One

“It shouldn’t matter when I fell in love with you. Or how. All that matters is that I did.” Even as Maura spoke, she knew her words wouldn’t matter. She could see it in the cut of Ian’s gaze from hers, the way he covered his mouth with his palm, the fingers curving over his cheek toward his ear. She knew nothing she said would make a difference, but she said it all anyway. “I am crazy in love with you, Ian. I didn’t look for it, but there it is. And I don’t regret it. Not a single second.”

Maura paused, leaning forward across the table, smiling and hoping to urge him to return it. “Well. This part’s not so great. But all the rest…”

He didn’t smile, but he did look at her. At least he gave her that. “Maybe you shouldn’t set yourself up to get disappointed.”

Maura flinched, helpless against that blunt sting. Frowning, she warmed her hands on the mug of coffee that Ian had pushed toward her earlier. Sweet and black, exactly how she liked it. Because he knew just how much sugar she wanted, Maura thought. Because he knew everything about her.

There were plenty of words to give him, but if Ian knew her so well, Maura also understood him inside and out. He wasn’t going to listen to her, no matter how pretty she made the words, how compelling her argument. She let her silence speak for her instead, and it stretched on and on until finally, Ian met her gaze.

“I can’t seem to give you what you want,” Ian said.

At that typical male bullshit excuse, that final slice that severed the already fragile thread of her patience with him, Maura stood. “Have you ever even asked me what I want?”

He had no answer for that.

She watched him struggle to find one for a few seconds before she leaned toward him again, both hands flat on the table. “No. Of course you haven’t. You just assume you know. It’s not that you can’t give me what I want, Ian. It’s that you don’t want to give me anything.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “No. You’re not. You’re scared. There’s a difference.”

That made him angry. “You’re the one who always told me it wasn’t going to last. This is not an exit, remember that?”

She remembered, all right. “I was wrong. I was scared, too.”

“And now you’re not?”

“I’m terrified,” she told him in a low voice. “But at least I’m willing to try. Can’t you even give me that, Ian? Can’t you even try?”

She’d always been able to read his expressions, but now whatever went on behind his eyes was masked with a blankness no less impenetrable because she knew he was forcing it. Ian turned his mug in his hands, around and around and around. This was not the man who’d once made her come in the backseat of his car without ever taking off her clothes. This was someone else. A stranger, and though her heart cracked, it didn’t quite break.

“I think we shouldn’t see each other again,” he said.

No. That was not what she’d come here for today. Not the reason she’d lined her eyes and mouth and scented her skin and curled her hair. She’d known the conversation was going to be uncomfortable and probably fraught with emotion. She hadn’t been certain of the outcome, not exactly, but not seeing him again could not be it. Never that.

“How can you say that?” She asked him. “After everything, that’s your answer?”

He looked at her. “You need time, Maura.”

“Time. I took my time. It’s been months, Ian. I waited until everything was official before I called you. I did that so there wouldn’t be any reason to hold us back.” She shook her head, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

“All of this is going to take time before you’re ready for a relationship again. You need time to figure out what you really want.”

“I know what I really want. How long do you think it would take me?”

“At least eighteen months,” Ian told her, and Maura’s jaw dropped.

“You think I need a year and a half to figure out that I’m in love with you and have been for the past three years, and that I can’t imagine the rest of my life without you in it? Ian,” Maura said, “have you ever known me to be a woman who wasn’t sure about what she wanted?”

He gave her a stubborn frown. “You’re asking if I can make a go of this with you now, and the answer has to be no.”

After all this time, the years, the grief, and now he was deciding he had to tell her no?

Maura straightened. Shoulders square. Chin high. Not accusing, not demanding. Not begging. “You’re going to let me walk away.”

“Yes.”

She swallowed her anger. Made herself calm. “When we are together, everything shines.”

“You’ll find someone else.”

“Of course I will. You think I can’t walk out that door right now and find someone? A dozen someones?” It should’ve sounded arrogant, but it was the truth. “I don’t want someone else. None of them will be you.”

He tried to laugh, to make a joke. “C’mon. You’ll have your pick.”

Maura wasn’t laughing. She moved around the table while he still sat. It gave her a little power, at least, standing over him this way. She made her face and voice cold because she wanted to be warm. “You don’t get to pick who makes you shine.”

