Every Second With You

by Lauren Blakely

  “Do you think it’s luck?” I trail my fingers down his arm, tracing the outline of the ink on his bicep.

  “I think it’s fate,” he says softly.

  “You do? You believe in fate?”

  Scooting closer to me, he rests his hand on my hipbone, his thumb stroking a lazy rhythm there. “I do, in the sense that I believe some things are inevitable. The sun rises, the moon travels round the earth, you were meant for me, and I was meant for you,” he says.

  “So you and me, we’re on the same cosmic level as the sun and moon and stars?” I raise an eyebrow.

  But he is resolute. “Yes. Because here’s my reasoning. Think about the alternative. About us not being together.”

  I shudder with the absolute wrongness of that image.

  “See? You and me not being together is like a snowstorm in Hawaii. It’s like a glacier on the sun. It doesn’t happen. It can’t happen. Because there’s no way we aren’t meant for each other, Harley. There’s no way it can be anything but this,” he says, pointing from him to me and me to him, and his certainty is like dark chocolate melting on my tongue. It tastes amazing, and I want more of it, of him.

  “Kiss me, then. Kiss me like it’s fate.”

  “Gladly,” he says, curling his fingers around my neck, and bringing his lips to mine.

  I moan the second he makes contact. His lips are so soft, and he kisses me so tenderly, but with so much pent-up fire that I’m soon grasping for him, tugging him close, wrapping a leg over his thigh, sliding a hand up his shirt, spreading my fingers across the hard planes of his belly.

  We kiss like that for some time, all sighs and moans, and bodies pressed together, hands exploring, hearts beating wildly, until the heat between the two of us is too much. It’s like we’re in a cocoon of love and lust and want, our own little private world of desire.

  We break apart, and I’m panting, and his eyes are glazed, and I know in seconds he can be inside of me thrusting, bringing me to the precipice.

  My hands have a mind of their own, and I’m dying to touch him, so I unzip his jeans, and he helps me slide them off. Then I reach for the waistband of his T-shirt, lifting it over his head.

  My breath catches at the sight of his naked chest. I’ve seen him naked so many times, and every time he’s beautiful. My fingertips wander over to the ink on his chest, tracing it, imprinting him yet again on me.

  When he reaches for my sweater, I wag a finger, because I want something else. “Do you remember the time on the beach?”

  He nods. “Of course.”

  I slip my hands into his briefs and tug them off, whispering, “I want to watch you.”

  “Watch me?”

  The grin spreads across my face. “I want to see how you touch yourself. I want to know what it was like all those times you were thinking of me.”

  He groans, pushing a hand roughly through his hair. “God, everything you say is so fucking sexy.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  He loops his arms around my neck. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to be inside you right now?” Before I can answer, he guides my hand to his cock, and wraps me around him. He’s so hard and hot, and he twitches against my palm as I stroke him. He closes his eyes and a ragged breath escapes him, as he lies back on the bed, his head hitting the pillow. “So fucking much.”

  “So that’s a no, then?” I grip him harder, watching him squeeze his eyes shut as he rocks into me.

  He shakes his head, then grasps my hand and stills me. When he opens his eyes, they are wild with lust. “I want what you want. But I would really like you to be naked while I do this,” he says.

  I grin, and then clap twice. He rolls his eyes. “You just clapped because you’re going to watch me jerk off?”

  “I did just clap because I’m going to watch you jerk off, and I can’t wait,” I say, as I stand and quickly strip. He arranges the pillows against the headboard, making a cushion for me.

  “Lie down,” he tells me, and I do, resting my back against the pillows.

  Then he kneels on the bed, reaches between his legs, and grasps his cock, his eyes on me the whole time. A rush of heat spreads through my body, sending the temperature in me soaring. The fire settles between my legs where I ache for him.

  I watch as he strokes himself, mesmerized by how he handles himself more roughly than I do, tugging, gripping.

  “This is how I was for six long months before I had you,” he rasps out. “Thinking of you like this. Naked in front of me.”

