by Mae Wood
Flushed from heat, she was a goddess opening her soft body to me, shameless and comfortable. I palmed her heavy breasts, pushing them up and bathing the soft lobes in kisses. The curve of her waist down to her hips and thighs bewitched me and my mouth followed her body’s command.
I needed her open to me. I needed inside her as far as I could get. And I never wanted to leave. “Do you want a condom?”
“Do you want a condom?” she answered without answering.
“Tell me, Amy. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you need.”
“I need you to fuck me.”
I kissed her navel. “How do you need me to fuck you?”
“Bare. I need you to fuck me bare.”
“How else?” I dipped down and licked her pussy and she moaned. “How else?”
“Deep.”
“How do you want to be fucked?” I licked her again, taking my time and enjoying her writhing under me. When she was near breaking, I lifted my mouth and slipped my fingers inside. Fucking wet and warm and absolute heaven. “How do you want to be fucked, Amy. Tell me what you’re seeing.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand. I needed to know because I needed to please her.
“My legs over your shoulders. Your hands pinning mine above my head.”
“Oh, Amy, oh, Amy,” I said, shaking my head. I dipped my face back down and licked her again, picking up her legs one by one and draping them across my shoulders. I felt her feet hook together and, fuck, that was the biggest turn on. Confirmation that we were in the same place. That she was here with me, lost in us.
On my knees, I pressed up her body, taking her hands from her breasts and placing them above her head. Face-to-face, I looked into her green eyes and fell in them as I pushed into her. Her lips split apart before sliding into an O and exhaling.
“So fucking good,” I said, pulling out before stroking into her again and forcing out a moan as her eyes closed.
I bent down and grazed my teeth over her earlobe, rolling the small diamond earring around on my tongue before giving it a gentle tug. “Tell me what you want,” I breathed against her neck, licking a line to her other ear.
“More. Harder.”
And, fuck, I let go. Every thrust pounded a “more” from her lips. And it wasn’t enough and it was everything at the same time.
We missed our table at Arnaud’s. I’d probably be blacklisted for life, but it was worth it.
After a lazy nap and waiting for the sun to set, we took cool showers to wash the salt and heat of the day from our bodies. I watched her dry off and step into black lace panties and a fresh strapless bra. We’d gotten dressed in the mornings before, but it was always rushed, both of us frantic to get to work on time despite our lingering in bed.
The tempo was different now. She placed a foot on the edge of the counter, and while I brushed my teeth, I watched her lotion her legs, her hands caressing every inch. I spat into the sink and wiped my mouth on a washcloth. “You want to order in?” I asked, gesturing at my dick that was beginning to press against the towel at my waist.
Both feet on the tile floor, she rubbed her hands down her arms, crossing them, and creating an even more luscious valley of cleavage. She held up her hand to me. “Three,” she said, counting it out on fingers. “I think I’m out.”
“No, sweetheart. You’re one away from a grand slam.”
She rolled her eyes at my joke, but unlike my kids, she smiled. “Feed me, Thomas.”
I quickly dressed, watching her slide into the dress she’d worn to my business dinner. “We missed our reservation,” I said, not in the least sorry and knowing from her happy face she wasn’t either.
“Let’s go see if we can snag a table in the courtyard at Cafe Amelie. We might have to wait, but they have a bar.”
I ordered a car and laid back on the bed while she puttered in the bathroom. More lotions and potions that I had no interest in, but I knew she wasn’t going to leave without “putting her face on,” she called it. And as I watched her reflection in the bathroom mirror, going from the Amy I liked best to the Amy the rest of the world saw, I realized that I wanted this.
I’d never thought about getting married again. It had never crossed my mind, but as I watched Amy swipe on lipstick, I knew I wanted her for however long I was lucky enough to have her.
A glass of wine at the bar and we were able to get a table in the courtyard. Like our first date, we ordered a range of appetizers to share. Although I did notice that Amy ate more than her fair share of oysters, which was fine with me.
