
hadn’t met anything to Bradley, my husband back home in Ohio, but they meant
something to me. We had a home together. We had a family together. We had two
beautiful children, seven year old Henry and four year old Olivia. We had a
life. And a few short weeks ago, my husband of eight years had thrown it all
away when he told me he was in love with someone else and wanted a divorce.

Bradley
Sutton was the only man I’d ever known, up until last night. His were the only
arms that had ever held me and his were the only lips that had ever kissed
mine. Not just eight years of marriage, but fourteen years together. We’d been
in love with each other since high school. And he’d told me he wanted someone
else now. So after much crying and soul searching and realizing that maybe the
man I’d married wasn’t as amazing as I’d thought he was, I’d finally agreed to
a girls’ trip with my three best friends. Megan, Ashley, and Becca had
convinced me that two weeks away would be good for my soul...and the fact that
I’d taken Bradley’s backup credit card to finance the whole thing wasn’t going
to hurt either. We’d arrived just a couple of days ago, and spent yesterday
adjusting to the new time zone and doing some shopping before we’d gone out for
a fancy dinner and checked out the clubs. Then we’d been invited up to that
party, and then...

I didn’t
want to remember what came next. I rolled over and pulled the pillow over my
head and thought that maybe, if I squeezed my eyes shut hard enough, I could
erase the last twelve hours.

“Julia? You
awake?”

My best friend,
Megan, in the bed next to me sounded similarly afflicted. Her voice sounded
raspy and cracked. I pulled my head out from under my pillow. “I want to go
back to sleep,” I said.

“Ugh, I
know. What time did we even get home last night? I mean, this morning. Five,
six AM? I can’t believe how much I drank. I’m not twenty one anymore. Ugh, I
feel terrible.”

I snuck a
look at her so I could get an idea of how I looked. Slept-in eyeliner isn’t an
attractive look on anybody, and Megan was no exception. “I don’t even want to
look in the mirror,” I said. “Do you want to shower first, or should I?”

“You shower
first,” she said. “Then we’ll talk about last night.”

“What- what
do you mean?” I stuttered.

“You know.
Last night.” She looked at me meaningfully.

I mumbled
something in reply and stumbled towards the bathroom as fast as I could. Had I
told her? Did she know? I’d been hoping I could live with the secret shame of a
one night stand as long as possible, but if I’d told Megan- had I? I couldn’t
recall specifics, but I remembered him.

It came back
to me in the shower.

We’d ended
up in the shower- I couldn’t quite remember how, but I remembered ended up
hanging out alone in the bedroom with Matthew, then stealing a bottle of wine
from the bar and then some kind of truth or dare game, maybe, and we’d ended up
kissing. And we’d made our way to the shower. As I stood under the hot spray,
bits and pieces of it came back to me- the cold tile against my back, the water
hitting my breasts, grabbing on to a shelf for balance while I hooked one leg
over his shoulder. The release I’d felt as he’d done things Bradley didn’t know
how to do- oh! Yes. I definitely remembered that much.

Once I was
out of the shower, I braved a peek in the mirror. My eyes looked dull, but at
least any caked on makeup had been washed off. I put on one of the
complimentary robes that came with our hotel room and blow dried my hair before
giving Megan a turn in the bathroom and calling room service to bring me a
strong cup of coffee. When it arrived, I took it out to the small balcony that
connected our room to the one Ashley and Becca shared and sat down to look out
over the rooftops of Paris, and think about what I’d done.

Was it
cheating? We were still married, weren’t we? Nothing had been filed. Bradley
was still my husband and I was still his wife. And yet-

The other
balcony door opened and Ashley stuck her head out, looking just slightly worse
for the wear. “Hey,” she said. “What a night! How are you doing this morning?”

Had I told
her what I’d done? I couldn’t remember. Panicked, I looked at her face and
tried to read her expression. Did she know? “Um,” I said. “I- I don’t know.”

Ashley gave
me a funny look and collapsed in to the other chair with her own cup of coffee.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? I feel like shit and I’m used to going out
and staying out late once or twice a week. But ugh, I don’t even know how much
I drank last night. And getting home after the sun comes up is crazy even for
me. You must feel even worse than I do.”

“Oh, that,”
I said. “Yeah, I feel terrible. I just want to curl up and go back to bed.”

Ashley
looked at me closely. “Are you okay, Jules? You don’t look very good.”

“Thanks,
Ash,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve drank that much since Spring Break sophomore
year of college, which was over ten years ago, and I apparently have the body
of an old lady now. Thanks.”

“No, I don’t
mean that, although you do look terrible. But I’m sure I do too,” she added
hastily. “No, I mean you look- like you’re going to cry or something. Did
something happen?”

I shook my
head.

“No? Where’d
you go last night, by the way? That party was crazy, wasn’t it? I didn’t know
what I’d think but I had a great time. Something different, right? Where’d you
slip off to?”

“Just the
other room,” I mumbled. “Took a bottle of wine with me and hung out there for a
bit.”

“You didn’t
get bored?”

“No.” I
couldn’t even bring myself to look at her.