And then she left him in his spotless kitchen, alone.

Two

The text came a few hours later, in the dark of night. Their favorite hour, when the numbers on the clock all aligned, 11:11. Make a wish, the message said.

Instead of typing in her reply, she called him. She could do that now, without hiding anything. She didn’t have to make it a secret.

“It’s always the same one,” she said when he answered, before he even had a chance to say hello.

“I’m sorry,” Ian said.

“Not sorry enough,” Maura replied without malice. Tucked into the comfort of her bed — the one she no longer had to share, her pillows and sheets and comforter all brand new and never used by anyone else but her, she nestled into the warmth and stared up at the ceiling of her new bedroom. “If you were really sorry, you’d be here with me right now.”

To her relief, because she hadn’t been sure if she and Ian would ever laugh together again, he chuckled.“Oh, yeah?”

“I find it intolerable, as a matter of fact, that you aren’t here. That I’ll never kiss you again,” she added, stomach twisting at the very thought of spending the rest of her life without him. “That you will never touch me again.”

“You don’t know that,” Ian said in a low voice still perfectly clear through the phone.

Maura let out a single razor blade of a laugh. “You told me you thought it would be best if we didn’t see each other again. That seems pretty clear to me, Ian.”

“You never know what might happen.”

Maura shifted under the weight of her comforter. “Don’t fuck with me.”

Silence. Then, “what?”

“I said,” she told him very slowly, very clearly, “do. Not. Fuck. With. Me.”

“I’m not fucking with you, Maura.”

“Oh, yes, sweetheart. Yes, you are.” The endearment tasted bitter, but she didn’t regret allowing it to slip out. It was sincere. “Because that’s what you do, and you’re very, very good at it. It’s an old game, isn’t it?”

Pull her close, push her away. Give her just enough, then not enough at all. He’d been doing it for a long time, but she kept letting him, she thought, so who was the one at fault?

“I wanted to talk to you, that’s all.”

“Let me guess,” Maura said coldly, “you’ve got a hard-on.”

More silence told her she was right. She closed her eyes and saw his face. And then his beautiful, delicious cock. She should be angrier. She should tell him to fuck right off.

“Yes,” he admitted finally.

She let out a long, slow sigh. “Fuck you, Ahab.”

She hadn’t called him that in a long time. It had been a private joke between them — the man chasing the white whale, elusive and always out of reach, the thing he wanted most that would also destroy him. Except he hadn’t been the one destroyed, had he? No, that dubious honor had gone to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“You said that already.”

“Do you want me to hang up?” The soft hiss of his breath reminded her of how it felt when he murmured in her ear. Of the brush of his lips and teeth and tongue against her throat.

Her pulse throbbed in the spots he used to nibble and suck — the base of her throat, the place just below her ear. Her wrists. The backs of her knees. Her cunt. Against her will, her hips rocked, pushing her suddenly too-sensitive clit against the soft weight of her pajama bottoms. Every place he had touched her remembered and mourned the loss his mouth and hands…and Ian had touched her everywhere.

“No. Goddammit, Ian,” she muttered. “You know I don’t.”

“You want me to touch you.”

“Yes.” The reply gusted out of her with a hitch of breath. An admission, nothing shameful about it. Simply the truth. “I want you to touch me.”

“Where?”

Her hand traveled the path she wished his would take. “The back of my neck. Then over my shoulder. I want you to tease my nipples until they’re hard.”

Her flesh tightened beneath her touch as she spoke, and pleasure roughened her voice. “Put your mouth on them while your hands move lower.”

His low groan sent a tingle of arousal through her. “You taste so good.”

“Suck my nipples, Ian,” she whispered as her hand moved over her belly and came to rest on her hip, fingers twitching. Her back arched at the sound of his muttered acquiescence. Her nipples jutted against her pajama top and she pulled it up to let the night air tease her. The bedroom was chilly, but that made the heat on her skin at his imagined touch all the more real. “Touch me.”

“I’m touching you. I’m using my tongue on your nipples now.”

A fucknoise slipped out of her. Maura licked her fingertips and used the wetness on her skin to simulate his tongue. “That feels so good.”