“This is my favorite restaurant in the city,” she said, setting down an empty shell.
“Oh, yeah? You should have told me. I would have gotten legit reservations. Next time we will.” I refilled our wine glasses with the Pinot Gris on ice at our table.
“Next time?”
“If you think this is the only time I’m getting vacation Amy, you’re wrong. I’m taking you to New Orleans anytime you’ll let me.”
“So, what are you doing next weekend?” she asked, full of cheek.
“I’ll book it right now,” I said reaching for my phone.
“Seriously, this has been awesome. Hate that we have to go back tomorrow.”
“Speaking of, I know it’s not your birthday until tomorrow, but I’ve got something for you now.”
“’Thomas, I didn’t know exhibitionism was your kink,” she said with a wink and visions of bending her over the little wrought iron table, lifting her skirt and fucking her brains out filled my mind, “but really. I didn’t tell you it was my birthday so you’d get me a present.”
“Too bad.” I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a small leather box. Her eyes got big and she went pale. “It’s not that kind of box,” I said, setting it in front of her.
31
Amy
I was absolutely mortified. Of course it wasn’t that kind of jewelry box. But right then, I saw it all. I saw vacations and visits to see each of our kids. I saw sleepy Sunday mornings and buttery scrambled eggs. I saw late night pizza and sushi on the sofa. And everything I’d never wanted before that moment. I’d never wanted to be married before. Not like this. Not when I felt like I needed to get married. Not like I felt when I needed to join my life to my ex’s. But like I wanted to join my life with Thomas’s. Like I needed to be with him. For me. That I needed this. That I needed him.
“Thomas,” I protested out of politeness, but I was tickled he’d done this. Tickled he’d thought of me.
“Go on,” he urged, gesturing to the box. “It isn’t much.”
I opened the box and looked at the delicate pendant necklace within. “Cassie, my daughter the one—”
“I know who Cassie is,” I said, lifting the necklace off its velvet perch. I held the necklace up, a little glass orb suspended in silver, catching the courtyard’s soft light. “This is so pretty.”
“Cassie says it’s the next hot thing. And God knows, I pay enough to SMU each year so she should know what she’s talking about.”
“Cassie helped you pick it out?”
“Yeah, up in Chicago. Cassie picked an ‘educational field trip,’” he said, sketching air quotes with his index fingers, “to Barney’s. I hope you like it.”
“I love it. Can you help me put it on?”
“Absolutely,” he said, taking the necklace from me and pushing up from his chair to stand behind me. He fastened it around my neck and paused a beat before bending down and kissing my exposed shoulder. I shuddered as if I was chilled in response. My body wanted more of this.
“Gotta tell you, Amy,” he whispered in my ear. “The braid has got to go.” His fingers gently tugged on the elastic holding my loose French braid together and then threaded through my hair unraveling my handiwork.
I turned my face up to him. And saw the light burning in his eyes. I thought there had been light in his eyes when he’d asked me out in my parking lot, but I was wrong. That hadn’t been light. That had just been a spark. A
nd now there was fire.
Back in Memphis, we continually talked about other vacations that neither one of us could quite fit into our calendars. Grady’s soccer games, the event that would cap his Eagle Scout project, and last-minute college tours, and Thomas having to attend parents’ weekend at Reed, a work trip to Philly at some point, and then the daddy-daughter weekend with Cassie’s sorority. Not to mention work. We were booked.
So, when he broached the subject of Thanksgiving after one Friday night of schedule chess, sushi, and a movie, I wasn’t surprised.
“Grady’s with his dad this year,” I told him, as we lazed on my sofa, my head in his lap and his hands in my hair. “What are you doing?”
“Boston. Miller swears he can’t take any time off, so our moveable feast heads to Boston. So, will you be here or are you going to Connecticut? Because even if it’s a day in New York with you, I’ll take a day in New York. Or Boston. Or, what’s in the middle? Rhode Island?”
“My dad is flying in this year.”
