Page 119 of Hate You More

Clara

“Want to tell me what you’re doing?” Troy slides a lock of my hair between his thumb and fingers as though it’s precious silk.

Who, me? I’m just pretending not to notice I’m naked and in your bed again.

I’m also wondering why your smile seems a little . . . smug.

“Clara?”

“I’m relaxing.” Eyes closed, I give a little sigh, luxuriating in his touch. It feels so good. I’ve missed this, human contact, I guess. It’s soothing. Almost therapeutic. And the man certainly knows what he’s doing.

“You don’t look relaxed with your arms crossed like that.”

He means across my chest. It’s an attempt to anchor the duvet. I didn’t mean to have sex with Troy. Again. That’s not to say it was an accident, exactly, either. It’s not like we were playing naked-roommate Twister and his penis accidentally slipped in.

I wonder if I should buy a game of . . .

Stop.

All this to say that I’m not quite sure how it happened. We were on the couch, looking at commercial listings. Places to house the offices of my impact fund. Troy was working the trackpad of his laptop, talking through the merits of somewhere near his office. I argued the rent was more than I was willing to pay, when I found my attention drifting to his actions. Then his wrist.

Yes, his wrist. I know—positively Victorian.

Broad and lightly golden haired, I studied its contours, finding myself getting a little . . . hot under the collar. How masculine it looked. Thick. My gaze wandered higher, wondering how, in the light, his forearm looked to be carved from warm-colored stone. And the veins. Oh, the veins. I had the wicked impulse to trace them with my fingertip—with my tongue—just to test the theory that he was flesh and not stone.

Then I realized he’d stopped talking. That his finger was no longer moving. That neither of us were looking at the screen. I watched, sort of outside of myself, as he lifted his laptop and deliberately set it down on the ottoman. Next thing I knew, I was climbing over him, and we were tearing at each other’s clothes like a couple of animals. Not that animals wear clothes. Except maybe bougie poodles and Pomeranians.

What followed was accidental sex.

On the couch.

Then in the shower.

And then in his bed.

“Tater Tot?” I feel the irrepressible curl of my lips at that ridiculous name. “Habibti,” he purrs next, grazing his teeth, his lips, across my bare shoulder.

“Your mom used to call me that.” I know it means my love in Arabic. A sweet, though not necessarily loving, term of endearment. Like dear or honey, but not sweetheart or love.

“Are you meditating?”

I burst out laughing. “Even on my meds . . . No, Troy. I am not meditating. If you must know, I’m practicing my pose for my casket.” I close my eyes again.

“Any particular reason?”

I open one eye. “Because you’re going to kill me.” But what a way to go.

He throws back his head, his hair leonine, his laughter pure roar. Move over, hot Kovu. The Lion King II. There’s a new king in town. Or should that be jungle? “There are worse ways to die, though, right?”

“I don’t want to die.” I twist my head to look at him. “I want to live. I have a lot to live for.”

“Yeah, you do.” He begins to tug on the duvet. “I’d like to live a little between your legs.”

“Stop that!” I slap his hand away and decide lying down is a bad idea. Not that we were lying down when this started. “We’re not supposed to be having sex, remember?”

He gives a sigh as he pushes onto his back, adjusting the pillow behind his head. He leaves his hand there, propped behind his head. He looks like a cover model from one of my stepmom’s old romance novels. So I might’ve read one or two of them when I was a little too young.

God, this is hopeless. Every time we cross a line it becomes harder to remember where the boundaries lie. Harder still to remember that this marriage, this experience, has an end date.