He seemed to like the cool, smooth feel of the fabric. He didn’t just lift it off as she had pictured. He reached up under it to place the palm of his hand on her belly and then moved it to her backside and then everywhere, as she kissed him, excited by it and eager already. She was remembering the first time and thinking about what he had done then and what he might do this time. She had thought about him for days, and every time she caught him looking at her again with that longing and intensity, she had felt the fluttering in her stomach. She had given him a stern, cold look to make him stop, but she had wanted to put her arms around him and whisper to him to save it all up for now.

He seemed to have done that. He was touching her skin, moving in swirls on her back and belly and then every forbidden place, and she loved it. She felt appreciated and treasured and understood and claimed and possessed. She knelt on the mattress in front of him, undid his belt, and undressed him, lingering to touch and kiss and hold.

And then he pulled the garment up over her head and off, and knelt down with her. He did all the things that she had wished he would think of doing, not in the kind of hurry he had been in the first night. He took his time so that when each move came, she was eager and then grateful. She savored every feeling until it ended. She lay back and he lay beside her, both of them catching their breath.

She said, “We don’t have to worry tonight. Bobby isn’t going to come home. He went with Lee Wolf and Dave Sherman and Tony Wagner to do some work out of state. He’ll call me as soon as they head home.”

“Good,” said Ed. He knew they had gone in the morning and what they were planning, but he could not see how talking more about her husband would help him.

She seemed to read his mind. “You don’t like my mentioning him, do you?”

“I’d rather think about you.”

“Don’t you love the feeling that you’re naked with another man’s naked wife? Doesn’t that feeling that you’re doing something forbidden turn you on a little? That she’s yours when you want to take her, that she’ll do this for you? And this? That you can take her over and over, and—”

He moved swiftly over her and she stopped talking, or stopped using words. The night passed without either of them noticing the hour. Each time they stopped, something happened that made them turn to each other again. Then they heard the tweets of small birds, high in the trees, and then the first warbles.