Commitment

by Forrester, Nia

  Lowering her onto the bed, Shawn positioned himself atop her, kissing her again, but this time on the stomach and moving lower.

  “No,” Riley said, frustrated. “Now.”

  She shuffled out of her tights and when Shawn raised his hips, pulled his sweats down as far as she could. Arching her back, she maneuvered from side to side until he slipped inside her. She sighed and let her head fall, reveling in the weight and fullness of him. Cupping her ass, Shawn moved them up the bed and raised her hands above her head, pulling her top off as he did. He lowered his head, taking her nipple in his mouth and teasing it.

  Riley kept her hands above her head even though he had released them and Shawn gripped the headboard with both hands, thrusting deeply into her, his face buried in her neck. With each forward motion, Riley could feel him shudder, as though he was still holding something back, like he wanted to go even harder, deeper and further, but was restraining himself.

  She wrapped her arms about him as tightly as she could, clenching her insides to increase the exquisite friction of him moving in and out of her. When she felt the beginnings of her climax building, Shawn felt it too, and releasing the headboard, instead laced his fingers through hers, stretching her arms above her head once again.

  “Look at me,” he breathed. “Look at me.”

  Riley opened her eyes and looked, as though from faraway. Everything appeared coated in gauze; her senses channeled to the point of their physical joining. She could scarcely even hear him, but she felt everything about him – the rough scratchiness of his face against hers, the muscles in his thighs tense and hard, his arms firm and flexed as he held her hands tight above their heads using them to give him purchase.

  “Say you’ll marry me,” he said against the corner of her mouth.

  Riley opened her mouth but could only moan in response.

  "Say it," Shawn said. His voice was urgent, desperate, even.

  “I . . . I will,” she managed.

  She was almost there . . . almost . . . just a little more . . . Riley pulled her knees back further, opening herself even wider to him.

  Shawn groaned, and his movements became more rigid. Knowing that he was on the brink himself was what finally pushed her over the edge. She felt herself come apart, her entire body for a millisecond, liquefying beneath him. Then Shawn’s mouth was on hers again and he shuddered, convulsing as she clenched her thighs about him as tightly as she could, wondering somewhere in the far reaches of her mind if there would ever come a time when she could stand to let him go.

  g

  Chapter Six

  Three days before Christmas, they were married in a private ceremony at the City Clerk’s office on Queens Boulevard. Brendan and Tracy were the only guests. Lorna, true to her word, refused to come, telling Riley in a very brief phone conversation that it would be “inauthentic” if she did. Riley wore a cream pantsuit that Tracy picked out for her. It had a cute cropped fitted jacket with three-quarter length sleeves and wasn’t nearly as corny as a white dress would have been.

  Shawn wore a dark blue suit – it was the first time Riley had seen him in one – and looked painfully handsome. Because he knew they would want them later, Brendan hired a photographer to get a few shots of the ceremony, even though neither Shawn nor Riley had asked him to. Later, two of the photos would be leaked, probably by a photographer’s assistant, to a celebrity website and so the news was out, though largely overshadowed by the holidays.

  That evening, they had a small dinner party at Nobu. Brendan’s date was a leggy Armenian model named Zeina who didn’t have much to say but kept stealing glances at Shawn when she thought no one was looking. Tracy came alone, and Brendan kept glancing at her when he thought no one was looking.

  All through dinner, it was hard not to think about the fact that Lorna wasn’t there. Even though she’d been pretty clear about her reasons, it still caused a dull ache in the pit of Riley’s stomach.

  During the ceremony, despite her attack of nervousness, Riley was surprised how easily she’d said the words ‘I will’ when called on. Shawn on the other hand, got the words out almost before his cue. As soon as the ceremony was done and all through dinner he was obviously on a high. At the restaurant he even posed for photos and signed autographs for anyone who approached.

  Riley watched as he downed champagne and joked around with Brendan, talking a blue streak. Whenever their eyes met across the table, everything he felt about her was so plainly on his face, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it all along.

  They spent the night back at their suite in the Four Seasons before taking an early flight to Montego Bay for their honeymoon. Negril, Jamaica was the destination they’d finally settled on, even though Shawn had tirelessly lobbied for Thailand, worried that anyplace less isolated would make it too easy for Brendan to interrupt with some not-to-be-missed career opportunity. But Riley had never been to Jamaica, and had heard so much about it from Tracy that he eventually gave in.

  She slept for most of the three-and-a-half hour plane ride, all of the tumultuous emotions and anticipation of the previous weeks coming crashing down all at once and resulting in an exhaustion she was powerless to fight. She only became completely alert as they drove by private car along a single-lane highway that followed the coast, offering spectacular views of the Caribbean Sea. It was so breathtaking she didn’t utter a single word until they arrived at their destination. Brendan had found them a resort where the guest quarters were grass-thatched huts, set high on rocks overlooking the water, without phones or air conditioning.

