“No one on earth is like you. No one could come close to the person you are. Thank you.” Nodding against his face, she breathed him into herself with a small sigh.
He leaned back to look at her. Warm palms came up to cup her jaw, his fingers in her hair. One side of his mouth lifted. “Still so soft.”
Then he was kissing her and everything ceased to exist but Dylan. He walked her through the house and fell with her on the couch. The kisses he delivered took on an urgency that made Elizabeth’s heart pound in her chest.
His hips rocked against her as he made love to her mouth. The friction, even with layers of clothing between them, was heavenly.
He was panting as he broke away from her lips and rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t have protection, Lizzy.”
Swallowing hard, she whispered, “In the table beside my bed.” There was no question that she was bright red. Heat seemed to radiate off her skin.
Leaning back to see her better, Dylan grinned. “You bought condoms, Lizzy?”
“Mm hmm…” she managed, as she flamed hotter.
“I don’t deserve someone like you in my life.” Suddenly, he stood up and jerked her roughly to her feet. “Come on. I can’t go there and back. It will take too much time.”
Up the stairs and into her room, he kicked the door shut and locked it. There were no questions this time. No assurances that she wanted him. No going slow.
He stripped himself and her simultaneously, almost desperately, and she worked to keep up. As they landed on her bed, he felt for the condoms and knocked her alarm clock to the floor.
With a murmured apology, he ripped open the box and dumped the contents on the top. Exhaling roughly, he ground out, “I needed to know they were close.”
She nodded and then Dylan proceeded to move over her body. It wasn’t until he sucked her nipple between his lips that she realized it was daylight…full light in her bedroom.
He could see all of her.
Unable to stop it, she tensed with a small whimper. He lifted his head and crawled up so their faces were level. Tears ran into her hair and she was so embarrassed.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Lizzy.”
She shook her head and rested her forearm over her eyes. Being naked in front of him brought every physical insecurity roaring to life as if they’d never left.
He lifted her arm away and stared at her sadly. “You’re perfect, just the way you are. Just exactly the way you are, Lizzy. Don’t you know how much I love you?”
“No, Dylan…I don’t know.”
“That’s my fault. I should have told you. I’m sorry I’m fucked up.” He pulled her extra blanket over them and stretched out beside her, taking her in his arms.
“I think I understand why you’re crying and I should have told you, showed you what a privilege it is to be here with you…right here with you.”
Smoothing her hair back from her face, he smiled sadly. “You’re so clean, Lizzy. Unspoiled by bitterness and hatred. Unaffected by the ugliness around you. I look at you and I see a heart that is so pure and good that it makes mine feel full. I should have told you.”
For the first time, it was Elizabeth who kissed Dylan. She nudged him to his back and took her time exploring a body she’d admired and dreamed about for years.
With no clue what she was doing, she recalled passages she’d read, scenes she’d watched in movies, and let her imagination stretch as a grown woman.
Touching him was pleasure. Feeling free to touch him was unlike any feeling she’d ever had.
She took her time, stroked her hands gently over his skin and followed her fingers with her lips.
There was almost a reverence to how she traced his flesh, kissed it, and tried to infuse every interaction with all the love she felt for him. The love she had always felt for him.
As she moved down his body, his fingers settled in her hair, gently tugging it as his breathing picked up. He started making small sounds that let her know she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Better, she realized she was actually pleasing him.
It was heady stuff.
Elizabeth blushed as she lowered to the level of his cock. She’d never seen it in the light, or so close, and she was fascinated.
Hard yet silken, she traced a single fingertip down the length and watched as it jumped at her touch.
“Lizzy…” Glancing up the length of his torso, she realized he was staring at her. “I won’t last if you touch me like that.”
Unsure what he meant, she wrapped her fingers gently around the shaft, and he gritted his teeth. “I’ll come, Lizzy. You’ll make me come.”
Shocked at how much she wanted to do just that, she began to stroke. The sound of his breathing was loud in the silent house and she loved it, that she could make him react in such a way.
A pearlescent bead of fluid appeared on the tip and she leaned down to lick it away. Dylan groaned hard and reached down to the base. She thought he did it to hold back.
Gently, she pushed his hand away and continued to rub him. The sound of him grunting her name a moment before semen spurted from the tip was unlike anything that came before. She watched the fluid pump from the head and continued moving her hand up and down the silken skin.
When it stopped, she looked up at Dylan’s face. His eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell in gasping breaths.
“You’re so good to me, Lizzy. So fucking good to me.”
She grabbed her robe from the end of the bed and used it to clean his belly of his release. Then she gathered the blankets around them and stretched out along his body.
They napped until the sun went down and then Dylan made love to her.
Again and again, he took her throughout the night, loving Elizabeth physically and whispering to her about how much she meant to him. Finally, she felt as if she knew what was happening between them.
* * *
Waking after a night of passion, Elizabeth was pleasantly sore and emotionally sated. She stretched, staring out her window at the unusually clear winter day. It was deceptive since she knew the temperatures were likely in the teens.
