Knowing you always shower when you wake and before you sleep, I sneak into your bedroom once I hear the water turn on. I take my time approaching your bed, my gaze roaming and cataloging. Even in your private space, there is none of your personal style. I sigh.
Your room couldn’t be more sterile. Only Lily’s photo adds color.
I stare at the massive canvas. It’s so large it must have been stretched onto the frame on-site.
Do you resent me for stepping in between you and her, the idealized Lily you’ve worshipped for years longer than you were together? Why did you choose this image? I think I know. The angle of her wrist presents the scorpion tattoo at her pulse to the camera. Does the sight of it, your astrological sign, offer you some comfort or deepen your torment?
I glance through the open bathroom door and note the lack of steam. I can see the entire length of your magnificent body through the glass shower surround. A warm rush of desire heats my blood. The powerful muscles of your shoulders and arms flex as you scrub your fingers through your hair. Trails of suds slither along the sculpted lines of your back, gliding over the firm swells of your buttocks before running down strong thighs and calves to circle the drain at your feet.
I hungrily catalog the differences between you and the younger version of you whose body I coveted so fiercely. You were devastating even then. I wonder if I can withstand your increased power and elegance or if I’d simply burn into ashes in your arms.
You make a noise I recognize as audible chill from the cold water.
And here I am, on fire for you. You’re torturing us both.
Witte’s already turned down your bed, and I slip naked into it. Rolling and twisting, I rub the scents of my lotion and perfume all over your sheets and pillow. You’ve come to my room every evening, but I can’t take the chance that you’ll resist tonight. I also hope to hurry you along. It’s nearly midnight. After the past few weeks, you’d think a handful of hours longer wouldn’t make a difference, but after you reacted to my touch with such longing, I can wait no more.
I leave the way I came, through your closet, and into the sitting room. I think it’s possibly my favorite space in the house. It’s a hidden jewel box, accessible only from your closet and mine, nestled between the two with its own lovely view of the city. There is a fireplace opposite the window, set flush within a wall covered in foxed mirror tiles. Above the firebox hangs a framed mirror that is actually a television. The result is an entire wall adorned only by an antiqued reflection of New York that appears perpetually stormy.
The seating area is dominated by an oversized U-shaped sectional in a luxurious sapphire velvet. Not only is it beautiful, it’s also remarkably comfortable, suitable for curling up with a book, stretching out for a nap or a quickie, or sprawling while watching a film. A tufted square ottoman of the same material sits in the center, with a large, mirrored tray atop it filled with recent periodicals, notepads featuring our monograms, a cut-crystal pen holder and spheres of quartz sitting atop brass bases. If I turned it on, a sputnik chandelier would throw shards of light onto the ceiling and walls.
On either side of your closet door and mine, mirrored console tables squat heavily, adorned with table lamps that are counterparts to the chandelier. Framed mirrors matching the television hang from sapphire ribbons and bows. I pause before the one nearest your closet, examining my reflection.
In the forgiving glow of moonlight, I can pass for the woman you desire. Too thin, yes, along with a sharpening of the lines around my lips. The smoky eye shadow hides the deeper set of the eyes, but nothing can diminish the worldliness of my gaze. Long strands of dark hair curl along the underside of my breasts.
I turn away, collecting the sheer black peignoir I left draped on the arm of the sofa. Slipping it on, I tie the sash and adjust the weight of the ostrich feathers that froth from my knees to the hem. Then I arrange my hair, draping it around my shoulders and fluffing the length that falls to my hips.
My heart hammers steadily against my rib cage. What will I do if you reject me? How will I bear it?
Settling onto the sofa’s edge, I fidget with the sash of my robe. Perhaps I’m playing my only hand too soon. In a matter of hours, we’ll share a car, the walk to and from our “outing” with my doctors and the ride home. That could be a start, an opening to conversation, a suggestion that we might enjoy lunch out in the city. If I could just open the door, I could court, charm and seduce you. At least I could try.
