by Fiona Murphy
Damn it, this is not the place, as the phone on the desk rings reminding me of where we are. Anne moans as my grip on her hips tighten and hold her in place, not allowing her to move. “Please, I need you right now. You can’t tell me everything I’ve wanted to hear since that first morning and not make love to me now.”
The words make love were a slip, it’s obvious in the way she goes still. Hearing her say it has me losing all control. My hand slips up around her throat, holding her in place. “You belong to me.” Liquid silver glows up at me. “Say it damn it, you belong to me.”
“I belong to you.” Her words slur as if she’s drunk off them.
“All of you, belongs to me.” I whisper against her lips, taking in her breath as she exhales. The air all around is us thick, heavy with desire.
“All of me belongs to you.” It’s a vow, this time each word is clear, solemn.
“Never forget that.”
“Never.”
It’s enough, for now. All my tension eases, this time when I pick Anne up, she doesn’t protest. Setting her on her feet in front of me, she sways slightly when I let her go in order to stand. “I promised you a campus visit and I’m keeping it. If I don’t, I won’t be able make love to you in peace.”
Her frown turns into a glowing smile when I talk about making love to her. Soon, very soon, she’ll understand what the words really mean. “I don’t want you resenting me for not keeping my promise.”
Her deep breath is shaky. She only nods as she slips her hand in mine.
The next three and a half hours are torture. Anne doesn’t seem to be doing well enduring them either, at first. She asks questions, then has to ask them again a few times, it’s obvious she’s having a hard time concentrating. I wonder if I’ve cheated her out of the visit I intended her to have, until we get to the women’s health research building.
Her full attention is on every word the professor and student are saying during the tour. I’m surprised, after how she seemed uninterested in the other science and research programs. Anne takes several of the pamphlets, adding them to the ones she had already been given. It’s a good thing Connie had handed her a cloth tote bag with the logo of the university on it, as it’s filling rapidly.
Anne perks up during the history and English tour, asking questions and even taking notes on the handouts they give her. I don’t like the way the history professor is standing too close to her. I’ve been doing my best to hang back, chatting with Connie as she let the individual professors and students discuss the programs.
I’m about to take a step forward when Anne says something I can’t hear and the man smiles weakly before moving away from her. When she looks at me, her smile is one of reassurance. Once again I wonder how she doesn’t know, she could read me from across the room, yet she didn’t see our connection for what it is.
Her initial enthusiasm over the teaching course wanes quickly. Connie steps forward to reassure her there is a difference between teaching at a level below college or university. I hang back, to keep my promise not get involved until she wants me to. Anne doesn’t seem reassured in the slightest and we move on.
As we keep going, nothing interests Anne again until we get to the Weinberg College and she watches a photo shoot in progress. Her eyes are everywhere as she takes in the scene. Her conversation with the professor is animated, yet when she talks with the student her excitement fades.
Yet, she still seems interested in what the student is saying and they talk for long enough to make me antsy at the sight of them together. Especially at the way he’s staring at her breasts more often than he looks her in the eye. When he hands her a card, I’m done.
Anne slides her arm around my waist. “Kenny, this is Grant. Thank you for all the information, I’ll think about it and maybe give you a call.” Her hand goes up to my chest as I tense at her saying she’ll call him. Looking up at me, “I’m ready to go now. I think I’ve got all the information I came here for, and then some.”
Chapter Twelve
The car door closing sounds loud, bursting the hazy bubble I’ve been in for the last few hours. In the thirty seconds it takes Grant to round the car and get in beside me, I’ve come crashing down to earth. Once he’s in the car again, he sees it. His hands gentle, he pulls me into his lap. “Shhh... we’ll be home soon.”
I don’t bother to argue, I lay my head back on his chest. Closing my eyes I let the world fall away. The only thing I know is Grant is holding me tightly, as if he’s never going to let me go. It’s all I want to know. I feel the tension in Grant flow out of him and with it, my own. Somehow, I slip into the blackness of sleep in only minutes.
I’m roused from sleep by Grant’s soft murmurings, none of them I understand. I simply lean on him allowing him to guide me out of the limousine then through to the elevator.
It’s all coming back to me now. My admission about missing him when he wasn’t with me. Grant telling me he didn’t want to go by the agreement anymore, me asking him to make love to me. Grant promising he would be able to make love to me once his promise had been complete. If he didn’t want to go by the agreement anymore, where do we go from here? “Was she prettier than me? Did she suck your cock better than I do?”
Grant goes still as he unlocks the door to the condo. Oh, my god, I sound like a jealous wife. There is no way I had a right to ask those questions, but out of everything I’ve learned today they are the only questions I have.
Opening the door to the condo, he pushes it open before turning to me. He doesn’t say a word, just bends over and stands, with me slung over his shoulder. I want to yell or scream at him. I can’t, because I’m too ashamed about the last thing I said. I land on the bed with a plop.
Shaking his head, he starts undressing. “Out of everything today, that’s what you care about? I swear you make me nuts sometimes. Compared to you she was a fucking hag and no one’s mouth has ever made me come as hard and quickly as yours. Are you fucking satisfied?”
