The Nice Boxset

by Jasinda Wilder

  With no words spoken, only mutual understanding, we rolled together so I was lying on him, my spine against his chest, my knees bent and my head arched back over his shoulder, my ass against his groin and his cock deeper inside me than it had ever been. His fingers were still circling my turgid, throbbing clit, pressing lightning into me, drawing heat from me, making me so wet his thrusting cock slicked and slipped and squished.

  “God…damn, Ever, you’re so…juicy.” He laughed at his own words. “So wet for me. God, do you feel the way I slide inside you?”

  “I feel it…I feel it. You’re so deep, Cade,” I gasped, “almost too much, but so perfectly too much. Go slow, baby. So slow. Slow as you can. Love me slowly.”

  He moved sinuously, slow as the coursing of the stars in the sky, loving me with every inch of his body, fingers in me, cock in me, hands on my belly and my breasts, tweaking my nipples into diamonds, kissing my neck and my ear. I twisted my head and his lips met mine and he was all around me, beneath me, kissing my breath away, stealing my soul with his mouth on mine, except my soul was his already.

  I came, a first slow pulsing glow, and he kept gliding glacially slowly into me, kissing me, making out as we made love, tongues dancing, his palm cupping my breasts, caressing them and kneading them and his fingers circling my clit, dousing me in wet desire.

  Another pulsing orgasm, stronger now, followed by a third like a crashing ocean wave. I didn’t understand what was happening, those small cresting climaxes, one after another, each building upon the next.

  They were waves, I realized, not orgasms, but the build-up to one so massive it would shred me.

  I slid my body against him, pressing my heels into the bed to move away, crushing my hips down against his up-thrust, clutching at him with my hands over my head, holding his face to mine, imprisoning his lips to my kiss. Wave after wave struck me, broke through me, and I couldn’t breathe for the potency of each new climaxing swell, and still he loved me without speeding his pace, a tireless rhythm, a slow sine wave of bliss.

  I began to grow frantic as the waves of ecstasy neared their apogee. I moved against him, sought speed and friction and pressure, but he never relinquished the slow pace I’d begged for. I panted into his mouth, not kissing him now but merely gasping, biting his lower lip, writhing helplessly on top of him.

  There was no way to measure how long we moved together that way, in silence except for our breathing and our bodies’ slide and the faint music playing in the background. We were silent, uncharacteristically silent, feeling something being created in this timeless moment together, this desperate, catalytic fraction of eternity.

  I felt his body tense and his muscles go iron hard beneath me, felt his cock swell inside me and his motion go staccato as he neared his release.

  My hands were around the back of his head, pulling myself up on the column of his neck, lowering myself with ever more forceful movements, and I felt him cruising into me, crushing into me, delving deeper and harder, not faster, only with more power and more force.

  Our mouths were touching and open, sharing gasped breaths, eyes meeting and sparking, and I couldn’t fathom what was happening, what this was, how I could feel his very essence within my mind, expanding in my heart, how our souls could meld with the heat of our bodies’ union.

  Cade, in orgasms past, came with a soft grunt, a low groan or growl, a curse or a breathed whispering of my name. I was the loud one, the screamer.

  Now, I felt a growl begin in his chest as his cock drove into me, and I heard my own voice begin to groan wordlessly. We moved in perfect sync, ultimate unison, matching stroke for stroke, our voices raising louder and louder until Cade was growling like a lion and I was shrieking breathlessly, abandoned to him, to us, to this.

  Louder still, Cade bellowing and roaring, me screaming.

  The waves were one, now, a blasting, fiery inferno torching every synapse, every molecule, my belly clenching and my pussy clamping down around his cock, and I felt him lose all control with a shout, fucking into me with such power that my body shook and spasmed and yet I met his urgency with my own, rolling my hips, all my weight on his chest and my frantically digging heels, grinding into his thrusts with all the strength I had, feeding the frenzy in us both, the nuclear reaction detonating within us, a wild mad frisson, becoming something unknown heretofore, something like the moment that had begun the whirling of the universe, an instant of creation that cannot be caught by mere words, something true and pure and past the scope of human comprehension, a tearing of the veil between heaven and earth so that as we moved in erupting love we saw into eternity together, we saw the face of God, the fabric of infinity.