  I lick my lips, my chest rising and falling. It’s such a private act I’m witnessing—him touching himself.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve watched a man masturbate. One of my clients wanted me to praise his size as he jacked off. That did nothing for me, except feed my need for control.

  But now, as I watch my husband breathing harder, gripping his steel length in his palm, up and down, fast, and now faster, control isn’t part of the equation anymore. My one-time pillars of manipulation and power have been checked out at the door.

  His hand is a fist as he holds himself tighter. I’m honestly not sure who’s more turned on because I’m growing damper by the second as he tells me how he pictured me. “I’d do this and wish I was licking your breasts,” he says in between hard pants. “Making your nipples hard in my mouth.” I draw a quick breath as he narrates his solo flight. “Then your stomach. Down to your belly button, and then you’d spread your legs wide for me.”

  Reflexively, I part my legs, my knees falling open. His eyes widen, and he stares between my legs. The heat of his gaze makes me hotter, wetter.

  “Licking your pussy,” he says and I gasp when he says that word for the first time. But it doesn’t bother me, the crudeness, because this is him. This is how he talks. This is how he thinks of me. “Tasting how fucking wet you are.” His hand is moving faster, from the base to the head, over and over, his eyes locked on me. I can’t look away, nor do I want to, because I am privy to this intensely erotic act, to my husband pleasuring himself as he watches me, and all I’m doing is being. I’m lying naked in front of him, and that’s it; that’s enough for him.

  But it’s not enough for me, because I’m ready to claw my way out of this desire inside me, this molten heat that ripples through my body as his grip on his cock tightens. And because I can’t help it, because I am comprised of nothing but lust and heat and wetness, I start to lift my hips, my body taking over, then I lower my hand between my legs, and I slide my fingers across myself.

  “Oh, fuck,” he says as I open wider, rubbing myself where I am swollen and needy for touch. “You touching yourself is the fucking hottest thing I have ever seen.”

  Then he shudders and comes in his hand. I bite my lip as I watch him finish, but I don’t stop moving, I don’t stop touching because I am so turned on, I think I may actually slide into another realm of pleasure, where touch and sensation and feelings is all there is. He heads to the bathroom, and I hear the water running, then him washing his hands. In seconds, he is back on the bed, crawling up to me. He presses his hands on the inside of my thighs and spreads me further, then buries his face between my legs, and I scream.

  It feels so fucking good.

  My head falls back, my shoulders sink, and my grip on reality loosens and falls to dust. He devours me with his mouth, those soft lips kissing me hard and greedily, his tongue lapping me up. He breaks apart for one brief second. “Come on me,” he says hungrily. “Come on my face, now.”

  He returns to me, and licks and kisses until my hips shoot off the bed, and I am writhing and shouting his name, screaming out with pleasure that is consuming my whole fucking world. I shatter in a million beautiful pieces and ride this orgasm to the far end of the earth and back.

  Then he’s hovering over me, his arms pinning me, his hard length between my legs. “I need to be inside you,” he says, his voice bordering on a growl. His green eyes are so dark, so intense. I’ve never seen him look like this before,
like he’s going to take me.

  “I want you inside me,” I say, and I’m still floating on my orgasm, as he enters me in one swift move, filling me completely.

  “You are so hot and wet.”

  “You got me this way,” I say, as I reach for his shoulders and pull him closer. I wrap my legs around his ass, opening myself up further to him, to take him in as far as he can go. He bends his head to my neck, burning a trail of kisses on my skin, making his way to my ear. “You’ve never been wetter. I could taste you all over me. I felt like I was fucking drinking you,” he whispers harshly, and his words send a fresh rush of heat through me. “I can feel it again. I can feel how hot you are around me. Like just now.”

  “You can?”

  He nods against my neck, pumping into me. “I love it so much. I love how turned on you get. You touching yourself was so fucking sexy.”

  Grabbing his firm ass, I pull him deeper into me, his hard length rubbing against me where I want him the most. “Because I was watching you. That’s why I got so turned on,” I say.

  “I told you, that’s why we’re perfect for each other. Because of this. Because of how we are together. Because of everything.”

