Six weeks earlier… I awoke to the sounds of fucking coming from the other room.
For several moments I lay on my bed, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. My right temple throbbed, evidence of too many margaritas that evening,and a general lack of sleep over the past few days.
Yawning, I rolled over and glanced at the bedside clock.
Three-thirteen in the morning.
"Right there…yes, right there. Ohhh…"
Despite my headache, I couldn't help giggling. Maybe Marnie thought I was dead to the world and therefore didn't think she needed to be quiet. Or maybe she didn't care. All I knew, as I lay there, was that she and the guy she'd picked up were screwing like this was their last night on earth—if the loud moans and screams coming from the other room were any indication.
"Yes, yes! Fuck me, baby!" Marnie screamed.
I hugged my pillow and closed my eyes, but I knew I wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon. Not with the sexual Olympics going on in the next room.
I heard a consistent banging on the wall—likely the headboard. At least, I hoped it wasn't someone's body part hitting the wall. And how thin were these walls, anyway, that I could hear their every grunt and moan?
I debated getting out of bed and going to Marnie's bedroom door. But the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass her and the stud in the room with her.
So I stayed where I was, keeping my eyes closed and hoping I'd somehow be able to get back to sleep.
A loud crash in the next room had me bolting upright, alarm shooting through me. What the—
Laughter.
I lay back down. Whatever had happened, Marnie and her lover weren't concerned. The sounds of their lovemaking picked up right where they'd left off.
The moaning and groaning and occasional giggles had me suddenly missing my husband. Missing the way we were in the beginning. Spontaneous, and frisky, and a lot like Marnie right now— not caring who heard us if we were in a hotel fucking.
It had been four whole days since I'd seen him, since I'd left on this trip with Marnie, my long-time best friend, to Grand Bahama Island. Marnie had been in the dumps because she and her fiancé had broken up, and she needed a getaway.
I'd suggested this trip as a way to get her mind off of her heartbreak. And it had been a blast. Marnie and I had had a fun four days of partying like we were college kids with endless energy, and Marnie hadn't mentioned Brian once. I doubt that between ogling hot young men and downing flaming Sambuca shots she'd even had time to think about him. The trip had gone a long way to mending Marnie's broken heart.
I supposed that after being engaged for a couple of years, she was entitled to get her freak on.
Even if I was in the other room.
I couldn't help but listen to them, and I couldn't help feeling slightly envious. What I heard coming from Marnie's room was exactly the kind of sex I wanted to be having with my husband. After eight years of marriage, Andrew and I had fallen into a bit of a routine. Sex on Saturday nights. Sometimes Sunday mornings as well. It was a good week if we also got in a mid-week fuck.
At the beginning of our relationship, we used to go on lots of romantic weekend trips and screw like bunnies. With both of us working full-time now, that kind of spontaneity was impossible. But I still adored my husband, and he adored me. He could still look at me from across a room and make my body tingle the way he first had ten years ago in college.
I suddenly wanted to talk to him. Call him and have some spontaneous phone sex. Get him in the mood to give me the kind of homecoming I was craving.
Yes, it was after three in the morning, but that's what spontaneous was—not worrying about the time nor the place.
I used my cell phone, having learned that it was more expensive to use a credit card to call from the hotel phone. I punched in the digits to my home in Orlando, then lay back on my pillow as I waited for Andrew to pick up.
My lips were slightly parted, poised to say something dirty the moment Andrew answered the phone. But after four rings, it went to voice mail.
Disappointed, I sighed softly. I debated hanging up and calling him back. I wanted to tell him how much I wanted to touch him, stroke him. How badly I wanted him inside me. And while I was at it, I'd even ask if he would take a plane and meet me here, or meet me in Fort Lauderdale, where Marnie and I had boarded the Discovery Cruise Line to head to the Bahamas.
Spontaneity and all that.
But common sense got the better of me when the beep sounded and I heard my voice prompting me to leave a message. It was the middle of the night, and even though I was desperate to talk to him, I couldn't call Andrew back. It wouldn't be fair to him. He had to be up for work in the morning. Besides, I'd be seeing him in less than twenty-four hours.
Real sex would be far better than phone sex anyway.
Though I didn't think I would, sometime during the night I'd drifted off to sleep. I awoke with a start and found Marnie sitting on the edge of my bed.
