by Evans, LJ
“No rules,” he said, switching to the other breast. My body burned, fighting to get the words out.
“Rules.”
His tongue and mouth stopped the caress of my breast, and he looked up at me from his position there. The desire I saw in his eyes stopped my breath, made my words almost disappear.
“One night. When it’s done, we don’t have to continue. We can stop. No regrets. No feeling bad about calling it quits. No hard feelings,” I said quietly, chest heaving. And I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or approving. Uncertainty wavered in his eyes. He nodded and moved as if to take me back in his mouth, but I pulled on his hair. “Say it.”
“One night, Georgie. But I mean one full night. All night. Not just once. Not twice. I’m talking all night.”
My body quivered as his hands moved across me. I smiled, moving my hand over his underwear again, and his eyes closed. I teased, “Exactly how many times do you think we can get in then?”
He groaned. “Stop talking, and we’ll find out.”
And we did, moving together as if our bodies knew exactly where to touch and kiss and suck and bite and surrender. As if we’d done this many times before. As if fate and the stars were laughing at our promise of one night. I tried to keep my heart tucked inside my body, but Mac’s caresses slowly tugged my skin apart, leaving it open and raw.
When he finally reached for the bedside drawer and the condoms that were stored there, I felt like I was more exposed than I had ever been before. When he rolled the condom on, and my hands went there automatically, smoothing it on with him, pulling at him, eager to have him inside me, his moans were echoed across me. When I looked into his eyes, I saw nothing that spoke of the one night we’d agreed on. I saw, in his eyes, a future he wanted, and I still wasn’t sure it could happen. I saw pain and the idea of love that might never come true.
But we continued, bodies pleasing each other, souls breathing into each other’s hearts. Morning was going to be painful, but it would have to wait until we were done with the pieces of us that needed this. The touch that we’d feel for a long time after.
♫ ♫ ♫
I woke to a smell that was unfamiliar. Masculine. Salty. Like the sea. A scent as intoxicating as coffee, but this was full of promises I couldn’t have. My body was wrapped in muscular arms that held me so tight I was afraid to breathe in case I woke him.
My heart leaped, and I told it to go away. To hide back in the cavity of my chest.
I opened my eyes, Mac’s face inches from mine. He looked peaceful. Younger than the twenty-eight years we both showed on our driver’s licenses. My body was sated and sore all at the same time. The challenge of one night that I’d laid down had been more than fulfilled as we’d savored each other over and over again.
But it was morning now. I could see the light beginning to filter in behind the gray blinds that covered the windows that I knew looked out toward Capitol Hill, because they faced the same direction as the windows in my loft.
Descartes was wrong. Dreams and reality could be the same thing. In this one brief moment, they were. They were a truth. The problem was, I couldn’t make the moment last. The reality would drift apart from the dream. This was just a glimpse of a point where the x- and y-axis crossed briefly before journeying back along their own lines, the reality and dreams going their separate ways.
I moved slowly, testing to see if it would wake him. But it didn’t. He was out cold. Our “night” had barely ended, but I was unaccustomed to being in someone’s arms. Even when Jared and I had spent the night together, we’d always had our own sides of the bed. We’d never been so entangled―so exhausted from the passion―that we’d just fallen asleep where we’d stopped moving.
I continued my measured moves, not wanting to risk waking him.
Eventually, I’d removed all of my body from his, and I skirted to the edge of the bed, picking up my underwear and shoes. Then, I turned back for a last glance at him. His skin still bore the deep bronze of the ocean from his weeks of sailing just as his body still bore the mark of his military career. Toned and unforgiving in many ways. His dark hair was mussed from my hands. His blue eyes were hidden behind closed lids. He was more gorgeous than any man I’d ever shared a bed with. Jared may have been on magazine covers, but this man was built in a way that was both real and mesmerizing.
Last night hadn’t felt like anything I’d experienced before now. It had felt like it was full of emotions that I’d never let out. Emotions that I’d always resisted. It felt like my life was now forever going to be known by a series of moments that included before and after. Like the lock sliding shut on my storage unit in July. Like the before and after that had defined my life from when my dad had been arrested. I would forever be looking at my life as before and after this night with Mac.
I tore myself away, walking out of the room.
I picked up the green dress from where it had pooled on the floor by the kitchen. I’d known when I bought it what I was doing. I’d known exactly where the dress would lead us. But I hadn’t been able to get out of my head the idea of him unzipping it once I’d put it on.
I moved to the loft to retrieve clothes before going to my bathroom to shower. When I came out, the apartment was still quiet.
I grabbed the bag that held my research for Theresa and left the apartment, shutting the door quietly. I needed time and space because I didn’t know if I’d be able to look him in the eyes and stick to what I’d said the night before. I’d said we could walk away with no regrets. That it was just one night. But the truth was, I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to walk away, and yet, I had to give him the chance to do so.
