Queen Move

by Kennedy Ryan

  The first swipe of his tongue forces the air from my lungs, wrenching pleasure from my core and streaming through my legs.

  “Dammit.” I flatten my palms against the wall over the headboard. My knees tremble as he laves me again and again and again, the languid, steady sweep of his tongue and lips there nearly too much. My knees pull in against a pleasure that’s almost unbearable, but he grips my ass, pressing me harder into his mouth, giving me no respite from the hungry kisses he lavishes on me.

  My forehead drops to the wall between my palms and I rotate my hips in rhythm with the glorious work of his tongue. He passes his thumb through my wetness, caressing my clit with each stroke and then tracing the puckered track between my buttocks, pressing there.

  “Can I?”

  I nod, pushing back, anticipating penetration in the place too rarely touched. His thumb slips in, big, intrusive, perfect. My breath hitches at the tantalizing pressure, the sublime fullness. His other hand reaches up, cupping my breast while he pumps his thumb inside. I gasp, a shiver working itself through my body with sudden force. He slides his other hand down, leaving my breast, gliding over my belly, and finds the bud of throbbing nerves. He works me into a frenzy with the pressure inside and the delicate, unrelenting stroke across my clit. I churn my hips into his touch, caring about nothing but this urgency blooming inside me. It overtakes me, washing over every nerve ending with tsunami force that wrenches a sob from me. The orgasm uncoils, loosening my limbs and leaving me spent.

  He slides from beneath my limp body, gently laying me flat onto the bed, turns me onto my back. Slack-jawed, arms and legs limp, I slit my eyes open. His eyes burn over my face, down the length of my body. There’s so much barely leashed passion in his expression, in his eyes. I force my arm to move, reach up and smooth the muscle ticking in his jaw, brush the artfully sculpted bow of his mouth with my thumb. He turns his head into my hand, kisses my palm.

  “I love you,” I whisper, watching his long lashes fall, his eyes close as he absorbs the words, allows them to water the dry places I recognize because I’ve been dry without him, too. I’ve been lonely. I’ve been, at times, uncertain how this would work, how it would end. And now—love, relief, reunion.

  He stands, stripping efficiently at the foot of the bed, tossing the jeans and shirt away. He’s the same as I remember, muscles hewn from rock, skin cut from swathes of velvet, but having been so long without him, there’s a novelty to his form. A freshness to his male beauty that I’ll never take for granted again.

  He slots lean hips between my spread legs. When he looks up, his face still wet from the time and care he took ensuring my pleasure, his eyes connect with mine, searing a thousand unspoken promises into my heart. There’s a knowing between us, an intuition of body and soul and mind that I’ve never had with anyone else. At his first thrust, a hard, sure possession, I know I never will. He doesn’t pull back, but stays buried inside me, his temple pressed to mine. He angles his head until only a breath separates our mouths. He closes the space, kissing me fiercely as he pushes in deeper. I wrap my legs around him, linking my ankles at the base of his spine. He moves, one sure thrust after another, slowly building the momentum between our bodies. Sweat beads, drips as he never lets up, the only sounds in the room our grunting and gasping and panting and urgent whispers of more, faster, harder, please don’t you ever stop.

  Finally, he groans into the curve of my neck, spilling into me, a hot flow of love and unleashed passion. I want it all, tightening my arms and legs around him like he’s wisps of smoke that might drift away, like I could lose him if I’m not careful. The percussion of our hearts, mallets in our chests, slows. Our love-slicked limbs are a tangle of copper and bronze. I run my fingers through his hair, trace the muscles in his belly, caress the sinew at his hip, the corded arms. I hold his hand. My body is sated, but my heart hungers for him still, for unbroken contact. I want him until I’m full and running over and exhausted with affection. I can’t stop touching him, making sure he is real and here and mine.

  Still only mine.

  Our bodies have cooled when he rolls away.

  “No,” I protest, my voice raw and husky. “Don’t go yet.”

  “I’ll be right back.” He leans down and kisses my forehead.

  I close my eyes and pull the duvet up and over my shoulders, relishing the warmth, the scent of us in the sheets. When he gently turns me over to face him, he’s on his knees beside the bed, elbows propped on the mattress.

