“Even the kiss during the luncheon?”
“Yes, even the kiss.”
“How did he take it?”
“He wasn’t exactly thrilled, and nearly left me right then and there until I begged him to hear me out. When he finally did, it was like I ingested truth serum, and there was no stopping me from telling him all about Thea Falcone, the early years to the present.”
“Good for you, T. Maybe there is hope for you yet.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Just let me know the time and place, and I will be there for you. This has been a long time coming, babe. You deserve some happiness and a future with a man that you can really commit to. Sorry, I didn’t mean to word it exactly that way.”
“It’s okay. And you are right. What I had with Nick was a long time ago, and it’s about time I am honest with myself about it.”
“And? Where are you going to start?”
“I guess I’ll start with an apology, and then I’ll take it from there. Trudie, there was a time in my life when I wanted Nick to be the one, but so much of us was based on something that was greater than what we had. It was like, once he kissed me, and then having Karen tell me off in only a way that she can, it opened my eyes to a lot of shit I was repressing.”
“Don’t look now, Thea, but you are sounding like a grown-up. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“I love you too, my best friend.”
“Yeah, I know. I love you more. Go be happy with your hot news man, and call me soon.”
“I will, I promise,” I said as I hung up.
Okay, one down, one to go. I cancelled the Uber and slowly started walking back to the studios. I called mom, but she didn’t pick up, and with no machine at her home, I would have to call her back.
I returned to the studio in no time at all. I quickly showered in the gym and dressed quickly to wrap up my day. I already cleared it with my boss that I was going to leave early. He knew what I was planning and practically taped his mouth shut to not spill my secret to Carter. I didn’t see Carter for the rest of the time I was working, which was fine by me. I texted him to come over at seven, which would leave my planner and her team enough time to complete everything I wanted to blow Carter’s mind.
Rosalyn Davenport Baker was the best event-planner out there, and she was beloved among her celebrity clients. She did cost a small fortune, but if what I had planned for Carter tonight made him happy, then it would be worth every dollar spent. He was worth the trouble, and it was about time I began showing him how much I loved him and was so done with taking our relationship for granted.
“Wow, Rosalyn, I have never seen my home look this amazing before, and I hired an interior decorator when I moved in.”
“And another happy client I can add to my list. It has been fun working with you, Thea. I must say, for living in California for more than ten years, you sure haven’t forgotten your New York accent. You can definitely be a little scary when you want to be.”
“Not sure if that was a compliment, Rosalyn, but thank you.”
“Have an amazing night, Thea, and I look forward to planning your dream wedding with you!”
“Let’s get me engaged first, but you are hired if he says yes.”
After Rosalyn left, I needed to work on myself. I totally ran out of time and didn’t get a chance to go to the spa for the works. I showered, shaved, plucked, and—ouch—waxed everything to be perfect for Carter tonight. Next, it was time to put on what I had chosen from Agent Provocateur. My personal dresser over at Saks knew her shit, and I was wearing over $3,000 worth of the skimpiest material that I knew Carter was going to rip without care. Damn, let him at least get a good look at it first, and then he can tear it off. If this outfit ends with an engagement, it will all be worth it.
Candles were lit. Wine was chilled. Dinner was on warmers. I took one last look at myself in the hallway mirror. Yeah, Thea, you look fucking hot. Time to rock your man’s world tonight. I heard the door opening, and I rushed to take my place on the chaise lounge in direct line with where Carter would walk through the front door. I hit the remote, and his favorite Jazz album started playing. And I waited…and waited.
“Where are you, Carter?”
“Babe, um. Hi.”
“Carter! You came through the wrong door!” I practically shouted as I sprang up.
He dropped his messenger bag, keys, and then his eyes scanned my body as if he was Superman with his naughty x-ray vision.
“You look good enough to eat, and I think I will take my first bite from your delectable ass. Thea, you look so beautiful. I am in awe of your beauty.”
Wow! How did he do that? A second ago I was outraged that he walked through the wrong door, but now I was so lost to his words, and my panties were dripping with arousal all because of how he looked at me as if I was the only woman in the world.
“Well, Carter, thank you, baby, but you haven’t seen anything yet. This…” I said, gesturing all around the fabulously decorated room with my hand, “…is for you.”
“It’s not my birthday.”
“No, it’s not. But if all goes the way I am envisioning tonight, then it will be a night of celebration.”
He slowly undid his tie, removed his jacket, and tossed both to the couch.
He said, “Oh? And what do you have planned for me this evening? I mean, you have certainly gone to a lot of trouble with the candles, flowers, and I see some decadent chocolates over by the bar. Thea, baby, please tell me what we are celebrating.”
Who is he kidding? He absolutely knew what tonight was about, but I played along a little while longer.
“Well, I did say ‘if’ all goes well tonight, then we will be celebrating.”
“Well, I would say judging on what you are wearing, I would say so far, this night is going very well. This is for me, you said?” Carter asked as he ran his fingers down my breast and landed at the sash of my robe, untying it and letting it fall open.
“Hmmm,” he said, as he took in what was underneath. “God, I love pink on you with your olive skin. Your skin is soft and silky, and your luscious mane of hair serves as a veil cascading down your back. As much as I love all this lace on your body, we don’t really need it. I would rather see you completely bare.”
