Read Online Revenge Sex by Jasmine Haynes - Free Book Online Page B

tensed. She’d needed something Clay wasn’t
giving her anymore. She couldn’t say that, of course, but she
should turn it around on him. “I thought you were bored with
me.”
    “Then you should have told me you wanted to
play a different game.”
    “I’m sorry. I will next time.”
    “The rules were about safety.”
    “Uh, yes.” But she hadn’t been unsafe.
    “You tell me about a date so that I know
where you are and if something goes wrong, I can come to you.”
    She wanted to roll her eyes. He was so
cautious. “That’s true, but—”
    “We don’t jeopardize our jobs.”
    “It was stupid, I know.”
    “And we don’t do it in the house because the
boys could come over.”
    Jesus. They were at their mother’s. They came
to Clay every other weekend. The older one had just gotten his
license, but it wasn’t like Dad’s house for a surprise visit
would be his first destination. Clay worried about everything. And
for nothing.
    But Ruby wasn’t going to point out the
fallacies in his argument. “I would have heard them come in.”
    “Did you hear me?”
    “Of course.” Not really. She wasn’t sure how
he’d managed to be so quiet. It didn’t matter, though, she’d wanted
him to know eventually. When he got into bed and smelled sex on the
sheets.
    “So you knew I was watching.”
    “It made me hot.” It had when he clapped. The
orgasm would have gone on and on if Bradley hadn’t freaked. What a
twerp. He was definitely a mistake.
    Clay stood, and she realized she’d once again
said something wrong.
    “We need a break, Ruby.”
    There was a sudden roaring in her ears, as if
she’d fallen under the wheels of a freight train. “What do you
mean?”
    “I mean,” he stated flatly, “that I’m going
to a hotel for a few nights so we can both think about the
situation.”
    She jumped up, knocking her shin on the
coffee table. “I’m sorry, Clay. I understand now. I won’t do it
again. I didn’t realize how much the rules meant to you.” It was
true. She didn’t think he’d care. He let her fuck anyone she
wanted. He gave her all the freedom she asked for. She hadn’t
understood that he would actually draw a line she wasn’t supposed
to cross.
    He reached into his back pocket, then tossed
something onto the coffee table. The condom she’d given him this
morning. “I almost used this today.”
    “But you didn’t.” If he had, she would have
lived with it, but she was glad he hadn’t.
    “You don’t get it.”
    “I said you could. To pay me back.”
    He looked at her for so long, her skin
started to itch. Then finally, he said, “I don’t want to pay you
back. I don’t want us to be about tit for tat.”
    “Then what do you want? Because I really
don’t know.” It was the first honest thing she’d said. She might
not be honest with anyone else, but at least she was with herself.
Lies weren’t such a bad thing. Sometimes they were necessary.
    He closed his eyes for five seconds, an
interminable amount of time in which she saw her pretty little
world crumbling. “I don’t know, Ruby. If I did, we wouldn’t be
where we are now.”
    Then he went into their bedroom and packed a
bag.
    Ten minutes later, after the echo of the
front door closing and his car engine had faded into the sounds of
lawn mowers and children shouting, she slumped down on the couch.
The cheese and salsa she’d consumed threatened to rise up again. If
he kicked her out, she had nowhere to go.
    “Everything will be all right,” she
whispered. “The boys are coming next weekend. He’ll have to come
back home then.”
     
    * * * * *
     
    “Did you hear? Bradley quit.”
    The Monday morning rumors were rampant in the
West Coast hallways. Being a manager, Jessica didn’t listen to
gossip—it was unprofessional—and discouraged it in her employees.
But this tidbit, she couldn’t ignore. She gleaned every fact from
every source. And there were a lot of sources.
    “He didn’t even give