  “Hey, handsome,” I say sleepily, caressing the line of his brows, the bridge of his nose.

  “Hey,” he replies, his lips quirking, even though his eyes remain serious. “I want to talk to you about a few things.”

  “Okay.” I drag myself up to sit with my back against the headboard and the covers tucked beneath my arms. “Talk.”

  “We kind of jumped right in,” he says, linking our fingers on the sheets. “But I want to talk about what happened while we’ve been apart.”

  A chill skitters across my skin, stiffening my back and tensing my muscles. Is this where he confesses he did give in to temptation and sleep with Aiko once, twice, three times?

  “What happened?” I ask, keeping my voice even and just the right degree of curious.

  “I did what I needed to do,” he says, studying the sheets. “I wanted to be there for Mai and Noah and Aiko, of course.”

  I gulp at the tears threatening, grit my teeth and brace for disappointment.

  “I stayed there until Mai came, stayed for the first few months so I could be around to help as much as possible. Changing diapers, midnight feedings—the whole thing.”

  My heart clenches into a fist at the picture he paints of their family, their baby, their life together while we were apart.

  “But we needed our own places to establish a new normal,” he says. “Especially for Noah. He needed to see that separation to understand how our relationship was changing.”

  “Look,” I say, deciding to just address my worst fears. “If you need to tell me that you…slipped…that you and Aiko—”

  “I’m trying to assure you there is no me and Aiko,” he cuts in, holding my eyes in a steady stare. “Not beyond Mai and Noah, and a long friendship. I knew what I wanted then and I know what I want now.”

  I don’t ask, afraid to ask, to assume, but look away, hold my breath and wait.

  “You.” He squeezes my hand, tugs my fingers until I look into his eyes. “I only want you.”

  A relieved breath escapes the tight line of my mouth. “And Aiko? What does she want?”

  “At first,” he says, his mouth a wry curve, “she didn’t know. It was hard for her to think of us differently, but she had no choice. She knows I’m in love with you, and she had to accept that she and I would never be what we were before.”

  “And?”

  “And she gets it now.” He chuckles, shaking his head. “Chaz helped.”

  “I saw him at your house. Your old house. I went there first.”

  “They’re together. Chaz started coming back around when she was still pregnant. Now they’re dating, sickeningly sweet, the whole nine.”

  “Well, that’s unconventional.”

  “At no point has Aiko ever been conventional.”

  “And how is Noah adjusting to all of this?”

  Ezra shrugs broad, naked shoulders. “He’s pretty mature, unusually intelligent and open in a way that most kids aren’t at his age. I think it helped that we never had a conventional relationship, never married. It has been an adjustment not seeing him quite as much. I mean, I’m around the corner, so I still see him every day, all the time, but it’s different when you don’t live under the same roof. He’s with me a few days and with Ko the others. It works, but I’m always checking in with him, getting him to talk and tell me how he’s doing.”

  I watch the man I love, the man I’ve known since he was a child, an awkward boy finding himself. I know him so well, and never have I seen him mor
e in need of a pocket to shove his hand into.

  Except he’s nude.

  He clears his throat, and some of the red that used to crawl over his cheeks all the time colors his neck. “So I thought now that my…situation is settled and the governor’s race is over, maybe we could discuss our future.”

  I open my mouth and he rushes on before I can speak.

  “First of all, if you want a baby, I do, too. Natural. Frozen eggs. IVF. I don’t care. I want to make you happy, Tru.”

  I stare at the rugged symmetry of his features, the prominent nose and sculpted lips. The dark wing of his brows over African violet eyes. The cap of clipped curls. I remember this man as a boy, the awkward, lanky, too-big-for-his-body parts boy. He had to grow into the beauty of his face. I’ve seen the arc of his life, how he developed over time. Emotion scalds my throat and my lips tremble. Before I even knew how babies were made, I imagined ours.

  “I would love to…” He clears his throat again. “I was hoping you’d consider…oh, hell.”

  He reaches to the floor and pulls up a black velvet box. My wide eyes connect with his, and we both swallow hard, on the cusp of something I wasn’t sure would ever happen. He opens the box and I’m so shocked by what’s in there, I laugh.

