But the other part, the other part was a relentless buzzing. The part that sent the email in the first place. Nothing had changed, other than the fact that I had underestimated Adele. And her hold on me, and my hold on her apparently.

“What’s wrong?”

I was too pulled apart inside to do anything other than be honest. But I didn’t turn to face her. “Everything should still stay the same, the same thing that I was trying to do before you showed up. But there’s something here, Adele. I don’t understand it and I don’t know why I can’t resist you. But I can’t.” I hung my hands from the back of my neck and finally moved my head so I could see her. She’d pulled her knees up to cover her chest, and her face looked completely lost. “I want to be able to resist you.”

“So where does that leave us?”

I dropped my hands and lifted my shoulders briefly. “I don’t know.”

“I think I’m gonna go home.” Adele stood from the couch, and I couldn’t help but admire how she didn’t rush to put her clothes on, completely comfortable in her skin. Once she’d pulled her shirt over her head, she finally met my eyes again. “You’re not going to tell me why you sent that email, are you?”

A flash of Diana laughing at me in the bathroom mirror, like the quick blink of my eyelids, burst through my head. It disappeared quickly enough that the tingling didn’t start in my hands, thank goodness. That was the last thing I needed. “No, not in the way you probably want me to. I’m sorry.” And I was. She shook her head, turning toward the door. “I’m not trying to be cruel, Adele. Or jerk you around. Sometimes it’s just not easy to let yourself enjoy something good while it’s in front of you.”

It resonated with her. I could see the understanding, the empathy, fall across her face. Coming back toward me, she lifted a hand and covered the place that she’d hit me earlier.

“I’m sorry I slapped you.” I laid my hand on top of hers, noticing how cool her fingers were compared to mine. Then her hand slipped away when she pulled back. “Goodnight, Nathan.”

Before I could formulate a thought—even if I knew what the hell to think about everything—she was gone.

Chapter Twenty-One

I let myself into my apartment shortly after one in the morning, feeling sufficiently pummeled from my head to my vagina. Gingerly, I dropped my things by the door and climbed into bed, hissing from the burn in my muscles. And yet, I had to bite hard on my lip to prevent the smile from forming.

I shouldn’t have felt pleased by it, I should have been upset. But, fuck. When Nathan had come unglued and poured all that rage into me—biting, pinching, pounding. I had taken every bit of it, and happily. It was as if he understood my desperate need for sensory stimulation and maybe on some level, he needed that too.

But when I reflected on the moments after, when he’d said, “I don’t know,” in that defeated, lost voice—I’d suddenly felt like some kind of villain. He’d asked me not to come to him, and I had. He’d told me to leave, and I hadn’t.

Around two in the morning, after replaying in my head the outstanding sex for the fourth time, I resigned myself to not sleeping a wink and fumbled my way into the shower, my body sore and weeping, but my brain wretchedly wired.

In the shower, standing under the spray, I pressed a fist to my heart.

“I’m not trying to be cruel, Adele. Or jerk you around. Sometimes it’s just not easy to let yourself enjoy something good while it’s in front of you.”

Fuck. I could relate to that on a very elementary level. Hadn’t I just been pining for him, for weeks? Especially after all the men I’d trampled over in years past, unwilling to enjoy their kindness and consideration. I wanted men to want me, and while there was no doubt Nathan did, it seemed wanting me was terrorizing him.

I tilted my head under the water and cranked up the heat. As my hand traveled down my body, caressing the spots he’d marked, I was overcome with the most miserable kind of loneliness. Would that be the last time I had his lips on my skin?

And moreover, what the hell was wrong with me? Why him? Why, when I wasn’t exactly lacking in men to entertain me, was I so focused on Nathan? With his black hair and bright eyes and hands that held me tender and held me tight. What did he awaken inside of me that had remained dormant for so many other men?

As I wrapped myself up in a towel and dried off, I decided to send him an email. I wasn’t sure what I’d say, but there was nothing comfortable about silence for me.

I plopped into my seat and wiggled the mouse. Seconds later, my stomach flip-flopped and my hand froze.

He’d beat me to the punch, sending me an email first.

From: Nathaniel Easton

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2015 02:11 AM

Subject: Condom

To: Alice Carroll

Hey. I wanted to let you know I didn't use a condom. But I'm clean.

• • •

I stared at that email for a long, long time. Agitation coiled tightly into my chest, burning bright with a flash of anger.

An acrimonious response flashed in my head.

That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me? Never mind the fact that you confess this without even a semblance of apology and assume—because you don’t fucking ask—that I’m clean too.

Well, Nathan. Fuck. You.

Even as I was deleting my imprudent response, I whispered, “Oh, but fuck him you did, Adele.”

I tapped on the keys of my keyboard repeatedly, crafting replies before promptly deleting them. Finally, around three in the morning, I pushed my face into my pillow and willed sleep to come, the email sitting in my account without an answer.

I awoke to my phone vibrating off the nightstand, its buzz indecently reminiscent of my favorite vibrator.

Craning open one eye, I slapped the screen to turn off the alarm. I was so disoriented from the little sleep that it took me more than usually necessary to remember why I had an alarm going off in the first place.

When I remembered, I groaned. Work.

Six in the morning, a mere three hours after I’d climbed into bed. It was times like then that I wished my religion was coffee, because I knew I would desperately need caffeine to make it through the day.

When my phone buzzed a second time, I cursed and grabbed it, ready to chuck it across the bedroom. But the buzz lasted only a second, alerting me to the fact that it wasn’t another alarm.

Nathan: You didn’t reply to my email. I was hoping for some clarification from you.

I was too Goddamned tired to trifle with forming any kind of intelligent response, so I ignored it for the moment and got ready for work.

Two hours into my shift at the coffee shop, I was beginning to lag. After writing down the wrong orders twice and getting questioning looks from my coworkers, I was on the verge of telling them I had the plague just so I could go home.

“Large soy mocha, half-sweet.” I pushed the empty cup into my coworker’s hands after handing back the customer’s change.

The next girl in line hemmed and hawed over what to get, asking me what was in our cinnamon spice chai and when I dully replied, “Tea and cinnamon,” she seemed to have an epiphany, ordering the chai with extra cinnamon.

I wrote her order on the cup and passed it to the next available employee, blowing the hair out of my eyes after she left the register. I angled my head toward my left shoulder and then my right, feeling a very dull satisfaction from the aches. I’d washed my body clean of his scent, but the memory of his touch lingered, especially in the marks he’d left on my skin. The bite on my neck especially screamed his name. I’d attempted covering it with makeup before giving up, praying the collar of my work shirt would hide the bulk of it.