“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” he asks. His voice has changed. He sounds more concerned than angry now.
“I didn’t want to burden you with all my baggage. It’s not like we’re a couple or anything,” I say.
It was the wrong thing to say. The look he gives me could scare paint off the wall. “You think I’m going to spend all my time with someone I don’t care about, who I’m not invested in? It’s not like I was only calling you in the middle of the night for a quick lay then sending you away with slap on the ass. You hung out at my shop around my customers. You met my friends. I want to be with you.”
My tears come down in droves now and my breaths shutter. Every ounce of me wants to break down, do that hard, ugly crying that makes your face warp, but I’m holding back. I was hoping he cared about me because I really care about him. I only allow myself to admit it because he did first. This whole time I’ve been lying to myself, trying to convince myself that this thing between us was just a fling. It’s such a relief to know he wants to be with me too. But now I’m worried that I blew it. He’s so pissed at me right now. I don’t know if he can forgive me.
Seeing me cry seems to soothe his rage and he shakes his head. The hard wrinkles on his forehead smooth out. “What’s going on with you? Talk to me,” he says. He sits and pats the space on the porch steps next to him.
I sit beside him and take a shaky breath before saying, “I don’t want to go on these trips without you. This was supposed to be me and my best friend, but she’s not here and I don’t think I can do this by myself.”
The tears fall harder and I can barely catch my breath. He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight.
“Then I’ll go with you.” The way he says it, likes it’s nothing more than going to a movie or to the store, makes me wonder if he realizes what I’m saying.
“I’m talking about Peru and Scotland,” I say.
He smiles. “Yeah, I got that. I’m not as dumb as I look.”
I continue to stare at him. “But your work schedule.”
“It can wait. They’re tattoos, not neurosurgery. If my customers want them bad enough they can wait. If not, they can go to someone else. I have the best artists in the area on my team. They can pull it off.”
“You would do that for me?”’
“I would do anything for you.”
I take his face in my hands. When he looks at me, there’s something vulnerable there. Something I’ve never seen from him before. I close my eyes and kiss him. He runs his thumb across the line of my jaw and tilts my head back so he can deepen the kiss. He scoops me off the ground and lifts me into his arms. I yelp and laugh at the sudden weightlessness of being picked up. I reach out and unlock the door and he carries me inside. My apartment is small enough that he easily finds my room. He lays me on the bed and we kiss more. His hands don’t wander, he doesn’t touch any part of my body other than the sides of my face. He seems perfectly content to just kiss me for now. I love the soft dance of our tongues as they come together. I could kiss him all day if my body weren’t so insistent that it needed more from him.
He pulls away from me, keeping our faces close together. “I missed you. You scared the hell out of me. If we’re going to be together, you can’t scare me like that again, okay?” he says.
I run my thumb along his sharp cheekbone. I love everything about his face. And I can’t help but feel proud that his is the face of a man who wants to be with me. There are going to be so many jealous women out there.
“I promise,” I say.
He takes off my shirt. I take off his. Quid pro quo until we’re both naked. Then we just explore each other’s bodies. It’s slow and passionate. The lights are on. Neither of us are in a hurry. It’s just two people getting to know each other in the most intimate way possible.
With a slight prompt from his hand, my legs open for him. He runs his fingertips up and down my legs, sending shivers through my body. He reaches up to cup my breasts, squeezing my nipples until they’re hard. One hand stays on my breast while the other roams between my legs. He slips two fingers into me and pulls them out, then raises them to my lips. While I suck his fingers into my mouth, I stroke him. Pre-cum coats my hand, making it easy to glide up and down his thick, long shaft. His hips move, fucking my hand.