Darien spun his hips in a circle, and Safire’s back arched off the bed. Her hips tilted to meet his lunges, and she cried out, unable to stop herself from clawing his back, unable to stop herself from clamping onto his mouth, unable to stop herself from growing taut and thick and ready.
A heavy shudder moved through her womanhood, and waves of excitement fluttered through her sex as she tossed and clung, as she flooded and peaked, as she fell over the edge.
Darien must have been waiting for her because as the contractions rippled through her, he moaned and became stiff, convulsing above her until a sharp spasm shook his body, and he poured his passion out inside her.
Darien moved to her side, and Safire put her head on his shoulder, cuddling against him. Safire was blissful, but she was not to remain that way for long.
After they rested for a while, Safire was the first to move. She leaned up on her elbow and kissed Darien on the lips, rousing him.
“Can I get you something to drink? I’m thirsty.”
Darien returned Safire’s kiss—first her eyelid, then her cheek, then her lips. There was silence between them as they stared into each other’s eyes. The love and sweetness she saw in Darien’s gaze made Safire hold her breath. She let it out when his rugged face beamed into a smile.
“Anything you have would be fine. I’m a little thirsty, too.”
Safire threw on a robe and stepped into her slippers with the one-inch heels before going out into the hall.
When she got back, she found that Darien had put on his underwear and was sitting on the bed waiting for her. He took the soda she offered and drank half the glass.
“I was thirstier than I thought. Thank you. I don’t know if I can stay. If I do, I have to get up early in the morning.”
“That’s fine,” Safire said, sitting down next to him. “I have to get up early, as well.”
“I can get up with you,” Darien said, “and leave while you’re getting ready. I hate to run off, but I still have some reading to do for class, and I’m teaching tomorrow afternoon.”
“I understand.” Safire smiled at his concern. It wasn’t as if he was sneaking out on her.
Darien put an arm around her. “When can I see you again? Next Sunday?”
“I don’t know. Next Sunday I’m going with my sister to do wedding stuff, so that won’t work.”
“What about before then?” he asked, kissing her shoulder.
“No, I’m on with my girls on Wednesday. I’m babysitting my brother on Friday. I have my book clubs at the Heritage Center. Saturday I have errands. Aren’t you swamped, too?” she asked, running her fingers through his braids.
“Yeah, I am,” he conceded. “I have research to do, papers and a thesis-proposal draft due, final projects coming up, the fund-raiser at the Heritage Center, my classes there, the exhibit.”
“Well, let’s just play it by ear. We’ll find a time, if not this week then next week.”
“Safire,” Darien said, shaking his head. “I don’t like the idea of playing it by ear all the time. I want us to be the real thing, not a whenever-it-so-happens thing.”
Safire felt the conflict creeping up between them, but she didn’t want to spend the night arguing. She smiled and leaned over to kiss Darien’s neck.
“Let’s not spoil tonight,” she said. “Let’s talk about it after the second round.” She gave him her alluring smile.
“Let’s not turn this into sex right now,” he said. “This is about us.”
Safire walked her fingers up Darien’s thigh. “I’m talking about us.”
“So am I. I want a regular thing with you and to know when I’ll see you.”
“We can talk about that later,” Safire said, hoping to avoid the avalanche that was coming. “Let’s just be together now.”
But the avalanche came anyway. “Must it always be about sex?” Darien said.
That got Safire’s dander up. “Just because I’d rather make love than argue doesn’t mean it’s always about sex, does it? And this is a real role reversal, now, isn’t it? Don’t you like sex?”
“I didn’t say that, and I love making love to you. I just don’t want that to be more important than what we mean to each other.” Darien shook his head, apparently deciding not to follow the path that he had opened. “Forget it. I shouldn’t have said that. I love being with you that way. But I also want a whole relationship. So let’s sit down and figure out when we can see each other next. Then we can play.”
Safire felt as if she was being backed into a corner, and she didn’t like it. First, Darien had returned to the idea that this was casual—just about sex—for her. Now he insisted that they set dates in advance and set one right that minute. That wasn’t being reasonable. Safire was past the dander stage now. She was starting to get riled.
“If there’s not a good time,” she said, “it doesn’t have to be right away. Let’s just see.”
“So we’re back to playing it by ear,” Darien said, standing. “I don’t want to play it by ear constantly. I want to see you, date you. I don’t want to be a romp here and there or an occasional booty call whenever you have the time.”
Now Safire stood. “Here you go again with that nonsense. We don’t have to be with each other every minute to be in a relationship. Do we?”
“I want someone who would at least like to be with me every minute.”
“Well, then you need to go to the pound and get yourself a puppy, because I’m a grown woman.”
“You’re not as grown as you think—”
“Oh, no, you’re not going there.”
