Lovely You

by Jamie Bennett

  “It wasn’t fun to have you act like that with me, to watch you put on that show. But I was upset,” he said, and paused. “I was upset because I hadn’t realized how much it would bother me to see you with someone else. I had been telling myself that I was helping you out, that when Joey and I went back to Hawaii, I would leave you in a better way and then forget you.” He stopped again, then walked around the kitchen counter to stand next to my stool. “I saw you smiling and talking to that guy and I could picture the two of you together, having some ritzy San Francisco life, cocktails and going to museums in fancy clothes, and I was going back to my old pickup on the Big Island, drinking beer on the beach in the t-shirts you hate. I know you hate my t-shirts,” he said, cutting me off as I opened my mouth to protest. “I thought about trying to let you go, all your prickly crap, and underneath all that, the heart you try to hide. And I couldn’t think how I was going to do it, just walk away and leave you with another guy. That’s why it hurt.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I don’t know if it will make you feel better, but Mats did want to get back together with me after that night.”

  “Yeah, that cheers me up a lot.”

  “No, it should. Because I told him no, obviously, clearly, no. Even if there was no you, Mats and I were terrible together. He’s not anything that I need.” I cleared my throat. “But there is you. And I hope you can deal with me, with the crap, and the mess, the bitchiness, and everything else. Because…”

  “I think I can do that. If you can deal with the neatness, and the t-shirts, and the…well, compared to what you’re used to, the relative poverty.”

  I stood up, so we were very, very close. “I don’t want anything else but you.” I untucked the corner of my towel, and it fell away onto the ground, leaving me just as I was. No clothes, no makeup, no hair to hide behind. Just me. But I didn’t reach for him, or try to kiss him again—I waited, my heart thumping so hard I thought that Nate would be able to hear it, too.

  His mouth fell open a little and I heard him take a breath. He took a step closer. He put his hand on my bare shoulder and ran it down my arm. I bit my lip and waited.

  Nate tugged my arm and I stepped forward until my breasts brushed the soft cotton of his t-shirt. He bent his head and I tilted mine and for the third time, we kissed, but this time, we both wanted it. His mouth parted, his tongue teased across my lower lip, and at the same time, his arms enfolded me, pulling me tightly to him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and tried to get even closer. We stood, kissing, the towel on the floor at my feet. His hand moved up to support my head and I relaxed into him, not thinking or feeling anything except for Nate.

  He moved his lips slightly away and I made a little sound of disappointment and tried to pull him back. I was almost dizzy with the kisses, the staccato of my heart, the warm emotion that was pouring through me and into him. He let go of me and I got a little frantic, clutching him.

  “I’m taking this off. The shirt you don’t like,” he murmured, his lips against my neck, then his tongue tickled around the curve of my ear. He picked up his head and ripped off his t-shirt. I ran my hands up his chest, over the indentations of muscle, his hard nipples, his warm skin. I scratched my nails down his back and he pulled me to him again, kissing me deeply until I was breathless.

  I wasn’t going to let go, but I wanted to move us to the bedroom, to take off the rest of the clothes he had just put on. I wanted to feel his weight on top of me and feel his hands touching me, every part of me. “Let’s—” I started. Nate bit my neck gently and I broke off, gasping. I arched and pushed my body to his. “Bedroom,” I tried again. He splayed his fingers and ran them up my hip, over my ribs, to cup my breast. My head fell back then and as his fingers teased my nipple, his teeth nibbled my neck and jaw. I stopped trying to talk.

  “We’ll go to the bedroom,” Nate agreed, his words soft in my ear as he licked, again, and I barely nodded. My legs felt weak and useless, but I walked with him into the room I had straightened and fixed, and stood as he disappeared briefly into the bathroom, to the black bag that had sat on the sink. Now he displayed a handful of condoms. “I brought these, just in case.” He looked at me. “I thought, I hoped, we might need them.”

  I was all for getting one on, immediately, and I reached for his zipper. “I’m naked,” I explained nonsensically, and Nate nodded.