But it’s also possible that you’re just waiting for me to have a clean bill of health. Perhaps your conscience won’t allow you to strain an infirm woman with discussions of separation and divorce. Maybe that’s why you’re accompanying me, to hear firsthand that it’s safe to end this farce of a marriage. If so, these hours are all I have before you cast me adrift, and I can’t squander them.
I don’t know how long I wait. Time slows to a trickle. My skin chills, and I stare at the fireplace, wanting to turn it on but reluctant to banish the darkness that shelters me.
Finally, the door to your closet is yanked ajar, and you enter the sitting room like a firestorm, enraged. Your feverishly bright gaze is locked on the opening to my closet, and your long legs eat up the distance in furious strides.
For a moment, I’m arrested. Black silk pants hang low on your hips. Your torso and feet are bare. The dark shadow of meticulously groomed chest hair sweeps across hard pectorals before narrowing into a satiny trail that dips below your drawstring. Your biceps are thick and hard, tensed by the fisting of your hands at your sides. Your abs are laced tight in deeply defined rows that taper into the deep grooves of the Adonis belt and highlight the narrowness of your waist.
You are nearly abreast of me when I manage to stand in an anxious rush, my breath held with cowardice. Your head whips toward me as you draw to a startled halt. Your chest lifts and falls in an elevated rhythm.
Raising my chin, I settle my weight back onto my rear heel, the practiced movement adjusting my posture into a sinuous invitation. Your jaw tenses in response.
Your gaze bores into me, sharp with indictment. “Who are you?”
Your words are singed and smoky. Like an inferno, you’ve whipped heat into the room. I was chilled before, but now I’m uncomfortably warm.
“Does it matter?” My voice, too, is lower and huskier. My mouth is dry, my throat tight. “I’ll be anyone you want.”
Your incisive gaze pins me for long moments. Your hands clench and release, the restless movement flexing muscles all along your torso. You are an erotic work of art, simmering with passion.
Cursing under your breath, you start moving again, slower, more methodical. A predator’s honed, focused approach. You round the corner of the sofa, and an instinctual prey reflex urges me to turn and maintain sight of you. Instead, as you slip beyond my peripheral vision, I keep my back to you, feigning courage and control. I untie my sash and shrug so that the peignoir falls and hangs on the crooks of my elbows. Your breath hisses, sharply indrawn.
My pulse races. My lips part as I gasp. Expectation and fear skitter up and down my spine. I can feel you behind me. Hear you. Smell you – crisp and briskly clean, powerfully male. It’s the worst torture not to see you.
“There’s only one woman I want,” you say hoarsely as you lift a dark curl of hair from my shoulder and rub the natural strands between your fingertips. I feel you lift that lock to your nose and hear you inhale. Your hand falls away. “Take the wig off.”
Your tone is clipped and cold. The heat that was building against my skin abruptly dissipates.
My throat closes, blocking the air I need so badly. Am I not enough, even when I look like her? Are you offended by the attempt or disappointed by my failure?
“Take it off, Setareh,” you say, softer yet inflexible.
I make a sound, a soft cry of pained hope. Fate. Destiny. The meaning of the name you use as an endearment. My eyes burn, and I shut them, trying to manage the overwhelming surfeit of emotion. Yes, my love. I am your fate. The universe has cursed you with me.
“It’s not that simple,” I say. It would take time to loosen the adhesive and more time to restore my hair to the glossy bob.
With a sweep of one hand, you brush the heavy mass over my shoulder, exposing my back. Your fingertips trace the outline of the phoenix’s wings tattooed across my shoulder blades. I shiver in response, every muscle straining with anticipation and alarm. Your lips press firmly to my bared shoulder. The heat of your kiss radiates throughout my yearning body.
Then the warmth, the scent, the energy of you moves away. My head turns, and I watch, horrified and incredulous, as you walk back toward your room.
“Kane …?”
You stop midstride, your hands again in fists, your breaths fast and shallow like mine. You keep your back to me when you speak. “If you want me, come to me with the truth and leave your lies somewhere else. I’ve had enough of them.”
The door to your closet shuts. The click of the latch echoes like a gunshot.