Yup, my panties were soaked, and Carter was about to find out how much because he was already on his knees and removing them. With one flick of his finger, they were shredded, and he was inside of me.
He whispered, “You smell fucking amazing. You are so turned on, your pussy is dripping for me.”
I don’t know how he did it, but he somehow kept two fingers inside of me, as he lifted me up swiftly and placed me down to the mound of pillows that were nearby. Taking my right leg and placing it over his shoulder, he dove in and feasted on me with his tongue. I nearly passed out with how deep he was inside me, fucking me with his fingers and then lapping up pools of my moisture that he was creating every time he swiped his tongue against my heated sex. I was consumed with raging fire. My body responded to his touch with multiple orgasms sweeping through my body. I didn’t even recognize the sound of my own cries as I screamed out Carter’s name in endless pangs of pleasure.
He responded, “God, I love you. I love your body. I always want you.”
“Then take me, Carter. I’m yours.”
He stilled to the point that I opened my eyes and saw him staring down over me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“Do you mean that?”
“Mean what? Are you okay?”
“I have never been better, baby, but when you said ‘I’m yours,’ did you mean those words? Because I really need to hear them again.”
“Carter Ryan Newbanks, I. Am. Yours. And if you will do me the honor of being my husband, then I will be the happiest woman in the world. I love you. I want to be your wife. Our life right here and now is the one I want. So Carter, when I say ‘I’m yours,’ I absolutely, irrevocably mean my word
s with all of my heart and soul.”
His body stilled once more. I thought, is he in shock? Maybe he doesn’t really want to marry me, and now the reality is finally hitting him. He was still hovering over my body and saying nothing, and just when I was ready to talk again, something wet hit my cheeks. One by one, a light tap of wetness fell, and it was Carter, crying what I hoped were tears of joy.
“Carter? I love you. Please, baby, what are you thinking right now?”
He rolled over to his side but kept his eyes and hands on me. Brushing the hair out of my eyes and tucking my wavy curls behind my ear, he held my face in his hands and kissed me all over. I was happily lost to him…to his touch, to his scent, to him. How this incredible man is still with me after all the push and pull in our relationship, he is still here with me. He’s not saying much, but he’s here. I decided to just stay quiet until he was ready. He sure did look happy, which was a good sign.
He said, “I know you think I’m freaking out, but really, I am not. Thea, you don’t know how long I have waited for you. For you to see me, and in return, see us. I love you. I have loved you from the first moment you opened your door to me and climbed on the back of my bike with your arms tightly wrapped around my waist. Yes, I will marry you. It’s all I want. It’s all I have been hoping for. I love you.”
He wiped my tears away and then made love to me in the glowing candlelight. Whispered “I love you’s” were our melody as sleep took us to unbridled bliss.
“Yeah, come in,” I said.
When the persistent knocker did not come in, I finally got up in a huff and pulled open the door to find Karen on the other side of it. She looked unsure of herself. It was one look I never believed I would see cross her face.
I asked, “Hey, do you want to come in?”
“Yeah, I do, but I think it’s safer to remain right where I am standing.”
“Um…okay. Shall I close the door? Or is it okay to stand in front of each other?”
“We can talk here, Nick.”
“Okay, go on.”
“The thing is, after you kissed me the other night, I kind of felt that I wasn’t the only one in that kiss, you know what I mean?”
“I do, and Karen, that’s what I was hoping to talk to you about.”
“Wait! Please let me say what I have to say first.”
“Okay, continue. Are we still standing here in the doorway, or can we sit down?”
“Not yet. Maybe after I am done. Nick, I feel as if I have been chasing you since high school. That’s a long time to run a marathon and never get to the finish line. It’s not your fault; you didn’t know. By the time I was ready to tell you how I felt, you were already knee deep in love with Thea. I really did try to be part of your group back then, but let’s face it, I was an outsider and lacked the decorum and patience to try.”
She continued, “When hope was lost on ever getting a chance with you, I married Alex, who—shit, I don’t even think I can call him the second runner up. It was a disaster from the beginning, and I trusted when I shouldn’t have. I didn’t listen to the screaming voices in my head when he asked me to marry him, and—stupid me—I said yes to his ridiculous proposal at the Mets game. And then the best part, we got pregnant. I said, ‘Yeah, I can do this; we can do this.’ So, I gave it my all, and it still wasn’t good enough. We lost our apartment, and then we were forced to move back in with mom. Yeah, she was a peach about it. My only saving grace was that she instantly fell in love with our daughter and forgot how much she disliked me. Mom and I are on better terms now, but it wasn’t always that way. Alex and I weren’t planning on getting pregnant again so soon, but nevertheless, it happened.”
She went on, “I worked and worked and saved every freaking cent to get out from under my mother’s roof, and then that piece of shit ran away with it all. Can you even imagine what that did to me? And to my future? I was so close to signing the papers on my new life, and bam! Just like that, I lost it all.”
I questioned, “Why are you telling me all of this? Why now?”
