No Regrets

by Claire Kent

  “No! No, Josh. You don’t have to apologize. You were always honest and open, and I knew exactly what I was getting into when I decided to be with you. You don’t have to apologize for anything. If I wanted more, it was my own fault.”

  “But I wanted more too. I kept wanting more and more from you. And then I kept taking it. Because I wanted you so much. I kept taking it, without giving you anything in return.”

  I was almost choking on the surprise and emotion, and it took me a minute to get clear in my mind that he’d actually said what I’d heard. “You did give me something,” was the reply I managed to articulate. “You gave me a lot.”

  “I didn’t give you what I should have.”

  I pulled my hand out of his and flattened it on his chest. “Josh, it’s really all right. You don’t have to feel guilty. I meant what I said about not having regrets about the time I spent with you.”

  He cleared his throat and reached up to take my hand off his chest and twined it in his again. “You’re not understanding me. I’m not any good at this.”

  “No one is any good at apologizing, but I keep telling you that you don’t have to.”

  “Leslie, I don’t want to apologize. I mean, I do, but I’m trying to say something else.” He looked down again, toward the dog who’d been sitting quietly at his feet.

  I looked down at the dog too. “Is this that Husky that you were keeping in the office?” I asked, distracted momentarily by the dog’s pale eyes and soft fur.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you adopt her?” I asked, processing that detail and suddenly excited again at the possible implications.

  “Yeah.” He sounded almost sheepish.

  I was breathing faster now, and I felt dangerously emotional as I raised my eyes to meet his. “I’m really glad.”

  “You were right about that. You were right about everything. I knew it was wrong—to hold myself back from commitments, relationships, being with people for real. I lost the last few years with my mom because I was protecting myself with that selfish isolation. And it didn’t even work. It didn’t protect me from anything. It hurt even more when I lost her.”

  There was naked emotion in his voice now, and it made my eyes burn with unshed tears. “I know it did.”

  “And I’m not going to do it again—give up everything I could have with someone in some fantasy of making the world hurt me less. I’m not going to do it again. Baby, I’m not going to give you up.” He’d gotten urgent again, and he raised my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against my fingers.

  “Josh,” I said, swaying slightly as I realized that what I’d initially hoped for on seeing him could actually be happening. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I don’t want just sex from you.” His eyes were raw, naked, hungry. “I want everything—all of your generosity and intelligence and kindness and humor and the passion that you’re so afraid to let out. I want all of it—no holding back—and I want to give everything to you.”

  “Everything,” I repeated stupidly.

  Evidently, he thought it was a question. “Everything. I wouldn’t hold anything back from you either. Even knowing it will take everything I have. I know I don’t have as much to offer you, but whatever I have, whatever I am, it would be yours.”

  I licked my lips, which felt completely parched. “So you want…”

  “A commitment. A real relationship.”

  I stared at him, frozen, trying desperately to catch my breath. The surge of joy was so overwhelming I couldn’t begin to fit it into my expectations of the world.

  This wouldn’t be happening. Not to me. Not after I’d resigned myself to my regular life—which would never include a hot, amazing guy who was crazy about me.

  “I’m crazy about you,” he said, glancing down before he met my eyes again in that gesture I was recognizing he used when he was nervous or self-conscious. “If you didn’t know before.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  He kissed my hand again, this time on the palm. “I’m sorry you didn’t know. I shouldn’t have been so afraid of my own feelings. But I really think I can do better. If you…want me.”

  It took me a minute, since I wasn’t sure my legs would keep holding me up, but I finally managed to raise my free hand and press my palm against his jaw. “I do want you.”

  He took a sharp, loud breath, his expression transforming briefly in what looked like overwhelming relief. Which told me he must not have known. He must not have been sure what my response would be.

  But he’d put himself emotionally on the line like this anyway.

  Since I was afraid I might pass out from the waves of emotion slamming into me, I distracted myself by saying, “What is your dog’s name?”

  “Lucy.”

  I knelt down to stroke the dog’s soft fur, and she scooted over closer to me hesitantly, as if it took a while for her to believe I was going to be sweet to her.

  Someone had beaten this dog with a baseball bat—not all that long ago.

  “She’s come a long way,” Josh said, obviously reading my mind. “At first, she shrank away whenever anyone tried to pet her.”

  “Hi, Lucy,” I said. “I’m very glad to meet you. I had a dog named Polly. She was a Springer Spaniel.”

  Lucy seemed to like my voice because she scooted even closer and her tail began to wag. Just a little.

  And I burst into tears, right there on the pavement of the parking lot.

  “Oh, my God, Leslie,” Josh murmured, kneeling down beside me on the ground. He pulled me into his arms and I shook against him for a few moments. “I’m so sorry about everything, and I really do understand if you think I’m not worth the trouble.”

  I pulled myself together pretty quickly and straightened up so I was kneeling beside him. “I think you’re worth the trouble,” I told him, wiping my face on the shoulder of my sleeve.

  “Really?” For the first time, he was starting to look genuinely hopeful.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then Lucy and I would really like to be with you. For real. In everything.” He took my face in both of his hands again.

