Two Lovers

by Edie Bryant

  “Brandon, I’m so sorry…” Lauren began.

  “Don’t be sorry. You’ve found love, right? Nothing to apologize for there. I know you’ve always wanted this—”

  “I never said that.”

  “You never had to!” he cried back. “I could hear it in the way you talked about her! I knew it every time you spoke of her. You loved her. You loved her more than you’d ever loved me, and I’d always known that, and yet I just… denied it. I just didn’t want to believe it. So, really, it’s my fault. Because I knew, the whole time I knew. And still, I didn’t want to believe it. I should have walked away a long time ago. I knew it was always going to be her.”

  “Brandon, I really am sorry,” Lauren said, completely deflated.

  He wiped tears from his eyes. “I’m just going to go. I don’t know why I came here. I don’t know what I was expecting to find besides more bullshit.”

  He grabbed his bags, which were all sitting on the floor next to the couch, and started making his way to the front door. But, on the way, he stopped and grabbed my hand.

  “Just take care of her for me, okay? She really is a good person. Watch out for her now…for me.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Normally, you were supposed to have a natural hate for exes of the person you loved. And I’d already started to dislike him because of the drama his friend Taylor had started at the restaurant. And I thought coming here after speaking to Taylor was pretty damn dramatic in and of itself, so when I saw him here, I was both annoyed and stunned.

  But now I couldn’t hate him. I just couldn’t. Because I saw myself in him. I saw the pain he’d been caused. I could see he really did care about Lauren and wanted the best for her, though he was obviously struggling.

  It was the same pain I’d once known. The pain of not having her in my life. And I felt so terribly for him.

  All I did was give a quick nod. I would take care of her for as long as she’d let me. We’d only barely reconnected, and I didn't know how long this relationship between us would last, but while it did, I was going to do absolutely everything I could to guard her heart.

  “Goodbye, Lauren,” he said, before he hurried out the door.

  Obviously, the entire mood was ruined. Neither of us said anything, neither of us wanted to for a while. Lauren just fell onto the couch, looking completely and utterly dejected. I felt so bad for her.

  I felt bad for both of them. I knew Lauren had hurt him, but what else could she have done? Just stayed with him despite not truly loving him?

  Lauren was full of guilt and Brandon was full of sadness, break-ups are so hard. Even when your feelings for the other person have dissipated long ago, it was still hard. And it was awful they were both going through this now.

  I didn’t even care about our first night together being effectively ruined. How could I? They were going through so much more than I could imagine right now.

  “Lauren, I’m so sorry…” I said softly as I ran my hand down her back.

  “What do you have to be sorry for? You’ve done nothing. I’m the one who has imploded every relationship I’ve ever had,” she sighed.

  I wanted to say that she hadn’t imploded our relationship, though frankly, she kind of had. It had just been in a completely different way.

  “I know you feel bad, I know this is hard, but you really didn’t do anything. You didn’t have the feelings for him that he had for you, and, because of that, it was never going to work out. But it’s not just all your fault.”

  “It’s my fault I strung him along like I did. It’s my fault he’s hurting now. I should have realized a long time ago that he wasn’t the one for me…”

  “It doesn’t help to play the what-if game,” I told her. “Seriously, it doesn’t. It won’t get you anywhere. Sure, there are a lot of things you could have done in hindsight, but you didn’t know. You wanted to believe that the love you had for Brandon was real, and so you convinced yourself it was.”

  She nodded. “That's exactly what I did. But the thing is… even he knew he wasn’t the one for me. Even he knew I’d been in love with you all these years, and you two never even met until right now. In just the way I spoke about you… he knew?”

  In the whirlwind of everything that had happened, I’d forgotten this part. I couldn’t pretend that this didn’t warm me. I couldn’t act like the thought of her loving me all these years, so much so even her fiancé could tell, didn’t bring me some kind of joy. I felt guilty about it, but I did.

  She looked up at me, tears welling in her eyes. “I’ve been an idiot, Sara.”

  I continued to rub her back. “No, you haven’t…”

  “Seriously, I have. In all my relationships. With you, with Brandon, with all of my exes. I just can’t make things work. I’m no good at it. And I’m terrified that I’m going to do that all over again with you. Do you know how much it hurts just to fuck up with Brandon? And I never loved him like I loved you. How is it going to break me when I can’t make this relationship last?”

  “Hey, you have no idea what’s going to happen! Who’s to say this isn’t going to last? Like you said, you’re not jealous like you were before. You don’t have the same issues you once did in our relationship. And the issues you had with Brandon, you won’t have with me. I know that sounds cocky to say, but it’s what I honestly believe. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble being in love with me. I have no trouble being in love with you.”

  “Yeah… I guess…” she said, still sounding so unsure.

  I took her hand. “Look, I don’t know where this is going to lead. I can’t tell you whether or not this will or won’t work. All I can say is that I want you. I want to try with you. And you're the only woman I’ve really ever wanted to try with. All my other relationships have only felt like placeholders for you.”

  She gave a halfhearted smile. “I feel the same way.”