  I grapple at his back, his hips, clutching him, wanting to be closer than we’ve ever been before as he drives into me, so far, so deep, that neither one of us can speak anymore. Words don’t matter. All we can do is feel. I feel him so completely, so wholly that I’m not even sure when my climax begins because it feels like it’s been happening the entire time, as if I’ve been coming since he started touching himself, and now I’m coming again with him again, as we ride the intensity of our togetherness.

  Four Months Later

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Harley

  It’s not a stretch when I say the last four months in San Diego have been happiest of my life. The busiest, too.

  I’ve finished my junior year of college, I’ve learned to drive, and I’ve expanded to house-size. I’ve gone shopping with Debbie’s daughter, who lives nearby, and has two kids a few years younger than me. I’ve also spent a winter in shorts and sandals, I’ve served sandwiches when I’ve filled in at Once Upon a Sandwich, and I’ve gone to the movies every Saturday night with Trey, Debbie and Robert. It’s become our tradition and I love it.

  We still don’t have a name for the baby, but every night Trey and I toss out new options, and I kibosh his ideas and he nixes mine. I’m pretty sure we’re at the point where we’re blackballing the other’s ideas for fun. But soon, we’ll have to settle on names.

  Meanwhile, my husband has landed a job at one of the best-known tattoo shops on Ocean Beach. He entered some of his designs in a contest, and he won his first award as an artist for a cherry blossom tree he inked on a woman’s upper back. He also learned to drive, too, and gave Robert an ulcer in the process, because it turns out Trey has quite a lead foot.

  Trey’s better now behind the wheel, and I’ve told him that driving like an old man is much more appreciated by his wife and child. So, as we park at the doctor’s office for my thirty-six-week appointment, gently gliding the Honda into a spot, I pat him on the arm, thanking him for his “feathery touch.”

  In the exam room, the nurse weighs me and takes my blood pressure, telling me everything looks good. The doctor listens for the heartbeat, and checks my cervix, then examines my hands, face and ankles for swelling.

  “It can be a sign of preeclampsia,” she says in an offhand way.

  “Oh. Do I have that?”

  “I don’t see any evidence that you do,” she adds. “If you notice any unusual swelling, weight gain, or headaches, let us know and we’ll check you again.”

  “Unusual weight gain beyond having to roll me down the hall because I’m so ginormous?”

  She smiles briefly at my comment. “Your weight is perfect, Harley.”

  Then she reviews the signs for Braxton-Hicks versus real contractions, and I make a mental note to look them up again later because how on earth will I tell the difference?

  “Do you have any questions?”

  I raise my hand, even though I’m the only one in the exam room. “Can I still have sex? It’s not going to break my water or anything, is it?”

  She shakes her head. “You have a perfectly normal pregnancy, and sex won’t hurt you or the baby. So, by all means, enjoy yourself. It’s a great way to take your mind off the final weeks.” She lowers her voice to a stage whisper. “I went right up till the end for both my pregnancies. Just find a position that works for you.”

  When I’m done, Trey’s waiting patiently in the lobby with other expectant parents, the fathers forming a motley crew of men—some middle-aged with bald patches, some sharp in their suits and ties, one in a blue button-down with a name patch from Bob’s Mechanics, and then my guy, with thick hair I love to run my fingers through, strong arms covered in ink, and that gorgeous face, sculpted cheekbones, and the scar that’s still as sexy to me as it was the night I met him.

  My young, handsome, thoroughly in love twenty-two-year-old husband of mine. We are kids having a kid, and maybe some of these other parents think we’re a joke, but I know we have an unbreakable bond. We have a brave and crazy, a messy and honest kind of love. Eight months ago, I was terrified of how he’d react to the news, and I was petrified of having a kid. Now, I’m almost there, just a few more weeks until I’m a mother. A mother. It’s so huge, and so scary, and so amazing. I know so very little, but I know, too, that we have all the essential ingredients, and more—because we have Debbie and Robert by our side.

