You deserve each other, p.28
You Deserve Each Other, page 28
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I’m asleep when it sinks into my consciousness that I’m not alone. I open my eyes to the darkness, fuzzy-brained and not quite out of my dream yet. It’s late, after midnight. There’s a man lying next to me, in exactly the place he’s supposed to be. This is where he belongs, and yet it’s a lightning strike straight to the heart to see him here.
“What are you doing home?” I blink several times, waiting for him to disappear. I’m still dreaming.
“You missed me.”
“You came home because I missed you?”
He’s got his elbow bent on the pillow, palm under the back of his head, watching me fathomlessly. His other hand drapes across his stomach. “Yes.”
My pulse speeds up, because I’m in his room and he’s caught me. He drove home all night in the snow and the dark and found someone sleeping in his bed. This is where he belongs, but he might not say the same about whoever it is he sees when he looks at me. Which Naomi? Can he tell a difference?
He sits up, leaning over me. My vision is adjusting to the dark enough to clear the shadows from his face, and now I can see that his gaze is liquid. His lips are a soft curve. “I missed you, too,” he says, and presses those lips gently to mine.
I loop my arms around his neck and tug him closer, in case he has any ideas of retreating after one kiss. He smiles against my mouth, closes his eyes, and I melt into the feel of him against me. The kiss is a hungry, powerful force, but he breaks it so he can travel down and kiss my neck. My body reacts, breaking out into an inferno of heat, sensitizing, knowing he’s the only one who can give me what I want. Into my skin, he murmurs, “I’ve missed you everywhere.”
“Mm?”
“Here,” he says as his lips brush where my heart beats, letting the pain and ache bleed into his voice. “I’ve missed you here.” He kisses my mouth. “And here.” My fingers tunnel into his hair, and his turn to fists that burrow into the mattress, lifting his body over mine. He stares deeply into my eyes. “Here.”
The word is a pale breath.
“I’ve missed you, too,” I reply, the edges of my vision going gray and blurry. Nothing else exists right now. The world begins and ends with this man.
I don’t know I’m crying until he wipes it away and his own eyes shimmer with tears.
We deepen the kiss, and it says what we don’t have to. I tug him closer, closer, until we align all over. When we part for breath, I ask, “Do you know you’re my best friend?”
“Am I?”
His eyes are sapphires held in front of a roaring flame, glinting as they’re turned. I know every microscopic detail of his face. I know the shape of his brows for every emotion. He is the most beautiful man who ever lived, and at one time I couldn’t have said with any certainty what color eyes he had. He was no more memorable than a picture hanging on the wall that I’d long gotten used to. How many times did my gaze pass right over him, not realizing he was looking back at me? Always watching. Listening. Waiting.
“You are.” My heartbeat is painfully strong and my torso is a twisted rag. My lungs claw for oxygen. Another tear slips over my cheek, which he kisses away.
I’m falling apart, and I think that Nicholas sees.
His hand is warm as it passes through my hair. His eyes are so tender that my muscles involuntarily relax, fingers uncurling. He buries his face in my throat and inhales. “God, I’ve missed you. Naomi.”
My name trembles in the air, and speech has never been so hard to find. But he needs it. He needs me to give voice to my feelings, because he’s not a mind reader and it’s not okay that I soak up what he gives without offering myself in return. I can’t let him think he’s alone, not for one moment.
“I like it right here,” I tell him, cradling either side of his face between my hands. “You make me happy. It makes me happy that you came home because I missed you; I’m appreciative of everything you do, for me and anybody else. I’m lucky to be with a thoughtful man like you and I’m sorry that I’ve taken you for granted and acted like a jerk. I’m thankful that you stayed put until I found you again. You supporting me, and making me feel valuable, is everything.”
