by Ellen Devlin
Liz winced visibly, recognizing her own words to him, knowing that this story ended badly.
Tom continued. “My brother, Joe, was in town to see me play the next night, and the two of us were going out for drinks after the game. We were supposed to be out for hours celebrating—it was Joe’s birthday—but I told him I wanted to go back and apologize and make up with Michelle properly.
“I heard them before I saw them,” he said, his voice sounding strained now. “I actually thought she was watching porn.” He paused and then continued. “I was really getting turned on thinking I would walk in on her taking care of herself in that big bed, and we would have amazing make-up sex.” His voice was choked and rough; he had never told anyone these ugly details.
Somehow he felt like Liz deserved his raw, unvarnished truth.
“I was hard and horny and opened the door to see her getting fucked from behind by another man. In our bed. And I knew the guy.” He took a deep breath and looked at Liz. “I had no idea what to do. There were too many conflicting signals for my brain to accept at the same time. What I remember for sure is that I punched a hole through the bedroom door, walked out, and slammed the front door hard enough that shit fell off the walls. I know I called Joe, because he kept me from ending up in jail. I almost turned around to go back and kill the guy.”
Tom stopped talking and pushed back his chair and stood, his heart suddenly racing. Liz had stood up and started moving. No, please, I’m not done. I didn’t tell her the important part.
He moved around the table, and his voice was strangled, panicked, as he started to say, “Liz, wait, please, I—” but he stopped, because she had moved around the table to him and put her arms around his chest in a hug.
She had done it because he was her friend, or at least had been once, and he had told her something awful, and she would have hugged any of her friends who told her that. She would have hugged a stranger who had told her news like that. It was the right thing to do, even if it was him.
Tom held her close very gently and breathed in the scent of her hair. He was almost afraid to touch her, afraid to move. It seemed impossible that she could be here after he had treated her so badly, acted like such an asshole. He felt a knot in his chest that seemed far too large to fit. She could still walk away; the fact she hadn’t yet seemed like a minor miracle.
He heard a muffled voice from his chest. “You’re such a fucking bastard.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He took a chance and began to pet her hair. The knot in his chest wasn’t getting any smaller. “And an incredible idiot.”
There was a brief pause, and then he heard, “Yes.”
He took a deep breath, pulled her just a little tighter, and said, “And I love you, Liz.”
She went completely still in his arms. The knot in his chest made his voice catch, but he forced himself to keep talking, because this next part was the hardest.
But it was the most important of all.
He was glad he was holding her, rather than looking at her for this. If he had been looking her in the eye, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to follow through.
One more deep breath. “I am so sorry. You don’t deserve the way I treated you, and I don’t deserve another chance. In a moment I’m going to let you go.” His voice broke a bit, and he felt her flinch. “If I have screwed this up beyond fixing, I hope you will eventually still be willing to consider me a friend. In time. But regardless, I want you to know—I love you. I think I have for a long time now.” He tightened his hold on her one more time, kissed the top of her head, and let her go.
Except she didn’t let go. Liz tightened her arms around his chest. Tom stood stock still for a moment, not believing.
He croaked, “Liz?” He was afraid to touch her.
“Shut up.” After a few more seconds of unmoving shock on his part, she added, “Oh, for God’s sake, Tom, will you please hold me?”
He wrapped his arms around her so tightly she thought she might not be able to breathe. And then he lifted her off her feet. It felt wonderful.
Tom put her back down and stepped back, looking at her with wonder. “Thank you.”
Liz sighed. “We have a lot more talking to do. Have a seat.”
They sat back down, and Liz looked at Tom thoughtfully. He felt like he was not quite attached to the ground and was fairly certain there was a ridiculous grin on his face.
She took a deep breath. “I’m assuming Chris and Paige gave you some basic information?”
Tom nodded. “No specifics, though.”
Liz gave a wry smile. “As you can imagine, it’s not the first topic of conversation I’m looking to bring up with someone I’m dating. Or not dating. Or whatever it was that we were doing. ‘Dead fiancé’ isn’t particularly romantic.” She looked down and swallowed hard.
“Jimmy was a great guy, and I loved him very much. The accident was awful. And it was a complete accident. The worst part was we had been fighting for a few days before it happened. Not even really fighting, just grousing at each other, not being particularly loving and nice, you know what I mean. We were being bitchy, and he left my place. It was late, it was rainy. Two cars, a bolt of lightning, and a downed tree. No one was drinking, no one was texting, no one was speeding. Both were wearing seatbelts. No mistakes. Two drivers, two totaled cars—one walked away and the other one was dead. I didn’t even have anyone to be mad at. Except myself, because he left my place without us really saying we loved each other that night.” Her voice caught, and her eyes teared up, even after all this time. “Geez, still.” She wiped at her eyes.
“So, lots of therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.” She laughed at his surprised expression. “Actually, it’s the best thing I ever did for myself, and I wish I had done it a lot sooner—you remember the rest of my family history, right? It helped. Immensely. Perspective is a beautiful thing. It helped me realize things about myself. What I believe, what I want, what prices I’m willing to pay.
