“I can’t wait to come see!” my mother declared, as we all mutually agreed that Sophie was well enough to start getting up and about, heading back to the dance studio. Her burns were healing well. My mother assured her only one patch on her back would likely leave a scar, and even that would fade over time.
The last night before she was set to return back to her apartment, we sat outside together, her in my lap.
“I’ve loved having you living here with me.” I nuzzled her cheek, kissed her neck. She sighed and leaned into me, then rested her head on my chest.
“I love being with you.”
“You could stay, you know,” I suggested, allowing the eagerness to creep into my voice. “You don’t have to move back to your own place. You could move in with me.”
“It’s tempting, Liam,” she agreed, but I could already hear the “no” in her voice. “But I think I need to head back to my own place. I only just got my own feet underneath me. I need some more time on my own before I can, you know…” She looked up at me shyly.
“Marry me and have my babies?” I finished the thought for her. Like I said, I wasn’t holding back any more.
She laughed, snuggling into me. “Yes, that does sound good.”
“So how many do you want?” I asked, arms securely around her.
“How many what?”
“Kids,” I replied as if it were obvious that were the next item up for discussion. “I’m thinking we might really want to go for it. Field our own baseball team.”
“You think?” she laughed. “How many would that take?”
“Nine,” I replied, matter-of-fact. “Though we might want to go for ten just in case one of them needs to sit out an injury.”
“That’s good, like a spare,” she agreed.
“Right.” We both laughed.
“Liam, I want you to know, I feel like I need to move back into my own place but I’m not pulling away. I love this.” She rested her head against my chest, her palm pressed to my beating heart. “I love how open you’re being, how much you’re sharing with me. I don’t want to lose that.”
“You won’t,” I reassured her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.”
I could have left it at that. But, like I said, I was done holding back. “I love you, Sophie. With all my heart.”
She pressed herself against me, her body responding even before she spoke the words, “I love you too, Liam.”
We looked out at the ocean together and I could feel it in my soul, how I could do that the rest of my life, sitting there with her as we grew old together, hopefully with some children, maybe just two or three instead of a whole baseball team running around us. That’s what life was really all about, and I wanted to share it with her.
I didn’t feel like a perfect man. I fell short of my aspirations every day. But I did feel whole with Sophie. She knew me completely, better than anyone else, and she’d still made the highly questionable but undeniable choice to love me. I’d spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of her choice.
19
Sophie
Liam and I were going to finish the studio tomorrow. Of course there were still a million little things that needed to be taken care of. I needed window treatments for sunny days when I held afternoon classes. Lots of days on Naugatuck were cloudy and cool or even cold, but there were a few August afternoons when the glare through the windows heated the studio up to about a zillion degrees.
I needed a bench and a curtain up in the back room, soon to be known as the changing room. That would do for now. In time, I might try to put in some lockers and something more private, but for opening day in just three weeks it would be enough.
I’d set up a website. Regina had a friend who knew all about that kind of stuff. It was amazing how quickly she got it all up and running. Two hours of brainstorming at my folding kitchen table—still hadn’t gotten around to buying something more permanent, but it would happen—and the next day she’d called me to tell me my business had a functioning website. Joy in Dance was officially up and running!
I hired her on the spot on an ongoing basis to update it and help with class sign-ups and payments. I had no idea what I was doing on that end and it didn’t make sense for me to even try to develop that skill set. I’d waste time and screw things up. Far better to keep me out doing what I loved.
Because I loved to dance. Now that I had my own studio, the creativity flowed and I woke every morning thrilled to start the day. What would I teach? To what kind of music? What types of dance should we start offering first?
Lara, my friend I’d reached out to earlier, surprised the hell out of me by showing up on my doorstep one day, bag in hand.
“I’m in!” she’d declared, telling me she was done with the cutthroat world of professional ballet. “I never even liked ballet!” she confessed as if telling me about a heinous crime.
“Then let’s burn your tutu!” I’d agreed, not wanting either of us to waste another minute slaving away to some other’s ideal.
Me, though? I did still love ballet, but the ballet I envisioned didn’t punish for body type or focus on imperfections. It required discipline, surely, but celebrated the grace and fluid movement inherent in the human body. In all of our bodies, if we developed the muscular strength, the flexibility, the deep knowledge of form and position that came from years of practice. I couldn’t wait to infuse it in my students, working together to make ballet not just a thing of beauty, but a source of inspiration and joy.
Liam showed up at half-past eight, right after his 24-hour shift at the station.
“You should have napped first,” I scolded him, still happy to see him as I greeted him with a kiss.
“Today? Not happening.” He kissed me back, holding me in a tight embrace as if it had been more than a day since he’d seen me. As if he’d been thinking about holding me since the last time he’d done it. “Today we’re finishing your studio.”
All we had was the barre to install. We already had mirrors all across the wall on the other side. Now we needed the finishing touch, fixing the barre along the other three walls. Then it would become a dance studio.
He’d assured me we didn’t need anyone else to do it right. He knew what to do and if I helped him, we’d get it all installed that day. I loved the idea of finishing my studio with my own hands.