“Your dad, but not your mom?”
“My mom passed away when I was young,” I said, and his fingers paused their twirls through my hair.
After a beat, his fingers returned to their stroking and he spoke. “I’m very sorry.” The credits rolled on Goldfinger and the theme song filled the empty space.
“Thanks. It was awful. It’s always awful, isn’t it?” I said, fighting the lump in my throat.
“Yeah,” he said, curving his body to drop a kiss on my forehead. “It’s awful.”
“So, I’m going to say this, but it’s going to be weird.”
His chest expanded with breath in preparation for whatever blow I was about to deliver.
“I don’t want to be your kids’ mom. I’m not their mom. I don’t want to try to replace her, because that would just be a disaster, and I don’t even want to pinch hit for her, if that makes sense. I want to know your kids, and I hope they’ll like me, but I don’t want them to think that I’m trying to be their mom. I’m not,” I said, pushing down the emotions so I could spit the words out.
Thomas huffed out his breath. “Oh, Amy. Come here. He hauled me into his lap, my legs straddling his thighs. Cupping my jaw in both hands he bade me to look at him. His eyes were soft and warm. “You’re a great mom, but my kids have a mom. And the good news is that they are grown-ups. And they’ve got me. And I’m not looking to be Grady’s dad either.”
I didn’t know what else to say. The worries that had been building in me and I’d kept tamped down didn’t exactly dissolve, but they subsided.
“Tell me about your mom,” Thomas whispered, kindness not pity filling his face.
“She was the best,” I said, my voice scratchy and raw. “She loved me and she loved my dad and she made the best pies and showed horses and taught me to ride and she got me a hamster for my seventh birthday even though Pop said our cat would eat it, and I think the cat did eat it,” I said, laughing at memory of my mom and me scouring the house the morning I woke to She-Ra’s empty cage and my dad’s insistence that he knew exactly where my hamster was, pointing at our cat Dani. “She died when I was fourteen. She had cancer and it was awful. Lung. Never smoked a day in her life. It’s fucking unfair.” I wiped the tears off my face with the backs of my hands, as more tears spilled from me.
“It is incredibly unfair,” he said, his fingers taking long courses through my hair, soothing me.
“And I can’t say I know what your kids went through. Or what you went through, but I know what I lived through and there’s always this longing. This bit of emptiness. And it’s not my job to replace that because I can’t replace that. And I won’t try to. I mean, I’ll be nice—”
“Amy,” he cooed.
“But I won’t mother them. I’m not going to do that. And I don’t know how to tell your kids that. ‘Hi, I’m Amy,’” I said in a mockingly chipper voice as I gave myself enough distance from Thomas to look him in the eye. “‘I’m sleeping with your dad, but don’t worry about me. I might like your dad a lot, but I have zero interest in being your mom and I hope we can be friends.’”
“I think that would work,” he said with a gentle smile, tracing my cheekbone with his thumb. “It was awkward as hell. Especially the sleeping with part. They don’t want to hear that.”
I smiled at him, knowing it was true. No one ever wants to think about their parents having sex.
“You okay?” Thomas whispered, dropping another kiss on my forehead. I nodded and was rewarded with another sweet kiss.
“Now that that’s settled, let’s go skiing,” he said, rotating us so that I was flat on my back on the sofa, blanketed with his body.
“It’s September,” I said with a laugh, enjoying the high of being able to spill my guts to him, to share with him things that I rarely put into words.
“In December. We go to Deer Valley. You should join us this year. Bring Grady if he’s with you this Christmas,” he said nipping at my neck.
“Like Christmas Christmas?”
“Yes, Santa, elves, hot chocolate. I rent a chalet in Deer Valley. We ski a couple of days, but also snowshoe. Do you ski?”
“Stowe each January since I was five.” I nodded as I wondered how I was going to let him down by telling him that I spend Christmas with my ex.
“Grady?”
“He snowboards.”
