Free The World: According to Graham by Layne Harper Page A

glass on the counter. I look for signs that Rachael is in my home, but everything looks pristine, untouched. I’m not sure what I was hoping to see, but there is something about the starkness of my living room that makes me a bit sad. It looks as generic as the hotel rooms I’ve been living in.
    I wish she had left her shoes laying haphazardly in the middle of the room and her purse on the hook by the door. The navy blue blanket should be crumbled on the couch and a dog-eared magazine lying nearby—not one perfectly draped over the arm of the couch and the other in a fan on the coffee table.
    Standing up straight hits me like a burden as the whiskey begins to soak my brain. I shuffle down the hallway to my bedroom door. The closer I get, the more excited I become to sleep in my own bed again. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until I saw George disappear around the corner. The door is open, and I come this close to flipping on the light switch. But I stop dead in my tracks. The blue light from my alarm clock illuminates the bed, and on the side of the mattress where I sleep is her tiny frame snuggled into my pillow. Blond hair is piled around her angelic face looking like spun silk, and her knees are drawn tightly to her chest. She looks childlike against the vastness of the mattress. In this moment, there is nothing that I want more than to slide under the sheets and wake her with soft kisses against her lips that are slightly parted. Then, as she wakes, I’ll make my way to her soaked panties—wet because of me—and devour her sweet pussy as if it’s my last meal on this earth.
    Images of her naked body flood my mind. I haven’t gotten to enjoy her visually since we ended things. The ability to stare at her now is like candy for my brain.
    This sleeping beauty can’t deny us happiness because of my job, or tell me that we can only work after President Jones leaves office. No. When Rachael is asleep, I can pretend that she is all mine.
    I unbutton the top button on my jeans and pull the zipper down. As I go to hook my thumbs through the belt loop of my jeans, my brain reminds my dick what a bad idea this is. If Rachael and I put sex back into play between us, we’ll never take the step back that we both need and learn to become friends—to trust each other. The two weeks that we spent together changed our lives. It’s time we handled this relationship like we should have from the beginning. We need to quit thinking like the horny teenagers in my class and approach this relationship like adults. Especially because these adults are about to be parents. Rachael and I need to build a solid foundation of forgiveness first and then begin developing a relationship based on values that last—not just orgasms.
    The hardest thing I’ve done is turn around and walk back down the hallway to the room that I had prepared for Rachael. I fling open the door with too much force. The doorknob hits the wall, probably leaving a dent, and bounces back, banging into my shoulder. I don’t care. I’m pissed at myself. Why shouldn’t I walk back into my bedroom and own her body?
    Because you want to own her mind also.
    I take off my clothes and leave them in a pile on the floor, and pull the quilt back, climbing into the bed that once was used by Jake when he came into town every weekend to work on the Sons of Liberty. Instead of it smelling like my college roommate—which would be disgusting—I’m flooded with the sweet scent of Rachael. I had her bedding from her townhome moved into this room. Her pillow smells of her shampoo. It’s a floral, lavender scent that makes my dick even more livid that we’re in here and she’s out there. I toss and turn for a little while before I finally switch pillows. I’m going back in that room if I have to smell her all night. It’s like the sweetest form of torture.
    Damn! I sit up straight in bed, remembering that I didn’t take out my contacts or brush my teeth. For about two