Ecstasy

Zara

“I’m closing this fucking place.”

“No, you can’t, someone is coming right—”

He flips the switch for the closed sign on the gym, pulls down the blackout shade and steps back, retreating into the shadows.

I clamp my hand over my mouth, trying to stifle my laughter as there’s a polite knock on the door.

We’re supposed to be open 24/7.

Alex looks at me, his dark eyes gleaming, and then he scoops me up, twirling me around and when a little giggle slips past my lips because I’ve got my hands on his bare shoulders, he clamps his hand over my mouth, lowers me down to whisper in my ear, “Shh, princess. We don’t want to get a bad review, yeah?”

I slap his chest, but we can see through the wall of tinted windows the person walking away, glancing over their shoulder and shaking their head, irritated.

“That was horrible business!” I chide him, smacking his chest again as he sets me down on my feet.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he tells me, keeping his arms locked behind me. “I want to spend the weekend with my wife.”

I try to bite back my smile because it seriously is horrible business and weekends are a great time for us. “You could’ve called Dwight. He’s been dying to take some of his clients here.” I grip my husband’s arms as I turn to take in our gym. We’ve got ninety feet of professional grade turf, for football, soccer, sled pulling. Olympic bar cages, a café, a yoga studio, a fucking sauna.

Whatever anyone fucking wants, we’ve got it.

Castle Cardi Fitness might have a dumb name, Alex’s doing, but it’s the most popular gym on North Carolina’s coast.

We thought taking over Grove Community might not bode well for all the displaced congregants, but turns out, they love it.

And in the classroom at the very back, down a long hall past the bathrooms and change rooms and showers, I teach Stoicism to people every other night.

No, seriously. They come in droves, wanting to know how to get through fucking life. I thought it would be a joke. Alex kept pushing me to do it after I got my yoga certification and taught a few classes a week at night.

He kept telling me to use my philosophy degree, especially since I bought every book by Ryan Holiday and the fucking Stoics, too, and read through them every damn week, quoting shit at him to help him control his own temper.

“It isn’t manly to be enraged,” I’d tell him. “Marcus Aurelius said so.”

To which he would roll his eyes and slap my ass to show me just how manly he was.

It was fascinating how much I learned, after school. I mean, I got through college, earned my degree, but turns out, you learn a lot more when you’re not high as fuck, whether it’s on Adderall or not.

Now, we have addicts in recovery or wanting to be in recovery come for my talks. We have teenagers looking for ways to handle adult problems. We have couples who own big businesses come for tips on handling stress, the Stoic way.

It’s like a big NA meeting but we’re Stoics Anonymous.

And Alex? Alex is like a god to the kids he runs football drills with. He’s a godsend to the people he trains, and he runs a few of his own meetups to discuss personal and business growth.

He reads a lot of Robert Greene, which translates well in his talks on things like how to spot psychopaths and the best way to deal with them—drown them…okay, not really, but…kind of.

Right now, he looks like he wants to take me to the Olympic-sized pool we have in the very back of our facility where the baptismal pool used to be and fuck me on one of the towels.

But he’d never actually put me in the pool.

I don’t swim anymore.

“Fuck Dwight. Fucker is off with the guys to Vegas this weekend.”

I cock my head, surprised. “Really?” I ask him as he pulls me closer and I wrap my arms around his neck. “You didn’t want to go?”

He wrinkles his nose, as if I’ve personally offended him. “Fuck no. I want to be with you.”

I glance at the closed door. “Alex,” I say, trying to keep my voice stern even as he kisses my forehead and smirks down at me. “We can’t keep the place closed. It’s bad for business. We’re a 24/7 facility and we agreed we wanted someone on staff at all times.” I glance at the clock on the wall beside the door. “The night girl isn’t going to be here for another hour.”

Alex laughs, boyish and loud and it makes my heart swell. “The ‘night girl’?” he repeats.

I glare at him. “Well, I might actually remember her name if she didn’t always look at you like she wanted to suck your dick.”

He rolls his eyes. “She does not want to suck my dick, princess. And even if she did, I wouldn’t let her. This dick is only for you.” He pulls me so far against him, I can feel said dick, and three years after we officially started dating, two years after we got married, I’m still amazed by just how damn big that dick is.

I reach for it and his hands slide down my back, cupping my ass through my yoga pants.

“Keep doing that, Za, and I’m going to fuck you right here in the lobby.” He shoves me up against the reception desk to prove his point, bending his head to kiss my neck.

I run my fingers through his thick, bronze hair and breathe in his dark, woodsy scent. “Aren’t we supposed to meet your mom for di

He trails his mouth lower, over my collarbone, tugging down my neon pink bra. His tongue licks my breast, his fingers on my back, and I know without seeing it that his thumb is brushing over the scar from the glass in my apartment that night.

The one Eli Addison gave me.

We don’t talk about Eli much.

But sometimes, when I see that scar in the mirror, when I get too close to the edge of a pool, I think about him.

Sometimes I wonder what if?

What if things had worked out differently? What if I’d never grabbed that net? What if I’d never jumped in the water? What if I’d believed his bullshit, about needing me? About wanting me? About loving me?

Alex pulls back, cups my face in his big hands. I lock my own around his neck and smile up at him, forcing Eli from my mind.

What’s done is done and I can’t change it.

Maybe Eli Addison suited my temperament for a little while. My crazy. The old me. Maybe the sexual shit we did was good and maybe we had some strange sort of fun, fucking around with everyone around us. Including my now husband.

But I couldn’t have lived my life with him.

He would’ve left me when he graduated, or he would’ve killed me himself. Or I would’ve gone on to worse drugs. Worse things.

A worse life.

He would’ve moved on to someone else. Someone else to break.

“What’re you thinking about?” Alex asks me quietly.

I meet his gaze and wonder if he knows. When I think of Eli, I always have this strange sense that Alex can read my mind. Like the three of us are still somehow morbidly co

The thought makes my heart flip in my chest. My stomach drop.

Still. After all this time.

He’s dead.

I knew him for half a year, and most of that time I was fucked all the way up. But even if it was for the bad, he changed my life.

And without him, I wouldn’t have the man in front of me.

I stand on my tiptoes and kiss Alex on the lips. He kisses me back, but then he picks me up, puts me on the counter at the desk behind me, and steps between my thighs.