Then Came You

by Kate Meader

  But I did run, once. And maybe that’s why we’re here. I should have fought harder.

  “You think you’re a mess? Not as much as you could be, Bean. Not as much as me.” I kiss her, with the goal to turn her into the quivering puddle she’s made of me.

  Her mouth is so sweet, so responsive. I’ve missed it and all the honey that goes with it. The hunger and the joy.

  Our tongues tangle, a perfect homecoming, a recognition of how goddamned good we are together. She moans into my mouth, and I can’t help it—I grasp her ass and pull her close, determined not to let her go.

  But the move is too sudden. She pulls away, her eyes glazed. “This—I’m not sure I can do this.”

  I nod and somehow manage to separate my body from hers. It feels so unnatural, but I try to cover. “You taste the same.”

  She touches her lower lip and darts her tongue over it, savoring me, I hope.

  I grab a pillow and place it over my groin. “Don’t do that. It’s too much.”

  She smiles that cat’s smile, and strangely it lightens the tension between us. I want her to feel in control, that she need never be concerned I’d push her too hard.

  “Really?” She drags her teeth against her lip, leaving it wet and me wanting. Oh, she knows exactly what she’s doing.

  “Descendant of Salem witches. Knew it.”

  “I should leave.” I think that’s the third time she’s said it, but she can’t follow through.

  “Stay. But only if you can behave.” I move back onto the bed and stretch out with pillows at my back and my arm behind my head, inviting her in. “I’m not going to kiss you again. Not even if you beg me.” I find the remote and flip around the channels until I find something I want to watch. The Good Place, which I like because Ted Danson is a genius.

  She waits a beat, then another. After what seems like an eternity, she stretches out beside me. Not touching, but close enough to let hope take root in my chest.

  Chapter 9

  Aubrey

  I wake in my ex-husband’s arms and use the moment to truly look at him.

  When I first met Grant, I couldn’t believe how attracted I was to him. The notion of chemistry was abstract to me. Sure, I’d experienced lust, but never had I reacted so full-on to another person. I’ve always been suspicious of it. It’s the New Englander in me. There’s something both impractical and unseemly about letting your hormones overwhelm common sense.

  In the early days, I used to sit behind him in class, ogling him, safe in the knowledge I could do so unobserved. He was the only person without a laptop, instead choosing to scrawl big florid loops on a legal pad. While everyone else click-clacked away, he listened intently and made a note every few minutes. Watching him was a quiet revelation.

  Now I try to assess with the eye of someone seeing this specimen for the first time. What is it about Grant that makes him so irresistible?

  The physical attributes are undeniable, of course. The jaw is a thing of beauty. Strong and square, the perfect shelter for my forehead.

  His lips are firm and giving. They’ve never disappointed.

  But with Grant, it’s always been his eyes. Dark blue, intense and fiery, yet heartbreakingly kind.

  Right now they’re shuttered, thank God. To look into those eyes is to fall into madness. That’s how it was when I first met him. My body was no longer my own—it fell over itself to become the property of Grant Roosevelt Lincoln.

  I’m not so sure I ever held this same power over him. Sure, he enjoyed me, but with Grant, I suspect he enjoyed the conquest more. He got a kick out of my supposed Boston blue blood genes and how, in his view, I was slumming it with Bo or Luke Duke. We played that game for much of our time together, though it was likely more me trying to keep a layer of distance between us.

  Grant needs something to grip, a reason to hope. He’s a font of low-key yet boundless optimism, caged in six feet two of southern sexy gentleman. But there’s steel in his gut. I’ve never met anyone more determined.

  Which is why I said no to his offer of marriage the first time of asking.

  Two weeks before graduation, I was still mulling my job situation. My father wanted me to come back to Boston and work in the legal department of the family firm. But Grant was staying in Chicago. He had an offer from Fairfax and Mullen, one of the top firms in the city. My Chicago offer was with a smaller, boutique outfit, which is what you get when your grades aren’t so good.