  “So, maybe it’s true! Maybe they have all been placeholders, bringing us to this moment. And maybe this moment is all we should be worried about right now.”

  “How do you mean?” she questioned.

  “I mean, we have all the time in the world to worry about our past mistakes. You have all the time in the world to regret what you’ve done or who you’ve been… but we only have right now to enjoy each other. Or, I mean, hopefully we actually have a lot more than just this moment… but we don’t know, right? It’s impossible to know what will happen! So why don’t we just enjoy this, while we definitely can?”

  She took in a deep breath. “You’re right. You’re totally right. And I’m sorry, for dragging you into this and bringing all this negativity into our first date together. If you can even call this a date. When I fantasized about meeting you again, I didn’t really fantasize it would go down like this. I thought it would be all lovely and magical, not filled with an intense amount of drama from my ex.”

  “It still is lovely and magical. For me, anyway. I don’t think there is anything that could take the magic away from me.”

  I knew, in that moment, we were both thinking the same thing. Slowly, our heads began to tilt toward one another. Our eyes cautiously closed as our lips began to touch.

  It was perfect, kissing her was everything I remembered it to be. A chill ran down my spine as our lips parted and met once again, this time kissing with slightly opened mouths, our lips entrenched in the other’s.

  And it was more than a chill down my spine. The more we kissed, the more I got that familiar tingling sensation.

  I’d had a sex life with all my exes, of course, but it’d been a long time since another person had really, truly excited me. They could turn me on, but not like this. I’d never gotten the feeling that I craved them, that I badly needed to have my way with them.

  Like I was feeling right now.

  And I knew how good the sex was with Lauren, I remembered. It had been the best I’d ever had. I still used it for my masturbation fantasies.

  I let my hand drift from her ne
ck down the front of her shirt and stopped at the hem. I played with it for a second, running my fingers back and forth along the bottom of her shirt, my nails gently scratching against the soft skin on her stomach.

  I could feel her stomach tremble under my touch, and I responded by lifting her shirt further up, slowly exposing more of that body I once remembered, until I was pulling her shirt off from over the top of her head.

  God, how I’d missed this body.

  I rolled my hands over her boobs, feeling her nipples softly in the process. She moaned under my touch which only made me hotter for it. Hearing her sex noises brought out my primal instincts and I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I had to have her, had to taste her.

  So I did.

  I extended my tongue to lick her nipples, tasting her breasts and sucking them softly in the process. She was as supple as I remembered. I loved the way her breasts jiggled gently under the pressure of my mouth as I sucked.

  As good as her breasts tasted, it wasn't enough. I had to have more. I had to taste more. And there was only one way I was going to get to do that.

  I started moving down from her breasts toward her pussy, extending my tongue so that it rolled down her entire torso, making her shiver in the process. But not as much as she shivered when I pulled down her underwear and let my hands part her lips, exposing her bare pussy to me.

  It was perfect, as beautiful as I remembered. And it was begging for my touch.

  I separated her thighs forcefully and lowered my head to her, going straight for the clit. I sucked on it gently, wanting to start out slow. I took breaks in between sucking to roll it around with my tongue as well as slide it up and down her pussy lips. They parted for me effortlessly.

  “Holy fuck, I want you!” She groaned unexpectedly, forcing me to lift my head from her pussy.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I want you! I want to taste you too.”

  I grinned, knowing exactly what she wanted. I pulled off the rest of my clothes and started to move on top of her, situating myself so that my mouth was at her pussy while my pussy was at her head.

  And before I even had a chance to put my mouth back on her, she had her mouth on me. And she was not starting slow as I had. No, she was slurping on me forcefully. Sucking me in a way that sent a tingle up my clit and down my spine.

  God, with the way she was rolling her tongue on me, I was not going to be able to last.

  I had to focus though. I had to fight through my own ecstasy because I wanted so badly to pleasure her, to taste her, to give her what she was giving me. So I got more forceful too.

  I slid my tongue all the way down her slit and to her entrance where I then began to tongue fuck the shit out of her. Rapidly, forcefully inserting my long tongue in and out of her as deep as I could.

  She moaned from underneath me, temporarily stopping her from licking my pussy as she was overcome with pleasure. But that only lasted for a second before she redirected her attention back to me. It was like she was using all the ecstasy from her own pleasure and refocusing it back to me.

  She started to use not only her mouth on me, but her fingers as she slide two of them into my nearly dripping wet pussy. They slid in effortlessly, making me groan as she increased the speed of her tongue on my clit.

  It was more than I could take and I knew it. I was about to cum any second. I couldn’t hold back. Her pumping me from the inside while rolling around me on the outside was pushing me over the edge.

  But I did what she did, I focused my ecstasy on her, pumping my tongue in and out of her faster as I moved my fingers to roll around her clit.

  To my surprise, since I was so close to the edge, it was her that came first. She lifted her mouth off of me, her fingers still buried inside of me, and screamed as her legs began to tremble underneath me. She gassped as the orgasm rolled through her.

  It took her a minute to get back to me, as she was panting and clearly overwhelmed with her orgasm. But as fast as she could, she started pumping her fingers back in and out of me and slurping on my clit.

