by A. J. Downey
She tripped on a hiccupping laugh and asked, “Did you seriously just ask me to marry you? Now? At a time like this?”
I chuckled and leaned back so I could look her in her red-rimmed eyes. I brushed a thumb through the salty wet on her freckled cheek and said, “No, there was no question mark there. Not yet. I just announced to the stars and sky my intention to ask you to marry me.”
“You know, I always thought that if things got that far with anyone I would have to send them packing to ask my brother for approval. Now, I just don’t know…”
“Trust me, baby. You’ve got more family than you know what to do with. You just can’t see the forest for the trees right now, and that’s okay.” I sighed out and kissed her forehead whispering against it, “I’m so sorry he’s such a douche.”
“I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened to him,” she said and rested her forehead against my chest.
I had some guesses, but I didn’t know if I should share or not. I simply said, by way of open invitation, “I have a few guesses. Don’t know how true they are, though.”
“I would love to talk about it sometime, I just don’t know if that time is right now,” she said.
We heard raised voices from the dock side of the house that were clearly quarreling and Claire and I both closed our eyes. The voices were definitely Carter and Mallory, but neither was distinct enough to make out words as they faded up the dock towards the parking lot.
“I think your brother is getting divorced,” I said and Claire sniffed against the cold and said, “I hope not. Sometimes I think Mallory and Gracie are the only things that hold Carter together and keep him from falling apart, you know?”
“Well, he’s pretty well fucked it. I can see Mallory’s point on that.”
“What did she say?” she asked.
I told her everything while we listened to the water lap against the houseboat, joined by the subtle creak and clank of the dock. The night was still, otherwise. No wind off the water, just the pervasive biting chill as winter moved in to overtake fall and to likely overstay its welcome for another year.
Claire shivered in my arms and I said, “Come on. We can finish this discussion inside, where it’s warm.”
“Okay,” she said quietly and let me lead her into the bedroom. She made to drift toward the stairs but I held her back. She looked at me questioningly and said, “We should clean up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“But the food will go bad…”
“Baby, this dinner was never about the food. It was about figuring out where you stood with your brother and about looking out for your mental and emotional well-being. Let it rot for all I care.” I reeled her in and she put her arms around me, holding herself close. I held her to me, and pretty soon she shuddered and took another hitching breath.
“I don’t deserve someone as wonderful as you,” she said, and her voice was warped and strained by her sorrow and tears.
“Shut up,” I said. “You deserved someone better than me a long time ago, baby. I honestly feel like a shitty consolation prize.”
“No, you shut up,” she said and a little titter of laughter made it through her sadness. We ended up on the bed, just laying together, holding each other and talking late into the night. It wasn’t about sex. It was about intimacy. It was about being there for her as much as she was there for me and it was about communication which everybody on the planet always seemed to be sorely needing, yet never managed to get enough of.
Tonight, I was enough. Tonight, the story of what I’d said to her brother in her defense was enough. She must have had me tell her a hundred times and each time she lay quietly against me until the weight of the silence became too much and I asked if she was still awake. Finally she said, “I can’t believe you said that to him. I can’t believe you said all those wonderful things about me. I sometimes wonder if this is all just some beautiful dream.”
“Me too,” I confessed. “Every morning I wake up I expect to find you gone. I expect to find your drawers empty, and that anytime I speak of you, the rest of the people in my life ask ‘Who?’ as if you never existed.”
She laughed slightly, and I suppose to her it sounded a little absurd, but she finally asked timidly, “Why?”
“Because if something seems too good to be true, it usually is, and you are so past too good to be true… I just don’t know how you’re here with me, Claire. I don’t know how I got so lucky that you want to be with me.”
“I think the same thing about you every day,” she whispered.
I don’t know why, it just felt right, so I whispered quietly, “Marry me?”
“You’re proposing? Right now?”
“Yeah, yeah I am. Marry me? The engagement can be as long or as short as you like, I don’t care, just say that you will.”
“Yes, of course I will. As if there would be any doubt,” she whispered fiercely. “I feel whole when I’m with you.”
I closed the short gap between us where we faced each other, lying on our sides, and kissed her. She kissed me back and ceremony, pomp and circumstance aside, that was it. That kiss sealed the damn deal. Just her and I alone in our bed with the stars in heaven as our witness.
“You are absolutely insane, you know that?” she whispered.
“Good thing that your crazy matches my crazy so well, then.”
She laughed and it was a good sound. Kissing turned to touching, the touching turned to petting and caressing, and pretty soon after that the clothes started to come off. I pushed her top out of my way, laying her back on the bed and put my mouth to her skin, kissing along her stomach, pressing open-mouthed kisses along her ribs until she yipped and giggled from a light touch against a ticklish spot.
I made it my personal mission to find every one of those, and to find every one of those spots that made her eyes drift closed and her body go lax as her breath escaped in a shuddering sigh or in a sultry little moan.
She arched beneath me and that allowed me to peel her out of more of her clothes. I unwrapped her like the gift she was, leaving a trail of kisses against her chilled skin, warmth and a trail of goose flesh left in their wake.