“Huh. Okay.”
Ashley leaned back in her chair and pulled out a cigarette from her pocket.
She’d adopted a new smoking habit just because she thought it was something she
should do in Paris. She offered me one, but I shook my head. I pulled my knees
up to my chest, sipped my coffee, and stared straight ahead.

Becca
wandered out on to the balcony a few minutes later, dragging a chair over to
sit with her own cup of coffee, and Megan came out fresh from the shower
shortly after. We ordered up breakfast from room service and sat out on the
balcony, enjoying the midday sun while we rehashed the night and complained
about our hangovers. I almost forgot about my secret tryst, until Megan turned
to me.

“So, Jules,
are you going to tell the girls what you got up to last night?”

I felt
myself blush hotly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Come on!
Before we left you came up to me and your hair was all wet. You said you’d done
something stupid, that you’d made a huge mistake. You wouldn’t tell me. What
happened?”

Ashley, who
had been leaning back in her chair, sat up straight and pointed her cigarette
at me. “I knew it! I knew you did something naughty. Tell me. Which one?”

I coughed
and waved the smoke away. “Get that out of my face, Ash.”

“Oh, sorry.”
She stubbed her cigarette out. “Which one? Hottie with the blue eyes?”

“What? No!”
The party we’d been invited to had turned out, to our surprise, to be a party
where naked men danced, served us drinks, took part in anatomy-related
contests, and generally did anything the clothed women asked them to. I was
beyond embarrassed that Ashley was assuming I’d disappeared to hook up with one
of those men. “No way. Did you notice any of the guys go missing for a long
time?”

“She’s
right,” said Becca. “Nobody else left- at least, none of the guys did. Where’d
you go?”

“I was in
the other room,” I said. “That suite was amazing, by the way. I thought this
place was fancy but the bathroom was practically the size of my living room at
home.”

“Nobody
cares,” said Ashley impatiently. “Tell us. Who. Was. He?”

I sighed and
looked down at my hands. “He was just a guy. He was out with some friends- all
women- and they were invited to this party, and he showed up with them because
he didn’t know that all of the men were supposed to be naked if they wanted to
attend. He didn’t want to strip, so he was just hanging out in the bedroom waiting
until they were done. I just started talking to him when I went to the
bathroom. I snuck out and stole us some wine from the bar. We started drinking,
and...”

My friends
waited. I choked on the words.

“And what?”
asked Megan.

“And...well...I
cheated on Bradley,” I burst out.

“Oh. No.
Honey,” Ashley waved her finger at me, “when your husband of eight years tells
you he’s not in love with out anymore because he wants to boink Nikki in human
resources or wherever she works, and he asks you for a divorce, it is
not
cheating if you have a late night rendezvous with a sexy stranger.”

“I know
that. I mean, I know that- but what if we had a chance? What if I flew back
home tonight and he came and picked me up and asked for another chance, and
wanted to try counseling? I couldn’t go back to him knowing that I cheated on
him.”

“Well, even
if that did happen you wouldn’t have to tell him,” Megan pointed out. “What
happens in Paris stays in Paris.”

“But I would
know,” I said. “I wouldn’t be able to get past it, I don’t think. I couldn’t do
it. I mean, I was with another man! I promised to love my husband and be
faithful to him, and I’m not ready to just give it up. I want to fight for my
marriage. I’m not going to throw fourteen years away because I had a moment of
weakness.”

“Maybe
you’re not ready to do that,” said Becca, “but it takes two people to make a
marriage, doesn’t it? It’s no use if you’re the only one fighting for it.
You’re fighting for nothing if he’s not there fighting with you. Well, not
fighting
with
you, but alongside you. If he’s given up and doesn’t want
the marriage anymore, what are you even fighting for? You know what I mean?”

I was quiet
for a moment and thought about what Becca was saying. It hurt to admit, but she
was right in a way. There had to be two people in a marriage. And Bradley had
told me right to my face that he didn’t want to stay married to me anymore.
That he was in love with Nikki from work. He’d sworn that it hadn’t gotten
physical, but I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not, and even if it hadn’t the
fact just made me feel even worse. Then I would be the only one who had gone
back on my marriage vows to stay faithful. I buried my face in my hands.

“Oh, honey.”
Megan reached over and gave me a hug. “Don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t do
anything wrong. Your husband told you he wanted a divorce. I know how seriously
you take your wedding vows, and you didn’t break them- he did. He did it when
he asked for a divorce, when he said he’d met someone else. You didn’t do
anything wrong.”

I looked up
and saw Becca and Ashley nodding in agreement. “Screw Bradley,” said Ashley.
“Look, let’s just all get dressed, and we’ll go out and have a great day of
sightseeing like we planned yesterday. Forget about the guy last night. Well,
don’t forget, wink wink, but you know what I mean. Don’t think about it right
now. Becca, pull out your guidebook and figure out what museums or whatever you
want to go to.”

I let my
friends’ chatter wash over me as Becca pulled out her guidebook and started
talking about some museum she wanted to visit. I tried to follow Ashley’s
advice and just get dressed and go out and have a good time, but it was always
in the back of my mind. Paris was supposed to be the city of dreams for me, but
right now I felt like I was caught in the middle of a nightmare.