"Morning, sleepyhead," she crooned when my eyes met hers.
I took a moment to register that she was really there, that this wasn't a dream. I could smell the fresh scent of some sort of floral soap, could see that her short black hair was wet and slicked back.Yep, she was definitely here. And she looked surprisingly well rested for a woman who'd spent most of the night screwing her brains out. Her dark complexion never gave anything away.
"You'd still be sleeping too if you were woken up by the sounds of serious fucking."
"You heard us?" Marnie asked, sounding surprised.
"You've got to be kidding. How could I not hear you?"
"Oops," Marnie said sheepishly.
"Is the room a total disaster zone or what? Cuz it sure sounded like you were doing some serious damage to it."
"We broke one of the lamps." Marnie spoke almost proudly.
"What?" But I was really wondering, how? "And you're smiling about that?"
"Don't worry. I already went to the front desk to let them know, and I paid to replace it."
"Oh. Okay." Though I was dead tired, I eased myself up on an elbow. Stretching, a yawn escaped my throat.
Marnie grinned from ear to ear."And trust me,I'm not smiling because we broke a lamp."
I shook my head in mock reproof. "I can't believe you're up already. After the workout you got."
"I know." Marnie sighed happily. "He only left an hour ago, so I knew there was no way I'd be getting any sleep if I was going to make it to that boat later today. I took a shower, had a couple cups of coffee and, amazingly, I feel fine."
"You'd never know. Not with that,'I've been fucked so hard, I could die a happy woman' look on your face."
"I know." Marnie giggled. "It was incredible, Sophie. Out of this world."
"You don't have to tell me. I feel like I was a spectator. All I was missing was the popcorn and the dildo."
Marnie roared with laughter. "I should be embarrassed—but, what can I say, I'm shameless."
I yawned again, then asked, "So you like this guy?"
"I like his cock. No, I love his cock."
Marnie had been my best friend since eighth grade, and we didn't have a problem speaking explicitly to each other. But if the parents of any of our students happened to overhear us talking when we were out on the town, they'd likely be pulling their kids from our classes.
Of course, we didn't have to worry about that here. And we definitely didn't have foul mouths when we were at the front of our grade-school classrooms.
"I do like him," Marnie went on, "but we leave today. Maybe if he lived in Orlando. Heck, if he even lived in the Bahamas. But he's headed back to the Dominican Republic the day after tomorrow."
"It was cute watching you two trying to talk to each other at the bar." What Soriano had lacked in language skills he had easily made up in charm. And that radiant smile of his hadn't hurt.
"At least he served his purpose," Marnie said. "Which was to totally get me to forget about Brian. I don't know if it's because this guy was a one-night stand, but nothing Brian did in bed with me was ever as exciting as what Soriano and I did."
"It probably was, in the beginning with Brian," I pointed out. "New sex and all that."
Marnie shrugged."Maybe. But now my body knows that there's life after Brian, and that that life can be quite exciting."
I smiled at my friend. For her sake, I was glad. For a good three months, she had moped over the end of her relationship with Brian, and she'd needed something to get her out of her funk.
She'd already had one marriage fall apart after her husband repeatedly cheated on her, and now that she and Brian had ended things, I knew she was depressed over the thought that she'd never meet her Mr. Right.
I sat up fully and swung my feet off the bed."I'm gonna go take a shower. Is there any coffee left?"
"I'll make another pot."
"Thank you, babe. I'm going to need it."
It was a little after nine in the evening when I pulled into the driveway of my Orlando home. My husband's Cadillac Escalade was there—as I'd expected on a Sunday evening—and excited, I sprinted inside. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him until we ended up naked on the living room floor.
I was hoping he would have heard me pull up and be waiting for me at the door. He wasn't. But Peaches, our orange and white tabby, was. She purred in greeting, and I bent to give her a quick rub on the head before making my way into the living room.
Peaches followed me, clearly needing more attention. I needed Andrew.
But he wasn't in the living room. Hadn't he heard me? He had to be somewhere in the house, so why hadn't he come out to welcome me home? We hadn't seen each other in five days. Maybe it was a little corny, but I expected him to stop whatever he was doing and rush out to meet me. Sweep me in his arms and not let me go until we were both screaming as we came.
"Andrew?" I called. When he didn't answer, I frowned. Tonight, I wanted spontaneity. An...
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