Without Hesitation

by CJ Azevedo

  She wasn’t quite sure what to do, where to go, what to say, how to breathe even. She thought she knew what an orgasm was and if she was right, she was on the verge of one.

  “You…” lick, nibble, “Macie,” Greyden rasped in her ear, pressing his body up tighter against hers.

  “Oh, God,” she barely managed to say through her hoarse voice and labored breaths.

  Greyden’s head popped up and stared directly into her face, so close she could feel his warm breath mingle with hers at her lips. She wasn’t ready for the amazing feeling to go away yet; she kept her eyes closed, hoping it never would. The tingling and deep vibrations began to subside just a little as she steadied her breathing. Greyden stood stock still and eerily quiet.

  With hooded eyes, Macie asked, “Did I just have an orgasm?”

  Once again finding his girl to be the most adorable thing on the planet, even when asking about orgasms, he suppressed a laugh and smirked when he replied, “No, Butterfly, you won’t have to ask when you do. But by the looks and sounds of it, you were pretty damn close.” He took her mouth passionately; showing her with his kiss how much he cared for her.

  Without much separation between the two of them, they made their way inside before they found themselves cited for indecent exposure. Macie went straight to one of her most favorite places to lounge, a place she had missed severely.

  Curled on top of his bed, she buried her nose in his pillow, breathing in his personal scent. She should have taken his pillow to Italy with her.

  He came out of his closet with a white gift bag stuffed full of teal tissue paper and laughed at the sight of her. “Enjoying yourself, sweetheart?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me to take your pillow with me?” she murmured. “I might not have missed you as much if I was able to smell you.”

  He just smiled and handed her the bag, sitting down next to her as she scrambled up to sit on her knees next to him.

  All of the bikinis he had bought her in the past had come from different surf shops and she loved them all. Greyden had really good taste. She could tell that this bag didn’t come from a surf shop, though, and she was excited to see what he did differently.

  She examined the pieces carefully as she pulled them out of the bag, taking note of the beautiful beige crochet overlay on the triangle top and tie bottoms. She hadn’t seen this one before but knew exactly where it came from and couldn’t believe he got it for her.

  “Grey,” she drew his name out in a slow, quiet murmur, “you got me an Abby bikini?” Her voice raised an octave in excitement and she looked at him out of the corners of her eyes in disbelief, only to find him sucking on the corner of his bottom lip. He nodded his affirmation.

  Abby bikinis were local to San Francisco. The designer started out underground and became huge, her only shop in downtown San Francisco or online. Her suits were incredibly expensive due to the material and the labor involved, since each is handmade.

  “It’s—remarkable.” Her voice just above a whisper, she wasn’t only taken back by the suit itself, but mainly by his gesture.

  He reached over to stroke her face tenderly. “You’re remarkable.”

  Setting the bikini aside delicately, she climbed onto his lap and kissed him, giving him seven weeks worth of lost kisses. Somewhere around the fifth week, she lost her patience. She found a new vibe out in the driveway earlier and she needed that sensation to come back.

  Her cardigan was unbuttoned, so she let it slip from her shoulders and onto the ground. As soon as it cleared her hands, she gripped the bottom of her shell and lifted it in a quick motion. Her head was so fuzzy she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to be nervous. They had never gone this far. Greyden had explained so many times that he didn’t want to take things in a direction that could lead them astray from their plans. And she wasn’t eighteen yet. Her shirt always stayed on, until now.

  She was eighteen now.

  Greyden closed his eyes gently and exhaled through parted lips as her shirt raised over her head, breaking apart their kiss. His head shook lightly, his hands trailing dreamily along the sides of her torso and onto her back.

  She kissed his eyelids, then his cheekbones, and he pulled her closer to him, her bare stomach rubbing against his tight abs, covered in soft cotton.

  “We’ve waited years, Butterfly. We can wait a few more days.” He didn’t sound convincing. He sounded a little constricted, actually, almost like he was in pain.

  She knew that if she pushed a little further, she would get her way. But now, being faced with the opportunity, she was becoming a little hesitant as well. Not because she was nervous or scared or doubtful—no, she was far from any of those things. She had several long and in depth conversations over the phone with him while she was away about the how-tos and the how-not-tos. The thing that made her hesitant, made her agree to wait the few more days, was the plan he had in store for her. He told her a few weeks ago that they weren’t just going to do it and get it over with, which is exactly what she had expected—he’d been without for a long time didn’t he just want to have sex already?—apparently he had an elaborate plan for their first time. She couldn’t take that away from him.

  She dove off of him and landed on his pillow, face first. Her arms lay limp at her sides, her hair in complete disarray. “I need something, then,” she mumbled into the pillow. “Tide me over, big guy.”

  Greyden tilted his torso and leaned down, kissing his way up her spine. When he got to her bra strap, he took it between his teeth and slightly tugged before gently snapping it back down. Her head snapped up and around to see a grinning Greyden.

  “Sweets, Grey. If you don’t want me to strip naked and figure out a way to take care of myself right now, you will stop torturing me and get me some chocolate or soda or a freakin’ Twinkie.” She glared at him as he quirked an eyebrow up at her and smiled. They both knew none of that was going to help.