  Grant never doubted that we would follow the expected path: marriage after graduation, settle in the suburbs, pop out three children (two boys, one girl, per Grant). But then he was always the most assured person I’d ever met.

  So when he asked me, I wondered if I could ever be as sure as him. Did I want to be that person? The daughter with the expectations heaped high, the fiancée with the going-places husband-to-be, the mother who wouldn’t be able to find time for her kids, just like my own?

  “I need to think about it.”

  Grant stared at me, from two feet below during a walk by the lake with the sun setting behind me (he’d dropped to one knee, of course), and then a sly smile curved his beautiful lips. “You never make it easy, do you, Bean?”

  I wanted to scream that this wasn’t one of our games. I wasn’t trying to one-up him or make him work for it. I worried about being subsumed by his ambition. Grant had always known his journey. Was I just another trophy to be picked up on the way, another check in his inventory? But the words to explain it wouldn’t form, so I tossed my head back and gave a coquettish laugh.

  “Let’s wait and see,” I said.

  I moved back to Boston.

  Grant’s response: Taking this a bit far, aren’t you, Bean?

  I told him I needed space. First-year associates worked eighty-hour weeks, anyway. This time apart would help us figure it out.

  For that first year, he came to see me in Boston every weekend, even if it was for one night only. I didn’t think I could fall further than I already had, but Grant Roosevelt Lincoln knew how to woo a girl. I was used to the Cape Cod–wealthy frat boys, fast-talking investment bankers, and guys with political ambitions constantly placed in my path by my constantly disappointed mother.

  Grant was so different. Slow and deliberate in his speech, in his intentions, and between the sheets. He was a man on a mission, and the mission was me.

  He succeeded. I moved back to Chicago after a year, and we eloped to Vegas to get married. I couldn’t bear the thought of my mother looking down on him and his lovely family during a big Boston wedding. She’d already made enough snide comments about his accent (goes well with banjo music), his considered approach (whatever is he thinking in that southern-fried brain?), and his smirk when presented with three forks and two spoons at her dinner table (Grant, mon cher, use whatever catches your fancy). My brothers saw him as some sort of carnival freak, even though he could run rings around them on any topic. And my father…well, Dad was usually three sheets to the wind whenever he was at home. Whenever he came home. His office sofa or a (female) assistant’s thighs had always held more appeal.

  The only person who seemed to appreciate Grant as much as I did was my grandmother. I expected she’d tear him apart, but he had a way with her. Made her feel beautiful with that Georgian charm. If Grant went missing during a home visit, I’d invariably find him with Libby in her granny flat (really a spacious apartment on the family estate—you’ll see). Witnessing the two of them together, yukking it up, made my heart swell to epic proportions.

  It will hurt her so much to know Grant isn’t looking after me anymore. I know he can make it sound right if he talks to her in person. Well, not “sound right,” because it can never sound right. No more Grant and Aubrey. It’s the worst equation in the world, but Grant can spin it to acceptability. That’s the best I c
an hope for.

  Right now, lying beside him in a hotel room in Cleveland, I note that his breathing is steady, just like him. I’ve never felt safer with anyone than I do with Grant. His shirt has risen up a few inches, revealing taut muscle that my fingers sizzle with the need to touch. I trace an arrow of hair over his navel until my finger meets the barrier of his jeans, the first barrier of many. A button, a zipper, my hurt, and common sense telling me I shouldn’t even think it.

  Well, I’ve thought it and…I like it. I like it a lot.

  I pop that button out of its mooring, then lift my gaze to his face.

  Heavy-lidded eyes are watching me, alight with mischief. “Can I help you?”

  “No.” Yes. This will help. This will help me feel in control, to just plain feel.

  My hand coasts across his abs, now that I have permission—wait, do I have permission? I stop, suddenly unsure. “Is—is this okay?”

