The morning light filtered through the curtains of the guest room, pale and unforgiving. Camila stirred, her body feeling strangely light, yet anchored by a dull, pulsing ache between her thighs.
As she shifted beneath the silk sheets, she realized she felt remarkably clean, refreshed, almost. She had a vague, dreamlike memory of being lifted, of the soothing spray of warm water against her skin, and the tender touch of a towel. Jake must have carried her to the shower while she was dead to the world, cleaning the evidence of their passion from her skin with the reverence of a devotee.
Despite the physical comfort, reality crashed down on her. She had betrayed her husband, her vows, and the very foundation of her home. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the wave of self-loathing to drown her. She expected to feel like a monster.
But then, her hand brushed against a small piece of paper on the nightstand.
She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, and picked up the note. It was a simple, torn scrap of paper with Jake’s hurried, masculine scrawl:
I watched you sleep for an hour. I couldn’t bring myself to wake you. I made sure you were taken care of. There’s coffee in the kitchen and your favorite breakfast is warming in the oven…
Camila pressed the note to her lips, and to her horror, she didn’t cry from guilt—she cried from relief. For years, John had looked at her, but he hadn’t seen her. He saw a wife, a mother, an ornament for his success. But Jake saw the woman. The note made her feel a terrifying, intoxicating spark of life she thought had died long ago.
The one-night stand was supposed to be the end. They had promised each other, in the hushed, panicked whispers of the following afternoon, that it would never happen again.
But a month is a long time for a hungry heart.
With John’s project extended by another three weeks, the house became a labyrinth of temptation. Every hallway felt narrower, every room more intimate. It started with lingering touches in the kitchen—Jake reaching for a glass and letting his fingers trail across the small of her back, his thumb catching the hem of her shirt just long enough to sear her skin.
Then came the shared glances over Mico’s head. They would sit on the living room floor, playing with the toddler’s wooden blocks, but their eyes would meet in the quiet spaces between the child’s laughter. In those looks, there was no talk of toys or schedules—only the burning, secret knowledge of how they sounded in the dark, the memory of the way Camila’s breath hitched when Jake’s teeth grazed her ear.
One afternoon, the air in the house felt particularly heavy, thick with the scent of an approaching rainstorm. Mico had finally fallen into a deep nap in his playpen. The silence was sudden and absolute.
Camila was standing at the kitchen sink, her hands submerged in warm, soapy water, trying to wash away the restlessness that had been clawing at her all morning. She felt him before she heard him. The air behind her shifted, growing warm and electric.
Jake didn’t say a word. He stepped up behind her, his chest pressing against her back. He reached around her, his large hands sinking into the dishwater to find hers. Under the sudsy water, he gripped her wrists, pulling her hands out and pinning them to the edge of the marble counter.
“Jake, the maid might come back from the market early,” she whispered, her head falling back against his shoulder. Her heart was a trapped bird against her ribs.
“She won’t.” he murmured, his voice a low vibration against her neck. He began to trail kisses from her jawline down to the sensitive pulse point at her throat. “I’ve been watching you all morning, Camila. I can’t breathe in this house when I’m not touching you.”
He let go of her hands and slid his palms down her sides, his fingers hooking into the waistband of her lounge shorts. With a sharp, practiced motion, he pulled them down. Camila let out a soft, jagged gasp, her damp hands clutching the edge of the sink so hard her knuckles turned white.
He didn’t wait. He turned her around, lifting her effortlessly onto the counter. The cold marble sent a shock through her system, a stark contrast to the heat of his body as he stepped between her knees. He didn’t even bother to undress; he simply freed himself, his eyes locked on hers with a ferocity that made her knees weak.
“Tell me to stop,” he challenged, his voice rough with a month’s worth of suppressed longing. “Tell me you don’t want this as much as I do.”
Camila didn’t answer with words. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him flush against her. When he pushed inside her, a deep, guttural moan escaped her lips, muffled only by the hand she pressed over her own mouth.
It was fast and frantic, a desperate theft of pleasure in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. The sunlight hit the kitchen tiles in long, golden bars, illuminating the steam rising from the forgotten dishwater and the rhythmic friction of their bodies. Every sound was magnified: the ticking of the wall clock, the hum of the refrigerator, and the wet, heavy thud of Jake’s hips against the counter.
He gripped her hair, tilting her head back as he found his rhythm, his movements marring the “perfect” domesticity of the kitchen. Camila squeezed her eyes shut, her mind spinning. This was the heart of the home, the place where she cooked for her husband, where they had family breakfasts, and here she was, being claimed by his brother on the very spot where she prepared their meals.
The sacrilege of it only made her peak more violent. When she felt the wave crash over her, she bit down on Jake’s shoulder to keep from screaming, her nails drawing thin red lines down his back. He followed her moments later, his body shuddering as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath coming in ragged, broken hitches.
For a few minutes, they stayed like that—tangled together among the soap suds and the shadows.
“I’m never going to be able to let you go,” Jake whispered against her skin, his voice sounding like a vow and a curse all at once.
Camila pulled him closer, her eyes drifting to the wedding photo on the refrigerator, a picture of a woman she no longer recognized. “I know,” she breathed, the guilt already beginning to seep back in, though she didn’t move to pull away.
The second time happened on a rainy Tuesday, ten days after the birthday. Camila was folding laundry in the master bedroom when Jake appeared in the doorway.
“I should go,” he whispered, even as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
“You should,” she agreed, her voice trembling as she dropped a towel.
They didn’t make it to the bed. Jake pressed her against the cool surface of the mahogany dresser, his hands sliding up her thighs with a desperate, familiar hunger. This time, there was no wine to blame, no excuse. There was only the raw, undeniable truth that they couldn’t stay away.
As the weeks passed, their encounters became more frequent, more reckless. They found “escapes” in the mundane:
Under the cover of the midnight shadows, away from the baby monitor’s range, they shared frantic, hushed moments against the garden wall, the scent of damp earth and jasmine mixing with the heat of their skin.
While Mico napped, Jake would pull her into the small library. They would make love silently, their breaths hitched, listening for any stir from the nursery, the danger only adding fuel to the fire.
Sometimes, the guilt would become too much, and Camila would retreat to the bathroom to cry. Jake would find her there, slipping behind the glass to hold her, turning her tears into moans as he claimed her once again under the steaming water.
Jake became her shadow. He didn’t just provide sex; he provided the presence John never did. He played with Mico for hours, he noticed when she changed her hair, he asked her about her dreams. He was a husband in every way that mattered, except for the name on the marriage license.
By the end of the month, the “dirty affair” had evolved into a parallel life. They were a family in the shadows, living in the stolen spaces of another man’s house.
But even as Camila found herself glowing, her skin looking more vibrant and her smile more genuine, a cold dread sat in the pit of her stomach. The calendar was turning. The project was ending.
The month of paradise was over, and the master of the house was coming home to a foundation he didn’t know was already hollowed out.
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