“I want to make you feel good.” The rasp in his voice made her imagine his prick in his fist, the slow pump of his grip. The slant of his mouth as he concentrated on fucking his hand.

“I want to kiss you.” She’d meant what she said — the thought of never kissing him again was intolerable. The idea that she would never feel his breath on her face or taste him, or feel him inside her. More than intolerable. Insufferable. “I want your mouth on me. Bite my neck, Ian. Scrape your teeth against me. Leave a mark.”

He huffed a breath. She knew that sound. She was pushing his buttons, turning him on and embarrassing him a little at how easily it happened.

“Sink your fingers into my hair at the base of my skull,” Maura murmured. “Pull my hair…”

“Oh, shit,” Ian muttered. “God, girl, I’m so hard right now.”

Triumph and vindication warred with her leftover anger and disappointment. She was letting him play her, giving him something he’d told her he didn’t want. Denying him now would prove a point, but what exactly would it be? That she could cut off her own nose to spite her face? She wanted him. She always wanted him. That hadn’t changed.

“I love it when you call me your girl.” That was her embarrassing turn-on. Any other man who’d ever tried to call her that had been shut down with a raise brow and pursed mouth, what Ian laughingly called “The Face.” She’d been nobody’s “girl,” insisting on her womanhood. But for him she’d been many things she’d never been for any other man.

For him, she was a flower.

“I want to kiss my way down your neck, over your whole body. Over your belly, even if it makes you giggle.”

She did giggle, thinking of it. “I’m ticklish, I can’t help it.”

“I love it when I kiss you there, and you wiggle around, and you sound all out of breath. And you beg me to stop.” Ian laughed, too.

Maura snorted softly. “I don’t beg.”

“You will,” he promised. “When I have my mouth so close to that sweet pussy, and you want me to kiss you there and I hold off. You’ll beg.”

She had never begged him for that, but then she’d never had to. He’d always willingly put his mouth all over her. The thought of this now, that he would tease her in that way, sent another slow rolling wave of arousal and heat all over her. “You think so?”

“Oh yeah.” So cocky. So fucking smug. It set her on fire. “I know so.”

“Tell me what you’ll do to make me beg. I won’t. But you can try to make me. I want you to try,” she teased. “Try real hard.”

She could play him, too.

Ian's voice rasped against her ear. “First, I’ll nibble my way down over your hip. I’ll bite you a little harder there. Then lick, just a little.”

Fuck, he was good. “I can feel you there.”

“I’m going to kiss your knees.”

She laughed, but it was breathy and harsh.

“Then up the insides of your thighs.”

Maura groaned. Her knees fell apart, opening herself to him though he was so fucking far away and all she had of him was his voice. It was all she might ever have.

“What are you wearing?” Ian interrupted himself to ask.

“Pajamas.”

“Take them off. I want you naked for me.”

She was already wriggling out of them and kicking off the covers to expose her entire skin to the chilly dark. Her nipples peaked and her skin pebbled into gooseflesh that was also as much a result of Ian's whispered words as the cold. She ran her warm hands over her body, imagining again they were his.

“I want you naked for me,” she told him. “I want you stroking yourself.”

“Don’t worry, girl, I am.”

She let her fingers drift over her belly, her own touch not tickling but the memory of his mouth there making her shiver, anyway. A little lower, over her soft curls. The heat there. She was already wet.

“I’m not begging yet,” she told him in a husky voice. Daring him, knowing he’d rise to the challenge. Pun intended.

“You will be.”

“Tell me,” she ordered. Her muscles tensed as she slipped a finger inside her to draw her slickness up and over her clit. She circled it lightly, then stopped, teasing herself. Letting the arousal build. She wanted his words to seduce her.

This wasn’t the first time they’d ever gotten each other off on the phone. In the beginning it was all they’d had. The hush of voices and touch of their own hands. Later, after they’d become lovers in the flesh, Maura had sometimes yearned for the times like this, when the sound of her voice was enough to make him hard. When she could make him come with nothing more than her words. Here they were again, only now instead of only imagination to urge her on, she had the memory of his weight on top of her, the press of his teeth against her flesh, the slide of his body in and out of hers.