She blushed when she reached for her robe and remembered why she couldn’t wear it. Picking out soft sweats and underthings, she left her bedroom. The smell of coffee and Dylan moving around the kitchen downstairs made her smile.
How domestic.
Smiling, she took her time in the shower and let the hot water pound over muscles unused to such a workout. “Running is a little bit different,” she murmured to herself and snickered.
After she was fully dressed, she blow-dried her hair and used the coconut oil body cream BiBi gave her. Her skin seemed to glow after she used it.
Sex appeared to have a similar effect.
Quickly straightening the bathroom and her bedroom, she went downstairs. She was blushing before she reached the bottom step.
It was Riley in her kitchen, not Dylan. Donovan sat at her dining table. Neither of them looked happy but Riley looked positively furious.
Knowing pain was coming, she assumed a smile anyway. “Good morning. I didn’t think you’d be back until this weekend.”
Donovan cleared his throat carefully. “We came back a day early to take you to brunch in the city. We got here about an hour ago.”
From the napkin holder in the center of the table, he removed a folded piece of thick paper. It was from her craft room. Her hand shook as she took it from him.
“Elizabeth…” Riley began.
She held up her hand. “Let me…let me process first.”
Turning, she moved to the window and opened the blue specialty paper. As she’d known it would be, it was a note from Dylan. The words made her stomach hurt.
Lizzy…I’m a piece of shit.
I can’t stay and I always knew I couldn’t. I told you so many things last night and you’re going to be hurt by what I’ve done. I don’t mean to hurt you, I swear I don’t.
I found a jar with three hundred dolla
rs in it a few days ago in the craft room. I’m taking it but I promise to pay you back. I need to figure some things out and get my head on straight. Without Carol, I don’t have much of a purpose now. Please forgive me.
I really do love you, Lizzy. I meant that.
Dylan
For several minutes, Elizabeth stared through the window to the little street she’d lived on all her life.
In three days, it would be New Years.
She’d had a daydream in the shower that she would finally get a kiss from Dylan to ring in a new chapter of her life after the devastating loss of Nana.
She had so looked forward to ending this year and beginning fresh, finishing school, starting her career, and maybe having Dylan truly in her life.
Silly girl…he’s not for you and you’ve always known that deep down.
Elizabeth refolded the paper and tucked it into the pocket of the pale gray sweats she wore. Hugging her arms around her narrow torso, she accepted that Dylan did not belong to her and he never would.
Turning to her friends, the only constants remaining in her life, she gave them a brittle smile. “Did I smell coffee? I could really use some.”
Donovan came to stand in front of her. Dark green eyes that looked so pretty in the sunlight stared at her, truly saw her in a way few people did.
“When I was in college, I had an affair with my married professor. His wife didn’t know he was gay. For an entire year, he talked about leaving her for me, about us running off together and starting a new life somewhere warm. I believed every word he said to me because I loved him and I knew he was bitterly unhappy living an artificial life.”
Softly, she asked, “What happened?”
He reached up to stroke back her hair. “His wife became pregnant with their third child and he took what was believed to be an accidental overdose of pain medication in his attic office. An injury from an old car accident flared up in the cold. No one suspected he was remotely unhappy.”
“I’m sorry, Donovan.”
“Don’t be sorry, pretty girl. Had he not ended our relationship in such a final way, I would have gone on believing him. I wouldn’t have stopped loving him and I would have put my life on hold just as his life was on hold for so many years. I would have pretended for the majority of my life and never been able to live and love in the real world.”
Cupping her face, he whispered, “No one should be a secret, Elizabeth. No one should feel as if they are not a priority in someone’s life. It’s not healthy for you to put your life on hold for a man who may love you, but cannot be who and what you need. I don’t know that he will ever be that for you. You are too good, too important, to wait.”
“I…don’t know how not to wait. He’s just always been there in my peripheral vision, long before we ever spoke.”
She shrugged. “I don’t expect him to love me, not really. I know we won’t have some ridiculous storybook romance.”
Tears started to fall and he wiped them with his thumbs.
“No one needs me, Donovan. I don’t fit anywhere. It’s worth the hurt to pretend for a little while. To feel like I fit, that I have someone to give love to that truly needs to feel love. I give to him, I let him take from me, because those moments are magic.”
She tried to smile. “The pain after is a small price to pay.”
The hug he wrapped her in was almost too hard. He whispered at her ear, “I love you so much, Elizabeth. If I were straight, I’d be honored to call you mine. It’s not the only reason I’ve ever regretted being gay, but I have to tell you, it’s one of the hardest. You deserve so much and I want that for you more than anything.”
“Thank you. I love you, too but don’t ever regret being gay, Donovan. You’re lovely exactly as you are. I wouldn’t change anything about you.”
Riley joined them with her mug of coffee in his hand. He smoothed his palm over her head and she leaned back to look at him.
“I’m too angry to offer comfort and I’m sorry. I love you, Elizabeth.”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “It’s going to be alright. I’m going to be alright.” She took her mug and looked back and forth between them.
After a hearty sip, she grinned. “You realize you’re both so fucking pretty, right?”
