Yours to Bare

by Jessica Hawkins

  “Yeah, babe.” I set her coffee down and sit across from her.

  “The condom.”

  “I know.” I plant my elbows on the table and run both hands through my hair. “It fucking sucks we have to use one, but I’ve got issues about it.”

  She looks up at me, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Issues . . .?”

  I massage my jaw. It’s not something I enjoy talking about, but I feel close to Halston right now. And I plan to get even chummier, so she needs to know. I’m comfortable enough to go where I’d rather not. “Kendra and I dated when I was just out of college, for about a year, and then I ended things. But she was used to getting what she wanted, and she wanted me.”

  She knits her eyebrows. “What’s that have to do with condoms?”

  “She came by one night. We had break-up sex. No big deal, lots of couples do it, but it didn’t change my feelings for her. We were completely over. Unfortunately, she didn’t tell me she’d stopped taking birth control. That’s how Marissa was conceived.”

  Halston looks horrified. “Oh my God.”

  I sip my drink and Halston does the same. The mug’s the same cool gray as her eyes. “Yeah. It started this whole downward spiral of stuff. I felt responsible, so I married her. Her parents were devastated. They thought I was a bum. At the time, I’d been trying to make it as a photographer, but I was barely getting by. Her dad got me admitted into business school without asking me, and I went. Not for him or for Kendra, but for Marissa. I knew, even if I tripled the work I was doing as a photographer, there was no supporting a child on what I’d be making.”

  “She manipulated you.”

  “And she’s been doing it ever since. The affair was the catalyst for the divorce, so she brings it up any chance she gets. She uses Marissa against me at every turn. It’s not ideal, but it’s my life.”

  Halston doesn’t respond. At first, I think she’s shocked, but then I realize she’s gulping air fast—too fast to let any out. “I-I . . .”

  I stand, pushing my chair back. “What’s wrong?” She turns sheet-white and begins to wheeze. I kneel in front of her. “Are you having a panic attack?”

  Distantly, she looks down and grabs the edge of her t-shirt. Awful scenarios filter through my head. Did I hurt her? Is she bleeding? Did the Kendra stuff scare her? She lifts the hem, but there’s nothing there.

  “Halston, talk to me. What is it?”

  “I think the condom broke.” She touches herself between the legs, and her fingers come back slick. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  I sit back on my heels. My relief eases slightly, but not completely. Fuck. I didn’t check the condom before I tossed it. It definitely wasn’t empty, but maybe it wasn’t full, either. I cover her hand with mine. “Are you on birth control?”

  “Yes. I swear, I would never, ever lie about that, no matter how upset . . . no matter how much I wanted . . .”

  I kiss her hand. “I believe you. I do. It’s not—I mean, if I have any doubt, it’s because of Kendra, not you.”

  “You have some doubt, though?” she asks, her voice small.

  I wish I could say no, babe, of course not, like a normal boyfriend would. It’s just that Kendra blindsided me so bad, I still haven’t recovered. I was in shock until well after I’d made an honest woman of her and Marissa was born. Not even Sadie shook that distrust in me. She might’ve eventually, but I made sure we used a condom every time we were together. “I don’t doubt you,” I say. “But it goes deep. I don’t even have the faith I should in condoms or birth control. When it comes to this, I don’t entirely trust anything I can’t see with my own eyes.”

  “I can show you my pack,” she says and goes to stand. “It’s in my—”

  I push her back into the seat. “It’s okay.”

  “No it’s not. I don’t want you to think I . . . that it was intentional or—”

  I smile a little, and she stops, clearly confused. It’s just fucking cute that she’s so worried about it, and for some reason, it makes me less worried. “I know you didn’t.”

  Finally, she deflates into the chair. “I promise.”

  I chuckle. “I hear you.”

  She looks out the window over the kitchen sink. “Okay. Good.”