  “I noticed that,” he told me, and helped me remove the rest of his clothing. Instead of going straight for the condom, he put down the square wrappers next to the bed and lifted me, like he had done before, putting me in the middle of the mattress. Then he stood and looked over my body, and I did the same to him. There were the scars that he had shown me, and God, there was Nate, hard and ready and wanting me. I reached out for him, needing him so much that I made another sound, almost a sob.

  Nate lay down and tucked my body against his. “You ok, Scarlett? Is this ok?”

  “I want you,” I answered. I rubbed my skin against his, pressing my breasts against him. I took his hand and moved it from my hip back to my chest. His fingers tweaked my nipple and he bent his head to put his warm mouth over it, suckling. My hands went to his head and brushed through his short hair as I held him, cradled to my breast. His mouth moved to the other side, and then back to my throat. He was moving faster, breathing harder. It was starting to feel urgent to me, needing him now. Right now.

  I moved my legs apart to fit his erection between them, feeling the hard warmth at my core. I pushed my hips against his, and massaged our bodies together, rubbing him against me. I moaned now, and Nate did too. He held my hips in his hands and kissed me again, hard and deep. His mouth moved over my body, my shoulders, my breasts, my hips, my inner thighs, my—my—

  I rolled my hips again, frantically, when his head came between my legs. He pressed my thighs open and put his lips against me, and his tongue, and his teeth. With his fingers deep inside, he licked, and sucked, and I just broke, crying, moaning, screaming, chanting his name, Nate, Nate.

  “Scarlett, I have to—I need—”

  I knocked the lamp off the nightstand as I reached for the condom. I was desperate, too. He sank into me so deeply that I caught my breath and my head fell back. Oh, my God. Oh, like that.

  “Just like that,” Nate said, hearing my thoughts, and I told him yes, yes, yes.

  I was saying it, then I was screaming it, as he pounded into me, his fingers on my hip, his thumb on my clitoris, caressing me, and I lost myself completely as I came, clinging and shaking. Nate pulsed inside me and moaned, and then stilled, heaving with deep breaths, nuzzling my hair with his lips and nose. He moved his hips and I called out, and almost came, again.

  “Not bad,” he agreed, as he slowly pulled away and rested on his side next to me.

  I turned into him, and he encircled me with his arms. “Not bad,” I agreed. I listened to his heart thumping hard in his chest. “I…oh.” I gave up on words and just sighed in satisfaction.

  “Who needs to run, when we can do this?” he asked me.

  I felt better than I ever did after a run. Nate kissed my hair, my forehead, my cheeks, then pulled me even closer, swinging his leg over me so I was completely engulfed by him.

  “How do you always smell so good?” he asked. “In Hawaii, I could always tell when you had been in a room by how good it smelled.”

  “Really? I didn’t wear any perfume while I was there.”

  “It’s just you, then.” He breathed into my neck. “I love it.” His exhalation made me shiver. I closed my eyes and burrowed in and he laughed. “I remember when I first saw you. I got all these messages from this woman yelling about an air conditioning emergency—”

  “You don’t need to remind me of that.”

  “And then I walked in and there you were lying on the couch, naked. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t even say anything at first, I just stood there with my mouth open.”

  I pinched his rib. “Pervert.”

  “Y
eah, well, you might have done the same in my shoes.”

  I definitely would have done the same if I had come across him naked. I had been right about what was underneath it all; it was spectacular. Phenomenal. I moved my hips against him, thinking about how he felt inside me. But he hadn’t wanted me before, back in Hawaii. “You didn’t kiss me. I kissed you, but you didn’t kiss me back.”

  “Yeah.” He grasped my hips and moved me on top of him. “I knew there was something going on with you. Would that have been right, for me to get involved with you then?”

  I moved restlessly, thinking back to the mess I had been back in Hawaii. I was better now. I was sure that I was.

  “Scarlett?” He pushed the hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ears.

