by S. L. Naeole
“God! Do you know the agony I’ve been in since that night? Do you even understand how miserable these past few months were?”
I simultaneously shook my head and nodded, unable to speak, unable to voice how miserable I’d been, too. How it had been impossible to even breathe sometimes because I would grow so full of longing and sadness for him that there was no room in my body for even a gasp of air. And then his mouth was against mine, so full and hot and hungry that I forgot that we were in the lobby of his building with dozens of eyes on us. I forgot that he’d left me, that I’d betrayed him, that the shards of my broken heart were scattered all across the country.
Instead, all I knew was the feel of his insistent lips and the taste and slide of his tongue against mine. All I focused on was that incessant throbbing that spiraled up and then down inside me, reaching up to my throat before pulsing through my legs, pulling every nerve in my body toward one central point. A point that pressed so deliciously against the iron hard length of him.
Then he was tearing his mouth away from mine with a curse and I whimpered at the loss. “Fuck, sweetheart. I’m such an idiot,” he huffed against my mouth.
I shook my head again, tears slipping down my cheeks. “No. I’m the idiot.”
His lips pulled back in a snarl. “Don’t fucking argue with me on this, Victoria. From the moment I walked away from you I’ve been hating myself.”
“Why? What choice did I give you?” I whispered, my hand leaving his neck to touch his face, trail across his lips. “I was so messed up that I wasn’t willing to listen to anyone, especially not you.”
He kissed my nose, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. “And that was why I should’ve stuck around. I shouldn’t have let my anger and hurt take over. You needed my trust and understanding right then just as much as I needed yours. I should’ve stayed until you believed me, until you knew without a doubt that I would’ve never done anything to hurt you.”
Now it was my time to chuckle. “What I needed was a kick in the ass.”
His hand lowered then to squeeze my behind. “A spanking, maybe,” he said in agreement, his eyes darkening at the wickedness in his words.
“I believe you,” I told him quickly before anything else could be said, before hormones and emotions pulled us under and we lost the moment for revelations. “I believe—I know that there was nothing going on with you and Franklyn and I’m sorry I ever thought that there was. God, Michael. I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.
A hitch in his throat caused me to wince. “Baby, it killed me when you accused me of that. It fucking murdered me that you thought I could do that to you.”
My eyes were swollen, tear-stung, and my chest felt constricted at the words that confirmed how much I’d hurt him. I trapped his face between my palms and forced him to look at me, afraid that at any moment he’d turn around and walk away again. Like I’d done, over and over again.
“I’m sorry. Oh, Michael, I’m so sorry. You don’t realize just how much I hate myself for that and if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
His hands moved to mine and tugged them down. I felt something cool slip over my finger and then I felt his thumb rubbing over the tops of my knuckles. I glanced down through the blurry haze of salty tears and saw that he’d returned the ring to my hand. “Wha…?”
Bringing my hand to his lips, he kissed the ring, kissed my fingers. “This ring belongs on this finger, Victoria, just like you belong with me. Do you want to spend the rest of your life making it up to me? Then start now. Start by saying that you’ll marry me. Start by telling me that you love me. Start by ending this fucking torment and be with me.”
“I thought you were giving them back because you didn’t want me anymore,” I admitted, hearing my voice break even as I felt my heart starting to mend.
Like a whip, his hands were on my face, his mouth pressing hard against mine before tearing himself away with a guttural cry. “For fuck’s sake, Victoria! I sent them to you because I’d hoped you’d understand that I still wanted everything with you, even if we were angry, even if we were hurt. You’re my future. That’s what the key and ring represent! Not my past; my future!”
“Then why didn’t you say anything upstairs?” I asked, desperate to know.
He closed his eyes, his face squeezing in pain. “Because you hadn’t even opened the box. It felt…like you came to say goodbye for good. I couldn’t even look at you because I didn’t want to see your face when you told me it was over. I didn’t want you to see how broken I was.”
“If you’d turned around you would have seen that I was broken, too.”