  He flipped her over the rest of the way onto her back and straddled her efficiently, pinning her hands above her head and bringing his face within an inch of hers. “I’d love to see that, actually. But if you do that, then the date is off and we might as well have sex right now.”

  “Ugh,” was her only response as she turned her head to the side. He kissed her jaw and jumped off the bed.

  “I think Keeg has some chocolate kisses in the fridge. I’ll go check. You cover up that delicious body. I think the guys are back.” With that he winked and walked out, leaving her behind in a frustrated mess.

  ***

  “I can’t believe you don’t have more faith in me.” He popped a kiss into her mouth before unwrapping another and tossing it into his own.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked anxiously, rolling the chocolate around to the side of her mouth.

  “Me standing behind you, at the airport of all places, no words, and I just hand you a box? Really, Butterfly? You don’t think I can come up with anything better than that?” She could see his tongue working the piece of chocolate over with his tongue while he waited for her response. He actually looked hurt.

  “I know you can, Romeo, you just threw me is all. I saw that box and sort of freaked. Sorry.” She laid her head on his shoulder and opened her mouth, waiting for another chocolate. He set it on her waiting tongue and let his finger rest on her bottom lip before letting it drop down to her lap.

  “What’s your ideal proposal?” he asked quietly, really wanting to know her answer.

  “You know, I’ve spent years imagining my wedding, but I’ve never thought of the actual proposal. In my dreams and thoughts, the proposal was always just romantic. No details.”

  Greyden leaned back over and gave her a quick kiss. “Maybe you should think about it and get back to me, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled happily at her boyfriend, having never felt happier than right there in that moment.

  Chapter Ten

  Early December 2013

  Greyden

  “Tonight w
as fun,” Allison whispered from her place on my chest as she snuggled her warm body closer to mine.

  I’ve been keeping her at a distance lately. I’m sure our “relationship” has been doing more damage than she was admitting and I really didn’t want to be that guy, but with all the shit going on in my life I mentally couldn’t manage one more thing.

  I’ve moved into my house and Macie’s finished with all of her stuff here now. The only time I see or hear from her is when she and Mitch make their way over to Dec’s for dinner or drinks, and that’s not very often. I’ve been dating more, although I use that term loosely. Sometimes I just need to get the fuck away from it all. I need to get away from my parents, my all consuming work, which exploded so much quicker than I ever anticipated, Allison just being Allison, and the idea of Macie. Though I know I’ll never be able to escape her completely.

  Macie seems to be truly happy with Mitch. I can’t fault her for that, but I haven’t been able to find a way to accept it either. Each time I’ve seen them together, he’s surprised me. He’s turning out to be a little more involved than I ever expected. I know what self-centered, righteous assholes his parents are and the way he was raised to be; I watched it all. So did she, so I was really surprised to see her walk through the back door of Dec’s with him and then introduce him as her boyfriend that first night.

  Somehow, while I’m still figuring out how to kick the idea of having a future without Macie, she’s moving forward. It seems like each time I make plans for my future the shit hits the fan and all those plans just dissolve. I guess that’s why I stopped making them. Once my business took off and my final plans with Macie went to shit, I figured it’s best to just live in the moment, alone. Alone when referring to a relationship, anyway; I don’t need anything or anyone else to fail me.

  I will never admit this out loud, but at this point in my life I feel like more people have failed me than not. It’s up to me to keep that from continuing. When I was seventeen, my parents made me give up my dream of fighting. At the time it felt like they were literally removing my right hand, and it destroyed me. Then Macie came along and it just sort of didn’t matter so much. I fully understand their position on it now, but they took away the first dream I ever had for myself, the first plans I had for my future.

  The second time I made plans for my future, they were once again taken from me. Macie had come in and swept it right out from beneath me. I wasn’t asked or consulted, I was told that future no longer had a place for me even if it was my. Fucking. Future.

  I realize that aside from the business decisions I’ve made in my adulthood, I haven’t been very wise, which is why I’m left feeling alone and betrayed even though I have this pretty incredible woman naked half on top of me, wanting nothing more than to be completely committed to me. I think I would give that to her if I could somehow manage to push all that other shit aside and focus on her now that I know for a pretty certain fact that Macie is out of the ballgame. However, that doesn’t eliminate my other issues with being in a relationship. Like my massive workload occupying all of my time and the small fact that my father is basically lying around waiting to die.

  “You’re right, it was fun. I, for one, had a damn good time,” I finally say, chuckling lightly, knowing she was referring to our night out together. I let the sexual innuendo invade the sweet pillow talk she’s going for.

  She punches me in the chest causing me to let out a small “oomph” before she comes down to bite my nipple. I toss her back, making her laugh, and hover over her, pinning her hands over her head, and lean in to kiss her. The laughter mutes automatically as my lips mesh with hers in a heated kiss. It drives me crazy how she’s always been so responsive to me. After just a minute of kissing her, I lower myself back down beside her and run my hand along the top of her head, accepting the fact that she seems to be staying over. She hasn’t done that in a while, really she’s only ever done it a couple of times ever. Typically she’s up and out of here, but since I started seeing less of her, she started staying longer after the sex, cuddling. The other times she’s stayed over it was because she’d had too much to drink. Now? She’s starting to blur the lines.