  “Okay.”

  With a muffled sound in this throat, he leaned forward and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around him and opened to his tongue, and the kiss was deep and clumsy and utterly real.

  Just me and Josh. As we really were. No holding back or trying to be someone else.

  And Lucy, evidently. She stuck her nose against my arm after a minute, snuffling around, evidently confused by this strange turn of events.

  I pulled away from his mouth, laughing and crying just a little.

  “I still love you,” Josh said, petting the dog with obvious affection. “No need to be jealous.”

  Lucy wagged her tail and snuffled her way toward my face.

  “Well, I don’t know you very well yet,” I told her, “but I’m sure I’ll love you too.”

  ***

  We went back to his apartment and had dinner together. Then we sat on the couch for a couple of hours, watching TV and talking.

  He told me about how his family was doing and what he’d been doing to adopt Lucy and transition her to living with him. I told him about my week. I leaned against him on the couch, and he wrapped me in his arms.

  And I’d wanted that. So much. For a long time now. I’d wanted to just sit and be held by him.

  Only now was I able to do it.

  ***

  A month later, Josh and I were waiting for a table at a restaurant near his apartment, since I was spending the weekend at his place, and we were arguing about what to do with Lucy when we flew out to Arizona in a couple of months for his father’s birthday.

  He thought we should just board the dog in a kennel while we were gone, since that would be easier to arrange, but I was worried that Lucy was still too nervous and sensitive and that being put in a kennel would be traumatic for her.

  “But who do we know that we can trust to dog-sit?�
�� Josh asked, for like the fourth time in twenty minutes. His voice was kind of growly because he was getting impatient. “I’m not going to leave her with a stranger.”

  I was getting impatient too. “Surely you have some contacts. You’re a damned vet! You’re just being stubborn because you don’t want to change your mind.”

  He opened his mouth to snap back some sort of response, but the hostess came to tell us our table was ready, so we followed her to our booth, which was in the far corner of the room.

  We had to smile to thank her and then smile at the server who came over to take our drink orders, and by that time the momentum of the argument had been interrupted.

  Our bad moods hadn’t, though.

  Whenever I looked up from the menu, I glared at him, and he was rolling his eyes as if I was unreasonable.

  As if I was unreasonable.

  After we gave the server our meal order, I leaned back in my seat and tried to get my irritation under control. “Josh, I’m really worried about her. You know it’s hard for her to meet strange people still. She’ll be surrounded by strangers at a kennel. Not to mention a lot of loud, barking dogs. She’s going to be scared.”

  Lucy lived with Josh, but the dog felt like she belonged to both of us. I loved her so much.

  He groaned and rubbed his jaw, and I could tell his bad mood was lessening. “She’s going to be nervous either way. She’ll be just as nervous if we take her over to stay in someone else’s house.”

  “Isn’t there someone who could come over to your place to take care of her? I think she’d do best staying at home.”

  “Yeah. I know she would.” He sighed and sipped his water. “Poor little thing.”

  “We’ll just be gone for four days. She’ll be okay. What about someone at your work? One of the technicians or something? They all know and love Lucy, don’t they?”

  “Yeah. I just hate to impose…” He trailed off, and I could see the decision being made on his face. “I’ll ask around. Someone can probably do it.”

  I smiled at him, strangely touched by the effort he had put into making this decision. “Thank you.”

  He gave me an exaggerated frown. “I knew hooking up with you was going to be trouble.”

  I laughed. “Well, you’re stuck with me now.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Our meals came fairly quickly and, after we ate, Josh ordered another beer and I got a cup of coffee.

  When the drinks came, he surprised me by getting up and moving over to my side of the booth.

  I blinked at him, scooting over to make room for him. “What are you doing?”

  “Thought I’d get a better view from this side.”

  “This side faces the wall.”

  “I know.” Then he put his arm around me and started to kiss me.

  I had no objections to the kiss, since it was clear he was in a good mood, now that the argument was resolved. But, after a minute, I pulled away, since I didn’t want to get too excited while we were in the restaurant.

  “You moved into my side of the booth that first night too,” I said, leaning against his warm body, loving the feel of it.

  “I remember. I think I was half-crazy about you even then. I’d never known anyone who could turn me on so easily.” He nuzzled my hair. “I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off you. Even if it meant dragging you into the bathroom.”

  I laughed. “I still can’t believe I did that.”

  “It was supposed to be a one-night stand, but I kept thinking about you afterwards. I even looked up your record on the computer at work to find out your information and phone number.”

  “You did not!” I straightened up and stared at him in astonishment.

  “I did,” he admitted, looking a little sheepish, but with a hot gleam in his eyes I was very familiar with. “Half a dozen times I pulled the number out and started to call you, but then I changed my mind.”

  “Why did you change your mind?”

  “I was worried that I wanted it so much. And I kept thinking that you’d get freaked out, if some random guy you spent the night with kept pursuing you.”

  I leaned forward and pressed a kiss into his jaw. “You were never some random guy to me.”