Tears slipped down his face, leaving silvery streaks across his cheeks. He dashed them away with a quick hand. “Baby, we both screwed up, but I want you to know right now that I’m here. For good. I’m not running away from you.”
“I’m not running away from you either,” I vowed. “Not anymore.”
His mouth found mine again and I moaned at how good he felt, how right we felt together. “Say it, sweetheart. Say it,” he begged between nibbles and bites and the slick slide of his tongue against mine. “Fix me. Fix us. Tell me you’ll marry me.”
“Yes,” I told him as his mouth lifted to trail kisses over my jaw.
“Yes?” he repeated, pulling back, his face pulled up in astonishment and tentative hope.
Nodding, I said it again. “Yes.”
With a whoop, he pulled his arms around me again and swung me around in a circle. “Yes!”
Suddenly the lobby was filled with the sound of applause and I turned my attention to the crowd that had gathered around us. Their faces were full of beaming smiles and genuine happiness.
“Congratulations, Mr. Lachlan,” someone shouted.
“What a wonderful Christmas present. Congratulations to the future Mrs. Lachlan,” someone else crowed.
Soon the air was filled with congratulations and cheers and as people came up to offer us their best wishes, I barely noticed the crowd, barely noticed the strange hands patting my shoulders and arms. All I noticed was how bright Mal’s eyes were shining, and how he never let me go, never stopped touching me.
Just how I wanted it.
The next few months were chaotic and wonderful.
After Mal returned to his office to retrieve his briefcase and bid everyone a happy Christmas, we went back to his place to talk. I learned that due to the plea bargain Franklyn took over the child porn charges, he was required to pay me restitution as the victim thanks to some clause I’d never heard of but Mal’s attorneys did. On top of that, every single website, news organization, and media outlet also paid a settlement.
This money allowed me to pay off Franklyn’s aunt before she was able to file to have my settlement amended again. The moment I learned she had deposited the cashier’s check, I felt as if the rest of the shadow that had followed me for the past eight years had finally gone away.
Three days later, my full pay was reinstated at MOAT, including my raise for my new position as well as a “bonus” that sent me into a coughing fit that nearly had Del calling 911.
“I thought I just had the housing and retirement accounts,” I wheezed at Tobias and Del, who both looked flustered and worried at my red and swollen face.
Giving me a bottle of water from his office fridge, Tobias shook his head. “Annual bonuses, quarterly bonuses, private commissions… Eight years of them add up and we—Del and I—thought it best to put these into an account that wasn’t attached to you just in case.
Teary-eyed, I took the check, knowing immediately what I wanted to do with the money. “You guys really have been looking out for me all this time,” I marveled.
Tobias grinned, while Del’s eyes filled with sadness. “We’re family here,” Tobias said. “Of course we were going to look out for you.”
After leaving his office, Del and I went to his, where he had me sit. On his desk was the picture of DeiDei he’d always kept hidden in one
of his drawers. Next to it was a photo of Reina. He saw me staring at it and smiled.
“You have beautiful children, Del,” I murmured.
“Child,” he corrected with a sigh as his finger traced the soft baby curve of DeiDei’s face.
At seeing my confusion, he gifted me with another smile, this one sad and yet…not. “Reina is DeiDei. She transitioned. One of the reasons her mother took her away from me and kept her away was because she thought I wouldn’t have understood. I was so proud of my son that she thought there’d be no way I’d understand.
“But she’s wrong. I was proud of my son, but not because he was a son. It was because he was my child. I am no more proud of Reina than I was of Deidei. I don’t see a difference between the two. I will miss DeiDei as an idea, but I love Reina as a reality. I have a beautiful, intelligent, kind, and patient daughter. And I have you to thank for helping me to understand what it meant to be a father to a daughter so that when I found out about her, I could be the father she needed.”
