by S Doyle
He turned to look at me. “Amazing. He doesn’t care about any of it. Not the past, not the future. Not any of our baggage. He just wants to eat things he likes, and play with his trains, and not have his teeth hurt him. Today, I was the person who made a few of those things possible, so he was perfectly fine to embrace my presence. I don’t know that I’ve ever been accepted by anyone like that before. Maybe you. When you brought me a grape soda.”
I smiled. So much of it was true and some of it wasn’t. Danny didn’t let just anyone hold him. Even if they fed him broccoli tots, which, traitor that he was, he now loved.
“How was your surveillance trip?”
“Interesting. A lot of times I’m sitting around, waiting outside some hotel to click a few pictures. This was more about keeping a tail on the person, and it wasn’t easy. Sorry if that brings up a bad memory.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t. You need to be clever to do that job. You were always smart.”
“Unless Entwhistle comes through and gets my record expunged, it’s not really a future. I checked, and the state of Florida won’t issue a private investigator’s license to someone with a felony conviction.”
“Is that a possibility?” I asked, feeling hopeful. If that happened, if his conviction was overturned, it wouldn’t bring back the time he lost, but it would mean he no longer had to carry around the label of felon.
He shrugged. “Benfield thinks it might be, given the circumstances. I spoke with him recently and told him I wanted to pay for Entwhistle’s time on it. He laughed in my face. Fucking billionaires. I’m kind of glad I didn’t become one. I might have turned into an asshole just like him.”
“You’re your own special brand of asshole. Don’t ruin that.”
He looked at me, and, in that moment, it felt a little like how we used to be. I wondered if he felt it, too.
“I don’t want to talk about this stuff anymore, Ash.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
He sighed. The sigh of an old man, not someone in his twenties. Life had been so hard for him already, and, while there wasn’t anything I could do to change that, it didn’t make my heart ache for him any less.
“I want you to come over here and sit in my lap. So I can collect on that kiss you bet me. But also, because I want to remember what it feels like to have you in my arms. Then I want to take it from there.”
So stupid. Or so weak. Or way too needy when it came to him. I didn’t know what it was that drove me out of my seat and onto his lap. Why I circled my arms around his neck and let my fingers stroke his sensitive skin there.
“You feel good,” he said softly into my neck.
“I remember you not liking it when I sat on your lap,” I reminded him.
“I didn’t not like it. You just…”
“Scared you. I know.” I was always scaring Marc with my emotions, my closeness. With my love, really. I wasn’t sure if fifteen months in prison and one fake death would change that. But, sitting on his lap, listening to our son snore gently through the baby monitor, it was hard not to think about all the things that hadn’t changed between us.
I rested my hand on his cheek, trying to see inside his brain. “What are you thinking about?”
He tilted his head back and laughed. “I’m thinking about how I’m likely going to come after a couple of quick pumps inside you, and how utterly disappointed you’re going to be in me. It’s been a while. Since Vegas.”
“Me, too.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It wasn’t just sex. I didn’t jack off at all while I was inside. It didn’t help both my hands were messed up for a while, but beyond that, sexually, it was like a switch was turned off inside me. The other night after we texted, I almost did it, but I had this crazy idea I should wait for you now.”
“Marc,” I sighed. “I don’t know if sex is the answer to our problems.”
“We should have some and see.”
Then he dipped his head and kissed me. Like it happened every time, the world just fell away. His were the only lips I’d ever touched. His breath the only breath I’d ever tasted. There was always a sense of rightness when we kissed. A coming home.
Until his tongue started stroking mine, until his teeth started nipping at my bottom lip. When that happened, the safety and the comfort that was Marc became an infusion of sexual heat and energy.
I didn’t know if this was a good idea. I didn’t know if this would make matters more complicated or less complicated. Ultimately, I didn’t know if I wanted to give Marc a chance, a real chance, to make us a family.
In order for me to believe he could truly overcome everything that had happened to him, I needed to know he loved me. I needed to know he believed in that love. He told me, promised me, he never would. At least he would never say it, never express it. While I understood his reasons, it didn’t hurt any less. Because I needed the words. I used to think they weren’t important, but now I could see they were.
Now was the time to stop him, if I was going to, but I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Over a year without him. Over a year without touching him. Over a year when there were times I didn’t think I would ever let someone inside of me again.
I felt like a thief. Like I was stealing a few more memories of what it was like to make love to the man I loved. He lifted me effortlessly from his seat. Managed to bend down so I could grab the baby monitor, then took me inside my bungalow, down the hall, to the room across from the nursery.
Carefully, he laid me on the bed and took the monitor from my hand to set it on the dresser.
“Get naked,” he ordered.
“You get naked,” I fired back.
He didn’t hesitate. He pulled his shirt off and I could see, again, the definition of his body. Hard muscles, thick biceps, ripples in his abs more than I could count.
He’d been hot before. Now, he was ridiculous.
I’d fallen in love with him when he was twelve and scrawny. Loved him still when he was fourteen, tall and lanky. When he was sixteen and star of the soccer team, all lean muscles.
It didn’t matter what version of him I had, only that I had him.