  “Yes, good,” I repeat, trying to catch her eyes, because she doesn’t sound at ease. Once again, I’ve gone and spoiled her mood. Fuck me. “Shit, if it’s anyone’s fault the condom broke, it’s mine,” I say, attempting to cheer her up. “I’m the one who bought them. And it was my bright idea to fuck in the shower. You have every right to be suspicious I plotted to get you pregnant.”

  She whips her head around, her expression pure shock.

  I grin. “If you don’t shut that mouth,” I warn, “I will kiss you.”

  She covers her lips and says through her hand, “Please go clean it.”

  I laugh, standing. I’d like to kiss her at some point today, so I go into the bathroom and brush my teeth. The condom’s on top of the trash, full of my jizz. It doesn’t look broken from here. I’m good. I should be totally good. Condoms break all the time. The chances of pregnancy without a condom or birth control are relatively low. And I barely came in her. We’ll be fine.

  Belatedly, though, I think about what I just said to tease her. Me, plotting to get her pregnant. It’s the last thing I want, and maybe that’s the reason it turns me on to think about. Coming inside her. Claiming her permanently. I never had that urge with Kendra. Before our split, I’d been adamant about not having another baby. With Sadie, I thought about our future a lot, but a family would’ve been a concession on my part to win her.

  On my way out of the bathroom, I stop at my nightstand for another condom. They might be crap, but they’re all I’ve got and I’m not about to get dressed and go downstairs to find more. I start to shut the drawer when I catch sight of Halston’s journal. God, just a couple weeks ago, I was jerking it to her words. I would’ve given anything to have her.

  Now I do.

  I pick up the warm, weighty leather with respect and gratitude and bring it with me to the kitchen. She has her hands curled around the fog-colored mug, her cheeks pink from hot coffee and hotter sex.

  “Hey,” I say, passing through as I head to the living room. “Come with me.”

  I go to the couch, lie on my back, and open an arm to her.

  “What’s that?” she asks from the doorway.

  “You know very well what it is.”

  She half rolls her eyes but comes to me. As she settles in, I take a moment to appreciate how her skin warms against mine. How she fits herself to my side. Her silky blonde hair tickles my bicep as she runs her fingers up my middle, abs to chest. I won’t last like this very long, so I open the journal. “Read to me. Will you?”

  She takes a few moments to answer. “I don’t know.”

  I turn on my side, encircling her from behind, and flip through the book so we both can see. She stops me by touching one of the pages. “This one.”

  I nuzzle her ear and whisper the first line to her. “‘I have a thirst I can’t deny.’”

  “‘I try, baby, do I try,’” she says. “‘But I want to be drunk down like you do a handle, taste me better than your first-love liquor, your fingers tightening around my whiskey-bottle neck.’”

  I’m harder than hard against the cushion of her ass. I let go of one side of the journal and gently take her throat in my hand. When she lifts her chin, I angle over her to capture her mouth. I accidentally drop the book but leave it. Her words are sex, and I need to feel her now. Shoving down my underwear, I push into her from behind.

  “Oh my God,” she groans. “Oh, fuck. But the condom.”

  “Just for a second,” I say. I trust myself, and only myself, not to go too far. “I just want to feel you.”

  She’s nice and wet, accepting my length easier this time. Her warmth soothes me. Skin on skin is magic. Maybe I’m wrong to think I can sto
p. Maybe I should not have fucking done this. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to go back to having a layer of latex between us.

  My hand is still around her throat. She wants things she can’t ask for. That’s why they go in the journal. I can give her all of it, but not without talking to her first. And now is not the time for talking. Still, her words live inside me, and I only know one way to get them out.

  Without releasing her neck, I lean over the side of the couch and feel around for my bag. When I find it, I dig out my camera.

  Her eyes follow until it’s outside her frame of vision. I get it. She’s been unsure about the camera from the start, and now she’s naked, exposed—not just her body but her face, her emotions.

  “Do you trust me?” I ask.

  She swallows against the palm of my hand before nodding.

  It’s not the most comfortable position for me, and since I know the photo won’t turn out perfectly, I use that to my advantage. While I’m inside her, I get up on my elbow and take a picture of my hand around her throat. I keep anything above her lips or below her collarbone out of the frame. But her open mouth and splotchy skin add a level of perfection to the image that should be captured. Anyone who wants to see it, will—she’s getting fucked in this photo.