“For instance, regret is too high a price for me to pay for anything. I will swim through an ocean of embarrassment or rejection to avoid regret.” She smiled at him. “If I had been honest with you, I would have told you I loved you a lot sooner. I knew a lot sooner. But that night, you were so angry, and you were about to walk out my door not knowing how I felt. I couldn’t live with that regret again. I panicked. I had to tell you.”
Tom whispered, “Shit.” He thought for a minute. “I don’t think it would have made a difference if you had told me sooner, although I wish like hell I could say it would have. I had no idea how hard I was trying to prove to myself that you were just like Michelle. When I couldn’t find betrayals I had to invent them.” He chuckled and looked at her. “They were really tough to invent. Even I wasn’t really believing them. Certainly no one else would.”
“Our brains are strange and wondrous places. It’s quite amazing how far we can go down a random rabbit hole.” She looked across the table at him. “And thank you.”
“Seriously? What on earth for? Whatever it is, you are very welcome, sweetheart.”
Liz smiled. “I kind of handed you the perfect opportunity to turn this whole thing around and blame me—if I had just been honest with you sooner about how I felt, we could have avoided this whole mess. But you didn’t. You owned your part, that it would have happened anyway. Thank you for that.”
She shifted gears, back to the business at hand. “Right, a few more things. If we are going to try to do this, you and me,” she gestured back and forth across the table, “it has to be for real, Tom.”
He thought his heart was going to leap right out of his chest. “Yes.” It came out slightly more than a croak. But only slightly.
“People will know we’re together. If you’re near enough, I’m going to be touching you. About half the time, it will be deliberate, because I love touching you,” she smiled, and he thought his heart was going to explode, “but the other half will be unconscious, because that’s who I am.
It took a force of will to not do that this whole time. I had to consciously sit or stand far enough away that I didn’t accidentally just hold your hand or have my hand on your knee all the time. Are you okay with that?”
Tom stood up and moved to the chair next to her, rather than across from her. He took her hand and said, “Oh God, yes. Please, Liz. I don’t want you to be a secret. And I can’t think of anything better than you randomly touching me. Shit. That sounds fucking amazing.”
A glazed look came over his face, and she laughed in spite of herself.
“Okay, keep paying attention.”
They had both started to relax. It was wonderful. Tom grabbed two beers from the ice bucket and opened them, putting one in front of her and taking a drink from the other.
“I’m a pain in the ass,” she continued. “I laugh too loud and I talk too much. I overshare, and although I try to respect the boundaries of others, that doesn’t mean I always succeed. I’ve got very little shame—as I said before, I’ll swim through an ocean of embarrassment to avoid regret, so I’ve lost a lot of perspective on what constitutes an embarrassing situation for other people.” She looked him in the eye.
“I’m not feminine.”
Tom interrupted. “Correction. You’re not girly. You are incredibly feminine.” His voice dropped some, and he smiled at her around the mouth of his beer bottle.
She smiled, feeling her insides flip around a little. “Okay, I’ll take that. I’m not girly. I have a deep personal relationship with profanity. In the right setting, I will cheerfully swear like a sailor. While I do strive for situational awareness—I hope to never accidentally drop a ‘motherfucking cocksucker’ at a funeral, for instance—as you know, I will sometimes have an f-bomb appear where it shouldn’t.”
Tom barked out a laugh. Things were starting to get interesting. “I’m beginning to see why you feel so comfortable around hockey players.”
“Yeah, well, there are other things. But you get the idea.” She paused and watched him start to take a big swig of his beer. Unable to resist the timing, she said, “Like, I can belch the alphabet.”
He choked a bit but recovered. “Bullshit.”
She laughed and said, “You’re right, I never made it past ‘F.’” He looked at her suspiciously, trying to decide if she was kidding, and then took another drink.
“But I can absolutely belch on command.”
He spat out his beer to the sound of her laughing. “Fuck.” He cleaned himself up and looked over at her. “You can’t.”
“I can. Not girly. Not even a little bit.”
“Prove it.”
So she did, not entirely sure how he would react. He looked at her for a minute and said, “Do you know how much money I could make from my teammates with this kind of knowledge?”
She threw back her head and laughed, and it might have been the most wonderful sound Tom had ever heard.
“But seriously, Tom. I’m not set up to be good pro-athlete arm candy. That’s just not who I am. I need to know that you’ve thought this through, and you accept all that.”
He stood up, pulled her to her feet, and pulled her in close to him. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m not perfect; no one is. But I am serious.”
“I am too. I don’t need girly arm candy, Liz. I need you.” He stopped for a moment and looked at her. “Although I have seen you when you try to be arm candy and its un-fucking-believable, so there’s that too.” She smiled at him. “So are we okay?”
She snuggled close into him, resting her cheek against his chest so that she could hear his heart beating.
“No, Tom, we’re not okay. Not yet. But we might be.”
“I’ll take it.” He chuckled, a deep, warm sound. “God, I never would have believed I could be so happy to have someone tell me that we are not okay.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“By the way, why the tux?”
Tom smiled down at her. “I was hoping it would buy me a few extra seconds to convince you to stay so I could talk to you. I was desperate. Did it make a difference?”
