Page 65 of Homewrecker

You’re not breaking anything.

It was already broken.

Caleb hung up my coat and turned back around. “Blair.”

That was it. I was hot and horny, and next thing you know, I kissed him. I closed the distance and kissed another woman’s husband. It didn’t feel terrible. It actually felt fucking incredible.

His hands found my waist, and mine went around his neck. I kissed him like I’d spent months being angry at him for making me want to. I had crossed the line and instead of lightning striking the building, Caleb pulled me closer. Instead of Ravenna appearing in the doorway, rain kept hitting the windows. Instead of feeling like my father, my mother, every woman I’d judged, every promise I’d made myself… I felt wanted.

Caleb pulled back first and his forehead rested against mine. “Tell me to stop.”

I should have. Instead, I grabbed his shirt and kissed him again. He laughed against my mouth. I smiled because there was joy in what I was doing. That’s the part I hated admitting later.

I could rewrite plenty of things after everything exploded. I could call myself manipulated, confused, emotionally vulnerable, and all of those things could be true.

But I was happy. I wanted him. And I believed him. In that moment, I didn’t feel like a homewrecker. I felt like a woman finally getting the man she’d been trying not to love.

We stumbled farther into the apartment, laughing when I nearly tripped over one of his unpacked boxes.

I laughed again and it all felt normal. That was terrifying in hindsight. Nothing about being there felt dark. I wasn’t standing in some hotel room wondering how I’d become that woman. I was barefoot in Caleb’s apartment laughing while he tried to move a box out of my way. That illusion was probably the most intoxicating thing he ever gave me.

His phone buzzed on the counter. I looked at it and he did too. The screen lit, showing the name Ravenna.

My smile disappeared. He looked at the screen then turned the phone facedown. That should’ve sobered me completely.

“Answer it.”

“If it’s important, she’ll call again.”

“Caleb.”

“Blair.”

I looked toward the door. There was still time to grab my shit and leave. I looked at the phone. Then at the apartment and the boxes. Everything he’d told me. Everything I wanted to believe.

“They’re separated,” I whispered.

Caleb reached for me. “Yes.”

“She knows it’s over.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going back.”

“No.”

Three answers. Three pieces of permission I shouldn’t have needed. I jumped into his arms and chose him anyway. He carried me to his room, and I laughed when he laid me on the mattress on the floor. I didn’t care if it was on the kitchen counter, I wanted him so bad.

He removed my clothes and the hunger in his eyes took me to another planet. He started at my breasts and licked his way all the way down. He ate me like he had dreamed of that moment for months. I was so deep in my head that I convinced myself that he was the man for me. He didn’t give me a warning before he dove deeper and deeper inside me. His eyes stayed locked on mine, and it was like we were exchanging some kind of love just through our vision. He took me to heights that I never explored with a man and I loved every second of it.

I woke up sometime after midnight tangled in sheets that smelled like him. For a few seconds, I didn’t know where I was then Caleb turned pulling me close and I remembered.

I stared at the ceiling.

There should’ve been more guilt. There was some. But it wasn’t enough to drown out everything else.

I had spent months imagining adultery as something dirty. But what I was doing didn’t look like that. That was how I excused it. I wasn’t helping him sneak back into Ravenna’s bed. According to Caleb, he hadn’t slept there in years. I wasn’t asking him to choose me over her. According to Caleb, he’d already chosen to leave.