He kicked off his boots and socks. Shucked his jeans and briefs, then stood over me wearing nothing more than a very serious expression and a massive erection.
“Touch me.” Another demand, but I could see it was beyond sexual yearning. It was as if he needed to prove this was real. That his desire was real. I gripped his dick in my palm and stroked him. Gently at first, then more aggressively.
“Take off your top,” he said, through clenched teeth. “I need…I need…”
I knew what he needed. I always knew what Marc needed. I released him only long enough to pull my top up and over my head. Then I undid the front clasp of my very non-sexy, single-mom bra.
Marc got on the bed and kneeled between my thighs, his eyes fixed on my breasts.
“They’re different after Danny,” I tried to explain. They were fuller, rounder, my nipples more pronounced.
He moved over me, so his knees straddled my waist.
“Do it again. Touch me.”
I reached for him, stroking him again even as his hands reached for my breasts. Lifting them, thumbing the nipples, which were super sensitive now. More than they’d been before. I could feel each touch shoot internal darts directly to my pussy.
My palm was damp with his pre-cum, and I used it to make my strokes glide more smoothly. Not that I was stroking him as much as he was fucking into my fists. I looked up at him and saw his eyes were closed. He was in some state in his head, as if he, too, had thought he would never know this feeling again.
“I’m going to come,” he barked. “Tits or mouth? Shit.”
Because there was no option then, his hips were snapping and warm streams of his cum were shooting out onto my chest. It seemed endless, until finally he was bending over me, breathing heavy.
And then I heard it. A sob broke from his throat. I reach
ed up and wrapped my hand around his neck, dug my fingers into his scalp. His eyes were still closed, his face was red. I wanted to hold him, but when I tried to pull him down on top of me, he pulled away.
Climbing off the bed, he made his way to the attached bathroom. I heard the water running, then he came back out with a washcloth to clean me up.
I noticed he was still semi-hard.
“It will be better now. I’ll last longer inside you,” he said thickly. I could hear the roughness in his voice, but the tears were gone.
“Marc, talk to me. I don’t know what you’re feeling and I think I have to.”
His eyes flared for a second. “Alive, Ash. I feel fucking alive. Take off your pants. I’m going to eat your pussy until you come, and then I’m going to fuck you until you come again.”
He bent to pick up his jeans and pulled the condom out of a back pocket.
“Pretty confident, huh?” I said, even as I wiggled out of my white jeans. Who was I kidding? I was defenseless against him and he knew it. He’d always known it.
“Pretty desperate,” he said. Then, before I could get them off, he got hold of my panties and ripped them off me. I don’t know why, but the sound of that, of the material tearing open, made me even hotter.
Then he was on the bed again, on his knees with my thighs hanging over his shoulders. There was no time to worry about what he might think of the faint stretch marks on my belly. No time to worry if I still knew how to do this, how to have sex after so long, after giving birth.
There was only his tongue dancing along my clit while his finger pumped inside me. He was only using one and I still felt full. Taking him inside me was not going to be easy, and there was something erotic about that, too. Like I was a virgin all over again, offering myself to him. Only to him.
He’d shown me no mercy that night and he showed me no mercy now. He ate me like a man starving, leaving nothing untouched. When his finger found that spot deep inside me, I nearly exploded.
“Yes, Marc, yes. There. Right there. Don’t stop, don’t stop! Unh!”
My body jolted into climax, and I had to push his head away I was so freaking sensitive.
I was puffing out breaths of air, coming down from the adrenaline rush of orgasm, and he was leaning over me, holding his weight off me with his thick biceps.
“You’re really tight, Ash.”
“I know.”
“This isn’t going to be easy, and I don’t fucking care,” he growled. “Nothing is ever fucking easy between us. So, this is the way it’s going to be.”
I heard the crinkle of the condom wrapper, and burst into tears the second I felt him starting to push his way inside. It pinched and burned, and he wouldn’t stop, and I didn’t care, because it was Marc. He was coming inside my body, and it felt like I was also waking up. Like something had been missing that was only now found again.
A bubble of emotion filled up and erupted.
“Fuck me!” I shouted, and hoped I wasn’t so loud I woke up Danny.
“Yes, I’m fucking you. And stop crying. You know I hate it when you cry while I’m taking you.”
I couldn’t stop, though. I cried for him and cried for me. I cried for every day of pain we’d inflicted on each other in order to have this. He was moving roughly inside me, the pain of his entry had subsided now. There was just the feeling I always got when I was beneath him. When he was pinning me to the bed with his dick, while his hand was under my ass pushing me up against him so he could go deeper inside of me. Like he needed more from me. Like he needed everything I could give him.
Unexpectedly, I felt his middle finger slide up my ass, and, suddenly, the pressure of him everywhere was too much, and I screamed again as I climaxed. My whole body seizing in a pleasure so intense it almost bordered on agony.
Two more heavy thrusts and he was there with me. His big body shaking over mine.
“Fuck. Fuck,” he barked, and I knew it was the same for him, too. Almost too much.
