Make Me Sin

23

“Okay. I believe you. So I won’t bring it up again. You’ve never given me a reason not to trust you. I know I have a tendency to be suspicious, which probably comes from my line of work. I’m not using that as an excuse, it’s just the reality. But I know you don’t deserve that.” He pauses. “I also won’t ask how, or when, you finally got home. I didn’t come here and wait for you last night, because I thought . . . it seemed like you didn’t want to see me. You said you wanted space. I was trying to respect that. And I can’t blame you for needing it, after how inconsiderate I was at dinner.”

His voice drops. He looks at the floor. “That thing about getting married . . . it just came out. I didn’t mean to be patronizing, or make it seem like your father’s permission mattered more than your feelings about it. Honestly, I was just amazed that someone like him would think a cop is good enough for you. I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.”

My throat constricts. His confession is so unexpected, I don’t know what to do. If the shoe were on the other foot, and some mystery girl pulled the phone away from Eric at a bar and threatened me after he and I had a fight and he walked out on me, I know I wouldn’t be giving him this mea culpa right now.

Overwhelmed, I swallow some wine.

Eric slowly raises his head. Our eyes lock. I remember the first time I saw him, he had so much swagger, such adorable, cocksure charm, I was smitten on sight. He’s a clean-cut, all-American quarterback type with a vulnerable side that’s completely disarming, with a cleft chin a girl could get lost in.

Now there’s no swagger. There are no cocksure smiles. There’s just a man whose feelings for me are so big they’re taking up most of the space in the room.

“I know I’m not good enough for you.” His voice cracks. “But I love you. And I’d do anything to make you happy.”

I cover my mouth with my hand. My eyes fill with tears. Though we’ve been dating for six months, Eric has never said he loves me before now.

I whisper his name. It’s like fitting a key into a lock; it releases all the emotion he’s been holding back.

He leaps over the coffee table and onto me, knocking the wineglass out of my hand as he crushes me against his body, sending us crashing down to the couch. I’ve never been kissed so desperately, or needed so desperately to be kissed. Every doubt and worry fly away, and I let myself be swept along in a tsunami of emotion. I feel more passionate, more elated, more hungry, than ever before.

In between ravenous kisses, he tears off his shirt, then mine. My shoes come off next, my socks, my pants, my underwear; I’m naked. He rips open the button fly of his jeans. He falls on top of me, kissing my breasts, positioning himself between my thighs. Incoherent words of adoration fall from his lips. I groan, arching into him, wanting wanting wanting, and he bites down just hard enough on my n****e that I cry out in pleasure and pain.

He freezes.

I’m reeling, not sure why he’s stopped. “What?” I pant, blinking. “Eric, what’s wrong?”

He withdraws from me as if I’m a giant pile of turds that he’s just had the misfortune to fall face-first into. His expression is horror stricken.

It’s also enraged.

He hisses, “What did you call me?”

It’s my turn to freeze. I try to think, but my mind is blank. “I . . . nothing?”

He looks as if he might be sick. “You called me, ‘A.J.’ You called me another man’s name!”

Ice water is instantly injected into my veins. I stare at him, all the cells in my body crystallizing into snowflakes. It can’t be. I didn’t say anything, I only made a small sound—

Eric leaps from the couch, snarling. I sit up and cover my breasts with my hands.

“Eric, I-I don’t know what to say . . . I don’t think I did say anything—”

He whirls around and shouts, “Oh, believe me, you did! Is that who you were with last night? A.J.? From the f*****g band?”

Oh God. Of course he knows who A.J. is. My mouth hangs open, but no sound comes out.

He stands over me, livid with rage and betrayal, his face red, veins popping out in his neck. “Tell me the f*****g truth, Chloe!”

And I can’t lie. I want to. With every fiber of my being, I want to lie. But I don’t.

White and shaking, I whisper, “Yes.”

With a guttural groan, he turns away. He snatches his shirt from the floor and yanks it over his head. On his way to the door, he grabs a vase from the niche in the hallway and hurls it across the room. It hits the opposite wall and shatters with a sound like a bomb.

He yanks open the door, then slams it behind him so hard the entire building shakes.

I sit naked on my living room sofa, tears sliding silently down my cheeks, watching the shards of a million tiny glass fragments twinkle like diamonds on the floor.

When the phone rings a few hours later, I’m still naked in the living room. I’ve taken the time to wrap myself in a blanket and lock the front door, but I went right back to the sofa where I’ve been lying since Eric left, crucifying myself.

I pick up the handset from the table next to the sofa. “Hello.”

“Why do you sound like your cat just died?”

It’s Grace. “You know I don’t own a cat.”

“True. Give me a mulligan. Why do you sound like you’ve just returned from a funeral?”