  Somehow, this has become our life, born from the darkest of circumstances, bred from the painful pull of addiction, and even so I wouldn’t change a thing.

  Trey closes the paperback he’s reading, stands up, and takes my hand. We head to the parking lot, and it’s still odd to get in a car, rather than to race down the steps to the subway. I buckle, grunting playfully as I stretch the seatbelt over my basketball, and then I turn on the satellite radio, tuning in to a Katy Perry song.

  Trey rolls his eyes as he backs up.

  “What? Not cool enough for you? Do I need to play the college alternative station?”

  “You can play whatever you want,” he says. Then he pauses. “For the next four weeks.”

  “Ha. So you’re only going to be nice to me till I pop?”

  “Yup.”

  He navigates out of the lot, and then backs onto the main drag, toward Ocean Beach. The sidewalks are crammed with tourists and locals, enjoying the late afternoon sun, high in the sky. Women in sundresses and men in cargo shorts wander in and out of the boutiques, bakeries and cafes.

  I roll down the window, letting in the warm air. The station shifts to James Blunt’s Bonfire Heart, and I nearly shout. “I love this song!”

  I turn up the music, and he slows the car as we reach a red light.

  I start singing along, then look at Trey, rolling my hands, encouraging him to join in. “Days like this . . .”

  “I don’t know the words,” he says.

  I lean in closer. “Well, I know them all, because this song reminds me of you and me. Because—” I take a beat, and wait for James Blunt to sing my favorite line, then I join in, “You light the spark in my—”

  Then I’m jerked forward, and there’s a loud crunch of metal against metal. Instinct kicks in, and I raise my hands to brace myself against the dashboard, but the seatbelt snaps me back in place, slamming the back of my head against the headrest, and sending a sharp, searing pain through my skull.

  The car stops running instantly. My pulse is quickening and fear gallops across my skin, centers in my chest. My head pounds, and my heart races.

  “Are you okay?” Trey’s face is pale, all the color drained out.

  My hands go to my belly, and I nod. But I’m so shaken, and it feels like a firecracker is exploding behind my eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he repeats, his voice etched with all the worry I feel. “Say something.
Talk to me.”

  “I think so. But my head hurts so much,” I moan, dropping my forehead into my shaky hands.

  I’m vaguely aware that there’s a knocking on his window. Trey rolls down the window, and I hear a girl’s voice. “I’m so sorry for hitting you. I feel terrible. Is everyone all right?”

  She’s so young, maybe a teenager, but I can’t even focus anymore, and the conversation lasts all of ten seconds, as Trey says, “Just give me your number. I’ll call you later.”

  He starts the car, the engine rumbles to life, and he calls my doctor immediately.

  “Yes, I’ll take her there now,” he says into the phone. Then he tells me, “They want you to go the hospital. To get checked out. Just as a precaution.”

  His voice is calm and strong. He’s unwavering as he lays a hand on my thigh, and I simply nod, and close my eyes.

  Within minutes, we’re at the ER, and my head is still bursting with pain, but I’m not bleeding, my water hasn’t broken, my husband isn’t freaking out, and my baby is kicking me. Everything will be fine.

  He holds my hand the whole time as we wait to be seen, talking to me, reassuring me. Soon, a nurse with a clipboard calls my name, and brings me back to a hospital room in the ER. Machines bleat out sounds, and nurses and doctors shuffle quickly in and out of rooms.

  “Is the baby okay?” Trey asks, as the nurse yanks the curtain around the bed.

  “Well, let’s just see,” the nurse says, and hooks me up to the heart monitor, where we’re rewarded with the most beautiful sound in the world: a loud, thumping heart. Soon, the obstetrician on call comes by, and after a quick exam, pronounces mom and baby perfectly fine.

  “But let’s give her some Tylenol for that nasty headache,” the young doctor, so pretty she could be on a TV show, says to the nurse. Then to me, “And why don’t you go home and get some rest, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Trey says, answering on my behalf .

  An hour later, I’m feeling much better. I’m tucked in bed, and Debbie brings me a grilled cheese and chicken sandwich. I take a bite, and it’s delicious.