Forbidden

Carolina had never told anyone what she secretly wanted. That night, with the house to themselves, she decided her sister-in-law would be the first to hear it... and more.

I got home thinking I could sleep, but my phone lit up with her name on the screen, and I knew I wasn’t going to rest that night.

I went into the bar bathroom looking for a moment of calm and found her there, eyes closed and legs open, with no intention of stopping when she saw me.

Twenty years separated Mariana from her teacher, but when that hand stopped at her hip during rehearsal, she knew the look in her eyes had changed.

Every time the girl came into her house, something ignited inside her. That afternoon, for the first time, no one else was there to interrupt them.

I met her on the excursions, exotic and self-assured. I never imagined that one comment from her by the pool would end with me naked in my husband’s room.

She laughed and said she loved spooning, pressed her body against mine, and in the borrowed bedroom’s darkness I understood it was no game.

I had been away from her for a week and, the moment I stepped through her front door, I knew that lesson wasn’t going to be about any exam.

I thought I had her cornered against the wall. It took me a second to understand that the only one trapped in that empty house was me.

Her father was speaking in my ear over the phone while she silently slid my thong down. We knew a single moan could give us away, and that made it hotter.

For months I’d imagined that scene in her office, but I never thought it would be her who made the first move, with the lock clicked shut and her perfume filling everything.

I’d been stuck in a cast for weeks and bored out of my mind when a TV series stirred something in me. Then she appeared in the doorway with a smile that wasn’t entirely innocent.

When I got into her car that Friday, I knew we were no longer going to talk about my future. There was something else between us, and we’d both spent weeks pretending there wasn’t.

I never told her I liked women, or that she kept me up at night. But that midnight, alone by the pool, I was the one who dared to say what I felt.

Eight years into my career, no patient had ever looked at me like that. That afternoon she put her feet up on my sofa, held my gaze, and everything I thought was solid began to tremble.

When Renata opened the bedroom door wearing a harness and asked if there was room for one more, I knew that Christmas was one none of us would ever forget.

I had spent six days counting down the hours to my wedding when I saw her leaving the café. I hadn’t seen her in years, but my body recognized her before I did.

She carried a pistol hidden in her stocking and an impossible mission: get close to the most dangerous woman in the room without desire betraying her too soon.

She led the retreat with the devotion of someone who never breaks a rule. I just wanted a private massage, far from the prayers and the watching eyes.

Bruno had broken my heart again, but waiting for me in that house on the outskirts wasn’t him, it was his mother, wearing a dress that left nothing to the imagination.