  Within thirty seconds of her starting up on me again, I was cumming. I couldn’t help myself. Watching her orgasm was so sexy and now I was overwhelmed with my own pleasure to the point that i couldn’t hold back.

  I screamed out as I felt the orgasm begin. My pussy began to pulsate on her fingers, gripping her tight as I groaned and began to shiver. It felt so fucking good.

  I collapsed to the bed, feeling like my legs were made of jelly.

  It was easily the greatest orgasm I’d ever had. Even better than when we used to be together. Something about not seeing her all this time did something more to me, it made me crave her more deeply than I ever had before and it made me more attracted to her than I ever had been.

  I waited a second before I moved away from her, but when I started to get up and pull away from her, Lauren pulled me right back in.

  “No, stay, lay down with me,” she said.

  “Really?” I questioned. “But I’m all, like, naked and sweaty and stuff.”

  “Don’t care. Couldn’t care less, in fact. I just want your body on mine, in any way that’s possible.”

  I grinned as I laid down next to her, our sweaty, naked bodies cuddling on the couch.

  And I couldn’t help but think, damn, this is what love is.

  9

  Lauren

  Being with Sara was everything I’d imagined and everything I hadn’t.

  I couldn’t honestly say that being with Sara had fixed every issue I had in my life. It hadn’t, of course it hadn’t, because another person couldn’t really do that for you.

  I still had my issues, and the problems I had with myself after leaving Brandon didn’t go away by any means. Even weeks after ending our engagement, the pain I caused him was still wearing on me.

  Not to mention, the more our friends found out, the more I heard about it. And when I say ‘our friends,’ I really mean Brandon’s friends. Brandon was the outgoing, fun, charismatic one. He was the one who brought me into his social circle. So, obviously, they were a lot closer to him than they were to me.

  And that definitely showed in the reactions I’d gotten from people. I hadn’t received any messages nearly as dramatic as Taylor’s, and most people said nothing at all. But I got a few people who asked what had happened, if I had really been cheating, how could I move on so fast. One girl in particular asked if I knew what this was doing to Brandon and how broken he’d been. I told her I did, and I was terribly sorry, but that was all I could really say.

  The day he was at the house when Sara and I returned, he had neglected to take all of his things. One of his sisters came to pick up a few of the larger items, like the television he’d bought that was kept in the bedroom and his desk. She didn’t speak to me as she did it, which I understood completely.

  I was trying to move on, but it was hard to do with all these people in my ear this way. Which, sometimes, I thought was actually okay. Like, why should I get to move on? Brandon sure didn’t. And I actually had someone to distract me from my pain, and he didn’t.

  God, I still felt so horrible.

  Sara was a great comfort to me, though. The time we spent together was beyond amazing. And, damn, did we spend a lot of time together.

  After I trained her at work, we always hung out with each other afterward. Either I went to her house, or she went to mine. Very rarely did we not spend the night together. Which meant we literally slept together, got up together, went to work together, and went home together.

  It was the exact opposite of taking things slowly. But neither of us could help ourselves. Spending time with one another just felt so fucking good.

  I knew maybe it was just the honeymoon stage, but I didn’t think so. Because at the beginning of my other relationships, I’d never felt like this. I’d never been so thrilled just to spend time with one of my exes like I was with Sara. She was something special.

  I was in love with her. I just
knew it. I felt it in every bone of my body. I hadn’t told her yet, because obviously it was way too fucking soon for that, but I still knew. And I’d tell her when the time was right.

  For now, I think we were just peacefully enjoying each other’s company. Slowly falling back together in a way that was comfortable and familiar. I loved every second of it.

  Though, we were coming up on my last days of training her, which I was dreading. I was excited about my new job before, but, now, I just wanted to stay in the same department with Sara. Obviously that was impossible, and I knew being one department above her was no big deal, but still. It was going to suck not being able to see her all the time. Even if we would be in the same building.

  I was sitting at my desk, waiting for her to come back from the bathroom. There were only fifteen minutes to go in our workday, and we were going to grab some pizza before heading back to my place.

  When another five minutes or so passed, I started to get worried. She never took this long to go to the bathroom, and she’d been looking a little pale before she’d gotten up to go. I wondered if she was doing okay or if she was getting sick or something.

  I let just a couple more minutes pass before going to check on her.

  But, when I made my way to the bathroom, I was surprised to find that she wasn’t there at all. She was across the room, talking to one of our co-workers.

  One of our cuter coworkers, I might add. And one I knew was a lesbian.

  I could feel the old twinge of jealousy pop up. It wasn’t as strong as it once was. I wasn’t ready to go across the room and retrieve her from talking to this girl. It was just a little hint of it.

  I quickly told myself I was being ridiculous, though. She’d probably gotten caught up in conversation coming from the bathroom. It was nothing to worry about, nothing to be jealous of, I was being ridiculous.

  I was disappointed in myself, though. Even though I didn’t let the jealous feelings get out of hand, I was surprised even to find that I still had them. I’d really thought I was past this. I hadn’t experienced any jealousy with any of my other ex’s.