  When I have what I want, I put the camera down and bury my face in her sweet-smelling hair. I move a hand to her tits and fuck her that way for a few silent, fire-burning seconds and then reluctantly put on a condom to finish both of us off.

  I begin to drift, still inside her, my arms around her, my camera and her journal tossed aside together. Her breathing softens, evening out.

  The clouds break and sunlight comes through the window, jarring me back to consciousness. My first thought is that I can’t wait to have her again. My next is that I’m a fucking idiot, putting my dick anywhere without a condom. But I settle down quickly when the truth hits me in the chest like a bag full of beautiful bricks.

  It’s been a perfect day. Time with my daughter, then with the girl I’ve been waiting for a long time. Fucking perfect.

  17

  As soon as I step out of the elevator onto the yellow-lighted sixth floor and see Finn waiting in his doorway, I forget that my new heels have been pinching my feet since this morning. That my shoulders ache from three hours in a qualitative analysis seminar.

  He follows me with his green, adoring eyes. He’s in slacks, a tie, and a button-down because he wore a suit to a meeting with a prospective client. I watched him shave earlier, but now golden stubble shades his jaw. I forget how to speak. I’ve stayed here every night since Friday, and each time I see him, he gets better. Sexier, because I know what he’s capable of. Those hands. That mouth. It goes beyond touch and caress. His words alone can leave my knees shaking.

  “Mmm,” he says when I approach. “Take off your clothes.”

  “Here in the hallway?” I ask.

  “Would you?”

  I tilt my chin down, keeping my eyes on his. Is he serious? By his silence, I think so. He seems to think I’d do what he says. I glance down the hall, even though we’re alone. Maybe I would. Apparently, I trust him already. I don’t believe he’d hurt me. Unlike the other men in my life, Finn doesn’t pretend to know what’s best for me. For that reason, I almost trust him more than them.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He cocks an eyebrow, looking pleased. “Good girl. I won’t make you. Not tonight.”

  I’m relieved, but only slightly. I’m also curious how Finn’s face would look as I undressed for him here, on display for his neighbors. Not that I’m bold enough to take that kind of initiative. “You look good in the suit. Uncomfortable . . . but good.”

  “I used to wear one every day. I wish I could say this is the first I’ve put it on since I quit the nine-to-five, but it isn’t.”

  Finn in front of a computer all day, adjusting his tie, retiring to the break room, eating lunch in his office? I can’t picture it. He needs to be free of a cage. It’s suddenly clear how well—and how little—I know him. “What’d you do before this?”

  “Wall Street.”

  I start to laugh but stop when he doesn’t. He isn’t joking. He mentioned business school, but Wall Street is a whole new ballgame. “Seriously?”

  “It was all wrong for me.”

  “I never would’ve guessed.”

  “It was what I had to do for my baby.” He shrugs dejectedly. “Anyway, I thought being an artist would mean I never had to answer to anyone, but first impressions matter. In a suit, clients treat me more like a businessman than the dreamer I am.”

  I smile. “Dreamer, huh?”

  “You should know that about me,” he says seriously. “That stuff in the past with Kendra and Sadie—it’s been hard, but I’m still a romantic guy. I’m even glad for it if it brought me to you.”

  He says it simply, as if it isn’t a powerful declaration about our relationship. He’d be grateful for his failed marriage, devastating affair, and broken heart . . . because of me? Someone he’s known two weeks? I don’t doubt my feelings for him, but it’s a lot for me to live up to.

  “Kendra teased me about being so idealistic all the time,” he continues. “She’s no-nonsense.” He glances down the hall, specifically at 6B. Is it a habit? He did it the first time I came to his apartment, and this morning while we were leaving. “I don’t even think Sadie liked that about me.”