It was her turn to chuckle. “It didn’t hurt,” she admitted.
Tom was holding her in his arms again. She wasn’t leaving. She was giving him another chance. She knew he loved her. All was right in the world, and he was finally relaxing.
Well, almost every part of him was relaxing.
There appeared to be one part of his body that was beginning to notice he was holding Liz in his arms again. That she wasn’t leaving. That she was giving him another chance. That part certainly knew he loved her and was becoming interested in showing her just how much.
Liz felt him twitch against her hip, and it made her jump just slightly. It also awoke a bunch of nerve endings she was not expecting to use any time soon. He twitched again, and her breathing hitched, and her heart sped up some.
“I’m trying to ignore this, but it’s becoming difficult,” she said, trying to sound casual. But her voice had gotten husky, and her tone caused a new surge. She swore quietly but colorfully, and Tom smiled.
His voice was low and rumbled through his chest. “Apparently, when I stopped being scared you were going to leave, I started noticing you were staying.” He paused. “You’re distracting.” He took a deep breath. “I could step away from you, but only if you want me to.”
“No!” The strength of her response caused another, impressive surge, and she gripped the front of his shirt. “No. Don’t you dare. Don’t move.” She was breathing hard, and blood was singing through her veins. “There is nothing that turns me on more than feeling you get hard because of me.”
“Shit.” That was it. He was at full attention.
She leaned her forehead against his chest and then looked up at him. He took a chance and leaned down to kiss her. She reached up to stroke her hand over his smooth cheek, and he moved his tongue to her lips. The kiss was deep and perfect, and he made it last.
God, I have missed kissing her.
Liz put her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, becoming almost demanding.
Tom crouched down slightly, put his hands on her ass, and lifted her. He sat her on the edge of the table, stood between her legs, and pressed against her, enjoying the small sounds she made as he began to move his hips slowly, rocking his erection against the seam of her jeans, moving his tongue against hers in time with his hips.
She gasped her way out of the kiss, and he moved to her neck, dragging his open lips along her skin more than actually kissing her, his breath hot against her as he brought his mouth up next to her ear, kissing the sensitive skin underneath.
Her muscles were tense, and she made a desperate sound and grabbed his ass with both hands, trying to grind him against her with more force. Tom complied and moved against her deeper and harder. When he heard the sound she made in response, he moved his head back to look at her—eyes wild, breathing so hard and fast.
Tom knew that look, knew her body. He gripped her tighter and in a voice now husky with desire asked, “Could you come like this?” as he ground against her again.
Her eyes squeezed shut, and she made a breathy gasping sound before saying, “Oh God, yes.”
Tom started in earnest, grinding himself against her, kissing her deeply, stroking his tongue into her in time with his hips. He could think of nothing better than to bring her to orgasm right here, right now. She was gasping between his kisses, making small sounds as she felt the pressure building. She started moving with him, pressing back against him, increasing the friction, making the pressure of his hardness touch her exactly where she needed it to.
As her movements were increasing, Tom was starting to feel slightly out of control. The silk fabric of the boxers he always wore under his tux was adding a layer of sensation to this that was beginning to fray him at the edges. He slowed down to try to get his bearings, but Liz tightened her hands on him and pleaded, “Oh God, don’t stop. Tom, please.”
He pushed against her f
urther so that she was partially reclined on the table and grabbed her under one thigh, changing the angle of pressure and continuing to grind against her. Her movements became almost frantic against him, and she climaxed suddenly, shouting wordlessly, as the spasms rocked her.
At the first sound of her orgasm, Tom’s movements shifted from grinding to his own frantic thrusting, as if there were no clothing between them, and a few seconds later he shouted his own powerful orgasm.
Liz sat on the edge of the table, leaning back on her elbows, gasping for air. Tom had his hands on either side of her on the table, his head hanging down, his face obscured by his hair, breathing heavily.
His voice was low and shaky, and he said with a small chuckle, “I think I was sixteen the last time that happened.” He started to push himself up and away from her, but she stopped him.
“Wait, please. Just for a minute. Just look at me.”
He brought his head up and smiled at her and asked, “What?”
Her voice was sexy and sweet, and she said, “I want to remember this. The way you look, the way you sound, everything. I think this is one of the most erotic experiences I’ve ever had.”
Tom tilted his head slightly, looking amused, and asked, “Because I acted like a horny sixteen year old?”
She laughed low, making his chest contract. “No, sweetheart.” Another heart contraction. “Because you are not sixteen.” She stroked his cheek again. “Because you are so very much a grown man. And because you just completely lost control…for me.”
He kissed her slow and deep. “Because of you, Liz. It’s always because of you.”
It was her turn to feel her heart twist in her chest.
“I plan to keep this memory saved for when you are on long road trips, and I’m missing you terribly.” She reached up and kissed him sweetly. “And now I’m hoping for your sake that you have a change of clothes with you.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He kissed her on the bridge of her nose and helped her down from the table. Her eyes got wide for a moment as she tried to figure out whether her legs were going to work. “I got a room for tonight.”
