by Eden Bradley
There's an enormous window with an incredible ocean view. The sun is a dim red glow, forcing its way through the fog. And in that pale light I can see a big bed, a wooden four-poster with all white bedding. Simple. Beautiful.
He undresses me quickly, tenderly. Then he tucks me beneath the covers, under the crisp white sheets and a heavy down quilt, before he moves around the room, sliding the drapes closed, hanging my dress in the closet. He gets undressed, and I watch him through sleepy eyes: the smooth expanse of his broad chest, the tattoo on his biceps, his muscular thighs.
A lovely surge of heat between my thighs, but I am so tired suddenly. He slips in beside me, holds me close, stroking my hair, kissing my temple, my eyes. He's whispering to me, but I don't know what he's saying. His voice is soft in my ears as I drift toward sleep.
Safe at last.
Chapter Eleven
I WAKE UP, BUT I don't want to open my eyes. I've been having this lovely dream about Joshua, about lying in his arms, in his bed. About surrendering to that sense of being absolutely cared for, allowing myself to depend on it.
I squeeze my eyes tight, but no matter how much I don't want to leave the dream behind, I am awake.
I open my eyes. And smile.
He's not here in bed with me; I can sense it before I turn to see the divot in the pillow where his head rested. But I can hear him. He's whistling from some far-off room, which makes me smile more. The acrid scent of coffee is rich in the air.
This must be what normal feels like.
The sun is shining through the heavy curtains. I glance at the clock on the nightstand; it's almost two in the afternoon.
The bed is like some enormous womb, and I lie there for a while, luxuriating in the soft sheets, the weight of the comforter on my body.
My mind, sleepy and on autopilot, wants to think about how I might fuck this up. But right now I'm simply too happy to allow myself to go there.
“Valentine, you up, baby? ”
Ah, there he is. So damn sexy in his dark blue pajama bottoms and nothing else. I am crazy about his bare chest. I really am. The muscles there are heavy, thick, his skin a perfect shade of light gold. And I know what it feels like to have my cheek pressed against his heart.
“Hi.”
“Hi, sleepyhead. I thought you were going to sleep all day.”
I'm sorry.
“Don't be.” He moves across the room, sits down on the bed, leans in and kisses me with his coffee-scented mouth. “Mmm, don't move.”
He slips off his pajama bottoms and gets under the covers, his body warm and strong next to mine as he pulls me into his arms. I rest my head on that curve of muscle that runs from the underside of his arm to his shoulder. Lovely. I want him. But I also revel in simply being with him, like this. I could stay here forever.
Tilting my head to look up at him, I touch the scar on his lip, as I often do, and he kisses my fingertip. He is idly running his fingers through my hair, his eyes half lidded, just a glow of green and gold peering out from beneath his thick lashes. “Tell me something, Valentine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something else about when you were a kid. No … tell me about the beginning of sex for you.”
“You mean when I lost my virginity?”
He's quiet a moment, thinking. “Not necessarily. I mean that time in your life when you first became aware of sex.” He's watching me in that penetrating way he has.
“I haven't really thought about it.”
“Haven't you? That's such a turning point in anyone's life. It seems that way to me, anyway.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“So tell me.”
I close my eyes, letting my mind drift. How far back? It seems a lifetime ago. Maybe it is.
With my eyes still closed, I remember.
“I was eleven when Billy Carrow moved into our neighborhood. All the girls were in love with him instantly. He was maybe a year older than I was. But so pretty. Not that he looked like a girl, but he had the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen. And dark, hooded eyes. Sleepy. He was a bit exotic to me, because he really was so … beautiful. He exuded sex, even at twelve. And he was bad. He had that aura of danger about him, even at that age. He was always getting into trouble at school. Getting caught shoplifting, stealing from a neighbor's garage, crashing his bike and breaking his arm. I remember watching him step out of his house for the first time and feeling that tingle between my thighs. It was frightening and exciting. I didn't know how to feel about it.