  “That’s good to know. But I didn’t know it then. I thought you were this smart, beautiful woman who’d just tried something new one night with me, and I was the one who couldn’t let it go. And then I saw you at the bar and couldn’t believe it. You have no idea how disappointed I was when you walked out of the bar, and I thought you’d decided against me.”

  “I was scared. I didn’t do that kind of thing.”

  “I know you didn’t.” He’d tightened his arm around me and was stroking my face and arm with his other hand. “Even that second night, I knew I was in too deep. But I wanted you so much I couldn’t pull back.”

  “You always acted so cool and laidback. I had no idea you even cared that much whether we got together or not.”

  “I cared.” He kissed me softly and said against my lips. “So much. So much.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “It was just a desperate mental scrabbling to pretend I was really safe, to pretend it was really no-strings.”

  “I did a similar sort of mental scrabbling, I guess. It never once occurred to me that you could really fall for me.”

  “I have no idea how I couldn’t fall, when you’re everything I want.”

  So we kissed again after that, since I couldn’t be held back. We kissed a lot. Way too much to be appropriate in a restaurant, even in a corner booth as we were with our backs to the rest of the customers.

  And then Josh’s free hand became even more inappropriate. I mean, really inappropriate. It was skating over my breasts and belly and skimming over my groin.

  “Josh,” I said at last, when I became conscious that arousal was pulsing between my thighs. “We have really got to stop now.”

  “Why do we have to stop?” he murmured in that sexy, textured voice he used when he was very turned on.

  It always turned me on too.

  “Because we’re in the restaurant. We can get our check and go home.”

  “But good things might happen even here.” He was still speaking low, right in my ear. And now his hand slid down again, sliding under the waistband of my pants.

  “Oh, my God, Josh, you can’t be serious,” I gasped, ducking my head against his shoulder as a wave of hot excitement and embarrassment overwhelmed me.

  “I’m always serious. Do you want to?” His hand grew still, and I knew he was waiting for my agreement before he proceeded.

  My heart hammered like crazy, but my pussy was aching like crazy too, and I heard myself saying, “Okay. If you say so.”

  He slid his hand down even farther as I slouched a little in the booth. I was huddled up against his side, and I didn’t think anyone could see. But I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure. And that possibility seemed to intensify all of it.

  “I do so say,” he murmured into my ear. “You’re going to come so hard for me. Right here. In front of all of these people.” He’d found my clit and began to massage it in fast circles.

  I smothered a moan and felt a climax developing. I turned my head so I could bury my face in his shirt.

  “That’s right, baby. Be careful or they’ll see, they’ll hear, how wild and gorgeous and sexy you are when you let go.” His voice, his touch, his body against mine, the danger of the location, and the security in his feelings for me all pushed me into orgasm before I could stop it.

  “Not until I say so,” he warned.

  “Oh, fuck, Josh, please.”

  “Come now, then.”

  I stifled my release in his shirt as I shook in tight little shudders, as the pleasure was set free. Then he slid his hand out of my pants and wrapped me in a hug.

  “That was so beautiful,” he said, his mouth again at my ear.

  “I can’t believe we just did that. Do you think anyone saw?”

  I turned m
y head enough to look at the rest of the room, but no one was even glancing over at us.

  It was so strange. That I’d just come so hard. And no one had any idea.

  “But now we really have to get the check,” Josh said, in a different tone.

  My mind was still fuzzy from the orgasm. “Why?”

  “Because if we don’t get home soon, then I’m just going to fuck you, hard, right here in this booth.”

  I laughed. And waved the server over to bring us our check.

  ***

  A month after that, I was sitting on the floor of the bedroom in my pajamas, petting Lucy, who was lying in her dog bed.

  Josh came out of the bathroom just then, wearing the pajama pants his mom had bought him for Christmas one year.

  He looked at me and smiled.

  I smiled back.

  As I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash up, I asked him, “So what are we going to call this thing?”

  He’d been leaning down to give Lucy a green chew, but he straightened up at my question. I squeezed toothpaste on my brush and came back to the doorway to look at him as he said, “It’s called a Greenie. Haven’t you seen them before? They’re good for the teeth, and they’re like crack for dogs. Seriously. They’re kind of expensive, but I figured I’d try to see if it would keep Lucy occupied for a while when we go to bed.”

  Lucy had gotten in the habit of coming over and sticking her nose up over the side of the mattress to investigate certain kinds of activities that happened in the bed, and it was rather distracting.

  I stared at him in confusion, with my toothbrush in my hand, until I realized how he’d misunderstood me. With a choke of laughter, I explained, “Not that. This.” I motioned between us and the bed, hoping he’d get the point. “If I’m going to move in with you, I need to know what to call you. Boyfriend? Partner? What? I’ve been calling you ‘the guy I’m seeing’ to my friends, but it’s honestly a little clunky.” I put the toothbrush in my mouth and started to brush.

  “Oh.” He gave me a little smile. Glanced down at the floor and then back up at me. “Well, I’d prefer for you to call me the love of your life, but I know that might be pushing things. You can wait a little longer to call me that, if it’s too soon.”