  I wept, and felt his tears on my cheek.

  His eyes blazed amber, wet with tears I knew matched my own, love made liquid and escaping through our pores as sweat, our eyes as tears, our most intimate places as the juices squeezed from passion.

  “Ever…” he breathed, and I heard the susurrus of words unspoken thick in those two syllables.

  “Caden,” I whispered, and let my eyes refract the love I felt bursting from my being.

  Silence.

  Breath, sweat, tears, love.

  Purity of connection.

  Eternity.

  We slept, dreamed, twined together in body and in spirit.

  an arpeggio, descending

  Caden

  * * *

  ’Twas the night before Christmas…and the roads were complete shit. Actually, it was the night before Christmas Eve, but close enough. I’ve always hated that stupid poem, except for the way Clark Griswold recites it in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Ever and I were on our way home from shopping and a late dinner, driving through a blizzard. The snow was so thick I couldn’t see the lines on the road ten feet in front of me. I was going barely thirty on I-75, wishing I didn’t have to pee and cursing the snow. Ever, in the seat beside me, had her feet up on the dashboard, her phone casting a white glow on her face. She was texting someone, Eden most likely. My wife and her twin had been fighting for the last week, arguing via text message about whether Ever and I were going to go to Mr. Eliot’s house for Christmas tomorrow morning, and whether we were going to tell him we’d gotten married. Ever didn’t want to go, and really didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t see the point, she claimed. She hadn’t seen her father in months, he hadn’t made any attempt to contact her, hadn’t come to see her. I’d never met Mr. Eliot, except that one time in the parking lot of Interlochen, nearly six years ago.

  I understood her anger, her frustration. She and her father had essentially parted ways many years ago, and hadn’t mended the distance. She claimed she wasn’t angry at him, not for anything in particular, she just didn’t care to see him. I didn’t quite believe that. He was her father. She was hurt that he’d checked out of life, that he’d rather work a hundred hours a week than see his daughters, his only family. Not having any parents of my own anymore, I wanted her to try and fix things with him before it was too late, before she lost him and realized what she was missing only after it was gone.

  I’d told her this, of course, and it had become our first real fight. I’d held my ground, become impassioned, upset at her stubbornness, her refusal to even admit that she was pissed off at him, and she in turn had been mad at me for trying to force her into something she didn’t want to do. It had been a fight that lasted three days. Three days of tense silences and cold shoulders.

  We’d gone shopping today and to dinner. It had been…awkward, since she still wasn’t talking to me, really.

  I leaned forward against the steering wheel, peering through the snow, preparing myself to say whatever it took to end the standoff.

  “Look, babe,” I began, glancing at her, “first off, I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, not looking up from her phone.

  “Clearly it’s not.” I snuck another glance at her. “I just…I don’t want you to have any regrets. You’
ll regret it if you don’t fix things with him.”

  “If this is your attempt at an apology of some sort, it’s not going so hot for you. Just sayin’.”

  “Can you please put down the phone and talk to me?”

  She sighed, and finally looked up at me. “I am talking to you. I don’t have to turn off my phone to talk to you.”

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  “You’re not saying anything worth listening to.” Ever slid her feet off the dash and stretched. “God, this weather. It’s gonna take us another hour to get home at this rate.” It was normally not even thirty minutes from our condo in downtown Royal Oak to Somerset Mall, but it had already taken us that long and we weren’t even halfway home yet.