  Each night they were lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves and the muted rhythm of the ceiling fan and were awakened each morning by a rooster crowing in the distance. The two-week honeymoon was the first time since they’d met that they spent so many consecutive days and nights together uninterrupted by the flow of everyday life. Riley sometimes had trouble sleeping and she almost always woke up sometime around four a.m., spending at least an hour staring at the ceiling, trying to get accustomed to the sound of his breathing and the permanence of their new status as husband and wife. The waves always ushered her to back to sleep and she awoke again around noon, only when it became too hot to stay in bed.

  By then, Shawn had often already gone parasailing, jet-skiing or just to hang out in town. Everyone knew who he was of course, but he got special props because he’d used reggae samples on his last CD. He loved walking the streets of what used to be a small fishing village, but was now one of the island’s most popular resort towns. People were friendly, but not pushy, wanting to shake his hand but ultimately leaving him alone to explore in peace. A few guys in town wanted to sell him some chronic which he claimed to refuse, though Riley suspected that was not always strictly true.

  In the afternoons they did tourist things, exhausting things – taking long drives in the countryside rafting on the Rio Grande, zip-lining and climbing Mayfield Falls – all distracting them from the fact that they were still, in some ways, unfamiliar with each other’s moods and routines. Some nights Shawn went to local street-dances with a couple of the guys he hung out with on the beach, coming back laden with CDs of dancehall music and Rastafarian art and crafts.

  Acutely aware that in his real life he was seldom permitted the opportunity to do anything by himself, Riley generally declined when he asked if she wanted to come. While he was gone, Riley sat by the water to read, or had dinner with some of the other guests. When Shawn returned, it was usually well after midnight and he was drunk, invariably smelling of ganja and Jamaican white rum, tasting like the spicy jerk foods he’d eaten, and elated at being able to walk among regular folks and, at least for a little while, become one of them.

  On New Year’s Eve, instead of joining the party on the beach, they stayed in their room, drowsy from a long day in the water. At midnight, they sat on the balcony, Riley’s feet resting in Shawn’s lap as they watched the fireworks explode across the water. It was a new year, and she was ringing it in
, not with Tracy in Times Square as she had done for so many years prior but sitting overlooking the Caribbean Sea with her husband. Her husband.

  Riley turned to look at him and smiled when she found he was looking at her too. He inclined his head in the direction of the room and gently lifted her feet off his lap, extending a hand to her. She took it and he pulled her up, leading her inside. Just as she was about to turn to face him, Shawn’s hand moved up her thigh and he leaned into her so she was braced against the wall. Without a word, he hiked her long peasant skirt up to her waist and pulled down the bottoms of the swimsuit she was still wearing.

  His hands moved over her rear and Riley reached back to touch him but he pinned her arms against the wall, kissing her shoulders and the back of her neck. Then without warning he turned her to face him and his mouth was on hers, kissing her as though it was the first time they’d ever kissed.

  Before Riley had a moment to catch her breath, Shawn had hoisted her up and pressed himself into her and against the wall. She gasped and wrapped her arms tightly about his neck, riding the wave of each thrust, feeling herself deliciously split apart.

  “I love you,” he said, over and over again, like a benediction. “I love you.”

  When he climaxed, he held her and shuffled backwards until they reached the bed where they both collapsed into a heap. It was only then that Shawn half-heartedly shoved his shorts the remainder of the way off, kicking them across the room.

  “I’m just starting to feel like it’s real,” he said, yawning.

  “Like what’s real?”

  “You and me. You being my wife.”

  “Of course it’s real, baby,” she said.

  Riley rested her head on his arm and in a few moments, he was asleep.

  Something about being married made their sex different and even more intense. Every night since they’d been here, they made love until they were soaking wet and Shawn fell away from her, spent and barely able to keep his eyes open. Tonight though, he had simply claimed her, exorcizing, once and for all, Brian and anyone else who had come before him.

  g

  In the days before the end of their trip, Riley realized that she wasn’t waking up early any longer, and had grown accustomed to sleeping intertwined with Shawn, no matter the heat. And she had come to expect that he would drop his wet towel on the bathroom floor, or forget to hang up his jeans. If she woke before he did, it was just to watch the sun rise across the water or to stare down at her husband, finding it scarcely believable that they had found each other and that she could love someone so hard, and so fast.

  The day before they were due back in New York they sat eating escovitched fish at an outdoor restaurant on Negril beach, the taste bringing Riley back to the night she’d first met Shawn and he took her to the restaurant in midtown. Had someone told her then that she would be married to the man sitting across from her with the watchful, intense eyes, she could not have conceived of it. It felt like a lifetime ago, but was only just over a year. It was still so surreal.

  “So I talked to a realtor,” Shawn said out of nowhere.

  Sitting across from her, shirtless and partially reclining on a wooden bench, he had a suntan the color of a burnt honeycomb and a scruffy three-day old goatee that scratched her face in a way that was not altogether unpleasant when he kissed her. And how on earth he got abs like that when she had never known him to work out was a total mystery. Good genes, maybe?

  “You in there?” Shawn asked, waving a hand in front of her face.

  “Yeah. Realtor,” she repeated. “Why?”

  “I was thinking we’d buy something. Near the park.”

  Riley blinked. “What park?”

  “Central Park, Riley.”

  “Central Park,” she repeated trying to process for a moment.