He collapsed on top of me. He removed his finger from my ass, but his cock didn’t leave my pussy. He was still heavy and firm and the throb of him sent continuing pulses of pleasure inside me.
I listened to his breaths, and, because I was a mother, I listened for the sounds of my son possibly waking. But no, according to the monitor, Danny’s gentle snores continued on undisturbed. Thank God.
Eventually, Marc pulled away from me and went to the bathroom to deal with the condom. When he came back, I hadn’t moved. Sprawled out naked on the top of my bed, trying to come to grips with what was happening to me. Both physically and emotionally.
Marc laid on his back next to me, but he didn’t touch me.
“Why do you always have to cry like that?” he asked.
I sat up and brought my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them tightly.
“Because I feel so much,” I said.
That was the problem. The thing I’d hoped, maybe, wouldn’t be true. Because I loved Danny now, I had this idea I might love Marc less. That love was a pie cut into sections. Cutting away a big piece for my baby, might make me more capable of handling whatever little Marc was willing to give me.
But love wasn’t a pie, and, after one time of having him again, having him move inside my body again, I was crushed.
The tears welled up again, and I turned my head away from him so he couldn’t see them.
“I think you should go,” I said hoarsely.
“Talk to me, Ash.”
I shook my head and sniffed. “What’s left to say?”
I felt him come around my body, felt his chest against my back even as I tried to pull myself into a tighter ball.
“Was I too rough?” he asked softly.
“It’s not about sex, Marc. It’s about how you make me feel. I don’t know if…I thought it might be different now that I have Danny, but we proved it’s not different. It’s always the same. It’s all-consuming, and I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”
“I don’t understand what that means, babe. We’re here. We’re together. We have a son. That’s all we have to do.”
I shook my head. “I love you, Marc. I’ve always loved you. And you want me. And you need me. And I make you feel alive. But I don’t know if I can do it anymore. I don’t know if I can continue to be this well of love you drink from, but never give back. I thought I had to leave you because you would never forgive me. I believed that because I don’t trust you to love me. Not the way I love you, and it hurts. It hurts so much. ”
“Ash,” he sighed, and I felt his lips press at a spot between my shoulders, and my body shuddered with reaction. Of course it did.
“I told you that day at the park, the day you found out about Danny. I told you to think about how you promised me, almost like a vow, you would never love me. I’d resigned myself to a life without you. But having you here, like this, it’s almost harder.”
“Don’t say that,” he said, and I could feel the tension in his body.
“We were almost free of each other, Marc.” I told him. “We can be again. This time by choice.”
“Fuck that.” His arms hugged me tighter.
13
Marc
My world was in my arms right now. She was wrapped up into a tight ball, but I was still holding her, which meant she couldn’t run away or hide or die on me.
It felt like I had one chance, and one chance only, to get this right. For me, for her, and for the kid snoring away in the next room, who didn’t know his future happiness hinged on whether I convinced her of the truth.
My truth.
I pulled her against me more tightly and pressed my chin on her shoulder. In some ways it made it easier, not having to look her in the face, not having to see what was in her eyes. Because it was always there in Ash’s eyes.
Her truth.
I knew her truth was me.
“I never told you about the day cops came to take me away from my mother.”
“You nev
er talked about her,” Ash said quietly.
“No. Because it hurt too much. But that day, the day the cops showed up at the door, I knew I was fucked. Because Mom was already high. On the couch, spaced out, wearing a nightgown and nothing else. We lived in this one-room studio, so it was all there for them to see from the door. The needles on the carpet by the couch. The chaos of living with a junkie. I remember running over to the couch and trying to shake her awake. To get her to be more alert. I kept telling them she was just asleep. She’d been working late, and she was just tired. Meanwhile, one of the cops was already looking around for my clothes to put in a bag. I told my mom they were going to take me away. I told her if she didn’t get up, if she didn’t fight for me, they were going to take me. And she said she didn’t care.”
The memory washed over me like it had just happened. I remembered how she’d even tried to shoo me away, with her arm hanging helplessly off the couch.
Don’t care.
Slurred and barely said, but I heard it.
“I screamed at her, raged at her, until finally, one of the cops had to physically pick me up and pull me out of the apartment. As soon as the apartment door shut, I was done. Any love I’d felt for her was gone. She didn’t care about me, then I didn’t care about her.”
Ash’s hand reached for my thigh. “But that’s not true. You did love her. You kept visiting her.”
“I’m not saying I didn’t try. I did. I wanted to be enough to make her better, but I don’t know if I understood then, what her getting better meant. The more time passed, the more I was worried she would.”
“But that last time you went to visit her, and she was gone. You were so upset. George wouldn’t let me follow you.”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t upset she was gone. I was pissed, yes. Just one more way she got to say, don’t care, and I’d had to take it, had to feel her rejection deep inside. But by then I didn’t want to go back with her. Ask me why.”
“Because you had George. Who was good to you. You had a stable home and a good school.”
“No. I was so mad that day, so pissed, because I was afraid she was going to get better. That she was going to want me back. Being afraid like that, knowing I was vulnerable again, sent me into a freaking rage. It was you, Ash. I was afraid she was going to take me back and I was going to lose you.”