All she had were memories.

Bitterness slid down the back of her throat, the sting of unshed tears a parody of the times when she’d taken him in her mouth and tasted a different sort of salt. She licked her lips, thinking of his musky flavor. Craving it.

“I want to kiss the insides of your thighs, up and up, so close to that sweet pussy.” Ian made a low, hungry noise. “I’ll slide my hands under your ass, holding you still, because you’re moving. Your hands dig into my hair, urging me closer, but I don’t move.”

As always, his dirty talk flipped her switch. He was so mild-mannered, so outwardly steady and stable and clean-cut, nobody would ever guess he had a mouth on him that could rival any sailor’s. Maura's hips moved, pushing her clit against her fingers as she circled, circled. Then she stopped, listening.

For a moment, all she heard was the low rasp of his breath. Then, “I want to taste you.”

“Oh, yes. Please. I want you to.”

“Not yet.” She heard the hint of smile in his voice. He didn’t say that he was waiting for her to beg. But she knew that’s what he meant, and she smiled too at the game. “First, I’ll just let my breath cover you. Your fingers pull my hair harder, you want me to move closer, but I stay still. And then, just when you can’t stand it any more —”

“Put your mouth on me.” She gave him that, not begging, but still a clear proof of her desire. “Don’t make me wait, Ian. Put your mouth on me. It feels so good when you kiss me there.”

“Your clit’s already swollen, ready for me when I use my tongue on it. I’ll slide a finger inside you. Then two. Slide them in and out so slow you can’t stand it.”

She let out a low, stuttering groan as her fingers moved faster. She was swollen and slick and hot. She pushed her fingers inside herself again, curling to find the slightly rough bump of her G spot. She didn’t always love that pressure, it could be too much, almost distracting, but right now it sent spiraling coils of pleasure through her.

“Are you wet for me?” Ian asked.

“Yes. So wet.” Fucktalk, nothing much eloquent about it and all the hotter for that. “I’m so fucking wet for you. My cunt’s a furnace for you, Ian.”

He made another of those low noises, and Maura had to stifle a laugh. She liked it when Ian gave himself up to explicit language, but sometimes hers seemed to shock him as much as it turned him on. He’d never said it was too much, and in fact there’d been times when she’d been whispering to him while she jacked his cock or as she rode him that she swore the filthier she spoke, the harder he got. But she thought it embarrassed him a little that he liked it so much.

“Put your mouth on me,” she said again. “Please.”

It still wasn’t begging, not quite, but it must’ve been close enough for him, because Ian gave another of those hoarse breaths that sent shivers of desire straight to her core. “I want to lick your clit, soft and slow. Steady circles while my fingers fuck inside you. My other hand’s under your ass to press you close to my mouth. It feels good, doesn’t it?”

The first time he’d ever gone down on her, Maura had finally understood why people talked about orgasm as “the little death.” He wasn’t the first guy to give her head, but the pleasure of his lips and tongue on her clit had been so effortless, so surprising, that she’d come twice before he’d even had to come up for air. She loved sucking cock, but receiving oral had always been so fraught with anxiety — how long would it take her to get off? Would he get bored, give up, what if he didn’t like being down there…so often her orgasms from a man’s mouth had been so hard-won they’d almost not been worth it. Not with Ian. His mouth was magic. Everything about him was magic for her.

“I like that noise you make,” he told her.

She hadn’t realized she’d made a noise. It had slipped out of her when she remembered the feeling of his face between her legs, the soft brush of his hair on her thighs. The press of his tongue flat on her clit and the way he used it, moving slow and steady just as he’d described. He always made a meal out of her. Appetizer, entree and dessert, he said. Her fingers were a sorry substitute for his tongue, but it was all she had.

“I love it when you use your mouth on me.” Her fingertips grazed her erect clit. Back and forth. Barely brushing her heated flesh. She rocked her hips, teasing herself.

“Your hips move. You want me to go faster, but I don’t. Slow, that’s how I go. I lick you so nice and slow. Now I have three fingers inside you. Stretching a little.”