“Turn over,” I murmured when I had her nude on the bed. She obediently turned onto her stomach and I marveled that she could trust me, or anything, after the amount of betrayal she’d been served up by just about everyone in her life. I stripped out of my clothes and rolled a condom on, even though I wasn’t ready to use it; not just yet.
26
Claire…
“Turn over.” The command straddled the line between a command and an impassioned plea and I obliged, turning onto my stomach for him and laying my cheek against the mattress. I could see him pull his shirt over his head out of the corner of my eye. I loved watching him do it, too. He just had this way when he pulled it off, like he meant business, like he was cool, calm and in control, and that he was determined to make us feel good and he always delivered. He finished stripping and I closed my eyes and felt my pussy tingle when I heard him open the drawer of the bedside table.
The sounds of him making himself ready always turned me on, my excitement for him climbing with the sounds of the wrapper, the delicate sound of him rolling the rubber down his length, hyping me up, making me wet, all in anticipation of his touch landing on my skin again.
He climbed up on the bed, bowing over the backs of my thighs and calves, his skin warm against mine as his hands found my ass and pried the cheeks apart. My hips rose off the bed, up and back in offering and he kissed my opening, his tongue lapping at me and I shuddered in surrender.
He could do whatever he wanted to me, anytime, anywhere, and he was the first and only man to hold such power, such sway over me.
He made love to me with his mouth, teasing the most intimate parts of my body, making me squirm with desire and need for a deeper touch. The slow climb of his lips up my back, the ladder of kisses, nibbles, and bites he placed as he stretched over me,
was sweet torture, until he finally put the scorching head of his cock against my opening and forced his way in. I was so wet, so ready and he pushed me back down to the bed, his legs sliding to either side of mine, trapping me beneath him.
He laid over the top of me, and pressed me into the mattress, caging me protectively with the strength of his bigger body, driving deep, his mouth finding the side of my neck, his hand tangling in my hair and pulling my head gently to the side to give his lips better access as he pushed deep inside me.
It was powerful, left me feeling unexpectedly vulnerable, but safe and protected at the same time as he slowly began to thrust in short, slow strokes. I panted and gasped passionately as he set me on fire, one stroke, one lick, one bite, and one kiss at a time, turning up the heat gradually, always in control, always with my best interest and pleasure in mind.
I only hoped it was as good for him, because for me it was everything. He chased all the bad away, leaving nothing but good feelings, good vibes in their wake. He chased back the dark and filled me slowly, inexorably, with light until I shone like the sun, the pleasure intense, the stars just within reach, as I closed my eyes and just concentrated on the feel of him around me, inside me.
He whispered in my ear, “That’s it, baby, just let go, I’ve got you.”
His fingers found the spaces between mine, his hands covering the backs of mine, and I shivered, panted, and tried to hold out for as long as I could before taking the plunge. He thrust harder than any before, my clit rubbing against the comforter beneath us just right and I cried out and lost all control over my body. I jerked beneath him and he pressed me harder into the bed, holding me, keeping me safe from the overwhelming, and somewhat frightening, loss of control over myself, while wave after powerful wave swept through me, obliterating any last vestiges of worry, doubt, and fear I held onto about being abandoned by the one person who was always supposed to be there for me.
I yipped, a hysterical bubble of laughter escaping my lips as the orgasm seemed to go on and on. Swamped, overwhelmed by so many emotions and bodily chemical reactions that tears gathered at the corners of my eyes and leaked down my cheeks.
Angel didn’t hesitate, he didn’t miss a thing, he simply leaned over me and placed his lips lightly against the tears and kissed them away.
It was perfect. He was perfect, and all I could think was it was so nice to finally be home.
27
Angel…
She slept soundly and I held her close. I stared out over the twinkling lights along the bay’s surface from the bridge spanning it and cuddled her. She’d had a hell of a cathartic experience and I was glad that I could give her that emotional release. Still, something wasn’t quite right for me. Wasn’t quite there. It was like I was forgetting something but it was just out of reach and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was…
It hit me, like I knew it would if I just pondered it long enough, and I smiled to myself in the dark of our bedroom, finally able to close my eyes and rest myself.
I was the first to wake the next morning and I put the last puzzle piece in its place. I slipped out from under Claire, who stirred but didn’t wake, cuddling into the warm nest of blankets I reluctantly left behind. She lay on her stomach, the smooth line of her back inviting, begging to be kissed, but I resisted the urge. I was on a mission. I went over to the dresser, first pulling on a pair of cutoff sweat pants from one of the drawers. Then I went for my intended target, to the jewelry box perched on one end of the dresser’s top.
I opened up the top of the box and I pulled out my Abuela’s ring; Golden had our mother’s. I went back to the bed. Claire’s left hand lay on the sheets, lax, and perfectly placed and I prayed that the ring would fit and not need resizing at all. I slipped it gently over her ring finger and it was like Cinderella and her glass slipper. It fit, almost too perfectly. The diamond was small, barely a chip, but then again, when my grandfather had bought it, they hadn’t had much. It was beautiful, though, the surrounding rose gold in a delicate filigree, making that small, delicate diamond something larger than life, a captured bit of star surrounded by flowering vines.