It took five hours of work, plus an hour break to grab some lunch at a café, but by the afternoon it was all set up. The wooden floors gleamed, the walls spotless and bright, the barre at exactly the right height, secure and steady.
“Thank you!” I threw my arms around his neck, my heart bursting it felt so full. “I never could have done this without you.”
“You’re the one with the vision,” he reminded me. “I tried to talk you out of it.”
“You were just being sensible,” I defended him. “I really didn’t know what I was talking about. The historical preservation society is pretty crazy.”
“But you’re crazier.”
His kisses melted me, as they always did, and he swept me into his arms, carrying me into the back room. “The studio’s officially done. I think we need to celebrate.” He pulled off my shirt and started sliding down my shorts.
“You mean like open a bottle of champagne?” I teased, knowing he had something better in mind.
“Yeah, I’ll go run out and get one,” he agreed while taking off his jeans. He pulled his T-shirt off his head and, I swear, every time he did it gave me a thrill. The man was so fine, all sculpted muscle like a Greek statue.
“I want you to know.” I looked up into his eyes as I ran my hands down his chest, his abs, up again to his powerful shoulders and biceps. “Even if you weren’t such a nice guy, I’d love you just for your body.”
“That means so much to me.” He leaned down, kissing my mouth, my throat, my ear. “I love knowing you’re so superficial. It really gives me a lot of leeway.” He caught me in his arms and lay me dow
n on the floor, spread before him.
“Yes, I—” But whatever witty comeback I had on the tip of my tongue was quickly forgotten when he started using his. One hand to either thigh, he opened me wide and started feasting like a starving man, his tongue flicking, pressing against my clit, sucking and kissing and working me into a writhing, panting mess in under a minute.
He lifted his head and allowed me to catch my breath for a moment. “I like it when you tease me,” he said with a smile. “But I like it better when you can’t even manage to do it.”
Down again, he played with me, getting me close then moving away, pressing light kisses to my inner thighs, making me squirm until he told me to stay still or I wouldn’t get what I most wanted. Finally, he decided I’d had enough, or he couldn’t wait anymore, either, and he bit into me, telling me to cum for him in his mouth. That was an offer I could never refuse and I did it just the way he liked it, unrestrained, unashamed, giving him all I had.
That night we did have champagne over dinner. Liam scoffed at my grill pan, a poor substitute, but I didn’t have a yard or even a patio outside to accommodate a real grill. I knew he was putting up with it on a purely temporary basis. He hadn’t asked me again, but I knew the offer was still standing to move in with him. I could feel how good it would be, living with him. Waking up next to him, falling asleep in his arms. I couldn’t imagine anything I’d love more.
Lara had found a place to sublet, but it was only through October. Once winter set in, the owners planned to shut it down, preferring five months of no income to fully winterizing and maintaining their property during the cruelest months. She’d love to move into the apartment over the studio. I hadn’t made any promises, to her or to Liam, but I was seriously considering it.
“Have you heard from Margot?” Liam asked as we danced around each other in my small kitchen. I wasn’t exactly ready for a competitive spot on Top Chef, but I was learning a thing or two about cooking. It turned out that butter and salt were key ingredients in just about anything and everything. The mashed potatoes I was making were getting a lot of both.
I sighed, as I almost always did when discussing my sister. “They’ve found a house to rent.” I relayed what she’d told me, about the nice neighborhood and the good school Eloise would attend for kindergarten. Because she’d taken Eloise and moved back to the town in North Carolina she’d recently left. Now she’d returned without a job lined up or a stable set of friends to help secure her sobriety.
It broke my heart to see it happening. Saying good-bye to Eloise had nearly killed me. I’d managed to not cry while I’d hugged her sobbing little body. I didn’t want her to go, either. But I’d sure cried that night, remembering how she’d whispered softly in my ear, “Can’t I stay here with you, Auntie?”
I wanted to say yes, but I knew I didn’t have the right. I wasn’t about to get into a custody battle with my sister. Plus, who knew, maybe Margot would straighten out this time? What I could do was stay in better touch. I promised I’d go visit that fall. And if I didn’t like what I saw, then I’d think about what I could do to help Eloise.
“You’ll see her again soon,” Liam reassured me, a hand to my shoulder. He knew without my saying how worried I was about Eloise.
“Yeah,” I agreed. That was all I could do for now. “And Mom’s back in Wellesley.” I shared my other piece of news. Once Margot and Eloise had left, with me in my own apartment, I’d figured her days on the island were numbered. It was mid-August, anyway, and most of the social events of the summer season had already passed. It was a good time to pack up and head to the mainland.
“I’ll miss our long talks,” Liam joked, and I had to laugh, even though it also made me sad. My mother was like an impenetrable fortress. The best times I had with her were those in which she practiced restraint. In the past couple of weeks since I’d gotten out of the hospital, she’d held her tongue about Liam. Now that we were out in the open, spending most of the time he wasn’t at the fire station together, officially a serious couple, I was expecting a long, heated lecture. I’d been waiting for her to tell me what a mistake I was making, how I’d thrown away an amazing opportunity by letting Theo Bartright slip through my fingers. Maybe if she’d really gone for it she might have revisited her earlier theme about how Liam was to blame for Ian’s troubles, and dating him was tantamount to treason.