Naked now, he’s angry, hands on his hips, aggression in every line of his body. My right brain screams be afraid. I’m not, not for a second. Instead, I’m breathless. I feel like I’m at the edge of a precipice waiting for the fall I know is coming, but unable to step back. I shake my head. I’m not satisfied, not by a long shot.
Rough hands pull my skirt off, his hands shake as he yanks my panties down. Before I have time to think about the shaking in his hands he tears my blouse open and off. Closing his eyes, his head goes down. A single finger burns a trail over where my skin meets the satin covering of the bra.
I can’t move, trapped in the air between us. It’s back, that moment in the office where the air became too thick to breathe. When it felt as if there was no one and nothing but the two of us.
Grant presses a kiss to the valley between my breasts while a hand undoes my bra, releasing my breasts to him. “Mine?”
His eyes are back to mine. I blink now, terrified by what I see there. It swallows me whole, consuming me until there is nothing left inside me. Instinct for self-preservation screams to run, run fast, run far. Overwhelmed, for a heartbeat I’m lost in my fear then a new instinct has me reaching for Grant.
I press my palm flat against his chest. The powerful, hard thumping of his heart beneath my hand quiets the fear. Finally, I answer him the only way I know how. In a whisper that trembles, from lungs so tight I can barely breathe. “I belong to you.”
Blue fire glows, “Mine.” He whispers against my mouth as his mouth covers mine. Deep drugging, his kiss leaves me breathless, boneless.
His mouth trails down my neck, sucking lightly on the heartbeat pounding at my throat before pressing a kiss there. Grant cups a heavy pouting breast for his hot mouth to lick, tease, suckle until I’m nearly in tears. He presses a kiss to the painfully tight nipple before moving to the other breast to begin the same assault.
Restless, needy, my hands reach for his cock, desperate to urge him inside me where I need him most. He simply
captures my wrists to hold them above my head, ignoring my pleas, dropping a kiss to my begging mouth.
He kisses lightly down my body, licking, kissing gently until at last he reaches my weeping, aching core. His lightest touch has my swollen, heated skin shivering in reaction. With a sweep of his velvet tongue he opens me to his slow, languorous tasting of me. My whole body is shaking with the need for release. He says something against me, but I’m too lost to understand him. Seconds later he moves up to suck deeply on my clit, sending me into a body shuddering climax.
Before I have stopped shaking, Grant is above me. His eyes capture mine as he thrusts into the heart of me until we are skin to skin. For the first time there is no skill, no control in his thrusts into my body. There is only need driving him into me again and again, until all over again I’m spiraling out of control into another climax. It’s so powerful, so intense I scream, clinging to Grant. I’m over the precipice now, falling headlong, every muscle tight, preparing for the crash, only it never comes. When Grant comes with me his arms are wrapped tightly around me and I melt into him.
For a long time we don’t move. I don’t want to move. I don’t want this moment to ever end. Then Grant rolls to his side, I cling to him. He pulls me tight against him. When the tension ebbs out of Grant, I think he’s asleep and chance a look at him. He’s not asleep, our eyes meet.
His smile is sad. “I love you, Anne. I thought I could hold it in and wait for you to be ready for me to tell you, but I can’t. I don’t want you to ever wonder where you stand with me. I hated that you were afraid of me today, of only believing you were safe in our bed.” I can’t breathe, my chest aches.
“Hey, shh, it’s okay, it will all be okay. I understand it’s scary. If it’s any consolation, sweetheart, I didn’t want to fall in love. The idea of you having my heart is as scary for me as it is for you, but you do.
“I get the only point of reference you have for love is the love you had for your son. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose him, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. We’ll learn this together.”
My thoughts are a confused jumble, he can’t mean it. Love isn’t real, and if it is it doesn’t last. Yet, staring up into Grant’s eyes, I see he does mean it. For him it’s very real. Fear threatens to overtake me. I don’t know anything about love, not really.
He’s right, the only thing I know about love was the love I felt for my son. It had been complete and total and over too soon. I only know of love as pain, when it was gone it felt like my whole life had been shattered around me. It’s what it felt like when I saw my son’s tiny body before they took him down to the morgue. I don’t want to know anything more about love. I don’t ever want to hurt that badly again.
Looking back up, I see Grant is asleep. A pang of sadness hits me to see his brow furrowed in sleep. Already he has to be regretting what he said. I can’t give Grant what he wants and needs. When he figures that out, it will only hurt him more.
Knowing I won’t have long before he wakes up again, I try to wiggle out of his grip. He tightens his hold before finally letting me go with a sigh. I run for the closet and pull out my suitcase. I start throwing things inside, not caring what I’m grabbing.
Blindly, I grab a dress, tossing it on the island as I open a drawer looking for a bra. The memory of our first morning slams into my chest, and I have to grasp the island to stay standing. The morning after, when I knew my life had changed completely. That moment watching Grant, wanting to touch him, desperate to discover every inch of him. While I was trying to figure out what is was about him that made me so hungry for him.