“Oh. God.” She mimicked his description with her own hand, the flick of her thumb acting as his tongue while she filled herself with three fingers. His were bigger, thicker, would stretch her more, but she was so caught up now in the mesmerizing whisper of his words, so hypnotized by the picture he painted for her, that it was almost like he were there. Not quite, it could never be as good imagining as the real thing. But close enough.

“You want me to keep going?”

“Yes, Ian.”

He paused. She imagined him palming the head of his delicious cock, then stroking the shaft. He had this trick he did when jerking off, this method of fucking into his fist instead of moving his hand, and it always drove her crazy to watch him. She wished she could see him now, too late thinking of how she should’ve asked him to get on video chat with her. To ask now would break the mood. She had to be satisfied with what she had — something of which he’d accused her of being incapable. Now wasn’t the time to point out to him otherwise. Not with her fingers deep inside herself and her clit so hard all it would take was a couple of tweaks before she’d tip into climax. She didn’t want to come, not just yet. She wanted this to last and last. Forever might be out of the question, but at least a little while longer.

“Are you close?” Ian asked.

“Yes.” She took her clit between her thumb and forefinger, squeezing gently. “So close, thinking how good you feel against me. I want you inside me. I want you to fuck me.”

“No. Not yet. I want to make you come with my mouth first. Then I want to fuck you.”

Maura let out breath. “Sounds good to me, so long as I get to come again when you’re fucking me.”

He laughed. “Greedy girl.”

“Always.”

“I wish I could see you,” she said before she could stop herself.

Silence. Then, “hold on.”

Her heart thumped and thundered so hard it almost hurt. A half a minute later, her phone buzzed in her hand with a text from him. A picture. His bedroom in the background, a closeup shot of his belly and the curve of his hip. The picture was fuzzy and dark, but she knew his body so well there was no mistaking him. Her heart skipped in its beating, and she blinked back another threat of tears, moved that he’d given her what she asked for. There’d been times when such a simple request would’ve been met flat-out with refusal. This picture had more meaning than a simple snapshot, but she wasn’t ready to let herself think of what.

“I love it,” she told him. “I want to bite that. And then lick it.”

“Now you.”

Again, she blinked away a sting while her pulse thumped, and cursed her tender heart for letting him ever make her wonder if he really wanted her. It took maneuvering and the light was terrible, but she sent him a shot of her head, turned from the camera, the line of her neck and throat exposed.

“Perfect,” he told her. “I know you want me to bite that. And lick it.”

She managed to find the breath to speak, even though her voice shook as much as her hands and the muscles on the insides of her thighs. “Leave a mark. I want to remember you.”

As if she could ever forget him.

He didn’t answer right away, but the hiss of his breath edged toward a groan. She pictured him, eyes closed, brow furrowed with effort as he pumped his cock into his fist. He’d be biting his lower lip by now. Easing himself toward coming. She loved watching him get off.

“I’m licking your clit,” he murmured. “Moving my mouth a little lower to taste you. So fucking sweet. You’re hot and silky wet, and you can’t stop moving under me.”

This was true. She was moving, lifting her hips as she stroked her clit. “I’m so close.”

“I’m going to make you come, Maura.”

Oh, he certainly was. Her hand, but his words. The thought of him. The memory of his touch and scent and flavor, all of those things were sending her over the edge, hurtling her toward climax. There was, in fact, no stopping it now, not that she wanted to. She wanted to give herself up to it, lose herself in the pleasure. Let it consume her.

She still had words, but they were broken by soft, breathy sighs and gasps she couldn’t hold back. “Fuck,” she said. “Oh, fuck, Ian, that feels so good…”

Ian kept talking, telling her just what he was doing to her, how much he loved the taste of her, how much he loved feeling her when she came. “I have my fingers inside you. I can feel you clenching.”

That was it, she was done. Finished. Ignited, combusting, up and over and inside out. Pleasure surged so fiercely all she could do was shake with it.

Quieting, her breath still rasping, she came back to herself. She blinked into the darkness and licked her lips, unable to tell if sweat or tears had painted them with salt. Every muscle felt loose, but pain tightened in her chest with the heavy thud of her heart. She waited to regret this, but she never had and did not, now.

“I love the way you make me feel,” she told him. “When you’re inside me. I love how you make me come. I love how you fit against me, and how you say my name. I want you to feel good, too.”

