Nobody had ever—her ex-husband had never… She held such distaste for him she couldn’t tolerate his name in her mind in that moment and let the thought spin away.

The weekend blazed like tissue paper, disappearing in a bright flash of sex, heat, and need. They slept and made love in the shower, on the couch, on the living room floor.

Those times when they needed food, they moved around each other warily, like animals that had been stripped of their protective layers. They avoided talking about anything controversial or difficult—the future, the past—and concentrated on small, domestic things.

Everything was raw and heightened. When she drained the cooling water off hard-boiled eggs she had cooked and forgotten, he trailed the tips of his fingers along the back of her neck. She dropped the pan into the sink, shaking. That was all that was needed to set him off again.

He lifted her so she sat perched on the sink. She hooked her ankles eagerly around the back of his thick, muscular thighs, taking his cock in both greedy hands, fingering the broad head and stroking along the rigid length until he hissed between his teeth and entered her again in a slow, liquid slide.

By that time she was so sore and sensitized that when her swollen little bud came against the root of his erection, she made a muffled sound and twisted in agonized pleasure. This time he rocked against her gently and took his own pleasure a few moments later in a quiet, liquid gush.

Don’t come, she said to Monday.

But time was the most measured, inexorable force in the universe, and Monday dawned anyway. Lying sleepless beside Alexei she witnessed the day’s arrival alone.

Even at rest, his angular face was hard, but this was the most relaxed she had ever seen him. He had laced his fingers through hers before drifting off, and they still held hands.

I don’t want you to go, she thought as she watched his sleeping profile. But this was never something we meant to sustain. And you can’t stay.

She had known that all along. She had been the one to set the ground rules.

But—oh, what a stupid thing to do—she had gone and fallen in love with him anyway.

*     *     *

When the time came, he packed his belongings in the carry-on bag. It took less than ten minutes. The pure gold of a hot afternoon shone in the open french windows while Molly sat outside at a patio table, drinking iced herbal tea.

Denial hadn’t worked, so he had gorged on her. He should have worked her out of his system by now. Watching her profile from the shadows of the cottage interior, he thought of everything she had taught him.

She was diametrically opposed to his dutiful, traitorous wife from that long-ago past life.

Molly’s eager excitement at her pregnancy.