Page 39 of Reckless Love

My company. My son.

“Mrs. Santos,” he says. “I’m breaking down the door.”

“Nightmare,” I call back. “Don’t… I’m fine.”

A heavy silence sits on the other side of the door, and I’m sure he still wants to come in here to check, to know for sure I’m not lying.

“Do you need me?” he asks. “Can I help?”

Yes. “No.”

“You’re okay?”

“Yes.”

Silence sits heavy between us, and he’s still at the door, deciding if I’m lying.

“I guess I’ll go back to bed, then.”

It’s another beat before his heavy footsteps sound along the hallway, returning to whatever spare room he’s opted to use.

I flop into the bed, the plush, expensive sheets enveloping me, and I stare at the ceiling.

The last night Stephen was in Bellerive, he gave me six orgasms, and I haven’t had a single one since. Not with another man. Not alone. Not with a hot tub jet.

And now not even Dream Stephen is willing to achieve the impossible.

Karma really is the biggest bitch.

Chapter Fourteen

Ava

The sex dreams—yes, plural—make it really hard to be around Stephen for the rest of the time Raul is gone. I stop our nightly games by taking an extra-long time putting Landon to bed, and I force distance where I don’t want distance to be. My subconscious, not for the first time in my life, has decided that when I dream, I only get to dream of Stephen. At least this time, the dreams are new material that overflow with sexual frustration, not snippets of past conversations, half-remembered moments that made my whole body ache with loneliness, with a missing that I couldn’t cure no matter what I did.

Before Stephen left, if anyone had asked me if I was lonely, I’d have laughed in their face. No question. Me, lonely? I had lots of family, a huge group of friends, and endless parties. Yet somehow, Stephen was the one person who truly mattered. The balancing factor that tipped those scales.

Or he used to be.

Now I have Landon, and becoming his mom filled the void Stephen left. Before Landon was born, nothing could soothe the fourth-degree burn of Stephen’s loss.

And until Stephen walked back into my life, I had myself convinced that I’d imagined the intensity of my feelings, that the life I’d once had with him was the false reality, the one not meant to exist. This life in this house with this husband was my true fate, where I was supposed to end up. Even if I wasn’t exactly happy, what I had between these walls was enough.

I wish I still believed that.

It’s not until the last night before Raul comes home that my willpower dries up, runs out. Rather than lying in Landon’s bed long after he’s fallen asleep, I creep out as soon as his breathing evens.

As I descend the stairs, Stephen is at the security portal, scrolling through the various cameras around the estate. Broad shoulders. Tapered waist. My stomach flutters with recognition.

When he turns around, my breath hitches, a familiar sensation that I’ve felt more and more often the last few days. Old feelings resurfacing, poking through the careful façade I’ve crafted.

It’s painful to realize that there will always be something about Stephen Foster that makes me want. An illicit emotion that causes every other aspect of my life to become dimmer in comparison. At one point, he was the focal point around which I navigated my life, my North Star. I thought—I hoped—I’d outgrown this unexplainable pull: the need, the want.

“One last game?” I ask.

“Your husband told you?” Stephen’s voice is tight.

“Told me what?”