Ian huffed into the phone. “I am. I do. Getting closer, touching myself. Thinking of you.”

“I love that, too.” The ache of desire to be with him hit her hard, a fist squeezing her heart. Maura put a hand over her eyes, pressing her fingers into her temples, willing herself to hold her shit together. Not to break down, not now. He wanted her to beg, but not this way.

“Shit, this feels so good. I’m getting close, thinking about fucking you, Maura. I want to be behind you, pulling your hair so your head tips back…”

She shivered, too sated to even get close to another climax but helpless not to be aroused by the image he painted. “I love it when you pull my hair.”

“I know you do.” Ian's low laugh slid into a groan. “Oh, fuck. So close, now.”

“I want you to come, baby. Come so hard for me.” The words people said while fucking were always so silly, but she didn’t care. She wanted to talk him to orgasm the way he’d done for her. If all she had of him were words, she was going to use every single one she had.

“I’m coming.” His voice slurred into silence broken by the harsh, rough edge of his breathing. She listened, waiting, counting her own in-and-out breaths. After eleven of them, Ian spoke. “See what you do to me?”

He meant it as a compliment, but it tightened her jaw. Maura scowled, knowing he couldn’t see her face but that he’d hear anger in her voice if she wasn’t careful to disguise it. Did she even want to?

“Well, goodnight,” she said abruptly. “Thanks for the mutual jack-off. It was great.”

“Wait, what? Hey, hey. Don’t…”

She disconnected the call and got up from the bed to stalk to the bathroom, where she splashed cold water on her face and brushed her teeth to wash away the imagined taste of him. It didn’t work. You can’t rinse away a memory.

Her phone was ringing.

She’d never assigned him his own ringtone— in fact, this might be the first time he’d ever called her phone directly. For so long their communication had been limited to furtive instant messages and phone calls sifted through third-party apps. Now there was no reason for them to keep anything a secret, yet the trill of the phone still set her on edge. The call went to voicemail before she could reach it, but the phone rang again a few seconds later. She answered it, but with silence.

“Don’t do that,” Ian said by way of greeting.

“Don’t do what?”

“Hang up on me.” He sounded pissed.

Well. So was she. Maura gripped the phone tight, pressing it to her ear. Naked in the dark and cold, the heat of her anger kept her teeth from chattering even though the rest of her had prickled into gooseflesh.

“You got what you wanted,” she told him. “What more is there to say? What? You wanted to cuddle, after?”

She knew how to read him by every huff and puff. Now he gave a low, frustrated mutter. “What’s your problem?”

“You’re my problem. You’ve been my problem for three years. Soon it will be four. And five. And someday, ten. A hundred fucking years, Ian, you’ll be my problem.” She chose her words carefully, determined not to cry. She’d given him a lot, but she wasn’t going to give him her pain.

“Maura…”

She waited for him to say more than her name in that defeated tone she hated so much, but Ian didn’t say anything else. She bit her tongue and rubbed the sore spot against the back of her teeth to keep herself from speaking. So much to say that couldn’t be said, so much that had always remained unspoken and maybe always would.

Ian sighed. “Do you want me to not call you any more?”

“You’re the one who said we shouldn’t see each other again. You’re the one who said this had all been a mistake from the start,” she reminded him. “Remember that? It was only yesterday. And then what, a few hours later you’re messaging me with your dick in your hand. What, exactly, am I supposed to think, Ian? Am I supposed to be flattered that when you’re horny, you think of me?”

“It’s not just that, and you know it!”

Maura pinched the bridge of her nose, but refused to soften. “Tell me then. What is it? Because I can’t even pretend to know, any more.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“How about that you want to be with me? You could start there.” She wanted to spit the words but settled for swallowing their sour taste. When he said nothing and the sound of his breathing began to hurt her ears as his silence was hurting her heart, Maura disconnected the phone again.

He called back. “Stop doing that.”

“It’s late,” she countered. “I have to work in the morning, and so do you.”

In the beginning, they’d spent so many nights staying up too late that for a time she’d walked through most of her days in a sleep-induced haze. She didn’t want to do that now. If anything, she wanted the oblivion sleep would bring so that she didn’t need to have this discussion with him any longer.