I was speechless. Absolutely speechless. I was also feeling a torrent of guilt slam into me at my reaction at the AITTIA event. How fucking childish and overreactive. “Del, I…”
He shook his head and held up his hand. “You don’t have to say anything, Ri. I love you like a daughter and that’s never changed.”
My heart blossomed into something large and full at his words. “And I love you like a father and I look forward to meeting my sister again.”
We had dinner later that week and soon began having weekly dinners with him, Reina, Mal, and myself. I learned that Reina was a writer with one of the city’s smaller, independent papers and that she had done a few reviews of MOAT’s shows without her father ever knowing.
Mal kept mum on Lyle for a bit, refusing to tell me anything about what had happened to him after he’d called Mal and confessed everything. When he finally felt ready to talk, he told me that Lyle had resigned and had moved back to California. “He cashed in his 401k and asked that the money be transferred into an account for Holly and the baby,” he said as he stroked my arm with lazy fingers.
I already knew that. The day Holly had received the letter letting her know had been one of the hardest I think she’d ever had to deal with. We had to take her to the hospital and she was put on bedrest for a few days because the stress was causing her to bleed. Eventually, she began to feel better, and when I told her that I was giving her my share of the apartment for her and the baby, she finally seemed to relax enough to where the doctor gave her the all clear to return to work.
A year to the day after my car accident, Mal and I were married in a civil ceremony in front of a judge. We went out to dinner with my girls, Del, Reina, Tobias, Ralph and Hannah, who immediately warmed up to Holly as they traded pregnancy stories. I sat with a wide smile, basked in the love of my friends, my family, and my husband.
My husband.
Mal was my husband.
As we made our way back to the big house once dinner was over, I couldn’t help but marvel at how surreal everything was. A year ago, a man had touched me and my heart hadn’t seized with fear but with longing. A year ago, a future I hadn’t even imagined having began to take root.
When Mal parked his car in front of our house’s front door, I couldn’t help but raise my brows at him in confusion. He grinned before exiting the car and hurrying to open my door before I could finish grabbing my purse and the ridiculous shoes I’d chosen to wore in front of the judge and at the restaurant, but couldn’t stand once I was seated comfortably in the car.
Before I could say anything, he swept me up in his arms and opened the door after a few punches on the electronic keypad. He took a step into the house—our house—and kicked the door shut. The second the sound of the electronic lock cranked into place hit my ears, Mal’s mouth was on mine in a hard, heated press of lips. I clung to his neck, feeling his tongue slip past my lips to duel with mine, a tangle of slickness and fire. Moaning at the promise of that kiss, I felt my thighs seize as familiar sensations worked their way through my body, tugging invisibly at my nipples until they were rosy brown pearls beneath my dress.
My dress.
It was Mal’s favorite, the blue sundress that was lined down the front with buttons. The one I’d worn to his office that first time he’d taken me there. The one I’d worn the first time we’d made love.
Mal entered our bedroom and laid me gently on the bed before he began to tug on his tie. My hands moved hastily at his waist, pulling off his belt and unbuttoning his pants. He was hard. So hard as his cock grazed my hands beneath layer after layer of fabric.
“Fuck, Mrs. Lachlan, you’re going to make me come without direct contact.”
My smile was wicked as I said in a low, husky voice that it was about time since turnabout was fair play. His shirt fell onto the floor moments after his pants and underwear, and then his hands were sliding up my thighs. This time he smiled wickedly as his fingers found the slippery skin of my folds.
“No panties again, Mrs. Lachlan?”
Fuck, I loved being called that.
“My husband likes it when I’m not wearing any,” I replied as he pushed up the hem of my dress.
He grunted. “Your husband doesn’t like it. He loves it.”
Before I could comment on his correction, he shoved his nose at the hard nub of my clit and inhaled deeply before exhaling in a rough and slow push of hot air against my wet pussy. “Fuck, you smell like heaven.”
“Take me there,” I panted in response. He nudged me with his nose before sliding his hot, thick tongue between the silky crevice of me and I groaned.