But she didn’t. She remained oddly silent on the Liam subject. I didn’t know what was the cause, but it simply could have been his act of heroism. In the middle of a blazing fire, I’d been abandoned. I knew because my burns were on my back, I’d been lying face-down on the ground. If it weren’t for Liam’s fortitude, his perseverance, his love of me pushing him down into the bowels of the ship to search and rescue, I’d be dead. That had to make a difference, even to someone as emotionally wounded, and as class- and money-conscious as my mother.
We ate dinner, enjoying that mix that came so easily between us of laughter and conversation. We washed dishes and teased each other, talked about what we wanted to do that night when both of us knew exactly what we wanted to do that night. We wanted to get lost in each other.
But there was something we needed to talk about. We’d been intimate since the accident, in more ways than one. He’d been true to his word, never leaving in the middle of the night but staying with me the whole time. He’d told me he loved me, asked me to move in with him. He was truly a changed man, opening himself up to me in a way I’d never thought possible.
But he’d also changed the way he expressed himself sexually. We made love, fierce and passionate, clawing at the sheets raw and sweaty and panting for more. He went down on me and gave me breathtaking orgasms that made me see stars and scream out his name. But he wasn’t rough with me anymore. No bondage, no toys, he hadn’t even spanked me once.
Was it sick and twisted to admit that I missed it? Was it perverted and ungrateful to say that great sex wasn’t enough for me? Regardless, the absence of kink was glaringly obvious. Each day that passed it seemed more and more like the elephant in the room, sitting there on the bed with us as he caressed me gently and lovingly.
“OK, Liam. We need to talk,” I said as we headed into the bedroom, kissing each other as we moved. Like a bucket of water on a fire, that statement seemed to douse his ardor.
“About what?” He looked at me, instantly wary.
“You don’t spank me anymore!” When I’d thought about how to broach the subject in my head, it had gone a lot smoother. I’d started by saying how much I enjoyed our sex life, how attracted to him I was, how he gave me the best orgasms I’d ever had. Then I’d start in about the changes. But that had been in my head. Apparently in reality I blurted.
“What?” He took a step back, clearly completely surprised.
“You used to get rough with me, tie me up and spank me. And I liked it.” Words tumbled out of my mouth. Better to get them out than let the embarrassment I could feel build, looming and threatening to wash over me like a rogue wave. “Now you’re so gentle. It feels good, but it’s…not the same.”
“You miss me being rough with you?”
“Yes!” I closed the distance between us, reaching out for his hands, wanting physical contact while I spoke so honestly. “I’m not saying it’s like every day I want that all the time. But, yes, that really turned me on.”
He swallowed, taking hold of my hands. “You want that again?”
“Yes,” I admitted, leaning into him. “Yes! It felt crazy and kind of scary and I don’t exactly understand it, but it was also so intense and good with you.”
He held me to his chest and I could hear his heart beating fast. “I want that, too, but I was afraid… I don’t always feel like a good person when I do that.”
“Why not?”
He sat down and I could tell he was struggling for the right words. “My father,” he began, and he reminded me about it all, telling me more than he ever had. I’d known that his father had been a violent man, parti
cularly when drunk. That he’d led a double life, the big friendly Irish guy everyone loved at a party to the outside world. The mean drunk who smacked his wife and kids to those who really knew him.
“It made me feel like him,” he summed it up simply but so painfully. “To enjoy hurting someone.”
“But that’s now how it feels to me,” I rushed to explain. “It doesn’t feel like you’re being cruel or sadistic. I’d never be able to trust you if it did.”
“How does it feel?”
“It feels…” Now I struggled for the words, not even sure myself how to explain how he’d made me feel. “It’s like this feeling of freedom. Tied up, you in control, you reading my body so intimately, it’s as if all the junk that usually clutters up my mind, all my to do lists, all my worries and insecurities and everything else just goes out the window. And all that’s left is you and what you’re doing to my body and it feels so good.”
“It does?” Now his voice grew deeper, his eyes looking at me with dark intent.
“You have no idea,” I whispered, longing for what I’d just described.
“Well what are we waiting for?” He had me naked in seconds flat, stretched across his lap, vulnerable and positioned with my back arched, ass up in the air for his discipline. “You need this?” he asked me, caressing my bare cheeks.
“Yes,” I exhaled, feeling it in my bones. “I need it from you.”
The first smack of his hand across my ass felt so electric, so charged it nearly made me cum in an instant.
“You wait until I tell you,” he reminded me, reading me as always with such expertise. He began what he did so well, peppering my thighs with slaps, getting me wet and panting and squirming on his lap, wanting to whine and beg for more.
“I knew you needed discipline,” he whispered, caressing my ass, burning and stinking from his palm. “You need it from me, don’t you my love?”
All of Me: Liam & Sophie Page 26