He smiles and leans his cheek into my palm. My throat constricts, more tears welling up. I blink and splash the pillow. It’s not scary anymore to strip down like this in front of him. He’s got me. He’s right here, and I’ve got him, too. “Relearning you has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
He rubs a thumb over my cheekbone, down to my jaw. “I’m thankful you’ve forgiven me,” he says. “I’m sorry for every time I’ve ever made you feel unimportant. You are the most important, and I’m working on showing that better. You’re my best friend, too. I have more fun with you than anyone else, and I like how you challenge me. I like being around you and when I’m not around you, I’m always thinking about you. I want you to know I’m thinking about you all the time.”
It feels so lovely to be good to each other.
Being this close and not arching into him is an exercise in restraint. I’m starving, and I can feel that he is, too. He skates a heated glance down my body and his eyes haze, chest rising and falling more deeply.
I try not to let my voice shake when I say, “Where else have you missed me?”
He arches an eyebrow and a devious grin tugs at his lips. Actions, not words, are his reply. He divests me of my shirt and shows me where with his hands. My shorts and underwear follow, and he shows me with his mouth. Every little touch is magnified a thousandfold because it’s been a hundred years and counting since we’ve been skin on skin. I’m on fire and this has got to be downright excruciating for him, so I pull him back up to me.
“Hey, there,” he says softly.
“Mine.” I don’t have the mental faculties for conversation. I’m a single-minded cavewoman. “I need you. Now.”
“You’ve still been taking the pill, right?”
“Yes.”
I slam his mouth to mine and while our tongues are busy, I impatiently yank down the waistband of his boxers. He leans back somewhat to help, laughing against my cheek. I feel the vibrations all the way down and it makes me crazy; I’d shake him for his ability to be amused right now if his extremely urgent erection didn’t tell a different story. He’s multitasking again, being aroused and entertained at the same time. It’s not fair that he can divide his attention and I can’t.
I palm him between the legs, and am rewarded with a fluttering of eyelids, Adam’s apple working up and down. His breath is sugar, the taste melting in my mouth.
“More?” I tease.
He lets his eyes fall closed and tilts his head back, surrendering to the sensations. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
His eyes flare wide, holding me captive. He grates a word, low and guttural. “Please.”
“Mmm, we’ll see.” I bite his lower lip gently between my teeth and scrape my nails down his chest, ending the journey with a tight stroke. I moan into his ear and steal away his hard-fought control. Nicholas groans when I undulate against him. His murmurs, too quiet for me to understand, track down my throat and chest until he finds something he likes.
His body is shadow, stardust, and moonlight. He angles his head in a studious way, scientific fingers exploring crests and valleys, burning slow circles with his touch. I whimper a plea and he smiles but doesn’t oblige. He’s in no rush, which makes no sense to me whatsoever. I’m impatient and if it were up to me, we’d already be going for round two.
Rather than heed my begging, he lets his teeth graze across the soft expanse of my stomach. His hand moves down between my legs and applies pressure, relenting for one single stroke. His lips blaze a trail from my shoulder to my hip bone in an agonizingly slow, languid process, curls tickling skin.
Darkness closes over me and I let my other senses assume control, light-headed from the rush of his wanting, his delicious weight sinking me into the mattress. I sigh his name while he touches and tastes at his leisure, and he rises over me, breath flaring across my naked chest like the smoke of a fire.
Saying his name is what topples him over the edge. It’s the magic word.
He slams his wrists down on top of mine and is inside me before I can blink, swallowing my gasp down his throat. He feels incredible. He never stops kissing me as he moves in a measured, sensuous rhythm.
Nicholas smooths a hand around my waist, resting at the base of my spine so that he can hold me to him and do as he likes with perfect control. His face is tight in concentration, sweat gathering at his temples from the effort of holding back. He won’t let me hurry him. Every time I try I’m chastised with a nip of teeth, the brand of his hand. His punishments are a reward of their own.
I kiss the soft flesh of a fluttering pulse on his neck, below his ear, and a deep rumble shudders through him. I take his chin in my hand and force him to look at me through half-lidded eyes that wrestle for control, to prolong this and make us suffer. His eyes are black as the night forest.
