He Opened the Door, I Walked Out Chapter 07

He Opened the Door, I Walked Out Chapter 07

The card felt warm in my palm as I stood outside the Carlisle Hotel, its weight somehow heavier than the thin paper should have allowed. The lobby’s golden light spilled onto the sidewalk, and I could see well-dressed guests moving through the marble-floored space like actors in an expensive play.

I’d been walking for twenty minutes, circling the block twice, my heels clicking against the pavement in a rhythm that matched my racing heartbeat. Each time I passed the hotel entrance, I told myself I was just getting air, clearing my head, making sure this was

what I wanted.

But I knew why I was here.

The scotch had left me warm and loose-limbed, but not drunk. Not impaired enough to blame what I was about to do on alcohol. This

was a choice, made with full awareness of its implications.

My phone buzzed with a text from Richard: “Working late tonight. Don’t wait up.’

I almost laughed. How perfectly convenient. How absolutely typical that on the night I was contemplating crossing a line we could. never uncross, my husband was probably tangled in hotel sheets with his young assistant.

The irony tasted bitter and sweet at once.

I walked through the lobby with more confidence than I felt, my heels silent now on thick carpet. The elevator ride to the twelfth floor felt both eternal and too brief. My reflection in the polished steel doors showed a woman I barely recognized-flushed cheeks, bright eyes, an expression of anticipation I hadn’t worn in years.

Room 1247. I stood before the door for a long moment, my knuckles raised to knock, frozen by the magnitude of what I was about to do. Once I crossed this threshold, there would be no pretending, no taking it back. I would become exactly what Richard had given me permission to be.

The thought should have felt like defeat. Instead, it felt like liberation.

I knocked.

The door opened almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting just on the other side. Wolf had removed his jacket and tie, his white shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal strong forearms. The formal businessman from the bar had been replaced by something more elemental, more dangerous.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said, stepping aside to let me enter.

“Neither was I,” I admitted, my voice steadier than my nerves.

The suite was elegant in that understated way expensive hotels perfected-cream-colored walls, rich fabrics, a view of the city lights that turned the windows into a glittering backdrop. A bottle of champagne sat chilling in an ice bucket, two glasses waiting beside it

“Presumptuous,” I said, nodding toward the champagne.

“Optimistic,” he corrected, moving to pour two glasses. “And if you’d decided not to come, I’d have drunk it alone while congratulating myself on an interesting conversation.”

He handed me a glass, his fingers brushing mine in a contact that sent heat racing up my arm. The champagne was perfect-crisp, expensive, with bubbles that danced on my tongue like tiny celebrations.

“To new horizons,” he said, raising his glass.

“To equal terms,” I replied, and we drank.

He moved closer, close enough that I could see flecks of gold in his dark eyes, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body “Are you nervous?”

“Terrified,” I said honestly.

“Good. You should be. This matters.”

His hand came up to cup my face, thumb tracing along my cheekbone with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the intensity in his eyes. “Tell me what you want, Elaine.”

The question hung between us, loaded with implications. What did I want? Revenge? Validation? To feel desired again? To prove I was still capable of inspiring passion in someone?

“I want to remember what it feels like to be wanted,” I whispered.

“You are wanted,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Right now, in this moment, you’re the only thing I want.

When his lips met mine, it was like a circuit completing. Every nerve ending came alive, every suppressed desire of the past months rising to the surface in a rush of sensation that left me breathless. This wasn’t the perfunctory kisses I’d grown accustomed to with Richard-this was hunger, pure and undisguised.

His hands tangled in my hair, and I found myself pressing closer, my body responding with an urgency that surprised me. When had I last felt this alive? When had touch felt like electricity instead of obligation?

He pulled back slightly, his breathing uneven. “Are you sure?”

Instead of answering, I began unbuttoning his shirt, my fingers working with a steadiness that belied the chaos in my chest. His skin was warm under my palms, muscles shifting as he drew in a sharp breath at my touch.

“Elaine,” he said, my name a prayer and a warning.

But I was past warnings now, past the careful considerations that had governed my life for twenty years. His hands found the silk of my blouse, and I helped him remove it, marveling at the reverence in his touch as he traced the curve of my shoulder, the line of my

collarbone.

“Beautiful,” he murmured against my throat, and I believed him because his body couldn’t lie the way words could.

We moved together toward the bed, a dance of discovery that felt both foreign and achingly familiar. He took his time, mapping my body with hands and lips that worshipped rather than took. When had Richard last touched me like this? Like I was something precious, something to be savored?

The thought of my husband flickered and died as Wolf’s mouth found sensitive spots I’d forgotten existed, as his hands coaxed responses from my body that left me gasping and reaching for him with desperate fingers.

“Look at me,” he commanded softly when I tried to close my eyes, to lose myself in sensation. “I want to see you.”

So I looked, meeting his gaze as he moved over me, in me, with me. I saw desire and appreciation and something deeper that made my chest tight with emotion I couldn’t name. In his eyes, I wasn’t a wife going through the motions or a woman past her prime trying to recapture youth.

I was simply, powerfully, undeniably myself.

Afterward, we lay tangled in expensive sheets, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow to normal. The city lights painted patterns on the ceiling, and I felt more at peace than I had in months.

“Regrets?” he asked quietly, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my bare shoulder.

I considered the question seriously. Did I regret it? The betrayal of my marriage vows? The line I’d crossed? The woman I’d discovered I could be in the arms of a stranger?

“No,” I said, and meant it. “You?”

“Never,” he replied, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “You’re extraordinary, Elaine. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

I closed my eyes, memorizing the feeling of being held like this, wanted like this, appreciated like this. Tomorrow, I would have to return to my real life, to my marriage and its new rules. But tonight, I was exactly where I belonged.

For the first time in years, I felt like myself again.