I spent the day at the law library, reading my textbooks, taking notes, and working on Theresa’s research. I succeeded in keeping my mind off Mac as long as I didn’t move, but once I moved, the glorious aches from the night before would return, and my heart would speed up to a traitorous pace, reliving our moments…our kisses.
My phone vibrated on the table.
DANI: Mac is acting weird.
ME: Are you back from your night with Russell?
DANI: Yes. Why aren’t you here?
ME: I’m at the law library. Like always.
DANI: Why aren’t you here?
ME: I just told you.
DANI: This is why Mac is acting weird. You slept with him and left. Was he really that awful? I mean, I don’t want to know, really. He’s my kid brother. But I did have more faith in him than that.
ME: I’m not talking to you about this.
DANI: But you’re not moving out, right?
ME: Why would I leave?
DANI: You’re the best roommate we’ve had in ages.
ME: Puhlease.
DANI: Truth. You’re family already.
ME: Trust me. You don’t want me as family.
DANI: Too late. You already are.
This hit me in the heart. I hadn’t been around them long enough to be family, but Dani had accepted me wholeheartedly, even knowing who my family was…maybe even more so than Mac had. I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t.
THE GUY: Dani says you’re at the library.
ME: Yes.
THE GUY: Will you be home soon?
My heart stuttered again. Family. Home. It was just too much. I had a family I loved. That loved me back. But the only place that had ever felt like home was the apartment above the salon I’d grown up in that was now gone. I didn’t really have a home anymore. Dani and Mac felt too much like home. Too much like things I could lose.
THE GUY: Do you want us to order from Bentley’s for you?
ME: You’re tempting me with gnocchi?
THE GUY: I’d love to tempt you with more than that.
I couldn’t respond right away because my heart wanted to patter happily and hopefully at what he meant. Was he saying he wanted more than one night? I plunged forward, figuring it would be eas
ier to read his answer than to have to look him in the eye. Chicken. I’d never played chicken until Mac.
ME: That would break our one-night rule.
THE GUY: You left before our night was over, so I feel like you broke it first.
ME: The sun was out when I left.
THE GUY: The end of a night is not the sun rising. It’s being able to kiss the woman you were with as you wake up. To maybe have breakfast with roaming hands. To savor that moment together.
ME: I think we savored the heck out of it.
THE GUY: That wasn’t anything. I could have gone a few more rounds.
ME: Liar.
THE GUY: I don’t lie.
My body turned slowly into bubbling liquid covered in goosebumps at the thought of Mac having more in him. Of him being able to touch and fill me a few more times before I’d left.
THE GUY: So, gnocchi?
ME: No.
THE GUY: Too late, Dani already ordered it.
ME: Then, why did you even bother asking?
THE GUY: Come home. We need to talk.
ME: We already talked.
THE GUY: Come home, Georgie.
The demand and the plea were written in the text. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it was there, and my heart hurt from it all. From wanting to be wanted. From wanting to be a part of their family. From the guilt of knowing what my addition would do to them.
But I also knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. That I would go home, drawn like a bat to the darkness of its cave as the dawn approached, hoping I wouldn’t be trailing with me any blood-borne pathogens.
Mac
SAVE ROOM
“This just might hurt a little
Love hurts sometimes when you do it right.”
Performed by John Legend
Written by Buie / Cobb / Stephens / Adams / Wilson
I’d woken to her gone. The scent of her all over my body and my sheets, but not her. I’d wanted to wake up with the warmth of her in my arms. That was different than I’d ever felt after sex with a woman. Normally, I wanted to be gone before the look in their eyes changed from lust to love. I hadn’t been prepared for love.
I hadn’t been prepared until Georgie.
I pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and left my room.
“Georgie?”
Nothing. Silence. But she’d showered. I could smell the steam and the cherry-blossom scent that was in her shampoo or soap or just her. I looked toward the entryway where we all tended to throw our bags and keys. Her bag was gone. She’d left.
It hurt. It lodged a deep, bitter mark inside me.
One night she’d said.
I’d agreed.
Why had I agreed when I’d known all along that I didn’t want just one night?
I’d agreed because I was selfish. I’d agreed because I hadn’t wanted her to stop what we’d started. I’d agreed because I’d known she was still thinking about her family, and my plans, and the reason I’d run from her in Rockport. I still hadn’t been able to convince her of the possibility of forever, but I’d stupidly thought that I could show her, with my hands and my mouth, what I felt, and that she’d know the truth without words.
I didn’t want to shower. I wanted to keep the scent of us―of her―all over my skin for as long as possible. So instead, I made coffee and sank down on the couch, turning on all three TVs that Dani had going whenever she was in the apartment, politics running across all three of them. Some made my blood boil; some made me want to cheer; all of it made me want to stand up and shout that we could be better than this. Humanity. We didn’t have to destroy each other and the planet as we fought for power.
I must have fallen asleep, because the front door clicking open had me jumping awake and barking, “Georgie,” all at the same time. It was Dani. She looked at me like I had lost my mind.