He rushes forward but his kisses are surprisingly gentle, halting the movement of our bodies. I want to protest, but he pulls back and I can see that he’s thinking hard about something. Worry lines his forehead. He lifts my thigh and hooks it to his side, every muscle rigid as he starts moving again. I can trace the tendons in his neck and arms. “Nicholas?”
He gazes down on me. “Say you love me?” he whispers.
My heart bursts in my chest, white light popping behind my lids like fireworks. “I love you,” I say, and watch it blaze through him. “Of course I love you, Nicholas.” His thrusts meet every roll of my hips, and we both come apart.
My thoughts are impossible to sort through. My body feels amazing. Satisfied. It’s never been like this, or if it was, I’ve forgotten. When our breathing evens out, I trace the shape of a heart on his chest. His hair is a dark halo on the white pillow, and his eyes are still burning when they fall on my face.
I grin at him. “That might be the one to beat.”
“Even better than our first time?”
We both laugh, because our first time was a mess. He came to visit me on my lunch break at my old hardware store job and we ended up doing it in the storage closet. Standing up, he tried to position me against the wall and when we were done I came out to discover that hanging on the other side of that wall were tools, which now lay all over the floor. I’d forgotten to lock the front door, and the two customers browsing had likely gotten an earful.
“Remember that time in my car?” I snigger. “You got—”
“Hot coffee spilled all over us,” he replies along with me. Nicholas groans. “Nothing kills the mood like scalding liquid on your crotch.”
“And he was never the same,” I intone gravely. He smiles and elbows me.
“Felt terrible for ruining your sweater.”
“I forgot all about that sweater. Hm. Worth it, though.”
He twirls a lock of my hair around his finger. “Remember when we met?”
How we met is insignificant in light of how we met again. We met again while each trying our best to push the other one away. Whether we pushed each other too far remains to be seen. Can these past few weeks be real, and the past year a dream? Or is this the dream? We’ve been corrosive, and we can’t undo it, only recover from it if we try harder at this than we’ve ever tried at anything. He’s burrowed so deep beneath my surface, there’s no separating him from tendons and bones, no getting him out of my blood.
Of course I remember. It’s been sitting in the lost and found of happy memories, waiting for love to spin a revolution like the sun and light it up again.
“How could I forget?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It’s nearly two years ago and I’m at a bowling alley in Eau Claire for my dad’s surprise party. Mom’s got one of the tables bedecked with CONGRATULATIONS and HAPPY RETIREMENT balloons and a cake with a picture of his face in the icing. Aaron and Kelly, my brother and sister, are both in hateful moods for having to make the trip up. Kelly had to break plans with friends that she’d made after forgetting she agreed to come to this, and Aaron won’t stop griping over the cost of gas. It’s why he didn’t bring a present. His presence is a present. Before he leaves, he’s going to shake down Dad for twenty bucks.
Dad hates surprise parties and he didn’t want to retire in the first place (his company forced him out, basically), so when he finally shows up he’s in an evil temper to match everyone else’s. Mom tries to be perky to save everything, but since she hates to bowl and spends the whole time talking on the phone to her sister, it just makes Dad grumpier and they all start fighting.
A man in the lane to our right is bowling alone. I know he can hear my family arguing, because even though I keep telling them to keep their voices down their hissing ends up being just as loud. Also, he’s glanced in our direction a few times.
“Can I pretend I’m here with you?” I ask him jokingly. I’m holding a glittering nine-pound ball I got from behind the counter. I use children’s bowling balls because my strengths lie in the mental arena rather than physical. I’m also not above requesting bumpers.
“Sure.” He smiles at me, and my stomach does a little flip. He’s got cute, wavy brown hair that curls slightly where it falls across his forehead, and an honest smile. Kind eyes.
“Thanks. My family never learned how to behave in public.”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “My family could give them a run for their money, believe me.”
