She leant against the doorframe of the maid's room and scanned him with hungry eyes. Nothing in the fridge could fill the appetite that stabbed through her.
"You alright?" Peter asked.
She walked to her husband, and grabbed his face. She kissed him, twice, Will still on her mouth and in her head but he wouldn't know that.
His eyes widened and his body tensed. She hitched up her skirt and climbed up onto him.
His hands raced to his shirt, pulling off his clothes before she could change her mind.
"Let's go to the bedroom," he tried.
"No. Here," she said, voice cool and firm as she pressed him down, and there was so much want in her eyes and something wicked and assertive that he didn't know, that he didn't recognize.
He stirred with need and pushed himself up, to try and flip them, to try roll on top, like usual, but she grabbed his wrists and resisted.
There is no way, she thought. There was no way she could take the weight of him. Alhough she'd always liked being under him, being held, contained, the idea made her heart race with claustrophobia.
Okay, he thought. He would let her control this. He would do anything she wanted right now, blind in his desperation. He was desperate for things to feel normal, desperate to make love to her, desperate to feel her skin against his skin, but when he reached for her clothes she grabbed back at his wrists.
She wouldn't take them off. She wasn't ready for the intimacy.
He swallowed and stared up at her.
He watched, wide-eyed as she sunk down onto him, as hard and aching as he had ever been, and he groaned, almost in pain at the sublime feel of his wife.
He hadn't felt a woman for almost a year and he was terrified that he would instantly fall apart. He wanted to be on top of her, to control himself and to control her – and he gritted his teeth to hold back, crazy with love and lust for her and for this new, bold thing in her that turned him on even more…
He tried to pull her down to him, to at least to feel her clothed body flush against his, but she braced her hands against his chest to keep herself upright.
Okay, he thought again. Her way. Fuck she felt good, he sighed,and he lifted his hand to her groin to rub against her with his thumb as she rode him.
She moaned in approval and his lips curled into a smile. As she moved against him, she closed her eyes and thought of Will – half out of desire, half as a punishment… Was Peter thinking of her? She wondered, or was he thinking…
"Alicia…" he groaned, interrupting the scenes playing out on the backs of her eyelids.
When she opened her eyes, his were fixed onto hers - the intensity of his stare gratified her but she hated him while she loved him and wanted him to want her.
As he felt her speed up, he basked in the familiarity. He loved her and he had missed her and he wanted to prolong everything and tease her and so he pulled his hand away with a grin.
Instead of the needy moan that he expected, anger glinted in the hazel of her eyes.
What, do you think I'm going to beg? Think I'm going to plead your name? she thought.
She didn't need his hand, and he knew it, knew she could come against him with the motion of her own hips.
He watched her eyes fall closed again and he felt that her mind was far away.
Does she do this for you? Does she? She heard Amber's voice on the grainy tape; she remembered how she had felt when she had heard it, she felt again the shame and the rejection that had taken months to calcify into rage. When the rage came, she didn't ever think she would be back here with him.
She hadn't touched his body since she'd found out that he had shared it.
But he felt good to her now, and she swallowed, trying to get the sounds and the sights on the tapes out of her mind, screwed her eyes up tighter and god, why hadn't he been in his office when she went back for him? Would she be with him right now? Would their bodies be warm against one another, would he press his mouth onto her throat as he pushed into her hard and deep?
She thought of the feel of Will's unfamiliar arms, called back the whisky taste of his mouth, the feel of his hot tongue on hers, his stubble on her cheeks, his fingers on her back and…
"Oh god," she cried out as release pulsed through her body, blinding her, and she gasped as she rode out her waves against Peter as he stared into her face.
"You're so beautiful," he breathed, so turned on by her and by her agency. She stared back at him, her face impenetrable.
He throbbed, knew he wasn't far behind, tried again to flip her onto her back but again she dug her knees into the bed and refused with her body to be moved, to be held.
Instead she continued to rock against him, watched his jaw clench as he got close.
Empowerment flashed through her as her hips carried him to the edge and why was this not enough for you? she thought, why was I not enough?
She felt his body grow rigid under her, and as he grabbed her thighs as she rode him to his climax, he called out "Oh my love, oh Alicia," and she wanted to cry back that she hated him and that she loved him.
Spent and breathless, he was finally able to pull her down to lie besides him, cradling his body around the back of hers.
As he sighed and kissed her neck, she stared straight ahead.
"I love you," he said.
She turned to him and smiled. It was a limp, half-hearted, smile, but it was something, it was a start, and he would take it.
She felt warmed and gratified and happy and sad and wanting and weak and a sell-out.
Dammit, she thought. Dammit.