Donovan huffed and Riley laughed. “Someone said the f-word.”
“I did. What were you saying about brunch…?”
Turning her toward the door, Donovan smacked her butt. “No sweats but something warm. Hustle it up, I’m starving.”
Elizabeth gave them a wave as she headed upstairs with her coffee in hand.
At the threshold of the room Dylan slept in for two months, she noticed he’d made the bed. She closed the door and walked to her bedroom.
When she was alone, she took the paper out of her pocket and re-read the note he left her. This time the tears flowed in private and she let her heart break for the man who didn’t know how to love her.
Opening the carved box on her dresser to put his note away, her breath caught in her throat.
On top of the cards and letters she’d received over the years from Nana and her friends was Carol’s silver locket.
A piece of scrap paper under it said, “Will you hold on to this for me, Lizzy?”
She wondered if she’d ever see Dylan again.
Part of her hoped she wouldn’t.
Chapter Nine
Six years later…
Teaching was everything Elizabeth had ever dreamed it would be and more. Children responded to her in ways adults never had: openly and happily.
Her daily life consisted of her morning run, drinking a healthy protein shake, preparing a large travel mug of coffee, and walking a mile to her job at the same elementary school she’d once attended herself.
When she finished college, she’d received a call from Mayor Samuel Heller about working locally.
She was surprised but beyond pleased to learn that one of their long-time teachers was due to retire at the end of the current school year.
“You’d have to work as an assistant teacher this year but next school term, you’d have your own class. What do you say, Elizabeth? I want your skills to remain here in our community. If you bring half the commitment to teaching that you bring to the simplest tasks, the children here will be lucky to have you.”
Moved and more than a little proud, she agreed to meet with the school board to get the process started. Her entire summer was spent in mental and physical preparation.
She couldn’t help but remember the mockery from her fellow classmates and she worried as the first day drew nearer that she would indeed scare small children.
Her friends worked to calm her. BiBi freshened her cut and painted her nails while Donovan and Riley bought her a lovely pencil skirt with a pale green sweater set for her first day.
All her worry amounted to nothing.
Elizabeth’s quiet manner and ready smiles comforted children from the first nerve-wracking day of the new school year. She would assistant teach a third grade class and take over a second grade class when her co-worker retired. Nothing compared to watching children absorb knowledge.
Her only regret that first week was that Nana wasn’t alive to share her joy at reaching her goal and finding it was exactly what she needed.
On her first Friday afternoon, she left the school to walk home and was surprised to see Nana’s best friend Olive waiting for her. Dani was with her and both of them were smiling broadly as they stood in the shade beneath the covered walkway.
“Is everything okay?”
“Delightful, Elizabeth. I had to bring you something personally.” She fished in her big bag and withdrew a heavy linen envelope in pale pink.
Elizabeth’s heart stuttered in her chest when she recognized the stationary their little business once used.
“A few weeks before she died, Jewel brought me this envelope for you. See? It says on the front that I wasn’t to deliver it until you’d taught one full wee
k of school.” Olive grinned. “You know how much she loved surprises.”
Taking the envelope with shaking hands, she blinked back tears.
“We’re not going to stay. Dani and I are soaking up the sun while we have it. Elizabeth…?” She glanced up from the envelope. “Your grandmother would be so very proud of you. I knew her for almost fifty years and you filled her life with love and laughter as nothing had before you.”
“Thank you.”
“Go home, settle in, and read her letter. I imagine you’ll want some privacy. We’ll see you later at the soup kitchen.”
With that, the elderly woman walked slowly away beside Dani’s electric wheelchair. The young woman glanced over her shoulder with a shy wave.
Elizabeth sat on the school steps and changed into her running shoes.
She ran the mile to her house and knew it was probably her best time. She could barely get the key in the lock because her hands trembled so violently.
Dropping her messenger bag on the dining chair, she shrugged off her light sweater and toed off her shoes.
Placing the envelope on the table, she grinned and made herself a cup of Nana’s favorite tea.
Quickly changing into comfortable clothes, she sat down and held the heavy pink paper for a long time without breaking the seal. Unable to wait another moment, she carefully separated the fold, doing her best not to rip it.
Nana’s old-fashioned handwriting made tears pop instantly to her eyes and she took several deep breaths.
My precious Elizabeth…
I had a nice chat with Dr. McGrath last week and he told me it’s only a matter of time before my heart quits on me (you know how I dislike quitters). My old body is giving up but it’s been good to me for many years so I can’t be bitter.
Know that I’m not afraid, Elizabeth. Not even a little.
I used this life to the fullest so if there isn’t anything after this, I still feel good about what I leave behind. If there is something up ahead, I have a good resume – I know I’ll end up with a top tier job. If only it could be making quilts…
I want to tell you that you are my life’s greatest accomplishment. Every gesture, every word from you is founded in kindness and love. You know my own children went off the rails a bit. Your father was the best of them but…even he lost his way for a time before he died. The one thing he did that I will be forever grateful for is that he gave me you.
Completely Wrecked: A Dramatic Romance Page 8