She wasn’t in her blue dress. She had on capris and a tank top.
“Where’d you get the change of clothes?”
She hadn’t had a bag with her last night when we’d left for the reception.
“I have a few things at Russell’s.”
“So, this thing with Russell… It’s more than casual.”
“No.”
“You don’t leave things at a guy’s place if it’s just casual, Dani.”
She sank down onto the couch next to me, but she didn’t respond. She watched the TV screens instead.
“Turner is such an idiot,” she said, referring to the talk show on Fox with a senator from the Midwest.
I couldn’t disagree. He was. They all were. Every fricking politician I’d met this week had been an idiot.
Dani made a disgusted sigh and then turned to me. “Where’s Georgie?”
I shrugged.
“What happened with you two last night?” she asked.
What had happened? Everything. Nothing. The most amazing sex I’d ever had, which seemed stupid and cliché but true. We’d fit. Our movements never once awkward or out of place. It had been harmony.
“Why do you have clothes at Russell’s?” I asked instead of answering her.
She stared at me.
“You don’t want to talk about that,” I said as she grimaced. “I don’t want to talk about it either.”
We assessed each other for a moment. Would we both give in and share, like we normally shared everything, or would we hold our nights close to our chests for the moment?
“What did Fenway’s aide say about the gun bill?” She moved on to work.
“It’s exhausting,” I told her.
“What?”
“There’s never a moment of just ‘enjoy.’ There’s always something in the undertone or the subliminal message that I’m supposed to know the jargon for and don’t.”
“You’ll get used to it. But what did he say?”
“That, while the current proposal was heavy on automatic weapons, it felt like it was missing a key component of licensing that his constituents might want to see in something so drastic.”
“That little shit.”
“Wait…what?”
“That’s just code that Fenway is going to put together his own proposal. What an ass. After all we did last term to support their clean water bill.”
“See. This is exactly what I mean. Why doesn’t anyone just say what the fuck they mean?”
“Is this not about Fenway? Is this about Georgie?” Dani frowned.
“No, Georgie said exactly what she meant. I just don’t agree with it.”
“Ah-ha!” Dani looked pleased that she’d gotten me to say something about Georgie and me.
“I’m not cut out for this,” I groaned, leaning my head back on the couch.
I could feel her watching me for a few moments before she spoke.
“Rob―Mac, I know I’ve been teasing, but I truly believe you could make a difference in this town. You have the whole package. It just takes some time to get used to it. You were in the military, where everything was pretty black and white, for years, and you’ve only been at this a few weeks. It’ll come together for you.”
I looked at her to make sure she wasn’t yanking my chain in that typical way my sisters did, but she wasn’t. She was serious. I just wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it after the shitstorm this week had been. “Thanks. The military had lots of politics, too. I guess I was just used to the subtext that they had running beneath their conversations.”
She nodded.
“I’m going to go shower,” she said, rising from the couch. She sniffed in my general direction. “Maybe you should, too.”
“Har-har,” I said.
“Seriously, maybe Georgie left because you smell like garlic and stale alcohol.”
I sniffed my shirt and my arms. “I don’t stink.”
“Made you sniff.”
I threw a pillow at her. She chuckled and kept going.
I pulled myself up and went to my room
. The tangled bedsheets brought me right back to the prior night. Georgie’s and my skin molded together in ways that had my whole body going right back to where we’d left off. There was one truth that had come out of our hours together that I knew for sure... I didn’t want it to be one night.
I brought up the search engine on my phone to look up Descartes. I needed ammunition.
♫ ♫ ♫
The TV was on with A Few Good Men playing. It was a movie I could never turn the channel on once it appeared in the guide, but I wasn’t really paying attention. It was late enough for the sky to have dipped into shadows, but not late enough for me to start calling to check on her, when the door finally clicked open. I knew she was expecting that I’d gone to bed, or at least my bedroom, but I hadn’t because we needed to talk. At least, I needed to talk, and I was hoping she did too.
I turned to watch her. She was in another damn sundress that made me immediately think of taking it off just like I’d taken off the green dress the night before. She placed her bag and a stack of books on the table by the door before glancing my way.
She stopped at the edge of the couch, looking down at me but not coming closer. No welcome home kiss. My eyes went to her lips and back up, her gaze locking on mine.
“You left.”
“I had work to do,” she said.
“You didn’t leave because you had work to do.”
She shrugged, running her fingers along the arm of the couch. Any minute now, her hand was going to go to her hair, which was down like it hardly ever was, cascading around her shoulders in perfectly tousled waves. Waves I’d gripped and held, bringing her closer to me as we’d made love.
My body reacted to those thoughts, and I was sure she could see the reaction through my sweats, but I didn’t care. At the moment, all I really cared about was tasting her again. Golden cherries and sunshine. Light and sweetness combined.
I patted the couch cushion next to me. “Come join me.”
She shook her head, and there went the hand, running through the strands.