Slow, agonizing licks followed that sent curls of fire through my blood. And then I felt an intrusion at my slick entrance. One finger pumped in and out of me, alternating with his devastating licks. When he added the second finger, my hips lifted and pressed firmly against his mouth, his tongue quickening in pace.
“Grab your tits, sweetheart,” he told me as he slowly slid in a third finger.
“Oh fuck,” I grunted, my hands moving up to my tits and squeezed through my dress. They were so sensitive, so fucking tender that I nearly came right then and there.
“Not yet,” Mal chuckled, the vibration of his voice against my clit tugging me closer and closer to that edge of insanity that he loved to tip me over.
It didn’t take much to make me orgasm. Mal knew that. Lately, it took even less. My thighs were already starting to shake, while sweat beaded across my chest. Mal blew across my firm clit as his fingers began to pump faster inside of me. I could hear the wet suction of my channel and the slap of his knuckles against my ass as he pushed and pulled, stopping when he felt my body tense as the orgasm threatened us both and removing his fingers.
“Fuck, Mal!” I shouted, my body clenching at the emptiness it felt the minute he was gone.
Without another word, Mal stood. I felt his cock slap against my calf as he grabbed a hold of my dress and yanked it open, the thin shell buttons ripping off and clacking on the floor as they fell and bounced and rolled. He smiled at my naked body, at the sheen of sweat that covered me, at the unmistakable wanting in my eyes. Because I wanted. As my eyes roamed his body, from the sexy lines that carved ridges in the muscles of his abs, to that long, hard length that jutted out from his crotch so proudly, I fucking wanted.
Since the moment I saw him, I wanted. And each time he gave it to me, I only wanted more. From his touch, to his name, to his kiss. He gave me everything. Now I had his love, and I carried his name. All I needed was—
“God-fucking-dammit, Michael Alan Lachlan. If you don’t shove your dick inside me and make me fucking come right now I’ll never let you touch me again,” I shouted just as he plunged his cock into me.
The second I felt his thick shaft fill me in ways his fingers never did, I screamed. My body shook and my thighs seized up as every nerve in my body imploded, my inner walls pulsing and clamping over his cock as my orgasm took control of my will an
d my strength.
“So beautiful,” Mal rasped as he slid out of me and then slammed back into me. He repeated that slow glide out and then forceful ramming of his cock, each one drawing out a cry of ecstasy that filled the room, joining the sounds of our breathing and the moist squishes of our bodies colliding over and over again.
My pussy was so wet, so fucking wet that I could feel myself dripping down to my ass. Each pump into me caused his balls to slam into the tight, sensitive ring just beneath my slit and I whimpered at the sensations it caused. A mischievous grin spread across his lips as he pulled his cock out of me and grabbed my thighs with his hands. One minute I was facing him and the next, I was on my belly, my ass in the air as he turned me over and pulled my hips up.
“I know what my sweetheart wants,” he murmured huskily as he shoved his cock back into me, the tip of it scraping along so many sensitive nerves inside of me that my body shook at the threat of another orgasm.
“Yeah?” I panted, pushing back against him and moaning with need. “What do I want?”
That’s when I felt it, a finger slick with my juices circling the delicately ridged entrance of my ass. He applied just a hint of pressure, but I grunted with pleasure nonetheless. “You want me to fuck your ass,” he replied as he pushed the tip of his finger inside with ease.
“Oh fuck yes,” I cried out at the feel of him, my knees pushing me back, forcing his finger even deeper into me.
His breath left him in a long huff and I knew what he was thinking. This was the night I finally let him inside me, finally let his iron hard cock penetrate my ass. He’d teased and tempted me mercilessly about it, licking me, probing my ass with his tongue and fingers during sex until I’d begged him for it. Instead of giving in to his desires and mine, he asked me to wait.
“I want one thing new on our wedding night,” he’d explained. It was sweet and torturous. Oh so fucking torturous!
But we’d made it. And when he inserted a second finger and eased me back until I hit the root knuckle, I knew it was worth it.