“I just did.” Darien stopped and held his hand up. “Back up one minute because I wasn’t talking about being together every minute. I was talking about knowing the next time I can see you, even if that’s in a little while. That’s not unreasonable.”
“And it’s not unreasonable to say that we have other obligations right now and need to make plans another day.”
“Underneath this little squabble,” Darien said, “is the issue of commitment. Are we in a committed relationship, Safire?”
Safire folded her arms. “Stop trying to box me in. I said I want to see where it can go.”
“You’ve been seeing for weeks now. When are you going to make up your mind?”
“I’ll make up my mind when I make up my mind, not because you push me into it.”
“Tell me you don’t have feelings for me, Safire,” Darien said quietly.
“I’ll decide what I feel when I’m ready,” Safire replied.
“This is where your age is showing,” Darien said. “You want to play but not be for real. Something as simple as setting a date in advance so we’ll know when we can see each other again is too much of an obligation for you. Saying that we’re in a committed relationship is too much. You don’t see that we can be more than—”
Safire turned and squared off with Darien. “My age has nothing to do with this. Not wanting to be backed up against a wall is the issue. If we can’t spend a few days not knowing when we’ll see each other, then we can’t see each other. And if I can’t come to a decision in my own time, then you don’t need to wait at all. In fact, you can just leave.”
“I don’t need to be told to leave twice,” Darien said. “And I won’t be put out a third time.”
Darien snatched up his clothes and began pulling them on.
Safire left the bedroom. She opened the front door and waited. Darien marched down the hall and out of her apartment without looking her way. Safire banged the door closed behind him.
It was a horrible end to a glorious day. But damn it if she was going to be talked to that way. And damn it if she was going to start setting a schedule because he wanted it that way. And damn it if she was going to be cornered about the kind of relationship
they had.
Bitter tears bit into the back of Safire’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Damn it. Just damn it.
Chapter 16
Darien had one foot on his mother’s coffee table and the other ankle crossed over his thigh with a book for his contemporary art class open on his lap. Lawrence came in from the laundry room just beyond the kitchen and plopped down on the other end of the couch, throwing one leg over the arm of the sofa. He lifted his other leg and tapped his big brother’s sneaker with his own.
“Mom’s going to get you if she finds your foot on the coffee table.”
Darien knew this and knew better, but he was in a rather foul mood and hadn’t cared. He also hated being corrected by his younger brother and knew he was setting a bad example. He shifted the book, took his foot down from the coffee table and resettled the book to resume his reading.
“Somebody’s in a snippy mood,” Lawrence said.
“Don’t you have laundry that you’re doing?” Darien asked.
“Yeah. But there’s nothing for me to do while the machines are going. I’m not doing it by hand.”
Darien sighed and went back to his reading. In a moment his mother called downstairs. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Okay, Mom,” Lawrence yelled back.
Darien was aware of his own silence.
“It’s Safire, isn’t it?” Lawrence said. “How are things going with her? I like her.”
Lawrence noticed everything, always had. Darien left his book open but turned to his brother. He didn’t want to talk about Safire, but maybe he needed to. He didn’t know how much he could tell his little brother, but he needed to tell him something.
“I more than like her, but things aren’t going well.”
“What happened?”
“We had a fight. She seems to think serious is a bad word when it appears next to relationship.”
“Ouch,” Lawrence said.
“You’re just about her age,” Darien said. “Is a commitment a bad thing to your generation?”
Lawrence chuckled in a way that made Darien see him for the first time as grown.
“First,” he said, “though it may not seem like it because you helped to raise me, we’re actually in the same generation. Second, commitment isn’t a bad word, but it’s not as typical as it will be later on, when we’re older. You’ve been atypical in that regard. I think that comes from your raising me, as well. And third, I hope you had enough sense not to bring up her age.”
Darien looked down, shamefaced, and Lawrence cracked up.
“That aside,” Darien said, “how long does it take someone to decide if they want to be in a real relationship?”
Lawrence pulled his leg from over the arm of the sofa and turned toward his big brother. “So where does it stand now?”
“She told me to get the hell out, so I’m giving her space.”
“Is that what she wanted?” Lawrence asked.
Darien winced and then pursed his lips. “In a way. She wanted an undefined, see-you-when-I-see-you kind of thing.”
“But she still wanted to see you?”
“Yeah,” Darien admitted. “Until the fight.”
“So you forced her hand. Decide now or else.”
Darien hung his head, wondering if that was what he had done. “I just wanted to know when I would see her again.” Darien thought about it more. “She’s lost both of her parents. I think that has a lot to do with it.”
Lawrence nodded. Darien was speaking his language now.
“That could easily lead to fear of loving someone else. They could also leave.”
“Exactly.” That’s what Darien had been thinking. That’s why there’d been no long-term relationships in her life.
“In the meantime,” Lawrence said, “you need to decide if she’s worth waiting for and being with—without pushing, without forcing her hand.”
