Free Masquerade by Lace Daltyn

shorts and tossing his pants at him. She slid into her bottoms, but he knew he’d about shredded her bra.
    “Let them see,” Anthony
said, slipping into his slacks. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “Let
the whole world see,” he whispered against her lips.
    Beth relaxed into him. “That,”
she whispered back, “was more amazing than you could ever know.”
    “ You are amazing.
    The sheen of tears as her
eyes met his surprised him. “Why the tears?”
    “I—” Beth gulped and tried
again. “It was almost like—”
    Anthony prayed he knew
where she was trying to go, but he desperately needed to hear her say the
words. “Almost like what?”
    Beth shook her head and
began to straighten her clothing. “It’s nothing.”
    “You brought it up minutes
after the most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had. It’s not nothing .”
    “It’s just...   It felt like the first time.”
    He remembered that first
time. It had fed his soul while he’d searched for her
these past years. But she didn’t know who he was yet. So he had to play along. “You’re not a virgin.”
    “No.” She chuckled. “Not at all.” Then she crooked her head to the side and
smiled. “Until tonight, though, I wondered if I was a one-hit wonder when it
came to orgasms.” Beth touched his mask. “You changed that for me. Thank you.”
    Anthony wanted to shout
his excitement to the far reaches of the universe. Maybe, just maybe, there was
a chance.
    “One-hit
wonder?”
    He could tell she was
getting embarrassed, but it was time to have this out. It felt right.
    “Yes,” she said. Then she
raised her chin. “My husband’s parting comment before he left me was to call me
a frigid bitch.”
    She buried her head in
his chest, and Anthony tipped her chin up so she would see his eyes. “You are
not frigid by any definition.”
    “I—I know. At least, I
knew. There was this once...”
    Her voice trailed off,
but he needed her to finish. “When was that?”
    “Right
after high school graduation.”
    Yes!
    “I thought he was the man
I would love forever.”
    “Isn’t he?”
    “He chose someone else. The next day, as a matter of fact. I—never spoke to him
again.”
    “Don’t you think maybe he
had a good reason?”
    “What kind of reason could
he have to make love to me, then marry someone else? I
must have been a pretty lousy lay to send him straight into her arms.”
    “You weren’t a lousy lay.”
    More tears fell on her
cheeks. “You weren’t there.”
    “Yes, Beth, I was.” For
the first time since she’d walked in the door two days
ago, Anthony took off his mask and bared his soul to her, pouring all the love
he’d waited so long to show her into his eyes.
    ****
    “Tony?”
    He nodded.
    Beth’s hand covered her
chest, trying to settle her pounding heart. She couldn’t believe it. He was here. Tony. The missing link from her past and the ecstasy
and agony that she couldn’t forget no matter how hard
she tried.
    She glanced over her
shoulder. They’d just had lava-hot sex in the hallway
of a bar. And she’d climaxed. Finally. Except this wasn’t what she’d intended. Her hand
closed into a fist. Here now, standing in front of her, was the man who’d taken her virginity that night so long ago and then
asked her high school tormenter Marci to be his wife. He hadn’t even cared enough to see if there had been any consequences to their night
together.
    All the anger from the
past boiled up in her, and she let it spill over. “What are you doing? You
didn’t ruin my life enough the first time, so you had to come back for a second
round?”
    “No! It’s not like that
at all.”
    She covered her mouth. Oh, my God. She’d bared her soul to him about the night he’d taken her
virginity. This was horrible. Beth felt like she wanted to fly, faint, and hit
something all at the same time, and her body was at war trying to figure out
which one to do first.
    She chose to listen to her
gut and slapped him.