  In the slit where a ring would normally be is the tab of a can.

  “I was hoping you’d consider,” he repeats, “marrying me again.”

  Again.

  The years fall away, and we’re those kids standing under an elm tree in the Sterns’ backyard, laughing at shattered glass and sealed by vows we didn’t understand. It’s painfully sweet, that memory wrapping around my battered heart. As sweet as a million moments we shared before we could possibly grasp how rare and precious it was, what we had. We were each other’s light and solace.

  Hazak, Hazak, Venithazek.

  Be strong, be very strong, and we will strengthen each other.

  The prospect that we finally could live that out, that we could finally be partners for the rest of our lives and fulfill the promises we made in the shade of that tree, brings me to tears.

  “Don’t cry.” Ezra brushes at my cheeks but can’t stem the flow. “Tru, I—”

  “Yes,” I manage to whisper, barely able to see him through a scrim of tears. “I will marry you again.”

  He had to know I’d say yes, that I could never refuse him, but he looks shaken, a long sigh of relief rushing from his chest. He slowly pulls the tab from its velvet bed. It’s bigger than a soda tab, but still barely fits when I extend a trembling hand, and he slips it as far as it will go onto my ring finger.

  “Guess we’ll have to get a replacement, fast.” He chuckles.

  There has never been a race, an election, a campaign, a win that has made me feel this way. It’s the kind of contentment only found when you stand still. When you stop running long enough to run into yourself—to collide with your future and release the past. The path to this moment is paved with a million “ifs.” If our parents had never argued, never fallen out. If the Sterns had never moved. If Ezra and I had found each other sooner. But every possibility changes this moment—shifts the path that has made us who we are at this very second. And I can’t help but think when we were born on the same day, when we were made together, our path was set, even with its delays, detours and disillusions. We are made of choices and losses and triumphs and, yes, some happenstance. Ezra and I were made for this moment, made for each other exactly as we are now.

  And looking into his eyes, I wouldn’t change a thing.

  Epilogue

  Ezra

  One Year Later

  “Study your queen so you can give her what she wants without asking.”

  Nipsey Hussle,

  Musician, Activist, Entrepreneur

  Christmas at the Sterns’ is an unusual affair.

  A cohesion of traditions and religions and families. There’s a Christmas tree that almost reaches the ceiling and stockings hanging over the fireplace. A menorah resides in the window and a mezuzah scroll guards nearly every door, courtesy of my mother. For dinner, we ate turkey and stuffing and macaroni and cheese and collard greens. Mrs. Allen’s fried chicken made peace with Mom’s fish and challah bread. Potato latkes, steamed rice and dumplings rounded out the meal, a hodgepodge of dishes to satisfy any palette. Chopsticks nestled between the forks and spoons.

  Seated around our table? Three grandmothers- one Jewish, one Vietnamese, one black. All those nationalities convene in Noah and his little sister Mai, who squirmed the whole time to get away from the table so she could see her new puppy. Aiko sat with Chaz and Mama Tran, who added her legendary pho to our holiday menu. Mom and Stanley actually left New York. It’s Stanley’s first time in Atlanta, and he wants to see the King Center and have chicken and waffles before he leaves. As Atlanta sight-seeing goes, that’s a pretty low bar that we can easily clear. Remarkably, as soon as Mrs. Allen and Mom saw each other, it was like old times. Not…secret affair old times, but talking in the kitchen while cooking, cackling over memories, sharing photos of grandchildren and catching up with the changes twenty-five years have wrought in their lives.

  They’ve both lost their husbands. My mother has a new one. So much has changed since that first night when they bathed their babies together. After dinner, they insisted on cleaning up, and their incessant chatter, their laughter and reminiscing drifts through the house as we settle into board games and dessert. Our mothers even threatened to throw together a game of mah-jongg.

  “Well, we survived our first Christmas,” Kimba says, walking up beside me at the fireplace, taking my hand. “I mean, I’m not sure you can call it just Christmas when there’s Baptists, Buddhists and Jews, but you know what I mean. The holidays.”