  “It’s insane, that’s for sure.” I rubbed my face. “Ever, listen. I’m sorry. It’s your decision, your life, your business. I won’t say anything else about it. If you don’t want to go to your dad’s place tomorrow, that’s fine with me. I love you, and I just…I wish you’d make an attempt with him before it’s too late.” Her gaze hardened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but I lifted my hand in a gesture of surrender. “You know how I feel, and that’s all I’ll say. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

  She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, swallowing hard and blinking. “I don’t either. It’s been killing me, fighting with you.” She leaned across the console between us and wrapped her arm around mine, rested her head against my bicep. “I was so mad, because I don’t want to be mad, but I can’t help it. He walked away from me, Cade. From us, Eden and I. He’s worked seven days a week, from five in the morning to ten or eleven at night, every day since Mom died. Sometimes he sleeps at work. He doesn’t talk to us. Doesn’t call us or text us or send emails, sure as hell doesn’t come see us. He stopped caring, Cade, and I don’t know how to fix that. He’s my dad, and I love him. Or…I want to. But I don’t know how you’re supposed to love someone who isn’t there and doesn’t want you, doesn’t love you back.”

  I hated the tears I heard in her voice. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. It’s bullshit. I know it is. And I don’t know how you’re supposed to fix it either. Maybe…I don’t know. Just go over there with me tomorrow, and try to hash it out. Tell him how you feel and that you want your dad back. I don’t know. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, babe. I’m just—I hate seeing you upset, and I know this thing with your dad is harder on you than you’re letting on, even if it is way deep inside.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right.” She took several deep breaths, sat up and wiped her eyes. “Fine. Okay. We’ll go. But I’m not even going to try and approach the fact that we got married. Not that I’m ashamed, I just—”

  “One step at a time,” I cut in, “I get it. For real.”

  She twined her fingers in mine. “Thanks, babe. I love you.”

  I glanced at her, smiled. “Love you too. Together, one day at a time, okay?”

  She nodded, and we drove home in silence, more companionable now.

  Ever

  * * *

  Cade was nervous, tense, picking at his food and bouncing his foot under the table. Dad was…the same. Not looking at anyone, not talking, just shoveling food into his mouth. Eden was gamely trying to make small talk, but it kept falling flat.

  “I saw this movie the other day,” she said, taking too big a swig of wine. “I don’t even know what it was called, but it had Ryan Philippe and that redhead from X-Files, what’s her name, Gillian…Gillian Anderson? Yeah. And it had all these other famous people in it. I don’t remember the whole cast. It was made a long time ago. Late nineties, maybe? And it was just about all these different people going through different things. And Ryan Philippe’s character, I think it was him, he said something really cool. He said, ‘Talking about love is like dancing about architecture.’ It just struck me as such an interesting thing. Because you can’t really talk about love, can you? Not really. I don’t think so, at any rate.”

  I rolled my eyes and glared at her, mentally willing her to shut up. She caught the hint, of course she did, but she ignored me, chattering on.

  “I don’t even remember the name of the movie. It was on some obscure cable channel, late at night.” She paused to drink more wine. “It wasn’t Ryan Philippe’s character, now that I think about it. It was…Angelina Jolie. That’s who said it. I wish I could remember the name of that fucking movie.”

  “Playing by Heart,” Caden put in, not looking up. “I watched it too. It played on, like, one of the sixteen random Starz channels in the middle of the night. That movie had fucking everyone in it. Sean Connery was in it. So was…what’s his name, a character actor kind of guy. Jay Moritz? And Ellen Burstyn, too.”

  I glanced at him, trying to hide my irritation. “When did you watch that?”

  He shrugged. “Thursday? You were asleep. I couldn’t sleep, so I flipped channels, landed on that movie. It was good, in a disjointed kind of way.”

  Dad let his fork drop to his plate with a clatter. “Are we still talking about this movie?” He pushed his plate away. “What does that movie have to do with anything?” He addressed the last part to Eden.

  She frowned back at him. “I was just…making conversation. All of you are being so awkward. Someone’s got to say something.”

  Dad rubbed his hand through his thinning hair. “No one’s being awkward, Eden. It’s fine. We’re all just eating.”

  “Dad. Not being awkward? The tension in here is so thick you could cut it with a knife.”

  And so it would begin. I glanced at Caden, who was still picking at his food, not eating but pretending to.

