CHAPTER 26
THE EARLY MORNING sun woke me up, slanting through the window shade. For one confused moment, I thought that I was back at home. I pulled my comforter up closer to my chin, only to realize that it was not my comforter.
It was a quilt.
And I was lying under it, naked.
And I was not alone.
I rolled over to find myself looking into Jason Templeton’s eyes. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning.” I barely got the words out, as my heart started jack-hammering away, and I regretted them immediately. What was I thinking? I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet! Here, I had finally lured Jason to bed, and I was going to drive him away with clambake-and-smores morning breath.
Before I could figure out a way to sneak out of bed, to redeem my breath by stealing Simon’s toothpaste and rubbing it on my teeth with my finger, before I’d reconciled myself to showing Jason my bare rear-end as I ducked into the bathroom, the decisions were taken away from me.
Jason’s hands were firm as he pulled me close. His fingers clutched my hair. His lips found mine, as if it were perfectly natural for two people to kiss without the aid of minty fresh breath.
Which, I supposed, it was.
And I didn’t regret that lesson. I didn’t regret anything, as his fingers began to massage my scalp. His hands moved lower, smoothing over my bare back. I wriggled even closer to him, relishing the feeling of our bodies awakening, tangling, finding each other beneath the quilt.
Scott had never been one for morning love-making. He’d never wanted to linger between the sheets—he’d had too many important things to do, too many exciting people to see. I’d once proposed an entire “Pajama Weekend” where we’d do nothing but stay at home, make love, and eat disgustingly fattening food, and he’d looked at me as if I was mad before laughing and “getting” my so-called joke.
But Jason…. Jason was a different man entirely.
When he came up for air, he said, “And here I thought it might be strange, coming to your family reunion.”
“I knew you’d fit right in,” I said. And the double entendre in my innocent words made both of us laugh. “Seriously,” I said, when I trusted my voice again. “I don’t know what possessed me to invite you. I know it can be overwhelming to meet so many people at one time.”
“At least Leah set out a welcome mat.” We both laughed again. If only my spiteful cousin could see us now…
Jason leaned back on his pillow, pulling me on top of him so that my head rested against his chest. His surprisingly well-muscled chest. His perfect chest. I mean, the man was a college professor! I hadn’t expected him to have the body that he had, hidden beneath his long-sleeved shirts, and his impeccable khaki pants….
As I listened to his heart lub-dubbing beneath my ear, I spread my fingers against the curve of his ribs. “This is too perfect,” I sighed. I hadn’t actually intended to say those words out loud. Nevertheless, they seemed right, drifting to rest in the morning cabin, settling in with the dust motes that sparkled in the sunlight. I closed my eyes as Jason started drawing designs on my back with his fingertips. “Tell me something to make it real,” I said.
“What?” His voice was as lazy as his hands.
“Tell me something bad about you. A secret, or something. Something so that I’ll know this isn’t some fairy tale dream.”
“Something bad? You mean, other than the fact that I’m married?”
I froze.
He was joking, of course. He was teasing me. I had practically asked him to tease me. “Married?” I sounded stupid, but my question freed me to sit up, to gather the quilt across my chest like some censor-conscious heroine on a TV show.
“You know, Ekaterina? Marriage? I do, and all that crap?”
I knew all the words that Jason was saying, but I couldn’t make sense out of them. I couldn’t make them apply to my Boyfriend, to the man I’d just slept with.
“Ekaterina?” I’d lost the ability to form sentences, to string together subjects and predicates, nouns and verbs. Even as my belly twisted, even as my fingers and toes flamed red-hot then fell icy cold, I tried to remember how to speak, how to ask what I was suddenly terrified that I did not want to know.
Jason went on, before I could piece together a coherent sentence. “You met her, remember? At Five Guys? At the Harvest Gala?” He was sitting up now, too, leaning against the bed’s headboard and staring at me warily.
“I met her,” I said, finally managing to make a sentence. “I met her, but you never said anything about being married.”
“I told you that she was going to Historical Politics this weekend,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“But you left out the tiny fact that you’re her husband!”
I was such an idiot.
He’d let me make a fool out of myself. He’d let me declare my interest in him. He’d flirted with me and joked and made me think that we had a future. But he would never, ever be there for me. He would never, ever be mine. Because he belonged to someone else. To have and to hold. Til death do us part.
I was such an idiot.
I’d seen him with her twice. I’d watched her crying. He’d talked about her research. I’d forced myself to believe that she was a grad student, that she meant nothing to him, that she was just another woman among the hundreds of women that he saw in his professional life.
I was such a complete and utter idiot.
I threw myself out of bed, tugging the quilt with me, so that Jason was suddenly exposed. Bare. Silly.
He stared at me in astonishment. “Jane, you had to realize I was married!”
“And how was I supposed to realize that?” I said, as I scrambled for my clothes. “You don’t wear a wedding band!”
“I told you that I couldn’t make dinner on a weekend night.” He honestly sounded aggrieved, as if I were the one who had lied, who had pretended to be something I was not. “I told you that I couldn’t get up here to Connecticut until Saturday. I gave you my cell phone number.”
I tugged on my pants. My bra was tangled around itself, and there was no way that I was going to stand in front of him long enough to tuck myself into its cups and clasps. Instead, I jerked my sweater over my head, slashing at my hair to free it from the tight knit neck. By the time I had finished that maneuver, I could trust my voice with a few more complete sentences. “You never told me you were married. You never gave me any reason to believe that you were. You lied to me, Jason. You lied, and you took advantage of me.”
I shoved my feet into my tennis shoes, deciding that socks were as unnecessary as my bra. Jason took a deep breath, and stood up in front of me, naked.
“Jane, you’re being completely unreasonable!”
“I’m—” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“Come on! You had to know Ekaterina was my wife. You’re the one who brought her up in half our conversations.”
“But what—” My voice broke, and I needed to swallow hard before trying a second time. “What was this all about?” I gestured toward the bed.
“This was a break,” he said. “We’ve both been working so hard—me, writing my articles, you, doing my research….”
Doing his research. My so-called Boyfriend thought I was nothing more than a research assistant. Well, a research assistant and an easy lay. A research assistant, an easy lay, and a wiling partner in adultery.
My anger was hotter than our passion the night before, hotter than the bonfire that had blazed in the back clearing, hotter than the greasy flames that had shot out from my oven on the night that Jason first kissed me.
I needed to do something, needed to move. My arms rose up, and my fingers stiffened. Power pulsed inside me, building with every heartbeat. The thrumming energy of spell-work rippled down my spine. My hair crackled, and I knew that it must halo my face.
The magic was strong, stronger than anything I had summoned before. It was greater than my fumbling efforts when I awakened Neko,
greater than my mastering simple kitchen flames. I opened my mouth and heard a terrible sound, a grating laugh, a murderous glee. I was making that noise; I was gloating over this power, this strength.