by PE Kavanagh
She slipped her hands underneath his sweatshirt.
"Skin is better," he whispered.
She smiled at the reference to the line she had used many times before, then lifted his sweatshirt off.
"I’m glad to see you haven’t let yourself go, Aidan. I was kind of worried about that," she said as she kissed along his collarbone, his chest, and down the line to his navel. She slid his pants off and knelt in front of him.
"Lola…" his breath accelerated.
She licked him from base to tip like a giant lollipop, adding a flick at the very top. Over and over, covering every inch of him, accompanied by louder and louder groans. By the time she put him in her mouth, she knew it wouldn’t be long.
His hands pressed into her shoulders and the back of her head. She slid her mouth off him, but continued to hold him tightly in her hand. He wasn’t ready to finish just yet. They had a long night ahead of them.
He bent over, slipped his hands under her arms and pulled her to standing.
"I’m glad you stopped." He pulled her dress over her head and looked at her, before unhooking her bra and sliding her underwear down. "Lay down."
She walked over to the edge of the bed, sat down, and then lay on her back. He didn’t budge from where he was standing, fixed on her every move.
"Could it be that you are even more beautiful? Is that even possible?"
"Come here and find out for yourself."
He crawled across the large bed to her and knelt astride. He stretched her arms above her head and grasped both wrists in one hand. His lips traveled from her mouth to her throat to her breasts. A soft bite made her yelp.
He placed one knee between her legs and then the other, separating her thighs, where he slipped his other hand.
She cried out again, this time in a deep throaty rumble. He turned his head up to look at her.
"Yes," she said.
Her hips rose up to meet him, everything else held captive by his hands and legs. It wasn't long before he felt that telltale quiver in her legs. "Yes, love. Yes."
She tried to release her arms, but he held on. She was so close…
Her pussy clenched around his fingers as he pressed in even deeper. When she softened, he let go of her arms. She pulled him on top of her and whispered in his ear, "Fuck me."
As he entered her, his gaze never wavered from her eyes. He thrust, pressing deeper with each breath. Her eyelids fluttered, but he insisted, "Look at me. Please." He needed to know she was with him and not in her imagination.
She held his head in her hands and ran her thumbs across his lips. His arms and chest flexed as he held himself only the slightest bit above her. Then he slid his hand underneath her low back and tilted her toward him, thrusting forcefully. He reminded her, "Look at me."
She brought her hands down to his buttocks and squeezed as the wave began at her legs and ascended to the top of her head. He couldn’t wait any longer. "Lola! Fuck!"
Their breath and their bodies continued in rhythm for moments that seemed to transcend time. When fatigue finally overtook them, Aidan laid his head on her chest and she stroked his hair. Her breath warmed the back of his head and her heart pounded underneath his cheek.
He spoke into her skin. "I love the way you give your body to me. You're so free, open, and generous."
"Aidan…"
He lifted his head to look at her. "But I need more, Lola."
Her face darkened. "What?"
"I need all of you. Give me everything. Everything that's real and true for you, even if it's hard or buried. Can you do that, Lo?"
Her bottom lip quivered until she pressed it between her teeth. "I don't know what that means."
His fingertip brushed across her lip, freeing it from the bite. "It means that we never pass on an opportunity to show each other who we really are. No hiding, no glossing, no covering. Just you and me, bare, honest, and never thinking we can't afford the truth."
"I understand. And I can. That’s what I want too."
His body softened further into her with a deep exhale. "We are… "
"Everything."
He lay his head back down, then skimmed his palm across her stomach and down, resting it right between her legs. "Would you come again?"
"Only the sex ninja knows…"
They spent the next several hours making up for the weeks of lost time.
* * *
"I haven’t slept that well for a long time," Aidan murmured into her ear, upon waking.
"We hardly slept, honey."
"It was perfect for me. Are you tired?"
"No. A bit sore, perhaps. But I feel good."
"I’m sorry you’re sore." He tickled his fingertips up the inside of her thigh.
"That’s fine. I just need to get more practice in, that’s all."
"I fully support that. One hundred percent."
"Good."
He paused the motion of his hand. "You know I’m dying to find out your big news, right? Trying to be patient, but it’s killing me."
"Alright. But first you have to promise to listen to the whole thing before reacting. It’s all really good, but it might not sound that way in the middle. Promise?"
"Oh, we’re doing promises now?"
"You have to promise, Aidan." She narrowed her eyes.
"Yes, I promise."
Lola sat up in bed and Aidan followed. "I think I’m moving to California. For a while."
"What?" He instantly regretted his reaction.
"Remember, honey? Listen to the whole thing first."
He nodded.
"It all started with Maddie. Well, it actually all started with you."
What could she mean?
"As you read, I started realizing a lot of things about my life. It was painful and I knew I needed to do something different. So, I gave notice at the magazine."
"Holy shit! Really?"
"Yes. It might take a while… I have to find and train my replacement, basically. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do afterward, I just knew it had to be something else."
He shook his head in shock.