  “It’s not the holiday we have in common.” I look at our family, full of varying religions and practices. “It’s each other. We’re what brought us together.”

  Kimba nods, a contented smile on her face. Hard-earned contentment. We have taken a journey that would break most couples, but we aren’t most.

  We’re soul mates.

  As fanciful as that may sound, I believe it. Religion, politics, beliefs—all the things that form a person’s worldview—none of them are as strong as what binds me to her: the connective tissue of our souls.

  “Everyone’s occupied,” I whisper. “Let’s go up to the roof.”

  She looks at me, one brow raised. “Should we sneak off when we have a full house?”

  “We should sneak off because we have a full house.” I bend to her ear. “I’ve barely kissed you all day in this asylum. These people are crazy.”

  She laughs, her lips, bare and pretty and full, spread into a smile. Hand in hand, we climb the two stories to reach the roof. The view from here is what sold me on this house. The Atlanta skyline, light-speckled buildings glittering at night like diamonds on a bed of black satin. A line of skyscrapers reaching for the stars, as aspirational as the people who live here. Kimba turns on the fairy lights. I light the firepit, pull out two champagne glasses and a bottle from the ice bucket behind the bar.

  “You planned this, huh? Having your way with me on the roof?” She grins, nods to the bottle. “And you know I can’t have that.”

  I turn the bottle so she can see the label. “It’s sparkling cider, and yes, I’ve been fantasizing about having my way with you on the roof all day.”

  I fill the glasses and take one of the couches, sinking into the soft cushions. She grabs blankets from the nearby hutch and settles in front of me, her back pressed to my chest, and pulls the blankets over us.

  “You cold?” I kiss the curls she’s left loose and free tonight, handing her a glass of the honey-colored liquid.

  She wiggles against me and drops her head into the curve of my neck and shoulder. “I’m fine for now.”

  “How do you think dinner went?” I ask, linking our fingers and resting them on her stomach.

  “As well as can be expected with all we had going on
.” Her shoulders shake against me. “Your ex and her boyfriend were there with the children you had together. Our mothers were in the same room for the first time in twenty-five years since they broke off their affair. And your stepfather is here. It’s just…all so weird. I thought Aiko getting pregnant was some Jerry Springer shit.”

  The richness of our laughter floats over the fire, out to the stars.

  “Mona would have loved this,” I tell her. “She would have been shaking her head and making fun of us all night.”

  “I hope she’s having a good time. Meeting your boyfriend’s family, it’s a lot.”

  “She and Jamal have been dating for so long. It’s about time she met his family.”

  “They’ve been dating off and on,” Kimba corrects, “not exclusively for that long. I don’t blame Mona for being cautious. She’s been hurt before. She needed to know Jamal was serious.”

  “I’m happy for her.” I hold up her left hand, study the square diamond I put there nearly a year ago. “I’m happy for us.”

  There was no long engagement. Why would there be? We were both sure. We married on Valentine’s Day, barely a month past Governor Ruiz’s inaugural ball, and started trying for a baby immediately. Actually before immediately.

  “When should we tell them?” Kimba asks, pressing our hands to her flat stomach.

  “I’d like to wait as long as we can.”

  “Why?” She tilts her head, catching my gaze over her shoulder. Her dark eyes, fringed with a thick veil of lashes, make me lose my train of thought. Make me lose my mind. They always have.

  “Why do you want to wait?” she asks again, nudging her elbow into my ribs.

  “It’s our secret. I want to keep it just ours as long as we can. It’s been a lot of work and some disappointment. I just want to savor it for a bit.”

  She swallows hard, disrupting the smooth line of her throat, and tears swim in her eyes. This isn’t our first pregnancy. We lost one, so early we barely had time to celebrate, but it still hurt. Trying to have a baby when your body is hormonally resisting it in every way is difficult. Kimba manages the hot flashes and other symptoms of perimenopause with homeopathic remedies and yoga as much as she can, but there’s no denying her body is marching in that direction. And we’re fighting to get our babies before it’s too late. We wanted to try naturally first, even though we have eggs frozen and waiting. The doctor was surprised that, considering the perimenopause, we were able to conceive not once, but twice.