Claire sucked in a breath. She’d been facing her left hand and when she opened those gorgeous dark eyes of hers, they immediately fixated on her hand. She sat up abruptly and held it out in front of her and said, “Oh, my God!”
I smiled to myself and said, “Take your time, mi alma, I’m going to start cleaning up downstairs.”
She sat on her knees, nude and perfect in the middle of the rumpled sheets, her hand splayed in front of her, gaze fixed on my Abuela’s ring on her finger, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a little ‘O’ of surprise, and it was an image I locked in my heart forever, knowing that no matter how old we got, that this was how I was always going to see my Claire. The other half of my soul. Young, vibrant, beautiful, and perfect, her body fit and toned, the kind of perfection that famed sculptors could only hope to achieve once in their lifetime.
Her eyes met mine and I smiled and ducked down the stairs. I heard her feet hit the floor and a moment later, she came flying down the steps herself in that silk robe of hers. She ran to me, flinging her arms around my shoulders, leaping into my arms, and kissed me so soundly.
I kissed her back, and it was the most perfect kiss of my lifetime. More special, more precious than any that had come before it. Even with her.
“I love you,” she breathed and I smiled against her mouth.
“I love you, too.”
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack,” I told him.
Golden looked at me from across the table, blinking stupidly as he tried to process what I’d just told him.
“I always knew you would get married before me, so I guess that part doesn’t surprise me much but, bro… she’s been with you something like two, three weeks, how the fuck…?”
He trailed off and I smiled and shook my head. “Physically, sure, but I’ve carried that woman in my heart for the last three years plus. I’m not letting her go and I know she feels the same. It’s right, G. I can’t even begin to explain to you just how right it feels. I didn’t even hesitate. I gave her Abuela’s ring, and it was like it was meant to be, fits like a dream.”
“Holy shit,” he said, shaking his head incredulously.
“I know you don’t know her very well, and I know you’re protective of us all, your family, I mean. I just wanted to tell you first before anyone else.”
“When do you plan on telling everyone?” he asked, and I could tell he was still trying to digest everything.
“At the work party at the gym this weekend. It’ll be the only time the majority of her people and ours will be under the same roof.”
“Makes sense,” he said, picking up his coffee and taking a careful sip.
“You’re not pissed.” It was a statement, not a question and he shook his head.
“There are some things in this life that just can’t be explained. I don’t know if it’s God, or just – shit…” He groped for what he was trying to get across to me, but I held up a hand and waved him down. I think I knew. He shook his head and said, “You know I’m no good with the mystical mumbo-jumbo shit, but I get it. I don’t know why, but I do. You take one look at you and her together, and it’s like you were cut from the same cloth. You got the same kind of energy with her that you do with me, and truthfully, I’m a little jealous.”
“Bro, not the same thing at all, I promise you,” I said, laughing, and he scowled at me, his mouth flattening into a line of ‘No shit, Sherlock’ when he picked up what I was putting down. I loved Claire, but it most definitely wasn’t the same kind of love you shared with your brother. Not even your twin.
“I’m happy for you,” he said, smiling, and I raised an eyebrow.
“What about you and Lys?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. That shit’s gonna happen, bro. We’re just not done bleeding her ex, yet. He had to sell their fancy condo. Between the al
imony and the child support, it’s a financial bloodbath.” He grinned savagely.
“What child support?” I asked. I was confused; Lys didn't have any kids.
“Well, when the mistress somehow found out about what Lys’ dipshit ex did to her, she dropped him like the bad habit he was. She damn-sure didn’t let him off the hook where the bun in the oven was concerned, though. He’s got some baby-mama drama, I’ll tell you what.”
“You can be a cruel son of a bitch,” I muttered around the rim of my own mug.
He snorted. “God forgives so I don’t have to,” he said flatly. “That son of a bitch had it coming.”
“I don’t disagree with you there,” I said.
“So what about the thing with Claire and her brother? How do you think he’s going to take the news?”
I felt my face fall and I shook my head. Golden swore and sighed.
“Yeah, pretty sure Carter, Claire’s brother, is headed the way of Lys’ ex. You should have been a fly on the wall for that one.”
“I don’t even know how some dudes can even be like that, bro. I see this kind of shit day in and day out and it still blows my motherfuckin’ mind.”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you and yours ended up at that apartment on a child-custody dispute call in the near future. She straight looked him in the eye and told him right there at my dining room table she wanted a divorce.”
Golden inhaled some of his coffee and started to choke, spluttering at me, “How come you leave the good shit out?”
I laughed, “Sorry, trying to stay more focused on the good that came out of it all.”
“I mean hell yeah, you got engaged! Weird fuckin’ way to do it –“
“Eh, you had to be there, I guess.” I waved him off and he laughed.