“But I always watched him. In school, around the neighborhood. He used to hang out at this liquor store down the street with some older boys, and I was always hunting for change to buy candy. Not because I wanted candy, but because it gave me an excuse to go to the store. No one stopped me. No one really cared what I did.”
I stop and think about that for a moment, about wandering the neighborhood, not having to report in at home like the other kids did. It was a little scary. And exhilarating. It made me feel grown up.
“I remember purposely putting on my shortest shorts, my tightest tank tops, to go to the store. Using Vaseline on my lips before I was old enough to buy real lip gloss. And walking into the store, passing Billy and those older boys, that thrill going through me when one of them turned to watch me. I didn't understand until I was a lot older how sexual even that was for me.”
“Did anything ever happen with him?”
I pause, looking at him, but his face is blank, innocent. He gets my silent question right away.
“Valentine. Come on, you were a kid. I just want to know you. I wish I knew you back then. I wish I'd seen you as a young girl.” He reaches out, strokes my cheek, and I go soft and loose all over, as I always do with him. He murmurs, “I bet that Billy kid was in love with you.”
“I don't know about that. But he was the first boy I ever kissed.”
“Oh, this you have to tell me.” He's grinning now.
I roll my eyes, trying not to grin back. But I tell him.
“It was the summer I turned thirteen. Billy had two older brothers, and one of them had a room off the garage. He took me in there. I mean, he just came up to me on the street one day and took my arm and said, ‘Come with me.’ It wasn't a question. I went. I remember the smell of the garage: dry and dusty with a little motor oil mixed in. I remember how warm his hand was on my arm as he led me through the garage and into his brother's dark room. I remember my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn't sure what would happen. But simply being alone with him in the half-dark room seemed forbidden. Exciting. And then he just pulled me to him and kissed me.”
“And…?”
“And I was wet instantly. I didn't know what it meant. It almost hurt. He pushed his tongue right into my mouth and I was shocked and ridiculously turned on. And he was pressing up against me; I could feel his erection against my thigh. I was squirming. I didn't want him to stop. I don't know what would have happened if his mother's car hadn't pulled into the driveway right then. He pulled away from me and I was just… stupid. I couldn't speak. I could see him smiling at me in the dim light coming in through the curtains. Then he said, ‘Come on, let's get out of here.’
“Nothing ever happened with him again. He moved away a few months later. But I thought about that one moment for years.”
Joshua runs a finger over my lower lip, down my jaw, my neck. His voice is quiet. “Do you know how your voice lowered as you were telling me this? How your cheeks flushed?”
“Really?”
I smile at him, take his hand and slip it between my thighs. He goes instantly to where I need him most, his fingers sliding beneath the edge of my panties.
“Do you have any idea what that did to me? Hearing the desire in your voice …”
He pauses, his fingers slipping into my wet cleft, and I am as hot and wet as I ever was with Billy.
“Come on, Joshua.” I arch my hips into his hand.
“Come on, what?”
&
nbsp; “I need to feel you inside me.”
I can't wait; I climb on top of him, reach down and wrap my hands around his already-erect cock. Nice. I lean over, grab a condom from the nightstand, sheath him with shaking hands.
He holds onto my hips, lowering me onto his shaft, sliding in, clean and smooth, driving into me. And it is better than anything I felt with Billy Carrow. Better than what I've felt with anyone else, ever. My memories fade, and all I am is this moment, right now, with him. Nothing else matters.
WE'RE STILL IN BED an hour later. Lazy. Lovely.
“Are you hungry, baby?” he asks me. “You must be starving. I swear I was going to bring you breakfast.”
“This was better.”
“It was. It is.” He runs a hand over my side, down my thigh, and I shiver. “But we have to eat eventually. I didn't have anything here but crackers and beer, so I went down to this little café this morning. They make the best croissants. And I got apple juice, some fruit, a few other things. What can I get for you?”
