But he apparently had other plans. After we caught our breath, he got off of me and stood up from the bed. “I—uh—” He didn’t end up finishing his sentence so I had no idea where he was going with that. He grabbed his clothes and awkwardly got dressed while I laid there in the nude, trying to figure out what to say to fill the silence.
“That was—”
“A mistake,” he said.
It wasn’t exactly what I had wanted to hear, but I couldn’t say I disagreed with him. Now that the passion was dying down, I was starting to think about the implications of what we’d just done, and the word ‘mistake’ felt like the best way to describe it all.
“Yeah,” I said, sighing. “A big mistake.”
“It can never happen again.” He pulled his shirt on and finally looked at me. “For Will’s sake, we just can’t.”
“Yeah. No. Of course. Never again.”
He nodded then rubbed the back of his neck. “But… just for the record… I had a good time.”
I smiled at him as I sat up and pulled the sheet up over my body. “Yeah,” I said. “I did too. But still, it was a mistake.”
“Totally,” he said. He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. “So, it’s agreed then, we
will forget this ever happened and just move on?”
“Yes,” I said. “Absolutely. Consider it already forgotten.”
“Good. Well. Goodnight then.” He closed the door and was gone. I laid back down on the bed and breathed in and out deeply a few times. Then I laughed to myself. I could make sure it never happened again, that part would be easy.
But forgetting about it? Forget about the best sex I’d ever had in my entire life?
That wasn’t likely to happen any time soon.
ChapterTen
MATT
Itook a shower that night, in an attempt to wash away the memory of Stephanie’s body pressed up against mine, but of course, it didn’t work.
All I could think about was her—her curves and her smile, the way her breath felt against my neck and the way her voice went up an octave when she was aroused. She had infected my brain many months ago when I saw her in Hawaii, and a part of me thought that once I had finally slept with her, I might be able to move on and think about other things. Instead, the exact opposite was happening.
I was having a harder time focusing onanything.
When I got into bed that night, I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing her, and by the time I eventually fell asleep, which took hours, all I did was dream of her. The next morning, the only thing I could think to do was to stay away from her. I told Will that I was going to take some business calls in my bedroom in order to avoid coming downstairs and running into her, but obviously I couldn’t avoid her forever.
She was living in my house after all.
Around lunchtime, when I knew she and Will had left the house, I went into the kitchen and made myself some food. I sat down with my sandwich at the table and took my phone out. I scrolled through the names, at first looking for a friend I could potentially call for advice. As I went through my phonebook, however, I started to notice how many women I had listed in there. Mostly, they were women I didn’t really know, who I had hooked up with once or twice. They were women I’d met over the years who were also interested in having casual flings and nothing more.
This got me thinking—I had never had this problem with any of them. I had never found myself daydreaming about any of these women after we’d slept together, and I definitely never lost sleep over them. They were friends of mine, friends who liked to get together under the sheets now and then, but that was all.
So what had made Stephanie so different?
I shook my head and laughed at myself.
Nothing. There’s nothing different about Stephanie.
It wasn’t as if I was having special feelings for her, that much I knew for sure. So, I thought about it some more, and eventually, I came to understand exactly what was going on with me.
The reason I couldn’t stop thinking about her after I saw her in Hawaii was because I didn’t know who she was or how to get in touch with her. She was a complete mystery to me, and I hated leaving mysteries unsolved. And, the reason why I couldn’t stop thinking about hernowwas simply because she was forbidden. It all made perfect sense. The intensity of my feelings for her—it has nothing to do with Stephanie or me or how it felt to be with her. It was just the fact that we were not supposed to be doing this. That’s what was driving me so mad.
I was relieved to have had this realization. Understanding what I felt for her was the first step in controlling those feelings and eventually moving on from them. Soon enough, everything would be back to normal. She would go back to just being Will’s nanny, we would be friendly but professional, and it would be as if we had never seen each other naked.