"And then Maddie got a record deal. Some big producer was at the Joe's performance. She and Trevor decided to move to LA."
"No way."
"It’s probably not forever. You know Maddie - she can’t imagine not being a New Yorker. They’re talking a year or two, but her agent is already booking her a ton of gigs. This might be where it all happens for her."
"That’s amazing. Unbelievable, really. What about Trevor?"
"He’s thrilled. I think he’s the one who convinced her to take the offer. It’s pretty easy for him to get a teaching job, I guess. But he might just take some time off and support Maddie. They’re in a really good position."
"I’m so happy for them, Lo. Maddie has been reaching out to me, but I just couldn’t… She was just one step away from you, and I was trying… Anyway, I feel bad. I would have loved to congratulate her on this incredible feat. She definitely deserves it."
"You’ll still be able to. And don’t worry, she understood. So, with my best friend moving to LA, and my not having a job here anymore, I sort of decided I would go too. I figured it would be good for me to get out of NY as well. You were everywhere… It was too painful."
He kissed her gently on the forehead. He kept his calm and kept his word, even though he couldn’t see how any of this was good news for him.
She continued. "I didn’t know how I was going to earn a living. I mean, maybe I could have gotten a job over there just like the job I had here, but that seemed like a dumb move."
"So what will you do there, in LA?" What he really wanted to ask was how she could think of leaving, now that they had just reconnected. He bit his tongue.
"This is the truly unbelievable part of the story. You remember, Claire’s company just had their IPO? She’s a billionaire now. And also jobless and single. She offered to cover me, financially, for a year or two so that I could finish this book."
His mouth dropped open.
"That’s not even the craziest part. She wants me to write her story. I mean, one of the youngest female CEOs in Silicon Valley, forcefully ousted after an historic IPO… I think it’s actually set up to be a Hollywood movie."
"You’re going to write a book about your sister?"
"I know. For two people who could hardly have a ten-minute conversation without fighting, this is a big stretch. But a lot has happened in the past few weeks. Our relationship has transformed. I never realized what a little humility and understanding could do."
"Damn, Lola. Here I was moping around the house for weeks and you’ve completely reinvented your life. This is amazing, baby. You are incredible and I’m so happy for you." Most of that was true.
"For us."
"Us?"
"I know when you first came back from Asia, you were planning on leaving New York. Here’s our chance."
He sat up, eyes wide. "What are you saying, Lola?"
"Come with me. Let’s go to California… together. I haven’t decided if it’s going to be Los Angeles or San Francisco. We can choose."
"Is this really happening?"
"If you want it to."
"I would follow you to the ends of the earth, love. My answer now, and always, is yes."
19
Another Day in Paradise
THE LOUD KNOCK on the door caught Lola while she was halfway down the stairs.
"Wake up lazy bones!" Maddie sang her greeting as she stepped in the house.
Lola still hadn't gotten used to these sunrise meetings with her best friend for beach bootcamp. "I'm up, I'm up."
Lola stopped at the kitchen counter to pick up the thermos of coffee Aidan had left for her before he headed out to surf. She loved their morning routine. She just wished it didn't have to happen so early.
The women walked out the door and began the short stroll down the beach. The sun was already bright in the sky, slicing away at the slight morning chill. It was going to be another warm one. Another day in paradise, as Aidan liked to say.
Maddie had taken advantage of the fact that it was almost summer to pare down her workout outfit to almost nothing.
"Are you really wearing that, Mads? You're going to fall out during class."
"No, I won't. It’s sturdier than it looks." Maddie gave her torso a jiggle. "And I can't have strange tan lines all over the place."
Lola hardly recognized her best friend, whose high ponytail bounced as she walked. "You have adapted to LA lifestyle about a million times faster than I expected, Maddie. What happened to the hardened New Yorker dressed all in black? She's been replaced by LA Barbie."
"Not funny. I didn't realize how much I would like it here. Can you believe it's been six months?"
"I know. New York feels like it was a life time ago." Those six months in LA had been filled with as much joy as the previous year had been filled by turmoil.
They arrived at the small workout area and began to warm up while waiting for their classmates to arrive. Maddie dropped into a lunge while Lola hung from the monkey bars, hoping to stretch out her shoulders, chronically tense from the hours spent hunched over her computer. She groaned with pleasure.
"Aren't you glad Aidan picked LA? You would have been freezing your ass off in San Fran right now."
Maddie was right. June was one of the coldest months in the Bay Area. "Yeah. He did good. I get to be close to my best friend, with enough distance from the family."
"And that house…"
While Lola had been wrapping up her job at the magazine, Aidan singlehandedly had gotten them both packed and moved, while finding the perfect house on an unexpectedly peaceful patch of beach in northern Santa Monica. "Yeah. It’s perfect, isn't it?"
"Yup. You guys need to be throwing a party very soon."
"Maybe. We’ll have to find something to celebrate."
"I'm sure that won't be a problem."
Before Lola could ask Maddie what she meant, the beach was filled by the distinctive bark of their former Navy Seal, current soap opera star, bootcamp instructor.
