Chasing Harry Winston

“I’ll call you later to say good night, okay?”

“You’re definitely back tomorrow, right? We need at least one night alone together before the big Meet the Parents Thanksgiving.”

“Of course we do, baby. I’ll definitely be home tomorrow night,” Leigh forced herself to say. She wasn’t particularly dreading Thanksgiving in Connecticut, even though she probably should be, considering Russell’s entire family was flying in to spend the holiday with hers, but her desperation to hang up the phone was overtaking everything else right then.

“Mmmwah!” Russell made a loud kissing noise into the receiver, a little inside thing they’d always done when they were apart.

Leigh did it back, feeling silly and slightly annoyed and then guilty for feeling silly and slightly annoyed. They hung up and she felt relieved, then exhausted, too tired even to reopen her book.

She awoke with the disconcerting feeling that someone was watching her. She glanced out the window and could see a few scattered snowflakes highlighted by the light above the front door. The room was nearly pitch- black, but she could feel someone else’s presence.

“Jesse?”

“Hey. Sorry. Did I scare you?”

As her eyes adjusted she saw him sitting across the room in the mahogany rocking chair. His hands were crossed over his chest and his head rested against the chair back. The smell of fresh garlic and baking bread wafted in from somewhere.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just admiring your sleep.”

“My sleep?”

“I came up to wake you for dinner, but you looked so peaceful. I don’t really sleep, pretty much ever, so it’s always nice to watch someone else. Probably creepy, but I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s actually ironic, because I don’t sleep anywhere else but here. There’s something about being out here that’s better than Bambien,” Leigh said.

“Isn’t it Ambien? Without the B?”

“Bath plus Ambien equals Bambien. But even that only works some of the time.”

Jesse laughed and Leigh felt a surge of happiness. And for the first time in her thirty years of life, Leigh did something without giving any thought whatsoever to any potential consequences or reactions. With a completely blank mind and absolutely no anxiety, she climbed off the bed and walked over to the rocking chair. Not even standing above him made her nervous; she extended her hand and, when he accepted it with only the slightest confusion on his face, she tugged him upward. They were face-to-face, something that felt strange because Russell was so much taller. Leigh looked down at her hands, interlaced with his, a moment of intimacy that was undeniable, unmistakable. He unhooked their hands and put them behind her neck and entangled his fingers in her hair, and their lips pressed together and opened; Jesse’s tongue on her own was more surreal than exciting, strange, or foreign.

From there everything moved quickly. They fell back onto the bed and within seconds they were naked. It was a violent, needy sex Leigh had rarely experienced. Even though he played with her hair, cupped her face, kissed the tip of her nose, stroked her back-he didn’t hesitate to pin her down almost roughly, hands over her head. Afterward, Jesse pulled her close, still on top of the covers, and ran his fingers lightly across Leigh’s shoulders until goose bumps rose along the backs of her arms. He asked if she was okay, did she feel all right, did she want some water? When Leigh was quiet for a few minutes, he lifted her chin and kissed her with such softness she thought she might die. They kissed like that for minutes, many minutes, lazily and languidly, and when Jesse pressed the flat part of his tongue across her bottom lip, Leigh had the sensation that she could disappear entirely into his mouth. Neither lifted their head from the pillow; they turned and kissed, so warmly and softly until something snapped and the urgency became overwhelming; their teeth clashed and their nails dug and their hands again grabbed and pulled.

Afterward Leigh rested her head on his chest and through half-closed eyes peeked to see Jesse awake, looking at her. Not with curiosity or love, though; he looked as though he was trying to remember every detail. Eye contact during sex was supposed to be the ultimate intimacy, a glimpse into the soul, blah, blah, blah. But no matter how close she’d felt to Russell or to other guys before him, meeting eyes had always felt forced or contrived, as though they’d both read the same article insisting lovemaking included eye contact. It always made her uncomfortable, took her out of the moment, but this was different. When Jesse’s eyes found hers it was hard to breathe; no one had ever looked at her like that before. It was out of a movie, and Leigh felt like a movie star. It no longer mattered that she had a small rash on her belly from an allergic reaction to a new lotion, or that Jesse’s skin was a bit too pale for such dark chest hair, or that they were both red and sweaty and panting; they had become the two sexiest people on earth. They had, in a very real way, found each other.

At some point they fell asleep because when Leigh opened her eyes the sky was beginning to lighten. She eased herself out from under the throw blanket Jesse had pulled over them, and she tiptoed to the bathroom across the hall, waiting for the floods of regret, guilt, and self-flagellation. Nothing came. Instead, she peed and braced herself for the familiar stinging of a UTI, but miraculously, she felt fine. Splashing water on her face, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and nearly fainted. Her chin and cheeks were raw, and patches were lightly bleeding from beard burn; her lips were swollen; the skin on her neck was splotched red with teeth marks; her hair was tangled in ratty knots; there were bruises on her inner thighs from where he’d pushed himself against her. Her head throbbed from hitting the headboard, her pelvic bone ached from grinding, and the sensitive skin between her legs felt like it had been sandpapered. Even her feet ached from curling her toes for so many hours.

Never before had she felt so awful, if by awful one really means absolutely fucking fantastic. She returned to the guest room and found Jesse sitting in bed, still naked under the blanket. Light from the bedside window illuminated his face, and Leigh could now see the clock: 7:23 A.M. He looked up and, for the first time in hours, she was overcome with self-consciousness. She was standing there completely naked in the glow of full daylight before this man she barely knew, her author, for chrissake. Had she really done this?

“Leigh.”

She forced herself to look directly at him. The room was cold and she could feel the hair on her legs beginning to prickle.

“Leigh. Sweetheart. Come here.” He lifted the edge of the blanket and motioned for her to join him.

She climbed in next to him. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled the covers over them both. He kissed her on the forehead like her father used to when she was sick. And what her father would think if he could see her now…not just in bed with someone-bad enough for a dad-but with the man she had been assigned to edit…and what about Russell…her fiance…she was still wearing the beautiful ring he’d placed on her finger only five months earlier. She was a filthy, disgusting slut, unworthy of all of them.

“You look like you’re in the throes of a crushing panic attack,” Jesse whispered in her ear. He pulled her even tighter against him, but it was protective, not sexual.

“I’m a filthy, disgusting, unworthy slut,” she said before she could stop herself, but the second the words were out she regretted them.

Expecting a denial or, at the very least, another hug and some sympathetic clucking-Russell’s specialty-Leigh was horrified, and then supremely pissed off, when Jesse started to laugh.

She wrenched her body away from his and stared, dumbstruck. “You think that’s funny? You think it’s amusing that I basically just ruined my life?”

He hugged her tighter and rather than feel suffocated like she usually did, Leigh allowed herself to relax. Jesse kissed her lips and forehead and each cheek before saying, “I’m only laughing because you remind me so much of myself.”

“Oh, great,” Leigh muttered.

“But we didn’t do anything wrong, Leigh.”

“What do you mean, we didn’t do anything wrong? I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Maybe with the fact that I’m engaged? Or you’re married? Or that we work together?”

She emphasized the working together bit, but it wasn’t until she’d listed everything that Leigh admitted something to herself: She’d been waiting for Jesse to offer a reasonable explanation for his marriage, something