Then I remember those crazy, scary, overwhelming moments in the bathroom, as I tried to understand what I was feeling. How, ever since, I’ve done my best to ignore those feelings. They hadn’t gone away, in those moments when I woke up to find Grant still in bed with me they were there, in the times when Grant walked with me through the Shedd, and as we slowly walked through the art museum they were there. I can’t walk away from them because they were there even when he wasn’t. If I left the feelings stayed with me, they weren’t going away.
The realization turns my legs to gelatin, and I hit the floor with a thump I don’t even feel. I don’t know how long I sit there with my arms wrapped around my legs. I’m unseeing, unaware of anything except that Grant loves me and he had every reason to be scared of loving me, because love isn’t something I know how to do.
“I knew I should have waited.” Grant sounds tired, not angry or sad, just tired. He’s looking around at the mess I’ve made, and the open suitcase. He’s still naked, and even with all the turmoil my mind is in, I want him instantly. He sees it in my eyes and shakes his head with a smile.
Bending down he picks me up, his hold tight yet gentle. “I told you, sweetheart, you aren’t going anywhere and neither am I. We’ll figure it out together.”
This time when he lays me down in bed he’s gentle. When he follows me down his touch is hungry, demanding, voracious. Thinking of how close I came to never feeling this again, I’m just as hungry, just as voracious.
For the first time, he’s rough enough for a moment I wonder if he’ll go too far, but he doesn’t. Pulling back, he kisses me in apology until I urge him back to making love to me. When I come he follows me, catching me as I shatter into a million pieces, putting me back together in his arms.
I’m woken up by Grant’s kiss on my temple as he says my name. “Hey, sleepyhead. I’m going to order some much needed dinner from downstairs, any requests?”
“Mmm...” I run a hand over his cheek, needing to touch him. “Steak and a baked potato and something green, a salad we can share.”
“Sounds good, the bath is running. Go have a soak. I’ll come and get you when the food gets here.”
“Okay.”
While we eat, Grant is careful to steer the conversation away from what he said. Instead, he focuses on the campus visit. “You’ve had the tour. You talked to everyone there was to talk to. What are you thinking about for your next career?”
I throw a fry I’ve stolen at him. “I love how you ask as if you already didn’t know. If I can make it work, then yes. I want to do photography.
“Kenny, the guy you were giving killing glares to and who is gay, by the way, talked about how he creates covers for all these independent authors. He said he can barely keep up with the demand. Right now, he has a few models he works with and is trying to get more. He’s created his own set of stock photos of models to use for the covers but he’s already running through them.
“The more we got to talking the more I was thinking about the stock photo websites you were talking about and thinking about making one of my own. Kenny said there’s a niche he had overlooked when he did his first stock photos, covers with plus sized women like me. He was crazy enough to ask me if I would be a model at the next shoot he’s planning at the end of the month.”
“Well, you sure as fuck aren’t doing any modeling. I’m not having you posing for some guy half-naked. I don’t care if he’s gay or not, he was staring at your breasts like he wasn’t. I think it’s a great idea. You’ll be creating a steady income stream with the site. You can still spend time shooting the city and who knows, maybe more.
“You spent a lot more time in the women’s center than I thought you would. Was there something there that interested you?”
I shrug. I’m still surprised, myself, at the thoughts I had in the center. “It was all fascinating, the way they want to educate women and help women. The way they talked about the advances they’ve made helping women with fertility problems. I... it was the first time I wondered about maybe one day having another baby.”
Wondering if I made a mistake admitting it, the look on his face has me exhaling in relief. After Thomas died I believed I would never have another child. In my mind, I was unwilling to replace Thomas with another. Then gradually, as I lived a normal life, hearing my co-workers brag, complain, a
nd moan, about their children, I envied them. Yet, not once had I considered or wondered about having another baby until today. When I thought about it I imagined the baby a miniature of Grant.
Smiling widely, his eyes glowing. Grant picks me up, setting me down on the kitchen table, pulling off the shirt he had put on me when I got out of the bath. A hand runs over my stomach, “I want that, a baby, our baby. You and me, I want that very badly.”
His words thrill me. Even as he’s entering me I’m already close to orgasm at the idea. It’s clear I’m not the only one, as Grant doesn’t take nearly as long as he usually does before sending us both over the edge into our climax.
The rest of the day is spent in a sleepy haze of making love. We end the night in a bath together, before going back to bed. I’m very sore, but happily so, I assure him. Grant wraps me in his arms, pressing a kiss to my temple he whispers, “I love you, sweetheart.”
Unlike earlier today, the words don’t scare me. They comfort me as I fall asleep in his arms.
Over the next two weeks Grant and I explore every inch of Chicago together. He tells me he loves me often. Sometimes he says it with a laugh as I surprise him, other times it’s casual when he kisses me before heading into his office, or I leave the house. He says it most often when he’s making love to me. I can tell the difference now, between the very lust-filled fucking we did in the beginning and the way he touches me now.
One night I whisper I miss being fucked and Grant delivers in spectacular fashion. Then as I cling to him, listening to the pounding of his heart, he whispers he loves me and I answer him with a kiss to his pounding heart.
Our visit to the School of the Art Institute is everything I thought it would be, down to our first argument since the Northwestern visit. “I don’t want you paying my tuition. It should really go without saying.”