The Perfect Present
Page 9
I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallows. “Maybe it’s better that you didn’t,” he says after a bit. “I would’ve been so happy with you, but I got to be here for my dad.”
“Your dad?”
He waits before he answers, his eyes watering when he does. “He’s dying, Jess,” he says. “Soon. I went to med school because of him. I wanted to help but I never...”
He trails off and I grab his hand. “I’m so sorry,” I say, my cheeks red and my eyes watering too. “This doesn’t matter, Rudy, I--”
“It matters,” he says. “You matter to me. So much.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to respond to this. Consoling him seems wrong, partly because he’s looking at me so very intently, his eyes wide. “Thank you for telling me,” he says after a bit.
I swallow. “You deserved to know,” I reply.
He stares at me for a minute before he inches forward. He tilts my face up and looks right into my eyes. “I’m not going to lose you,” he says. “Not again. I will go to the depths of hell for you, Jess. There’s no question about it. It might have worked out that I stayed here this time, but I won’t do that again. Never again.”
He closes the space between us slowly, but when he does, and our lips meet, it feels like there’s electricity coursing through my body. He kisses me softly at first, until I open my mouth to let him in, and then he’s kissing me fiercely, his tongue warring against mine. I can tell that he’s pacing himself, but I can also tell that he wants to go fast, that he wants this just as much as I do.
His hands tremble a little as he begins to fold my skirt up. “I love you in this dress,” he says and his breath is warm on my skin. “You look more and more beautiful every time I see you.”
He doesn’t say much else. He curls a finger around the sides of my panties and looks me in the eye before he begins moving again. “Yes?”
“Yes,” I say. “Please.”
He grins, and then groans, this low guttural groan that seems to come from his stomach and that drives me absolutely crazy. He moves my panties down without much difficulty, not very delicately. I’m sitting down on the sofa, so I know exactly what to do, which is to move my legs down so that he can straddle me. I would move, but I’m far too overcome to be able to, too turned on, too overwhelmed, and the fact that we’re doing this feels like a fairytale. There’s a part of me that doesn’t believe it’s real, not at all, so when he undoes his belt and shows me the erection he has been hiding under his jeans, I practically gasp.
He lowers himself a little before he slides a curled finger inside of me, grins, then penetrates me with his cock. He goes slow at first, though I can tell that he doesn’t want to, that this has been building up for years, and then faster, and faster, until we’re both moaning, saying each other’s name, screaming, and I can feel my stomach tensing up and releasing as my body heats up, my orgasm building from my core all the way to my fingertips.
He collapses next to me, pantless, panting, and beautiful, and he holds my hand, kissing my ring finger softly.
“You got better at that,” I say when I can finally find my voice again, too tired to be able to speak.
“Yeah,” he replies. “Well, so did you.”
I laugh a little bit and put my head on his shoulder. Things aren’t alright, but they’re getting better. And when he puts his arm around my shoulder and holds me close to him, so that I can hear his heart beating in his chest, I can’t help but smile.
“Hey,” he says when it’s been quiet for a few minutes.
I look up at him.
“What?”
“What do you want for Christmas?”
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER
RUDY
“Are you ready?” I say as I check the camera is steady on the tripod again.
Jess is standing in front of the mantelpiece, wearing an ugly sweater that shows off her baby bump and glowing. Behind her, a picture of our baby girl’s name. Charlotte, to honor my father’s mother.
Jess’ hair has grown out to her shoulders, and she’s wearing it down in waves. I don’t know how this happened or how it’s even possible, but she gets more beautiful as every day passes, and I can’t believe we’re lucky enough to be blessed by a Christmas baby.
I’m not an obstetrician, but I’ve become extremely close to our delivery team. Everything is packed and ready to go, and they’re going to deliver the baby at the hospital I work at. Everything has been meticulously planned. I thought I was a planner, but I didn’t know what a planner was until I got married to Jess in that courthouse ceremony.
It felt impulsive, but it never felt stupid. After I told my father I’d gotten the girl, it was important that I tie the knot with Jess. I always knew I wanted to make her my wife, ever since we were just teens playing at being adults, but since she had walked back into my life, I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible.
When I asked her if she wanted to get married, in that booth in the restaurant where our destinies had differed so many years ago, she nodded before she closed her eyes and fat tears slid down those beautiful cheeks.
Now we’re expecting a baby, and there’s a part of me that absolutely can’t believe it. I can’t believe how lucky I have been to have her walk back into my life, when I needed her so desperately.
And it has been hard. It hasn’t always been easy. But now, when she looks so radiant in front of the mantelpiece, when she’s just about ready to give birth to our daughter, I feel like I’m going to be sick with happiness.
She cocks her head. “Let’s hope surgery doesn’t take you this long,” she says.
“Sorry, sorry,” I reply. “I was just thinking about how lucky I am.”
She chuckles quietly. “That’s sweet, but my ankles are swollen--”
“And you don’t want to stand up for too long, I know,” I say. “Okay, say cheese... in ten seconds.”
“I’ll count,” she says as I press the button. “Ten...”
“Nine,” I say as I stand next to her, throwing my arm around her shoulder and putting my hand on her belly. She looks up at me.
“Oh, shoot,” she says. “I think seven...”
“No, five...”
“Four...”
“Three...”
“Two...”
The shutter goes off before we can finish and we both laugh a bit as I go pick the camera up from the tripod to look at how the picture came out. “Maybe we need to switch up,” I say when I see how blurry it is. “Perhaps we can go sit down on the sofa and try again.”
“Good idea,” she says. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
“Yes, it is,” I say. “Nothing to do with life saving surgery.”
“You do that?” she replies, smiling. “I’ve never heard you mention it.”
I shake my head and laugh. “Don’t worry,” I say. “The fact that you made this house look presentable again is far more impressive than any surgery.”
“I won’t argue,” she says, then smiles at me as she begins to wobble toward our new off-white sectional. “So. What do you want for Christmas?”
I smile at her and my heart flutters in my chest. “Honestly, Jess,” I say. “For the first time in my life, I have absolutely everything I could want.”
THE END
Author’s Note
Hi! Did you enjoy that? Thank you for reading it, I very much enjoyed writing it. If you liked it, you can join my mailing list here for exclusively discounts, previews, and stories. You can also always e-mail me at larissa@larissadesilva.com if you want to request something, ask me about a character or just want to chat. I love hearing from readers!
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