  “There’s no tension.” Dad swirled the red wine in his glass, staring at the sloshing liquid.

  Eden sighed and tilted her head down, placing her palms flat on the table. “Seriously? No tension? How could there not be tension? We haven’t seen you since our birthday over the summer.”

  Dad grimaced. “I’ve been—”

  “Busy,” Eden finished for him. “I know. The problem, Dad, is that you’ve been busy for our whole lives.”

  “Eden, now is not the right time for this conversation. We have a guest.” Dad gestured at Caden with his glass.

  “Yeah, but he’s basically family now, too, so…” Eden slammed the last of her wine in a long gulp.

  I cringed, wishing she hadn’t brought that up.

  Dad frowned in confusion. “He’s Ever’s boyfriend. I hardly think that qualifies him as family just yet.” He shot an apologetic glance at Caden. “No offense, son. You seem like a good kid.”

  Caden hated being referred to as son, I’d come to learn. He kept his voice even, however. “None taken, sir.” He didn’t correct Dad, and I was glad he didn’t. Now was so not the time to have that particular conversation.

  Eden glanced at me, and then Caden, her expression baffled. “Ev?”

  I had to distract her. “Dad’s right, Eden. Now is maybe not the best time for this. Caden doesn’t need to hear it.”

  “But—” Eden began.

  “Eden. Drop it. Please.” Dad stood up. “How about pie?”

  “No!” She stood up, knocking her chair to the floor. “I don’t care if he hears. He knows about all this, I know he does. Things are not fine. They haven’t been fine since Mom died.”

  Suddenly, you could hear a pin drop. The grandfather clock in the formal living room across the foyer from the dining room tolled seven times.

  “Eden…” Dad began.

  “No. I’m not gonna drop it. You walked away after we buried Mom. You know you did, I know you did, and Ever knows you did. You checked out.”

  Caden stood up, grabbed his plate and mine. “I’ll just…I’ll clean up.”

  “Sit down, son,” Dad said, not taking his eyes from Eden.

  “I’m not your son.” Caden set the plates back down and resumed his seat. “All due respect, sir, but don’t call me that, please.”

&nb
sp; Dad slumped into his seat. “I didn’t walk away, Eden—”

  “The fuck you didn’t!” Eden yelled. “You checked out! You all but abandoned us!”

  “I kept a roof over your head, didn’t I? I paid for your cars and your apartments and your college educations.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “So don’t tell me I abandoned you—”

  I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “That’s all good and well, but it doesn’t replace you.” I tried to keep my voice reasonable, calm. “I’d rather have been poor and had you.”

  “You had me,” he said.

  “No we didn’t!” I couldn’t help the shout from escaping. “You were gone! Always gone! And you never came back. Not really. You work, and that’s it. You don’t—don’t call us. Don’t come over. Don’t act like we’re even—even—even your daughters.”

  “And how much effort have you made, either of you, to reach out to me? This can’t all be on me.”

  “You’re our father!” Eden cried. “You were…you were supposed to be, at least. Now? Now you’re more of a memory, than anything else. Just as much of a distant memory as Mom is.”

  Dad buried his face in his hands. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and then another, and then his shoulders began to tremble. Eden and I exchanged glances. What were we supposed to do now? Tell him it was okay? That we understood and forgave him? We didn’t. I didn’t, couldn’t.

  He stood up, head bent down still. “Just a memory, huh? Well. I—I’m sorry I let you down.” He moved away from the table, shambling and shuffling as if he’d aged a hundred years in the last five minutes. “I’m—sorry. That’s all I can say, right? Sorry.” And then he was gone.

  Silence reigned, a thick, impenetrable presence at the table.

  “Great job, Edie. Way to ease into it.” The sarcasm dripped from my voice, and I didn’t try to stop it.

  My twin glared at me. “How would you have done it? Oh wait, you wouldn’t have, would you? You would’ve just sat there with your husband, which Dad doesn’t even know about, mind you—and said nothing. Done…nothing.”