Kelly’s in tears. I hear her call Aaron an asshole for stealing five dollars from her purse to get a bag of weed from someone he just met in the bathroom, and I agree with her. He calls her an asshole right back because she once reported him to the IRS for not disclosing $125.00 he made staining our uncle’s porch, so I agree with him too.
“Can’t believe that, sorry,” I deadpan, and we both laugh. I jerk my thumb at my siblings. “They probably haven’t been great for your concentration.”
“I have been a little distracted,” he admits. Then he slides me a long look. “But it isn’t because of them.”
I think he’s flirting. Is he? I become a cliché and turn around to make sure he’s not actually addressing someone standing right behind me. Nobody’s there.
His lips curve into a smile. “So, family issues aside, you seem pretty nice.”
Do I? “I’m all right.”
“And I’m nice,” he says, hedging.
I’m cautious as I reply, “You might be.”
“I’ve also been told I’m pretty cute.” Yes, definitely flirting. My insides light up and play eight-bit music like I’ve won a game of pinball.
“You might be.”
He grins, because I’m flirting right back. “You should go out with me tonight,” he says casually, not breaking eye contact as he sends the ball skittering down his lane. I hear it break against a battalion of pin soldiers, but neither of us checks to see how he scored. We’re staring at each other.
“On a date?”
“Yes.”
There’s nothing for me to do but laugh. I don’t know this man. I don’t live anywhere near Eau Claire. Our paths are never going to cross again. “Sure, I’ll go out with you,” I tell him. “If you manage to knock down all your pins right now.”
He studies the pins he’s got left. He’s just bowled a split. His ball shot clean through the middle, knocking them all down except for the one on the far left and the one on the far right. Unless he’s secretly a professional bowler who can curve gravity, there’s no way he can bump off both foes. They’re too far apart for him to ping one off the other, so the odds of getting a spare are astronomical.
His eyes glint. “You promise?”
I pause before I reply. I’d have to be an idiot to root for him, so that’s what I do. “Sure, I promise.”
As soon as the word leaves my mouth he starts walking right down the center of the lane and knocks over both pins with his shoe. He turns on his heel with a flourish, his reflection spanning over a shining, waxed floor, and sends me a devilish grin. I have to admit he’s got me. The screen over our heads explodes with digital confetti and the letters for the word SPARE! tumble down with a cacophony like a bag of spilled coconuts.
He looks pleased with himself. There’s an undeniable chemistry between us that tempts me to lean a little closer. Explore it. I should walk away, but I won’t, because there’s something here. It sucks that I live so far away. He won’t bother once he hears I’m long-distance. But I have to let him know.
“I’m not local.”
“I know,” he replies, winking at a bowling alley worker who witnessed his stunt and is sending him a stern frown. “You’re from Morris.”
“When did I tell you that?”
“You didn’t. I saw you there myself about two weeks ago loading groceries into your trunk. I live in Morris, too.”
My mouth falls open.
He’s delighted by my shock. “I wanted to walk over and say hi, but figured a strange man approaching you in a dark, mostly empty parking lot while you were alone wasn’t the way to go.” He lifts a shoulder like, Hey what can you do. “But I thought about it after that, wishing I could have another shot at it. How great would it be, to get a second chance? I’ve even gone back to that store a couple times, in case I might see you again.”
I’m gaping at him, and I look over my shoulder to see if my family’s eavesdropping. They’re gone. They’ve left without saying good-bye, and it’s just the two of us—me and this strange, increasingly dazzling man whose name I don’t even know.
“Every year for my birthday, I go to my parents’ house and my mom puts candles on a cake,” he tells me. “Some Facebook friends from college write on my wall to say hey, and I wait until the day’s almost over to reply because I want it to seem like I had better things to do all day than count how many happy birthdays I got. I never go anywhere else or really do anything. Today I woke up and felt like going bowling. It’s the first birthday I’ve ever spent completely by myself. I didn’t want to go to a bowling alley close to where I live because I didn’t want to run into anyone I know, so I looked up other places online and found this one. Picked it at random. Eau Claire.”