“I’m trying to talk to you,” he said.

“And yet, you say nothing. I get it. I understand. You’ve made yourself abundantly clear. I’m not an idiot,” Maura said tightly, “but I guess I sure am dumb.”

Ian sighed. “No. You’re not. Stop.”

“That’s all you ever say!” She cried. “Stop. Don’t. Can’t. Won’t. I get it, Ian! You can’t give me what I want, and I’m the asshole who just keeps asking. Well. Guess what. I’m done, now.”

“Done with what?” He sounded alarmed, and Maura smiled though she found no speck of humor in the conversation. “What does that mean.”

“It means I’m done asking you for anything. And you know what happens when you ask for nothing, don’t you? That’s exactly what you get. Don’t knock on my door if you don’t intend to be there when I open it.”

“Don’t hang up,” Ian said hastily, then added, “please.”

The please caught her. Maura slid into her covers and tried to warm herself, not even attempting to find her discarded pajamas in the dark. “All you ever do,” she said quietly, “is tell me that you can’t.”

“I’m sorry I can’t go all in with you.”

She closed her eyes, so tired. “For fuck’s sake, Ian. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m just asking you to give this a real chance. It’s been almost three years, and no matter what else has happened, doesn’t that mean something? Everything’s different now. I’m free to be with you, for real. I thought…goddammit, Ian. I thought you wanted that. I do.”

“I never wanted you to leave him for me.”

There it was, bold and harsh, the truth she’d already known. It didn’t feel any better hearing it from him, but it didn’t make her angry or defensive. It only made her sad and resigned and tired.

“Oh, Ian,” Maura said. “Don’t you get it? I left him for myself. Not for you. It was never for you.”

This time when she disconnected, he didn’t call back.

Three

What do you do when you can’t stop yourself from going back over and over to the same person? No matter how bad they are for you. No matter how much they hurt you. Again and again, always the same. What do you do when you can’t stop loving?

It wasn’t the longest they’d gone without talking to each other. In the beginning, weeks had passed sometimes before one or the other of them reached out, though it was always as easy to talk to him as though no time had passed at all. At least in the beginning. And there’d been months of silence during her divorce, when she’d been focused on making sure everything she needed to do was done. This time, it had only been three days. A very fucking long three days.

The worst of it was the constant forgetting — she’d see something funny and want to text him a picture, hear a joke and want to tell him, discover a new song and her fingers were on her phone’s keyboard all ready to share it with him before she remembered. For three years they’d had to sneak every scrap of contact they had, and now that nothing was stopping them from talking or seeing each other whenever they wanted, they weren’t speaking.

She missed him. She would always miss him. That’s what love was, sometimes, a big gaping hole in the middle of everything else.

“It’s not like I never had my heart broken before,” Maura told Shelly across the table. “It’s just the first time I ever did it to myself on purpose. I knew better. And yet…”

“You just kept doing it. I know.” Shelly made a face and put the menu aside. She’d order the same thing she always did, and so would Maura. They’d been coming to the Black Raven Cafe for ten years. The chicken caesar salad was to die for.

Maura laughed at her friend’s expression. “What can I say? His penis is made of magic.”

“Riiiiight.” Shelly looked skeptical. “That’s totally it.”

“And I’m head over heels, totally crazy for him. That too. I can admit it.” Maura sighed, then rapped the table with her knuckles. “Fucking Ahab.”

Shelly looked sympathetic. “He’s a pussy.”

“Yes. That. Or maybe he just doesn’t feel about me the way I feel about him.” This was hard to admit, hard to feel. But necessary.

“Bullshit. He’s crazy about you, too. He’s just being a man about it. He can’t give you what you seem to want?” Shelly snorted her derision and wagged a finger. “Bull. Shit. All that means is that he’s too scared to try.”

Maura stirred the ice cubes in her glass of iced tea, wishing she’d gone for a cup of the Black Raven’s famous hot cocoa with a peppermint stick and plenty of whipped cream. Screw the calories. Screw the salad, too, she decided when the waiter came to take their order. “I’ll take a bacon double cheeseburger, chipotle mayo on the side. Onion rings. Oh…and an extra large cocoa. Extra whip. Hot fudge drizzle.”