  As I lie here and think about where to take this and how to handle it, Ally exhales softly and rubs her nose into my chest. I haven’t even completed a thought when my phone chimes with a text message.

  “Leave it, baby, I’m so comfy,” Ally complains as I reach over her to grab it off the nightstand. She claims it’s because she’s comfy, but she never wants me answering my phone at night because she considers it her time. Well, she doesn’t know that I’m always waiting on the phone call that my dad has finally had his last heart attack, so no, I won’t be ignoring my phone because she’s “comfy.” Ever.

  Butterfly: I need to talk

  I know the right thing for me to do is to leave it as unread and call Macie in the morning. But I can’t do that. It’s 11:15 and she needs to talk. This is and always will be my Butterfly; if she needs me, I’m here and Al’s about to get pissed.

  G: Now?

  Butterfly: Yeah

  G: You mean yes please

  Butterfly: GREYDEN!!!

  I chuckle softly. I fuckin’ miss this girl badly. Ally rolls away from me, asking what was so funny. Holding off on answering her, I type back real quick.

  G: C’mon over, park in the garage, and wait for me in the kitchen.

  She has a key and I programmed my garage door to her extra tab on her car when she was working here, so that’ll make it a little easier to get her in and Ally out. Now it’s time to be an asshole.

  “Ally, I have to take care of something,” I say to her back as my hand gently rocks her hip under the sheet. She’s irritated and she lets me know by groaning a loud, frustrated groan.

  “Seriously?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. It’s important.”

  Ally gets up and starts searching for her clothes, her face drawn into a majorly pissed off frown. I pull on my jeans and throw on a clean white t-shirt. Ally dresses in record time, all of her movements extra exaggerated while she mumbles some really mean words meant for me. I know she wants me to tell her to get back in bed and to just wait for me that I’ll be right back and ask her to stay. But that’s not in the cards for me… or her.

  “You ready?” I ask carefully when she reaches for her purse on the floor where she dropped it by the foot of the bed earlier in the night. Her death stare meets my hesitant gaze as she storms past me and flings the bedroom door open.

  A pissy Allison is uncommon, but she’s made her appearances. An angry Ally though? I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her before tonight, and can’t say I’m a fan.

  I quietly follow her down the long hallway until she reaches the end, where it opens up to the small landing at the top of the stairs.

  “Oh my God. You have got to kidding me.” Her voice is teetering between screeching and seething pure hatred as she spins on her heels to face me.

  “It’s important, Al.” I keep my own voice low because I do feel bad. She has every right to be pissed right now, I’m just not strong enough to make the source of our issue go away; that or I just really have no desire to. Just as I step forward and reach out to pull her to me, I see Macie sitting on the couch with several liquor bottles set out on the coffee table in front of her. Ally steps back and slowly starts to shake her head.

  “I’m done,” she hisses before turning back around and taking the stairs past Macie and straight out the front door.

  The guilt is stronger than I expected as I watch her walk out the door, but as soon as I turn and see Macie sitting there in complete despair, I swallow that guilt and go to her. I lean down and kiss her forehead, letting my lips linger so I can breathe in her sweet, fruity perfume. She always smells amazing.

  “You smell like sex,” she says coolly as she reaches around me and grabs the bottle of whipped cream flavored vodka that she automatically brings to her
lips for a long, torturous pull.

  “Yeah, well, that would make sense.” I run my hand through my hair and pull the bottle from her plump pink lips as she drags them around the opening.

  She keeps her eyes on me as her tongue darts out to catch the droplets of vodka on her bottom lip, watching me set the bottle back down on the table. Something is obviously really bothering her tonight. Aside from the fact that I haven’t heard from her in weeks and she’s here now at eleven o’clock at night, she’s drinking like a fish and looking very somber. Macie drinks wine, not vodka or any of the other shit she has here. I’ve only ever seen her drink in excess a handful of times and unfortunately I think each of those times were my fault. I know I have nothing to do with this bender tonight, though. On top of all that, she apparently doesn’t give two shits that she just pissed off Allison, either. Normally, she would’ve apologized, but then again, normally she wouldn’t even be here right now.

  I sit down next to her, but she doesn’t move. She continues to stare straight ahead, as if she’s watching an invisible movie in the air. I wait her out a few minutes and let her go at this on her time until she reaches for the bottle again. My hand touches her elbow and slides down her forearm to her hand, where I interlock our fingers. My touch snaps her out of her trance and she turns to stare at me. It’s then that I realize she isn’t sad; she’s confused and troubled. I can see it in the crease of her forehead and the way her irises have darkened to a stormy blue.

  “What’s got you so worked up, sweetheart?” I can see the different thoughts coursing through her eyes as she watches my face. Call me a dick of epic proportion if you want, but I’m having a hell of a time staying on my side of the sofa right now. I hate that she’s battling something so intense and I can’t just hold her the way I want and make it all go away.