  “Yeah. It’s convenient and I don’t know about you, but I need to see some damn trees. So Chris gave me a name and I called her just before we left. She’ll take you out to look at some places when we get back.”

  “Take me out to look at some places?”

  “Okay, so I’ll come too,” Shawn gave in.

  Riley thought for a moment. A place near Central Park.

  “What’s the budget for this place?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Four, five million? Something like that.”

  She swallowed. That’s right. Shawn was rich. Four or five million was perfectly reasonable for him. He’d told her he sold his townhouse in DC for just under a half a million. That had to be a pretty decent down-payment. Not that he would need one. For Shawn money was no object. For regular folks like her, the difference between four million and five, was the still substantial one million dollars and couldn’t be so casually dismissed.

  “Which?” she asked.

  “Which . . ?” Shawn looked confused.

  “Four million or five million?”

  “I don’t care. If it’s the right place.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Yeah, but no way we’re getting something on Central Park for less.”

  “Well, do we have to be on Central Park?”

  “Where do you want to be?”

  He asked the question slowly, so Riley knew she was being humored.

  “I don’t know. It’s just, those numbers are insane.”

  “Riley,” he reached out and grabbed her hand. “Relax. We’re rich.”

  “Shawn, you’re rich. I make sixty-five thousand dollars a year. And up till now, that’s been quite adequate.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to ask you to pay half the mortgage, Riley. And anyway, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “About what?”

  “Money.”

  Riley froze. This couldn’t be good. Whatever he was about to say could not be good.

  “There’s this account I set up. In your name. And every year or so, there’ll be a deposit. The first deposit was last week after we got married.”

  Riley put down her fork and gently pulled her hand free of Shawn’s.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “So you have something for yourself. I don’t want you to feel like you have to ask me . . .”

  “Why would I ask you for anything?” she demanded, her voice rising.

  “I don’t know. For whatever. To shop or . . .”

  “I already shop when I need to. I buy what I can afford. And you’re going to deposit more money every year? What’s that? My salary?”

  “Riley, chill. Would you prefer it if I gave you a pre-nup? Because that’s what I was advised to do and I told them I didn’t need one.”

  “Yes! I would have preferred a pre-nup. Because then I get to reassure you that I don’t want your money. And this set-up with you depositing money makes me think you don’t believe that. You think I need compensation, Shawn?”

  Shawn became very still and she could see the confusion in his eyes, as he tried to figure out whether she was serious, and if so, what she could possibly mean.

  “Setting up an account, you giving me money for nothing more than becoming your wife feels demeaning. It feels like you’re paying me for something,” she said lowering her voice, trying to be patient. “It feels like I’m becoming your employee. Or something worse.”

  “Worse? Like . . . what?”

  She tilted her head to one side and waited for him to answer his own question.

  “Like a prostitute?” he asked, surprised.

  Riley said nothing.

  “Then fuck it,” he said after a moment. “Don’t spend it. Give it all to charity. Do whatever you want with the money, Riley.”

  He pushed himself up off the bench and started off down the beach, leaving her sitting there. He hadn’t even raised his voice, so it took her a moment to realize that she had hurt his feelings. Riley shut her eyes and shook her head, feeling foolish all of a sudden. What the hell had she been thinking anyway? She knew Shawn didn’t see her as a prostitute, for heaven’s sake. B
ut as her mother’s daughter, she couldn’t help her internal monologue about money and power and how that played out in relationships.

  She sighed and got up, running down the beach to catch up with him. He kept walking until she grabbed a loop on his cargos and yanked him back toward her. He stopped walking but his hands remained stuffed stubbornly in his pockets and he refused to look at her, so Riley leaned into his chest, pressing her face against him.

  “You should have talked to me first,” she said, keeping her voice quiet. “You can’t just decide huge things like this on your own, Shawn. As though I’m not entitled to have a say.”

  For a moment he said nothing then Riley felt his hands come out of his pockets and his arms wrap about her. She relaxed into the hug.

  “It’s just that . . .” He buried his face in her neck and lowered his voice, suddenly serious. “I want you to have everything you want. No matter what it is, no matter what it costs.”

  g

  Watching Shawn from a distance when they were out in public was still so strange. The way people reacted to him made his celebrity status more real than it had ever been before. He wasn’t just hers anymore. Leaning against the check-in counter with Brendan now, he was waiting for the hotel clerk to bring the keycard to their room, impatiently cracking his knuckles and looking about the lobby. Brendan was talking to him, probably going over the schedule for the day and Shawn was nodding absently.

  Even if you didn’t know who he was, you had to stare. He had that certain thing that people called star-quality but it was more than that – there was something about the way he carried himself; demanding attention rather than merely accepting it. When she was apart from him like this, Riley tried to view him objectively. Six-foot-one and well built, though not overly muscular, he had an amazing burnished gold complexion, square-jawed good looks and intense chestnut eyes that sometimes looked almost hazel, depending on the light. And of course, the famous lips. Photographers for his album covers and music video directors always seemed to make much of them. Full, pillowy and extremely sexy. But it wasn’t just that he was good-looking – there was something more.