  He nods, and now it’s his turn to look unsure. Or…gut-punched. As if my touch has knocked the wind out of him.

  “Say it,” I grind out. “I need a yes.”

  “Yes, Aubrey. I want you to touch me. I want you to do whatever the hell you need to me.”

  Not want, but need. No one can read me like this man.

  Next comes the zipper, a slow, sexy slide down, with some resistance from the bulge behind it. Maybe he’s been hard all night. Maybe he’s been hard since Chicago.

  I brush my palm over his erection, straining against his black briefs. He lifts off the bed a couple of inches, arching into my touch.

  “Tease,” he murmurs.

  “Easy,” I murmur back.

  “You think it’s an insult, but where you’re concerned, I wear it with pride.”

  I cup him and squeeze, my eyes never leaving his face. Oh, that’s nice. The weight of him in my hand, the moan he lets loose, the crumple of his handsome face into pain/pleasure—it fuels my desire to a raging fire.

  “Aubrey, I—I need to…need to touch you. Please.”

  “No, not yet.” Not ever. Staying in control is my mission here. If I let him touch me, slide his fingers inside my panties, rub through all the wetness he’s created in me, I will no longer be in control here. And dammit, that’s what I need. Just a measure of power, a grip over the life I can’t keep inside the rails.

  Giving my ex-husband a hand job might seem a strange way to get my mojo back. I can’t explain it. I can only feel it.

  “Jeans down,” I order. When he doesn’t do it immediately, I palm him harder.

  On a lusty groan, he jerks his jeans and briefs down, and I’m left in awe of his beauty.

  “Well, look at you,” I say to his penis.

  “You could look at my face.”

  “Much prefer to look at your cock.” I run a finger along the underside, then wrap my hand around it. It’s so thick I could weep for joy.

  “Bean. Jesus.” His abdominals flex like they’re speaking to me, and what they’re saying is: more more more. A pearl of pre-cum leaks from the head, and I can’t resist: I swipe my tongue over it and taste.

  “Oh, Christ,” he says before his hand cups my neck. “Sorry, can I? Please?”

  Look at us, so careful with each other. The feel of him curled around my neck sends blistering heat throughout my body, along spokes to every extremity. I always loved when he tunneled his fingers in my hair as he fucked my mouth.

  I think I’m going to love it again.

  I take him inside, bathing him with my tongue, hollowing my cheeks to suck. He’s careful not to grip my neck too hard, but I know he needs more. I need it, too. Whoever thinks blow jobs are an act of submission isn’t doing them right. In this moment, I am queen. My ruin is reframed as a power grab.

  When he spills on my tongue, I swallow him down, then continue to suck where it’s sensitive until I’m sure I’ve milked him dry.

  “Fuuuuck! Aubrey!”

  I pull away and lay my head on his stomach. I can’t look at him. Not yet.

  His fingers massage the nape of my neck. “Still got it.”

  He means us, the undeniable sexual chemistry that makes us work. I shift my head so my chin’s on his rock-hard abs and peek up at him through the veil of my lashes. “Queen of the Blow Jobs, remember?” Title earned on our fifth date.

  “I need to catch up.”

  I bolt upright. “No.”

  “No?”

  “You don’t owe me an orgasm, Grant.”

  “Correct. I owe you three. At least.”

  My core flutters at the thought. He could do it, too. But I want to keep this other, new feeling close to my chest for a while.

  “I’m going back to my room now.”

  He pulls a face, clearly baffled by my statement, which is downright adorable. “You sure?”

  My heart feels lighter, even if every other part of me feels heavy with lust. If I can control this, I can get through the next few days. I’m sure of it.

  “Let me walk you back,” he says, evidently exasperated on realizing I won’t bow down to his orgasm-producing skills.

  “It’s three doors down the corridor.”

  He stands, tucking himself back into his briefs and pulling up the zipper of his jeans. “A lot of unsavory characters in these parts.”

  I snort-giggle and let him walk me back to my room.

