The Woman He Loved Before by Dorothy Koomson Read Free Book Online Page B

stupid fault. But I was feeling distinctly illogical about it and had no idea why I was so hung up on a kiss. It was illogical, but vital. I still hadn’t managed to get that across.
    ‘I’m about to,’ he said, and leant in towards me, his eyes closing as he came nearer. Millimetres away from me he paused, giving me the opportunity to move, then he continued and touched my lips with his. I closed my eyes as our bodies automatically moved closer and our lips crushed together. His hand slid into my hair, while the other rested on the base of my spineas I slowly parted my lips to let his tongue carefully and tenderly slip into my mouth. For a few minutes, or was it seconds, our lips moved together and everything around us was still as we kissed. This was what was missing from that night. This was what I hadn’t been able to articulate.
    He pulled away first, then stood back staring at my mouth as he said, ‘See, told you.’
    ‘I repeat, you haven’t done anything to mess up.’ I was trembling slightly. I’d never trembled after a kiss before, but there really was something about Jack that touched parts of me that I didn’t know existed.
    He put his fingertips on his lips, as though checking they were still on his face. ‘You’re the second woman I’ve kissed on the mouth in over three years,’ he stated. ‘The other one was my wife. My late wife. She died three years ago.’
    ‘Wife? You have a late wife? Why didn’t you mention that when we went out?’
    He looked down at his hands, twisting the simple gold band on the ring finger of his right hand around and around. His wedding ring. Of course! That was why it looked so incongruous with the rest of him and the way he dressed.
    ‘Telling someone about your dead wife isn’t exactly the best way to charm them, is it?’
    ‘I guess not. Is that why you have sex like that?’ I asked.
    He kept touching his lips, almost as if they were tender, hurt, damaged from kissing properly after so long.
    ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I could pretend that’s only just occurred to me, or I could pretend that in my grief I’m not that self aware, but neither of those things are the case. Yes, that’s why I have sex like that. I like sex, but kissing as we’ve just done would feel like I’m cheating on her. Cheating on Eve. That was her name. It’s still her name, actually. Her name didn’t change because she isn’t here any more.’
    ‘Sounds like she’s still a big part of your life.’
    ‘In some ways.’
    ‘You could pay for sex, you know. I hear they have sex without kissing.’
    He fixed me with a serious look as he shook his head. ‘No, I couldn’t. Maybe other men can, but I can’t. Can you imagine me trying to strike up friendships with people who’ve only looked at me because I’ve paid them?’
    ‘I suppose so. I’ve never really thought through the finer details of all that before.’
    ‘Don’t bother, it’ll only upset you in one way or another if you do. I know it did me when I thought about it. I’ve done some appalling things in the last three years because almost everyone I know has let me get away with it, basically. At first, I genuinely didn’t realise I was behaving badly because I was so consumed with grief, and everyone accepted that. As the fog cleared, I realised what I was doing and still no one said, “Enough, stop that!”. So, I carried on. Getting that little bit worse each time to see if someone would say, “No”. Not one person said it meaningfully until you.’
    ‘That’s terrible.’
    ‘I know. And I do feel ashamed. But I know I would never stoop so low as to pay someone for sex. Or screw someone who I don’t share at least some kind of real connection with.’
    ‘There’s logic in that, I suppose. But you really haven’t kissed anyone else like that in
three
years?’
    ‘Really.’
    ‘So why did you kiss me?’
    ‘Because it seemed like the thing I wanted to do most in the world. I thought, “If I don’t