  No. I knew what he was asking, and I didn’t want to tell him. I sat up, straddling his hips, and reached behind myself, teasing him with my fingertips.

  “I don’t—ok, yeah.” His eyes closed.

  I scooted down his body so that I could hold him in front of me, working both my hands, the pads of my fingers and my nails. Nate parted his legs.

  “Is this what you want?” I reached and stroked his balls and his hips lurched up.

  “Yeah,” he sighed, eyes open now, watching me.

  I literally held him in my hands, kneeling on top of him, and I felt like I was in charge, the captain of this ship. Maybe the sergeant. “Ok, soldier. It’s time to get back to work.”

  “If it’s the same job I was doing earlier, I’m ready to do my duty,” he answered. I squeezed a little and he moaned, hips rising again.

  “Are you sure you’re up for it?” Oh, he was definitely up for it.

  Nate’s eyes opened. “Are we playing games now, Miss Scarlett?” He grinned up at me.

  “In the bedroom, with a condom,” I told him, and he flipped me on my back so fast I squealed, and a moment later, he plunged into me so hard and deep that I did again, but with pure pleasure.

  Chapter 15

  Nate and I showered again much later, but this time together. I carefully washed each part of him, running my fingers along his scars.

  “Can you feel this?” I asked, tracking my fingers down his torso.

  “Not from here, all the way to here,” he showed me.

  I put my hand between his legs.

  “Yes, that I can feel,” he gasped. “You’re going to kill me.”

  “Four times is all you can do?” I challenged him. He showed me that it was not, and did some interesting things with the water from the handheld shower head. After that fun interlude, Nate suggested going out to dinner with Kiana and Joey, who had apparently been texting him while we had been very busy.

  “Dinner? Isn’t it a little early?” I looked at the clock on the microwave. “My God, is that right?”

  “We’ve been boning all day,” Nate politely informed me. He sat down on the couch, head back, looking happily exhausted.

  “That’s a classy way to put it,” I mentioned. I sat next to him and held on to his wrist.

  “Here’s some class for you: I’ll wear a tie tonight,” he offered. He moved my fingers so that we were holding hands and I gripped his tightly.

  “I’ll take you up on that.” I knew that we should talk more, and I wanted to make sure that things were ok, but I hesitated, swallowing, and he pulled me to sit on his lap.

  “Scarlett, what?”

  I ran my thumbs over his dark eyebrows and my finger down his nose, just to touch him. Then I kissed him and took a deep breath. “Does this—does all this—does it mean that you forgive me?”

  Nate tilted his head. “I do. Are you still angry at me? I was upset and I said some nasty things. I left you.”

  The way he said it like that…I put my hand to my mouth.

  “Scarlett, I’m sorry I did that.”

  I kept my knuckles pressed against my lips, and nodded.

  “Baby, I won’t do that again. If we’re angry, I won’t leave, and you won’t lash.” He held me against his chest, tucking my head into the nook under his chin. “You can cry, you know.”

  No, that was a bad idea, and I managed to pull myself together. I picked up my head. “I’m ok. I’m glad we’re ok, too.”

  Nate was just looking at me. “I am, for sure.”

  “Great, me too.” I forced myself to let go of him and got off his lap. “I better get dressed, then.”

  “Are you walking slowly because of everything we did today?”

  Yes. I laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I went to yoga earlier,” I said over my shoulder.

  “I really enjoy your flexibility. I’ll help you get dressed.”

  His “help” meant that things took a lot longer, but that was fine with me, as I held on to the edge of the dresser and orgasmed, his fingers inside me, his other hand gripping my ass. I gave him an assist too, with his tie, and with his penis, so I called us even.

  Finally, and very tardily, we met Kiana and Joey at a restaurant out on Clement Street where I was fairly certain we wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. I drove, looking before I backed out of my spot in the garage and not brushing up against the cement pole as sometimes happened by mistake, and not checking my phone the whole way over to the restaurant as I usually did when I drove.

  “Is this off?” Nate asked, picking it up from where I had stuffed it in my car’s console.