“No, you don't have to do anything. I'll get up.”
“I want to. Stay right here.”
He disappears for a few minutes, comes back with a big red ceramic coffee mug in one hand and a plate in the other. He sets them both on the night table, a large, dark piece, like everything else in the room. Imported furniture, like my own.
The coffee smells wonderful. I pick it up, sip it, let him feed me bites of pastry and fruit while he tells me what he's seen on the news that morning, how the stock market is doing.
I'm hardly paying attention. I am in some dreamlike space, and I want to hold on to it. It's too precious to me to let go.
“Do you want a shower?” he asks me. “We should go down to the beach. It's not too cold. I actually love it when it's like this, gray and cool. And there aren't too many people there on a weekday.”
“I'll shower later. I can be dressed in five minutes.”
Suddenly I want to see his beach, if only because he wants me to.
I get up, slip on my linen pants and a tank top. He gives me one of his hooded sweat jackets with some hockey team logo on it, and I slide into my sandals, then we're out the door.
The sun is still fighting the fog, but I'm warm enough. And his hand is warm in mine. I feel good. Better than I have in a long time. Lighter, somehow.
We walk the one block to the beach, and soon we're on the sand. I take my sandals off and carry them as we move closer to the water. There are only a few other people there. I'm glad it's quiet, uncrowded. It helps me to maintain this fantasy bubble I've constructed around us.
At the edge of a shallow dune, we stop, and Joshua pulls me down to sit on the sand beside him.
“It's beautiful, isn't it?” he asks me.
I look out at the Pacific Ocean, thundering against the shore, the blues, greens, and grays out beyond the swells, where water meets sky in a rippling line.
“It is. It's a little sad on a day like this. Maybe other people need it to be clear and sunny to think this is beautiful. But I like it just like this.”
He squeezes my hand. “You see? Everything doesn't have to be someone else's idea of perfect to be beautiful, Valentine.”
I look up at him and he's watching me in that way he has.
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“You don't really believe it yet, though, do you? Even after I told you what I'd done, about my own glaring flaws?”
I shake my head, look away, digging my toes into the sand. It's cold beneath the surface. Calming, somehow.
“Joshua … I don't quite know how to believe. I'm trying. But I need … I need practice. My whole life has been one thirty-year lesson in how not to trust anything. It's going to take some time.”
“And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile I guess I'm living on faith. Which is pretty damn hard for me since I don't have much of that, either.” I look back at him. His eyes are still on me. Beautiful in the pale sunlight, like everything else about him. “Except for my faith in you.”
He leans in, kisses me. And I curl my hand around the back of his neck. His skin is so warm beneath my palm. He pulls back.
“I meant what I said, you know.”
His hazel eyes are on me, searching for something. I don't know what he's getting at.
“You meant what?”
“That you don't need perfection for something to be good enough.”
I nod my head. I want to understand.
“Let me tell you something, Valentine. About my family.”
“Okay. I want to hear whatever you want to tell me.”
He pulls his knees to his chest, settles in, holding on to my hand. “I told you how crazy my parents were about each other. I grew up with the understanding that this was possible. But their relationship wasn't always easy. They worked hard for what they had. And they had a rough start.
“My mother was one of those debutante girls from a rich Connecticut family. Maybe that doesn't mean much anymore, but in her day it was everything. My father was from that same set of people, East Coast society. Their families knew each other. And my parents were friends growing up, although Dad told me later he'd been in love with her since he was fourteen years old. When my mom turned up pregnant at nineteen, unwilling to name the father of the baby, her family was ready to disown her.
“The father was someone who had passed through town, one of the summer people. A fling. This was unacceptable in that culture. My dad stepped in and married her, knowing he wasn't the father. But he loved her. He went against everything their social circle believed in, and he took her away from there so they could have a life together. So her child wouldn't have to grow up with that stigma.”
“That baby was you?”