Darien heard the tone of caution in Lawrence’s voice and nodded.
“I’m giving her space. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up completely. I think she needs time to decide what she wants.” Darien turned to his little brother again. “You know, you’re going to be a great psychologist someday,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
“That means a lot to me.” Lawrence smiled, and his face lit up. He was grown, but he was still Darien’s little brother. “Thank you.”
“No.” Darien said. He reached over and tweaked Lawrence’s cheek. “Thank you.”
Darien heard his mother on the stairs. Lawrence got up and hugged his brother before going to check his laundry.
“Don’t let Mom drive you crazy,” he said.
“I won’t,” Darien said and winked.
Darien’s mom had changed from her good church clothes into a simpler dress and more comfortable shoes. Her car was not working again, so Darien was taking her on errands and then to see if she could get her car from the shop. He was still out of sorts, but talking with his brother had helped, and he thought he could make it through the early afternoon without being a total grouch. It didn’t help that it was Sunday, his day to be with Safire. And it didn’t help that he was overloaded with work and needed this time to get some done.
After being his mother’s chauffeur for a couple of hours and then taking them to a late lunch, he drove her to the garage where her car was being fixed. It turned out, luckily, that the vehicle was ready. Darien helped his mother with the bill, and then he hugged her before they separated, heading off in different directions.
While his mother’s errands could be irksome, her presence calmed Darien’s spirit. Now he continued alone, and now there was nothing to stop him from thinking about Safire—her exuberance and feistiness and the tenderness beneath that, her sensual sorcery and the rawness of her past. He wanted to touch the bruised places inside her that she hid from herself and make them whole, if only she would let him in. Instead, she had kicked him out. But life didn’t slow down for him to mope.
His errands today had to do with the fund-raiser at the Heritage Center, which was almost upon them. He had to get to the post office to mail invitations to the people on their mailing list, and he had to stop at several businesses to confirm their contributions for the silent auction. He had to get programs from the copy place, and he had to stop at the caterers to make some final arrangements. He wished that they were holding the event over the summer so that he actually had the time to do all of this, but that was not the case.
Darien ran along on automatic, his thoughts turning to Safire. He understood the pressure that she was under—family obligations, work, volunteering, friends, her sister’s wedding. It would only get more hectic for her once she went back to school. He could see why she might have been hesitant to set another date to see him right away. With Safire, though, it wasn’t just about things being hectic. It was about not wanting to confirm whatever it was that they had. But Darien’s feelings were real. That was why he’d wanted confirmation. That was why he’d pushed.
Darien finished his errands and went home. He had more things to take care of for the fund-raiser, and he started with those. He had to email their ad to the local papers and get information to one of their corporate backers. He also needed to email some information about the Heritage Center to one of the emcees, and he needed to finish the slide show that they would be presenting during the dinner and save it on a jump drive.
He got on the computer and started checking off the tasks, but he was thinking about what his brother had said about Safire—that he needed to decide if she was worth waiting for, worth being with without pushing. He wondered if he’d pushed her to decide about their relationship too quickly. But he also wondered if he had completely changed her mind about playing the field. He hadn’t made her want to commit, and if she didn’t want to commit, t
hen she might be at least open to other possibilities, if not actively pursuing them.
Darien turned off his computer and took a breath. He would give Safire space to make up her mind. That was the best thing to do, especially now that they’d basically called it off. He didn’t like this new trajectory, but he would give her some time. It would also be time for him to cool down and get his head around the whole idea of not pushing.
Darien grabbed a snack and started in on some of his work for school. After this, he changed into his work clothes and went into his studio. He had to get to the Heritage Center early tomorrow to set up slides and supplies for his class and to get some more work done for the fund-raiser. That meant he would be home late tomorrow, so he had to make the most of tonight. He had various projects clamped around his worktable and several sitting in the center.
The first thing he saw when he walked in, however, was Safire. Her influence was written all over his most recent pieces. It was in the sensuality of the lines, the uninhibited nature of the designs and the freedom of movement.
It troubled him—the way she’d insinuated herself into his art. It meant that Safire was on his mind whether Darien wanted her there or not. She was in his thoughts when he wasn’t controlling them. She was in his head even when he didn’t know it. He meant to give her space, but he didn’t intend to pine over her the whole time he was doing that. Yet here she was—in his art.
Darien shook his head and started to work on one of the pieces for his figure-sculpture class. On a pedestal in the center was an auction block with three nude figures—Africans being sold who had been stripped of everything but their headpieces and who were trying to cover their nakedness. The base of the pedestal was an African family tree, and around the base on a downward slope were figures of their descendants, those from slavery and afterward. His goal was to convey the movement of each figure and to tell the story of the family. The central figures were done. Now he was working on the descendants. And right under his eyes, Safire’s face appeared on one of the figures.
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