He was just doin' his job, he reminded himself. Why, however, had he decided to do a daily household chore at such a late hour? He didn't want to see her; that was the sad truth of it. His indiscretion had disrupted the most innocent of activities, like delivering freshly laundered linens to her bathroom. He just didn't feel comfortable. It was just too... intimate. He stood hesitantly outside the door for just a moment, too caught up in rationalizing his own rationale to knock.
"I thought we agreed long ago that you'd always remember to knock before coming in," she said, her mouth set in a thin, straight line.
"I'm sorry." He mumbled, quickly dropping his gaze. "I didn't expect you home tonight. I thought you'd be stayin' in the city with-"
He looked at her then, sucking in his breath in seeing she showed a certain disinterest in covering herself up.
She stood silently watching his eyes travel down her body, taking her in, inch by inch. The thin line of her lips curving slightly.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" She asked quietly.
"Yes." He answered, knowing his body language had already betrayed him. "I wanted you then, and I want you now!"
"So what are you going to do, Tony? Have an affair on your girlfriend with your 'wife?'" She surprised even herself in ascribing to the role she saw herself in, only admitting to it within the strict confidence of her shrink. Her tone was harsh- perhaps too harsh- but she was raw and exposed.
"What about you?" He shot back, his face hot. "Are you gonna cheat on your boyfriend with your 'husband?'" He sputtered, nearly choking on the words.
"This isn't about me, Tony," she insisted, her voice rising. "I'm not the one who-"
"She was a mere abstraction, Angela," he said, straining to keep his voice level. "Because the fact is, never have I wanted anyone more than the woman I see standin' before me!"
She tucked the towel around her once more. Stepping from the tub, she crossed over to where he stood, folding into him perfectly as he pressed his forehead to hers; his hands toying with the towel still draped about her. A gentle tug saw it fall to a formless heap on the floor. Taking her hands in his, he silently led her from the bathroom and into the bedroom.
Crossing the latitudinal line leading from the bathroom to the bedroom, Tony took his hands from Angela's, never breaking eye contact eye with her and placed them on her waist, letting them rest just above her hips, pausing only a moment to relish their soft curves before effortlessly lifting her up, feeling the length of her legs as they wrapped possessively about his hips.
He lay her down on satin sheets, bare. Concentrating wholly on the thin line of her lips, those eyes, expectant, perceptive, deep-set, and brown; that hair, damp, unruly, dusky blond ringlets, seemingly begged his fingers to comb suggestively through them. He obliged. His eyes them came to rest on the subtle arch of her back; his libido heightening instantly. Sensing his restlessness, she tugged at his jeans working to push the stiff denim past his hips as he sat, straddling her, his knees anchored on either side of her hips.
"No," he said, grabbing her wrist more harshly than he meant to.
"No?" He read the questions in her eyes, glaring comprehensible rejection.
His face remained inches from hers, drawing closer, millimeter by millimeter, as he gently parted her lips with his. She smiled, feeling his whole body awaken with need as she deepened the kiss, fervored in its intensity.
"What happened in Jamaica will not happen tonight, or ever again, Angela." He said decisively. "I took ya for granted, and it nearly cost me our marriage, and I now know want I want." His tone was timbral and unmistakably primal as he grabbed ahold of her hips, reveling in the sensation of her body aligning seamlessly with his. His eyes, dark and serious, softened as he said, "We're gonna do this my way, ok? I have somethin' I wanna say."
She gazed at him with eyes always of the same hue - unadulterated, attentive. He stared at her, his eyes holding hers in a willing suspension of disbelief. He turned from her, eyes averted, momentarily adrift before asking, first incredulously, then accusingly, "How can you look at me like that?
Go ahead, Angela, you can gloss over my, uh, 'indiscretion' with any shade of gray you want 'cause even today I can't wrap my head around it... Can't rationalize it, but I still said those three words. 'I don't know' and you still gave me an out. Well, here's another three; I did know; the morning paper hittin' me on the head as I snuck back, adulterously, into our home, not so subtly told me. Then, I heard your voice, unassumedly waking our kids. That, above all, shoulda told me.
You knew, too, that I had been warin' the same clothes that I had worn the night before; that dingy gray t shirt and baggy jeans under the blue denim oxford shirt. That's somethin' I wanna forget yet always seem to remember. You also couldn't admit- didn't want to know - that I could do something to you, to us, that would disrupt our happy domesticity. Why didn't you confront me, Angela? If you had confronted me, I wouldn't have said 'I don't know' when you asked me if it was over; this nightmare I allowed us to wallow in; I wouldn't have had the choice.
"You made the bed, Tony..." She trailed off, a teasing lull in her voice.
He couldn't help but grin at that. Here he was trying to be honest and forthright with her as she sat silhouetted in nothing more than a satin sheet, using the sincerity of his words as a means of seducing him. Oh, the irony, the sheer, cruel irony. Only Angela could succeed in doing that, and in simply lying together on her bed, mere breaths away from being friends to becoming lovers, Tony felt more at home and in love with her than anyone else he had ever known, once again wondering why they had chosen to forgo an intimate relationship for so long.