“Because you are so fucking stupid! Dammit, Nick, look at your life. You have so much going for yourself. You walk around with such confidence. You are exactly what you said you would be. The night of your graduation when you stood on the table and announced your goal of becoming Battalion Chief, some may have been stunned, but not me. I knew you would do it. You are just like your father, and he was one hell of a good man, like my dad was. You helped me when others didn’t even bat an eyelash my way. You were the one person who gave a shit about me. You were the only one. You gave me my life back. And with all of that, there was still a small part in me that had hope that one day you would look at me like you look at Thea. I thought it was happening, and then comes one fly-by-night visit from Thea, and I am an afterthought. I’m just one of your bartenders that works for you. You hear me telling her off, and you scold me like the bad little girl that I am. Well, fuck that, Nick, and fuck you.”
She continued, “Thea up and leaves without bothering to say goodbye to you—again— and then what? I’m the consolation prize? I can’t change my past, Nick. I knew I was a hell-raiser half the time, but that doesn’t mean I am any less good than Thea, Trudie, and the rest of you. I am a good person, a damn good mother, and I deserve a fucking win once in a while. When you kissed me, I thought for one second that just maybe you finally opened your eyes to see who was standing right in front of you, but that’s not my luck, is it Nick? You probably were thinking of Thea the entire time, and I will not—no, I will never—be her runner up. She left you. She has this amazing life in California, and from what I hear, an even more amazing boyfriend, and knowing all of that, you still can’t let her go?”
She went on, “So, here I am. The asshole that is standing in front of you. The asshole that loves you, and the asshole that knows you are just not ready to return that love to me, or anyone else for that matter, which just pisses me off. Because, Chief Bartelli, you are missing out on something great.”
I asked, “Are you finished? Can I speak now?”
“Sure, I’m done.”
Before she could bolt, I grabbed Karen by her hand and pulled her into my office. I wanted to hold her, kiss her, do anything to wipe away the brokenness and pain that was written all over her face.
“Karen, I didn’t know. Why didn’t I know?”
“Because you are stupid, just like every other guy in my life. No, the one that wasn’t was my dad. He loved me, Nick, and I loved him.”
“I know you did, and he was not only a great man, but a bad-ass firefighter. Do you know how many lives he saved before the towers came down? Hundreds, Karen. They all did. We are their legacy. I am nothing special. I just worked my ass off to become a fraction of the man my father was. He was everything to me, and all I wanted to do was be like him.”
“He would have been really proud of you. You know that, right?”
“I do, and I know your dad would have felt the same about you. I don’t know anyone who works harder for her family than you. You are a great mom, and your girls are strong and happy. It sucks what Alex did to you, but you rose above all that heartache and loss, and now you are even better for it. I handled everything wrong with Thea, and I wasn’t thinking at all when I saw her. I behaved impulsively, and Thea being Thea, ran as far away from me as she could. That’s on me, Karen. But when I kissed you, I wasn’t acting rash or thinking about another woman. In that moment, I wanted you and only you. I just didn’t know how to tell you, so I showed you instead. I know I fucked up by not talking to you sooner, but I have been trying to just wrap my mind around the past few days and find some clarity again.”
I went on, “I know who you are. I see you. And I don’t want to keep living in the past. I want the now. I need to live for today, tomorrow, and the day after that, but not backwards, not anymore. Thea will always be part of my past. Our lives have been weaved together since we were four years old. You can’t expect me to just forget her and
the life we had once. Having said that, I do expect you to believe me when I say she is my past. I know I have something unfinished with her, and maybe someday I will work it out and finally close the door to that part of my life. For now, can we just have today and see where we go from here?”
“And where is that, Nick? What are you telling me?”
“It’s simple. We start over from scratch and see how it goes. I’ll start first. I was wondering if you would do me the honor of accompanying me to dinner, maybe even some dancing too. I promise I won’t step on your feet.”
“I would like that very much.”
“Thank you, Karen. You won’t regret this.”
“I hope not…and Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t break my heart.”
She was a stubborn one, that Karen Lombardi, but it wasn’t a weakness, it’s a strength. She fought so hard to be brave and show the world that she didn’t care, but she really did with everything she had in her, and then some. I took her in my arms and just held her. She rested on my shoulder and was quiet. We stayed like this for a while and just felt. I’m not sure how I got here, but I wasn’t going to question it. I kissed her again on the top of her head. Then she looked at me with her deep brown eyes. I had to catch my breath. Damn, she was beautiful.
“Karen, I know this is confusing and I may be out of my depth here, but I know for certain I can promise you one thing today.”
“Yeah, and what’s that Nick?”
“I promise you that Alex is the last man that will ever hurt you again. I swear it with all that I am and who I am.”
She said nothing, but I didn’t expect her to either. This was Karen processing and protecting her heart. I knew I had to pull out all the stops to give her the night of her life, to bring a smile to her face and feel great knowing I was the guy to put it there.
When the weekend finally arrived, I was beyond ready for my date with Karen. I saw her every day this week but only at the bar. I wasn’t going to cross any lines until our date, which made me really happy and excited. I didn’t have time to go home and change, so I did it at the firehouse with only a few minutes to spare before I was to pick-up Karen.
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