I have no fucking clue why I’m torturing myself. Emerson said she read the contract in full. If she’s willing to sell her soul for a hundred K, why the fuck am I acting like a man without a cock?
Because you don’t want to believe she is here solely for the money.
While cursing my highly accurate inner monologue, I enter my room without the weightless steps I used forty minutes ago when I heard a heartbreaking sigh leave my room.
I knew that groan from studying them in depth in my late teens. I knew what it meant, and how it differed from the one minutes later that announced how close it placed Emerson to climax. But instead of walking away and issuing her the privacy she deserved, I steadied my breathing and made the last handful of steps in complete silence.
My snoop steered in a direction I’d never anticipated within minutes of Emerson ending her phone call.
I couldn’t see anything. Despite Emerson’s solo trek starting hours after the staff finished their shift, she remained fully clothed. I didn’t need her to be naked to picture every swivel herthumb made, though, and how drenched her fingers were after a handful of pumps.
I saw them in precise detail, as bright as the numerous times she self-pleasured while forcing me to keep my hands to myself.
Her self-love expedition made me hard as stone, and it has me wishing I hadn’t shamed her for masturbating.
I don’t see anything capable of shrinking my monster dick. Not even freezing water has eased its throbs in the slightest, and the situation worsens when I enter my room.
Emerson dumped her panties in a hamper that a maid will collect first thing tomorrow morning. They’re the pair she was wearing while masturbating. How do I know this? The material is visually damp, and they’re the same color as the pair that peeked out the top of her sleeping pants as her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
Evidence of her near orgasm moistens my fingertips when I pick up her panties without thinking and then veer them toward my nose. I inhale deeply, not the slightest bit ashamed. The scent of Emerson’s aroused state is addictive, and I’m like an addict after a prolonged stint of forced sobriety.
One hit is never enough.
As I ponder where Emerson went, and if she did so without underwear, splashing fills my ears. When I move to the window where I sensed her presence many times tonight, I see Emerson in the pool. She’s clothed, just—and her graceful moves as she does laps in the heated water draw the attention of everyone around her.
Her body cuts through the water with ease. Although she’s a talented swimmer, she rarely swims for enjoyment. Time in the water is how she reduces stress. I always knew when she was close to crumbling beneath the burden forced on her when I found her near or in the water.
For several long minutes, I watch how the moonlight catches the water droplets on her skin, making them glisten brighter than the diamonds now on her ring finger, my emotions a tangled mess.
Our marriage is a sham, but seeing her like this, knowing she is struggling, and believing I am not the best person to ground her, adds to the mixed feelings I’ve been experiencing over the past twenty-plus hours.
I loved being the one she turned to during a crisis, the one who anchored and sheltered her no matter how dangerous the storm was. But now, I only get to watch from the sidelines, shunted from the game with no clue as to the cause of my sidelining.
Emerson and I used to argue relentlessly, but the past few spats have been different. Each one has left a scar deeper than the heartbreak I felt when she left me. She’s meant to be happier than she was when she was with me. More successful. She isn’t meant to be miserable.
I hate the pain she burdened me with ten years ago, but I hate this more.
The woman I promised to love and support no matter how dark the storm when I proposed has been dealt shitty hand after shitty hand, but instead of demanding a reshuffle, I’m clouting about the multiple royal flushes I’ve been handed without doing a damn thing to achieve them.
That’s bullshit.
That isn’t close to the man my mother would have raised if given the chance.
I am better than this.
As I take a deep breath, resolve builds within me. It’s time for me to man up, to handle matters with the maturity my age demands. I’m no longer a teen fighting to prove to the world thathe’s worthy of his girl’s affection. I am a grown-ass man, and it is time to act like one.
What’s the harm? We don’t get second chances to fix things, but to show we can be stronger after failure.
It also won’t be my heart Emerson will destroy if she breaks it again.
It hasn’t belonged to me since the day I burdened its care to Emerson.
Chapter 15
Emerson
As I glide through the water, I find a moment of tranquility amidst the chaos that has become my life of late. My measured strokes and the coolness of the midnight air on my shoulders offer a temporary escape from the overwhelming thoughts plaguing me.