  “Thanks for the burger.”

  “Thanks for the blow job.” He adds a cheeky grin that makes me melt, but I feel his unease at leaving me hanging. Grant is a southern gentleman, not least in ensuring no woman is left behind.

  Stay on target. “See you in the morning.”

  “ ’Night, Bean.”

  * * *

  —

  Grant insists we go to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and I have to give him this because he’s being so nice to drive me. I even come inside and ooh and aah at the displays to prove I’m a good sport.

  On the road to our proposed lunch stop in Erie, Pennsylvania, I get a call from my father. As his preferred methods of communication are all-caps texting, incorrect emoji usage, and exclamation points, I answer immediately, worried about my grandmother.

  “Dad, is everything okay?”

  “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  I slide a glance to Grant, who is silently judging from the driver’s seat. “I just thought—never mind. What’s up?”

  “Does something need to be up to call my girl?” His voice is loud and full of his usual bluster. I wish I’d waited until we’d stopped and I’d have more privacy.

  “No, just surprised to hear from you. I’ll be in Boston tomorrow.”

  “So, your mother is demanding the house in St. Bart’s.” The statement might sound like a non sequitur, but I know better. Never one to dwell on small talk, my father invariably steers our conversations to the divorce proceedings that could rival the decades-long case in Dickens’s Bleak House for interminability. “She shouldn’t be able to have a claim on that, should she?”

  “You need to talk to your lawyer about it, but essentially any property acquired during the marriage is fair game. You bought that less than ten years ago—”

  He cuts me off. “With my money!”

  “The courts don’t really see it that way. There’s more to a marriage than who paid for what. It’s also about contributions, not all of them monetary. Mom kept the home fires burning while you”—inserted your penis in strange women—“ran a business.” I’ve explained this to him several times, without the penis commentary.

  “Surprised you’d take her side. She’s never been the most maternal of women.”

  Who could blame her? I certainly don’t.

  Let me tell you more about the Gateses of Boston, one
of the oldest and most elite families in New England. Some species of birds, like cuckoos, are what’s known as brood parasites. They lay eggs in the nests of other birds, sometimes killing off the host’s young, and fool the host into bringing up the baby birds as their own. My life is a human version of this.

  Dad had an affair, and I was the result, inherited by the Gates family when my biological mother died after birth complications. I don’t know why he and his wife remained together, but somehow Marie-Claire was convinced to adopt me. The family knows about his mistake—which somehow has morphed into mine—but we don’t talk about it. We just carry on as if bringing home the child of your dead mistress and expecting your wife to raise her is perfectly normal.

  Marie-Claire is the only mother I’ve ever known. She can’t help her chilliness toward me. Hell, I understand it. All my life, I’ve tried to demonstrate appropriate gratitude because I was taken in, a cuckoo’s egg in the host nest. And my father now likes to use my mother’s good deed as ammunition in his war with her.

  “I’m not taking sides, Dad. And I’ve told you, I can’t give you advice on this. That’s why you have very expensive divorce lawyers who specialize in Massachusetts divorce law.” It’s not all that different from anywhere else, but my father is awed enough by legalese that it momentarily buys me an out.

  “So how’s Libby?” I ask. He has a contentious relationship with his mother, my grandmother. She does not approve of his life choices.

  “High as a kite half the time.”

  “I can’t wait to see her. And all of you,” I quickly add.

  Now that I’m no longer kowtowing to my father’s ego, I’m quickly dispatched.

  “Papa Gates sounds to be in fine form,” Grant comments when I click off.

  “Can it, Lincoln,” I mutter, not in the mood.

  We stop at a diner in Erie, where I order a chef’s salad and Grant gets the grilled cheese with bacon. Tons of bacon, which I help myself to out of kindness to his arteries. He leans over and picks up my water glass, then salts the napkin. My heart gives a strange twist at this familiar gesture. He always did that so my glass wouldn’t stick to the soggy napkin.