  The admission makes me want to hug him. I do like it about him. Even if it comes with some pressure, being the center of Finn’s attention is heady, intoxicating. “Well, I love it,” I say. “Rich and I were missing that in our relationship—” I pause. Finn might’ve brought up his exes, but they’re much further in the past compared to mine. I don’t want him to worry I’m still hung up on Rich. “Is it okay to talk about him?”

  “As long as you know I’m taking notes.”

  I smile a little and touch his tie, admiring how the hallway’s buttery lighting turns silver to gold. “I’m a closet romantic, Finn. That’s my dirty secret. My journals, yes, they’re sexy, but they’re really about love.”

  “I know.”

  “What I’m trying to say is, I like that you’re so passionate and creative.” I tug on his tie. “But I don’t mind this, either.”

  “Yeah?” He grins. “Suits do it for you? To me, it still feels like armor before battle.”

  I work around men in suits every day, but none of them look like Finn does now. He’s in charge, and surprisingly, I’m comfortable with that. I’ve been fighting to regain control from Rich and my dad, yet I’m almost willing to hand it over to Finn. And the suit? It just highlights that. It’s his command over me personified. “Even right now?” I ask, with a few bats of my eyelashes.

  He slips his arm around my waist and leans in for a kiss.

  “Wait.” I push his chest. “You haven’t eaten anyone’s ass today, have you?”

  He laughs. “Just yours. While you were sleeping. You thought that was a wet dream, didn’t you?”

  I squirm in his grip. I’m still not ready to admit I enjoyed what he did in the shower the other day. It wasn’t just the sensation of being licked there, but the knowledge that what he was doing was beyond wrong. Dirty. Forbidden. Probably illegal in some states. And also . . . I think it was what ultimately impelled me into an orgasm. I can’t imagine anyone in my life who’d ever do that or want it done. Except Finn.

  I let him kiss me.

  As if I could help myself.

  I melt for his kisses, and he knows it. I’ve gone to work the past few days and thought about his tongue down my throat, his hands gripping me anywhere and everywhere he can reach, his cock bulging all the fucking time. Two days in a row, I’ve locked my office door and shut my blinds to get myself off.

  Which reminds me.

  “You’re not going to post that picture I sent you, are you?” I tease when he comes up for air.

  He just grunts, pulling me against his erection.

  �
��Does that mean you liked it?” I ask.

  “Why do you think I’m practically on top of you in the doorway?” he asks. “Why do you think I texted back nothing but gibberish and emoji?”

  I smile and let him pull me into the apartment. The photo wasn’t much—a close-up of my lips, blowing him a kiss—but it’s out of character for me to send an unsolicited picture.

  “I should probably thank you for the lady giving me the job today.” He puts my handbag aside and removes my scarf and coat. “I had a boner during the interview thanks to your picture.”

  I cover my mouth. “Is that true?”

  “Yeah, Hals. You can’t just send me that shit without warning. Your juicy, pink lips, knowing all the places they’ve been on my body? My eyes nearly popped out of my skull in the waiting room.”

  I can’t help giggling at his earnest expression. “I’m sorry. Really.” I remove my heels. Sweet relief. “I won’t send anything like that again.”

  He gives me a look. “Naked. Now.”

  “But you’re dressed.”

  He undoes a button at his collar. “Then we’ll both get naked. How was work?”

  I sigh, following him into the living room. I flop onto the couch while he sorts through his mail. “Blah.”

  “Why?”

  “Just one of those days where whenever I got a minute, something else popped up.”

  He flips an envelope over before tossing it on the coffee table. “You eat lunch?”

  “Benny brought me something but honestly, I couldn’t tell you what it was. It’s probably still on my desk behind a stack of papers.” I’m exaggerating. Most of what I do is digital, and food doesn’t exactly interest me these days anyway. I’ve been battling bouts of nausea. As far as withdrawal goes, I’ve mostly gotten off easy with a few random headaches and an uneasy stomach. There’s no use worrying Finn, so I skip over that. “And to make matters worse, Rich and I can’t avoid each other, so he was in my office being annoying.”

  Finn looks up. “What?”

  “What what?” I ask.