The Shuddering

off him, but she squeezed her knees against his hips, refusing to budge.
    “So let them hear us.” She arched backward to fully expose herself, sliding her hands down her breasts to her hips, grinding against him.
    Sawyer closed his eyes, trying to relax, unable to help the sudden ache between his legs. April hooked her fingers beneath the waistband of his pants, giving them a downward tug. He exhaled a throaty breath as she eased down onto him, his fingers coiling against the curve of her backside, letting himself drift when she started to move: rhythmic, slow, her breath coming in soft gasps.He sat up, his arms twining around her, his mouth against her neck. Her nails trailed up and down his back as he buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of shampoo—Jane’s shampoo, the same scent he’d breathed in when he had first pulled Jane into his arms. Jane’s face flashed against the backs of his eyelids, her head tilted back, as April moved on top of him. His heart quickened when April’s soft moans drifted from between Jane’s lips, his mouth traveling across the slope of her shoulder, Jane’s name on the tip of his tongue—
    He tensed. This was the very reason he had kept his distance for so long—he wasn’t over Jane. His stomach flipped.
    “Ape,” he whispered, trying to catch April’s attention, but his uttering her name only made her increase her pace. “April.” He caught her by the hips, trying to hold her still as he began to wither inside her.
    “Tom.” The nickname slithered past her lips, and as soon as it hit his ears he went limp, his heart hitching in his throat. Nobody called him Tom but Jane. It was their thing, their history. But April didn’t notice him tense beneath her. She continued to move, slithering her hands across his chest.
    He caught her by her biceps, crushing her down into the mattress, their roles suddenly reversed. “Stop,” he told her, catching her hand as she reached for his hair. He pushed it away, rolling off her, pulling his pants back up. April was left lying there—naked, stunned. But it didn’t take her long to regain her bearings.
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked, full volume now. “Since when do you pass up a screw?”
    “Will you keep it down?” he asked, nearly pleading. “You’re going to wake everyone up.” Pulling the sheets back up to his chin, he closed his eyes, determined to fall back asleep despite the pounding of his heart. But she wasn’t having it. Grabbing the sheets by their hemmed top edge, she pulled them away from him with a jerk.
    “Answer me,” she snapped. “What the hell is this?”
    Their eyes locked. He was the first to look away.
    “I knew it,” she hissed, sliding off the bed and stomping through the room. She snatched her shirt off the floor like a matador waving a cape at a bull. “This is why you didn’t want me to come up here with you, right? So you could fuck her instead of me?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was shooting for indifference, fending off the nausea that was clawing its way up his throat. April was right: he yearned for a random run-in in an empty room, just him and Jane, so he could apologize and maybe, just maybe, she could forgive him for leaving, for losing touch and letting her go. He wanted the secrecy, wanted the torrid affair with the girl he still pined for. He had been forced to give her up: first for an education, then for some asshole who had swept her off her feet, and so he’d moved on too. But when Sawyer had learned that Alex had cheated, a part of him wanted to break the bastard’s jaw; the other part wanted to drop everything, move to Arizona and heal Jane’s hurt. It didn’t matter that he and April were together. It didn’t matter that he’d given her a ring.
    Again came the guilt, the question of whether he even loved April at all—because if he did, why would his first instinct be to run to someone else? He hated himself for it; had vowed to keep himself in check; purposely avoided Jane in conversations with Ryan, kept blowing Ryan off when it came to getting together again. But she just kept coming at him, worming her way into his thoughts, forever in the background, forever waiting like some phantom he couldn’t shake.
    April yanked her shirt over her head and threw open the bedroom door, making as much noise as she could as she marched toward the bathroom. Sawyer knew it would come to this. Heknew from the moment they