“Super cute,” Shelly commented about the waiter when she’d placed her own order of the expected salad and he’d walked away. She gave Maura an eyebrow lift. “And, wow. When’s the last time you ate?”

“I’m eating my feelings,” Maura said flatly. “And I didn’t notice him.”

“You didn’t notice how cute that waiter was? What the hell? I can’t even with you,” Shelly said. “What happened to your hot dude meter?”

Maura frowned. “It broke.”

This earned a second brow lift from Shelly, who could always be counted on to provide comfort and ass-kicking in equal measures. “Ian's an asshole.”

“Yeah,” Maura said, not meaning it. Because that was the thing. Ian could be a jerk sometimes, who couldn’t? She wasn’t proud to say she had her moments of outright bitchery. But he was not an asshole.

“I hate to see him get to you.” Shelly leaned a little closer across the table. “I mean…you’re not regretting anything now, are you? About Chad?”

“God, no.” Maura gave a startled laugh and shook her head. “No way. The divorce was the best thing. The right thing. Sometimes things break and you can’t fix them. Better to end it than live on in misery and resentment.”

Shelly, who’d been married to her high school sweetheart for almost twenty years, pursed her lips. She was the only other person Maura had ever told about Ian. If she’d laid judgment about the affair, she’d never given Maura any sign of it.

“There are days,” Shelly said, and paused before saying in a low voice with a furtive glance around the room, as though someone might give a damn what they were saying, “I envy you.”

Maura laughed, then covered her mouth apologetically. “Oh, c’mon. You and Rex are like salt and pepper. Peanut butter and jelly.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to toss him out the window sometimes. The one on the second floor,” Shelly added, as though she needed to clarify.

“That’s normal.” Maura chewed on her next words a minute before figuring out how to say what she meant. “When all you do is argue about who forgot to put the cap on the toothpaste or whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher or who should take care of Christmas presents for whose parents…when that’s all you’ve become is nagging each other, that’s no good. But I didn’t leave Chad because we fought all the time. I left him because I’d stopped caring enough to even argue. One day he asked me why I hadn’t bothered to pick up his dry cleaning for him, and all I could do was stare at him like he was talking in a foreign language. I mean, literally, Shelly, I simply could not process what the fuck he was talking about. And he kept on and on about it, just picking away at me, until I realized that I simply no longer cared enough even to defend myself. It wouldn’t matter. If it wasn’t the dry cleaning it would be about whose turn it was to make dinner, or why I couldn’t iron his shirts for him, and I was just…done. All done.”

The waiter brought their food then, and both women stopped long enough to dig in. Maura let out a long, low groan of satisfaction at the taste of the burger. Fuck the size of her thighs. This was heaven wrapped in nirvana on a platter of delight.

The conversation turned to other things. Work, family, celebrity gossip. It was exactly what Maura had needed, a few hours of girl time with her bestie, and even she’d been unable to manage any ogling of the super cute waiter, she did feel better by the end of the lunch.

In the parking lot, Shelly hugged her unexpectedly. Maura squeezed back, surprised but grateful for the embrace. A good friend was worth everything in the world, and Shelly was one of the best.

“Hang in there, cookie,” Shelly said. “You know I’m here if you need to vent.”

Maura straightened and smiled. “Thanks. I know. I’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s for the best, anyway. I’ll get over it…eventually.”

Shelly didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t argue. “Anytime you need me, just call. And hey. If you need someone to go out with dancing with you and play wingman while you score with all the hot guys who will be lining up for a shot at you, I’m your gal.”

“Absolutely.” Maura had no intentions of going on a manhunt any time soon, but there was no doubt that when she did, Shelly’d be the first person she’d call. Then again, wasn’t that how she’d gotten into this mess in the first place? Girls’ night out, one too many margaritas, the slow pulse and throb of her favorite song and a man who knew how to dance?

If she’d known then what she knew now, Maura thought as she got in her car and waved at Shelly, driving away. She caught sight of her reflection in the rear-view mirror, wide gray eyes lined with navy. Today, she wore red lipstick like armor. If she knew then what she knew now, nothing would’ve changed. She’d have done it all over again.

Every time.

Perfectly Reckless