* * *
There was almost nothing better than the feeling of being done with bootcamp.
"I think he really broke me this time, Mads. I swear." Lola stepped carefully on the sand, legs quivering.
"You say that every time, Lo. You'll be fine. Race you back to the house."
Lola was panting by the time the tall, light blue house came into view. She loved everything about it - the floor-to-ceiling windows that formed the entire back wall of the house for unimpeded views of the ocean, the relatively quiet stretch of beach in their backyard, and the loft she converted into her writing space at the top of the house.
Before going inside, they took off their shoes and walked into the still cold ocean up to their knees. Not a day went by that Lola didn’t touch the Pacific Ocean, with her hands or feet, and occasionally with her whole body. She felt as if it contained a magical elixir that brought her back to life. That, and the wonderful man who filled her days and nights with love.
Maddie entered the house and walked straight to the purified water tap next to the kitchen sink to refill her water bottle. "What are you two up to today?"
Lola poured herself a tall glass of green juice. "I'm not sure how much I'm going to see Aidan today. By the time he gets back from surfing, I'll be heading up to Culver City to shoot a new promo reel for the book. Then his students are taking him out to lunch."
"You better make sure they don't kidnap him."
"Seriously. I don't think they could have loved him any more than if he was Warren Buffett. Who would have thought my Wall Street powerhouse of a boyfriend would fall in love with teaching personal finance at a community college? He was so sad when class ended. I think he's going to pick up a bunch more classes in the fall. He loves them, they love him, it's perfect."
"Yeah, but how's he going to become a real estate mogul when he's so busy shaping young minds about the value of money?"
Lola shook her head. "Are you kidding? He's got it all figured out."
"As usual."
"Other than that, I'll be in the loft, wondering why I decided being a writer was a good idea."
"Still having trouble with the screenplay?"
"Yup. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I got high from the success of the book, thinking I could do anything. This project is kicking my ass."
"I have no doubt you're going to figure it out too, Lo." Maddie pressed her cheek to Lola's. "Okay, sweets, gotta run. We'll see you tonight, at the Mondrian, right?"
Lola loved Maddie's regular Thursday night gig at the posh hotel. They got all dressed up, pretending to be real Angelenos, living the celebrity dream. "Wouldn't miss it. Love you."
Lola contemplated breakfast. It was going to be another busy day and she needed fuel. Between launching the novel she was launching, based on her love story with Aidan, and writing a screenplay, which had begun as her sister's professional saga and had now become a family memoir, her days were jam packed.
She assembled an armload of fruits and a couple of hard-boiled eggs to bring upstairs and start working. She could get in at least a few hours of writing before heading into town. Or a few hours of staring at the blank computer screen wondering how she would get the screenplay done in time for her editor’s deadline.
* * *
It was early evening by the time Lola returned home, and more had gone right with the day than had gone wrong. Mostly, she looked forward to seeing Aidan. It was rare that a whole day went by without seeing each other.
The evenings were her favorite part of the day. Before eating whatever gourmet creation Aidan had prepared for dinner, Lola would come down from her office to find him waiting for her at the back door, barefoot and smiling. They stepped out of their back door and went whichever direction called to them.
As soon as Lola heard him downstairs, she shut her computer and bounded down the stairs.
"Hell
o, my love." He greeted her with a deep, lingering kiss.
"So glad to see you." How was it possible to miss him so much after only hours apart?
They walked out into the perfectly muted sun. "Let's go this way," he urged with a gentle tug on her arm. They walked along the shore, letting the cool water touch their toes.
"Tell me about your day, darling." Every day he asked and everyday she would recount what was interesting, exciting, disturbing or funny. "I just got the final marketing schedule for the book. September is going to be insane. I hope you're ready."
"Born ready, baby." They both grinned. "So, are they still trying to get you on all those talk shows?"
"Yup. It’s a hard sell - I'm a newbie author - but my agent seems to be booking them. I can't actually believe it's happening, Aidan. My book… our book… out in the world."
“It’s amazing. You’re amazing. It’s going to be huge!"
"That's what I'm afraid of. At least we've got the big trip coming up to quell my anxiety."
"How's the screenplay?"
“I’m really starting to regret turning it from Claire's story to my family's story. I have definitely hit a wall."
"No more leads about your grandmother?"
"I've exhausted all the public records and internet information. This woman is a complete mystery, as if she never actually existed. Or just fell out of the sky onto a beach in Hawaii."
"Or out of the ocean…"
"Funny."
"Well, we'll have plenty of time during our month there to do some on-the-ground investigation. I’m sure there's a logical explanation for the lack of records about her. And with all your relatives coming, you'll have lots of hands to help. If we need to stay there longer, that's no problem either. Extra time in paradise is not what I would call a hardship."
She gazed lovingly at him. "Thanks for being such a good sport about all this. Our sweet little romantic getaway to Hawaii has become a big research project, which now includes fifteen members of my family. You are a saint, Aidan Connelly."
"Not even close, Lola Jennings," he said with a devilish grin. "Let's stop here."