“Yeah. That’s what Miller is into as well, so they can hang out. What do you think? The place has four bedrooms and the twins can share so Grady can have his own space.”
My mind reeled. He’s proposing we spend Christmas together, and share a bedroom in a house with all of our kids in it? Be honest with them that we were sleeping together? Be honest with them about what this little life we were building together looks like? Complete with sushi and spy movie nights and him reading me to sleep and rushed Tuesday morning breakfasts?
“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that, but,” I said, tempering my words with a grind of my hips against his, “it really doesn’t matter. We’ll be at the beach.”
“The beach?” Answering my body, his hips pressed into mine.
“I know my co-parenting situation can be little hard to understand. Hell, sometimes I don’t understand it,” I said with a self-conscious laugh that we were chatting about this while making out. “But we spend Christmas at Bert’s parents’ beach house.”
“We as in?” he prompted, his hand sliding underneath my shirt and coasting to my breast.
“As in me, Grady, and Bert.” My hands ran through his short thick hair.
“Can I be frank with you?” he said, pulling his mouth away from my neck and looking me square in the eyes while I clasped my hands behind his neck.
“Go on, Frank,” I teased.
A smile and slight eye roll was my reward. “I want my children to meet you. And meet Grady. I really like you Amy.”
I kissed him, hard, crashing our mouths together, elated and nervous and very, very ready to be naked with him.
Completing his Eagle Scout project isn’t exactly a bar mitzvah, but there was no doubt that my son was a man now. I watched him stand at the front of the bicycle co-op’s workroom in his pressed khaki shirt and green pants. The children who had completed the multi-week Kids Bike Safe program he’d coordinated were about to get their certificates and, even better, a bike. Old bikes that Grady and his dad and friends had fished out of garages and basements and sheds across the city, spruced up, and now were giving to these children. Their little faces, eyes darting from Grady to the bikes lined up behind him—I fought back the lump in my throat, swallowing hard against the burn.
Grady’ll be all right. The casual words from Bert’s grandpa entered my brain and I nodded in agreement. He would be all right. He was never going to be a stellar soccer player and I think he knew that sitting on the bench during this last season would be his glory days. But he was going to be a stellar person. As he presented bikes to the children, smiles on everyone’s faces,
it hit me. He already was a stellar person. Damn lucky. I was damn lucky.
Standing next to me, Bert leaned over and whispered. “We did good, didn’t we?”
“We did. Now go hug him. Go.” I nudged him with my elbow as the ceremony ended. “Give him a hug.” I saw Grady’s eyes get big with embarrassment just before Bert wrapped his arms around our son. The emotions I’d been fighting to keep under control pushed to the surface. Damn lucky. And what happened next, I didn’t see coming. One of Bert’s long arms snaked out and pulled me into their hug and those hot and bittersweet tears blurred my vision.
Bert’s lips grazed my temple and then he kissed Grady on the top of his shaggy head.
“Dad—”
“I know, I know,” Bert said and let us go. Grady walked away to visit with his friends.
“You want to go get a beer with me?” I asked Bert, getting a shrug in response. “Let me clarify. We’re going to get beers. Let’s let him do his thing. Really, Bert. Stop staring at him. He’s not going to disappear before your eyes.”
We waved bye to Grady, hopped in our respective cars, and drove to the Belmont Grill. A simple bar that was conveniently located between our neighborhoods and had become the neutral ground where we’d hashed out problems in the past. It was four minutes from the bar to my house. I knew, because I’d counted down the minutes on several drives, not allowing myself to cry or scream until I reached my own driveway.
He held the door open for me and I pushed past and bellied up to the bar, ordering us two Miller Lites. “I know it’s not craft, but I’m not in a foodie commentary mood, Bert.”
“That’s cool.” He plopped down on a stool next to me. “What’s up?”
I took a fortifying swig of my beer. “I guess Grady told you I’ve been seeing someone.”
“Yeah, he mentioned it. A guy who works at Methodist Hospital. Grady thinks you’re going to get married again.”