  “Oh. I think maybe it is,” I said. I considered the fact that I hadn’t really thought about my phone all day, and I hadn’t cared at all.

  “Do you plan to stop for that yellow?”

  “A yellow light is a warning that you should speed up because it may turn red,” I explained, but I stopped anyway.

  “That is not what a yellow light means. At all.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you go so long without getting on your phone for something or other.”

  I looked at it, the screen black. “I have to call Brooks back. I told him I would call him when I got to Hawaii.”

  “You’re talking to him again?”

  “Some, I think. I told him I was sorry.” There seemed to be a lot that Nate had missed in the past few days. I went through the story of Bradley falling—getting dropped—in the pool, and how he was cheating on Zara. How she had thought that I was the one cheating with him.

  “That’s ridiculous. That’s terrible that she would think that about you and call you out like that.” I looked over at him as I drove and Nate put his hand on the wheel, straightening out the car. He was sitting bolt upright, his face furious. “She should know better! And she should have been defending you, not accusing you.”

  “My brother did. He believed me.”

  “Everyone should have. Are we going to see this Bradley again? Where does he live?”

  “No, you can’t intervene with him,” I said, but it felt so nice that he wanted to jump in and defend my honor or something. “It’s understandable that my mom and Zara didn’t think…that they took his side.”

  “No, it’s not, not at all. They should be ashamed of themselves. You should have been able to tell them, immediately, that he was a fucking—”

  “I don’t blame them. He made me feel uncomfortable for years and I never said anything because I didn’t want to make Zara upset. I want my family to love me. I don’t want to lose them. My dad died and I can’t…” I was having a little trouble talking. I paused to calm down before I kept trying to explain. “I think it was just me acting, uh, off at the end of last year. It made Bradley feel like he could make a move, ramp it up from just being creepy and suggestive to touching me, stuff like that.”

  “You mean, when you were most vulnerable, he tried to take advantage of it. And your mom and sister,” he started, but then said, “Pull over there in the bus stop, Scarlett. I’m going to drive.”

  I did, because I was having a hard time staying in the lane, with the shaking in my hands. I stopped the car. “I don’t want to talk about this,” I said, trying to sound strong and aut
horitative. Instead, I sounded like I was going to cry. I got out and walked around the back of the car and Nate caught my arms.

  “You can tell me, Scarlett,” he said, and just briefly, I let him hold me, but not too long. I felt like I was kind of on the edge of something and I pulled away, but Nate kept my hands in his. “Call your brother and tell him you’re not going anywhere right now, that you’re here with me, and you’re fine. Don’t make him worry about you.”

  I did call once Nate was driving, but Brooks didn’t pick up, thank God. I didn’t want to get into answering questions and sounding loopier than ever: “I’m going to Hawaii for good. Wait five minutes, because I might change my mind. Yes, now I’m staying in San Francisco.” I knew these weren’t words that would engender a lot of trust in my good judgement. I left a message that I was fine, that everything was good and I was with Nate, going out to dinner. I just didn’t mention which state I was in. Then I ignored the enormous number of notifications on the screen and turned off the phone again.

  Joey was sitting facing us in the restaurant, his back to the wall, as he and Nate liked to do. He got a huge smile when he spotted his best friend. I hoped I was included in it, but we hadn’t said goodbye on the best of terms. In fact, we hadn’t actually said goodbye, I had just stormed out after insulting him. I bent and hugged Pia, because I had missed her a lot, and Joey and Nate greeted each other like they had been apart for months. When Nate turned to the woman I assumed was Kiana, I let go of the dog, and stood up.

  “Hi, Joey,” I said cautiously.

  “Scarlett.” He hugged me, too. “You doing better?”

  And I almost started to cry, again. “I’m fine.” I spoke very low. “I’m sorry about what I said to you. You were right that I was being a bitch, ok?”

  He looked down into my face. “I don’t think I called you that. I’m glad you and Nate worked it out. Come meet my girlfriend.” He smiled at her, so proud and happy.