He nods. “I'm grateful to them for that. Growing up, I spent time with my grandparents, my aunts, uncles, cousins. And there was always this tension. There still is. The elephant in the room that is the circumstance of my birth, but they're all too polite to mention. I don't see them much anymore. It's such bullshit. But I didn't know any of this until later. Not until my dad died. Until then, I had no idea why we lived in California, so far away from the rest of the family. I had no idea why we were always treated as outsiders.”
“That must have come as a shock.”
“No. I don't know. Maybe a little, at first. I couldn't think of my dad as anyone other than my dad. But I was only twenty, and it was more the idea of my mother having had sex with someone other than my father. I couldn't care less now, but at the time, well, you don't think of your parents having sex, do you?”
I look away. “That was inescapable in my family. I was locked in my room for hours with that soundtrack playing in the background.”
“Shit. I'm sorry, Valentine.”
I just shake my head, turn back to him. “Forget it. Go on.”
“So. Mom and Dad got married and it wasn't all happily ever after. Mom was so relieved to be saved from a life of shame and rejection, she was grateful. But she wasn't in love with my father. He knew that. But then I was born, and my dad stepped in, really stepped up to being a father, and it all came together for her. That's when she fell in love with him. She was able to forgive herself because he was able to forgive her. That was a first step for her. And my life was good because Dad was able to forgive her. Once I knew the truth, I couldn't help but understand that.”
“And the guy? Your biological father? Did you know him?”
“No. I still have no idea who he is. I don't care. I don't need him for anything. I wanted to know for about five minutes, and then … I realized very quickly that he wasn't important. My father, the man who raised me, was my dad. This other guy who had disappeared wasn't a real person to me.”
I nod again, feeling a bit the same way about my own father, other than a lingering resentment. But it all seems vague now. He seems vague to me now, ghostlike.
“But my point is,” he goes on, “even after I was older and Dad was gone, even after I
found out that their life together hadn't been without its problems, I understood people can still love each other completely. That love exists despite our flaws. Despite my own flaws. Despite yours.”
He takes my chin in his hand, forcing my gaze to meet his. My heart is fluttering at a thousand miles an hour.
“This is why I'm here with you, Valentine. Regardless of what you've done in your life, how hard it is for me to process it all. And believe me, just because I'm not hammering you over the head with it doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it, that it doesn't hurt.”
“God, Joshua …”
“No. It's okay. It is. I'm still here, aren't I? I'm trying to tell you it's because I believe.” He reaches up, tucks a windblown strand of hair behind my ear. “And because I'm falling in love with you.”
My heart tumbles in my chest, a long fall into a warm darkness. “Joshua …”
He's looking into my eyes, his gaze so intense I can hardly stand it. But I can't look away. I don't want to.
“Do you love me, Valentine?” he asks quietly.
“Yes. I do. I love you.”
My heart is going to burst, it is pounding so hard. He kisses me again, then. And all of the world's imperfections melt away beneath the soft press of his lips.
My heart is still thundering; I'm so damn scared. But it feels good, too. Incredible.
He keeps kissing me and kissing me, until my body is flooded with heat and desire.
Finally, he pulls away, says gruffly, “I need to get you back to the house. I need to be alone with you.”
He pulls me to my feet and we make the walk back to his place as quickly as we can. His arm is around me, and I can feel the heat of his big body through my clothes, feel it in the pit of my stomach. Between my thighs.
I can smell the desire on him. Or maybe it's my own?
He jams his key in the front door, pulls me inside. I still haven't had a chance to really look at his house, I realize vaguely as he pulls his shirt off, then mine. Then he slides my pants down my legs, pulls his own off, and I am unable to think anymore. We are naked together, which is what I want at this moment more than anything. To be naked with him, to touch him, to have him touch me. And as he fills his hands with my breasts, as he kisses me until I am breathless, the only thing I can hear are the words he said to me. The words no one has ever said.
