34 Seconds by Stella Samuel Read Free Book Online Page B

love making could be about the other person enjoying you as much as you both enjoy the orgasm. Even earlier in our relationship, we were so young and naïve, the sex was good, but it didn’t have the emotion behind what I had experienced with him later. His tongue explored my body, tasting me as I yearned for more. He moaned and looked up at me saying something, making me giggle. I tried to pull him up, but he said he wanted to lick more, taste more, and feel more. Then his fingers alone drove me into an orgasmic frenzy. His tongue and fingers together, the emotion with which he touched me, the way he seemed to want to please me more than have sex for himself; those are the things I remember about our last day together, long ago. Selfless love and amazing sex.
    I knew this couldn’t be healthy. I was married. I was a happily married woman, and he was about to be married. And there I was not speaking because I was thinking about the great sex I had with him almost ten years earlier just feet from where we stood. I had to say something, and I had to say it quick. And whatever I came up with couldn’t reveal my thoughts or my surprise at seeing him here. I felt butterflies releasing and taking flight in my stomach. It was such a familiar feeling around Will. I absently put my hand on my stomach to calm the butterflies and acknowledge the growing familiar knot.
    “Will!” I thought I was doing well so far. “How are you?” I walked over for a gentle hug. I reminded myself to hug with the shoulders, not with the waist. And don’t linger. I didn’t need to feel him against me right then. That would not be good at all. Don’t hug with the waist, I kept telling myself. Then I realized, we’d been hugging a few seconds too long. My hips were suddenly aware of his body touching them. I had given him a purely natural whole body hug, and I didn’t want to let go. Whole body hugs or simple shoulder hugs are no different if they linger.
    “So, how’s Rebecca? Is she ready for the wedding?” Rebecca was the fiancé of course, and I was astounded I could remember her name at all in the moment. And to say it without spitting was a bonus for me.
    “She’s good, Nik, real good. I think she’s nervous about the wedding, but only because she has a bunch of family she hasn’t seen in years coming in from Maryland. Something her mother insisted on since we went with the small beach ceremony instead of the huge church wedding she’d always planned for her little girl. You know how it is.” His voice trailed off like he was leaving something out. I imagined he was feeling his own bachelor days ending, pre-wedding jitters himself.
    Yes, I knew how it was. Wait. What? No, I had no idea how it was. Chris and I got married in Las Vegas in a little chapel with a few family members, and everyone was very happy for us. It was like a planned eloping with guests. But I guess pre-wedding jitters are normal, and anything with a large family is nerve wracking anyway, so I guess I could relate a little. I couldn’t relate to the nerves she might be feeling about saying “I do” to Will because I never got the opportunity to feel those particular jitters.
    “Will, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at some bar watching some scantily clad woman perform a last dance with a rose between her teeth and a few drinks in your hands?” I asked Will, wondering how he ended up at the same dark lonely pool I did on the same night two days before his wedding to a woman I didn’t know.
    “Well, Nikki Jay,” Will said, backing away from me on heels teetering close to the pool’s edge. Nikki Jay was a nickname he gave me years ago, short for Nikki Jackson. He’s the only one who had ever called me Nikki Jay. More butterflies took off in my stomach. “You know I’ve never been one for roses and scantily clad women. I’m more of a beer in a can by a pool kind of guy. Besides, I figured you’d be hanging out with Liza, and when you two get