Make Me Sin

53

Looking up at the ceiling, A.J. blows out a hard breath. I keep silently stroking his skin, listening to his jagged heartbeat, trying to soothe him. I try not to think of anything else, of what might happen next, of what tomorrow will bring. I told him I’d take only one night, if that’s all he was willing to give, and I meant it.

At the time I meant it. Now, only a short while later, getting only one night with him seems like an impossibly cruel joke.

But I won’t think about it. I’m here, he’s here, right now we’re both safe in the circle of each other’s arms.

The sigh he heaves sounds resigned. When I look up at him, he’s staring down at me with all the light extinguished in his eyes.

“You can’t go now,” I beg, terrified he’s leaving.

“No, angel, I can’t. That’s the problem.”

Without another word, he rolls me to my side and curls up behind me. Within minutes, he’s sleeping deeply, as if he’s been set free. I lie awake in the dark, listening to him breathe.

When the alarm goes off in the morning, A.J. is gone. On the pillow next to mine lies an origami sculpture. Not a bird this time.

A heart.

When I pick it up and cup it in my palms, it fans open like it’s alive. It’s blood red, the white copy paper saturated with ink from the fat red Sharpie sitting out on my desk. I lift it to my nose, inhaling the pungent, chemical smell.

I wonder how long it took him to make. I wonder if he watched me sleeping while he made it. I wonder what he thought about while he worked, folding, creating, his fingers deft and precise.

Outside my bedroom window a nightingale begins to sing, and my eyes fill with tears.

I can’t remember ever feeling this happy.

A.J. comes to me again the next night. And the next. And the next.

It’s always the same. I leave the door unlocked, and lie in bed with the lights off, waiting. He comes very late, usually around midnight. He enters without a word, takes off his shirt and shoes, crawls into bed beside me. We talk for a long time, nestled back to front, limbs entangled. Each night his questions are more serious, more intimate, increasingly more difficult to answer.

Of what in my life am I most proud?

Of what am I most ashamed?

What’s my most treasured memory?

For what am I most grateful?

If I only had twenty-four hours left to live, what would I do?

Sometimes I have to think long and hard before I answer. No one has ever asked me such things, and I’m not prone to introspection. But I never tell him anything but the entire, unvarnished truth. I don’t hide. I don’t lie. If I think an answer might not paint me in the best light, I tell him anyway. I want him to know me, warts and all.

I want him to see me, inside and out.

By the time he’s exhausted his questions, my body is so high from his proximity, so strung out with the need to feel his hands and mouth, I’m nearly squirming in his arms. He always knows when I can’t bear it a second longer. He laughs his husky laugh into my ear, then takes off all my clothes, and sates me.

There is no penetration. After the first night, he doesn’t let me use my mouth on him again. It’s like he got himself under control, decided on a format of Q&A followed by giving me a mind-blowing orgasm or three, and stuck to his plan.

Afterward, he sleeps like a coma patient, and I wake up alone.

It’s wreaking havoc with my emotions.

Not to mention my face.

“Sweetheart, you look like s**t. Are you coming down with something?”

Grace can always be counted on to pull no punches. We’re at Lula’s with Kat on a weekday night at eight o’clock, and I’m trying desperately not to fall asleep at the table and slump facedown into my steaming bowl of albondigas soup.

“Just tired,” I mumble. I pick up my margarita and yawn into it before taking a swallow.

“Work going rough this week?” Concerned, Kat watches me as she munches on a tortilla chip. The ginormous diamond ring on her left hand nearly blinds me as it catches the light.

“Mmm. Sort of.”

Both Kat and Grace narrow their eyes. Grace flatly says, “Chloe.”

As I’m the worst secret keeper in the world, they’ve already got my number. I sigh, rubbing a fist into my left eye. “I can’t talk about it. Not yet. I don’t want to jinx it.”

In slow motion, Kat lowers her half-eaten chip to the table. “Oh my God.”

Grace asks, “What?”

I already know what Kat’s going to say, but I’m too exhausted to get worked up about anything at this point. “She just figured out why I’m tired.”

Grace raises her brows, looking back and forth between us.

Kat says, “You’re sleeping with him.”

Grace whoops in glee, pounding the table with her fist. “Yes! Finally! Is this why you haven’t returned my calls for four days? You’ve been on a s*x spree? Tell, tell, tell!”

Because the cat is clearly out of the bag, I don’t bother to deny it. But it does need a little correcting. “Technically, yes, I’m sleeping with him. Sleeping being the operative word. Well, at least he is.”