Those precise words had run through my mind the first time I met Max Beausoleil. And every time after that. Hot as fuck. It wasn’t just his dark good looks enhanced by a sexy scar running across his lip; or his tall, muscular, athlete’s body. It wasn’t his fame and notoriety. When I met him, he’d been pleasant and engaged, but there was a darkness, a broodiness, a profound sense of tragedy about him. The combination was ridiculously attractive. Even Brian seemed enamored with him. (My husband’s overt fawning was significantly less hot.)
Freya kept going. “Women throw themselves at Max constantly. I’d be naive to think that he never slept with anyone when he was on the road.”
“That must have been hard for you.”
“I honestly didn’t care, as long as he used protection,” she said. “I didn’t want an STD. Or worse, a baby.”
Her comment stung. We had been so desperate for a child and Freya was comparing a baby to a case of herpes. But I hadn’t yet told her about our fertility struggles, or the evaporation of our adoptive child. I was sure she wasn’t being insensitive.
“But Max and I never talked about it,” she continued. “We never said, I love you, but I’m lonely. We’re apart so much, and I have needs.”
“Did you . . . ?” I didn’t want to articulate it, didn’t want it to sound like a judgment or an accusation.
She looked over and met my gaze. “Sex and love are not the same thing. Sex is physical. Sex is fun.” She ducked under a heavy cedar bough. “The people on this island get that. Everybody cheats. At least they’re open about it.”
“Not everybody cheats.”
“Really? You’ve never?”
“No . . . And I don’t think Brian has, either.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“My husband is a straight arrow. He’s just monogamous by nature. We’ve been together since college. I know him.”
“Wow. And you’ve never wanted to be with anyone else, either?”
“I didn’t say that.” My face was warm as I continued. “I guess I’ve thought about it. When I started college, I thought I would date and fool around and have fun. But I met Brian early on and he was so sweet and solid and . . . there. He was always there. . . .”
“Do you worry that you missed out on things?”
“Sometimes. At one stage, I actually brought up doing the hall-pass thing. But Brian couldn’t. He said the thought of me with someone else made him sick. And I wasn’t going to risk a great relationship just so I could have sex with someone other than my husband.”
Freya stopped short. “So you’ve only ever had sex with Brian?”
I was used to being judged for our sexual exclusivity. People seemed to think we were naive or prudish. They acted as if screwing a bunch of strangers was a rite of passage like going to prom or learning to drive. “Yeah.”