40. Greer
Greer
The realization I’m in love with him doesn’t come with these crashing cymbals signaling the start of a symphony like the other night in the bath.
But my world quiets down.
My brain shuts up.
Maybe it’s because physiologically speaking, my brain relies on my heart for the blood it needs to live, and maybe my heart won that internal tug-of-war because it was holding all the power at the end of the day, and it didn’t want to be separated from Beckett for a moment longer.
I don’t say anything, I’m not entirely sure how. But I watch him a bit more closely all afternoon, and I must smile more because he catches me and asks me more than once what it’s about.
I find more reasons to touch him—a brush of my hand over his shoulder, one of the waves of his hair twirling between my fingers, my lips scoring across the stubble of his jawline.
I press my cheek to the planes of his back while he stands over the stove cooking me dinner.
He likes that, I think.
He picks me up and carries me upstairs to his bedroom after. It’s beautiful—more floor-to-ceiling windows with a perfect view of the slope of the hill, of stretching tree branches weighed down with leaves that still look brilliant, and of the moon reflecting off the lake.
Apparently, the dishes can wait because there’s a movie on the History Channel he’s dying to show me.
I’m not so sure about that when he drops me on the bed and insists I change, saying that historical documentaries are best consumed in bed, wearing nothing but your underwear.
He takes my sweater off, kissing every inch of skin he sees before he moves to my leggings.
I don’t kiss every inch of his skin when he takes his clothes off—mostly because I’m busy watching. Looking at him with eyes that know they’re looking at something they love. It’s quite the sight, really.
He sits down beside me, propping himself up against the headboard. But he pauses when he picks up the remote. “That night we ran into you and your sister on the rooftop, I overheard you talking about growing a liver from another liver. What does that mean?”
I roll my eyes. “It means nothing because I was on my fourth glass of wine.”
Beckett grins, dropping the remote, one hand coming behind his head where he rests it against the headboard. “Seriously.”
I sit up straighter, trying to contain my hands, but I start talking with them anyway. “There’ve been so many advances in regenerative medicine. Think about stem cell transplants.”
Beckett’s eyes track the sweeping movements I make, the corners crinkling, like he’s trying to fight a smile, but he nods. “They talked about Sarah having one.”
“Right, so, there have been so many advances for tissue transplantation, but it just hasn’t translated to organ donation.” I wave both of my hands around, like it’s not weird we’re sitting here in our underwear talking about the untapped power of regenerative medicine. “There are a lot of complicated, boring reasons for that. Believe it or not—there’s a shortage of organs. Live donation solves some of that, but this idea that regenerated organ cells could come from a patient’s own tissue, not only does that bypass the need for a living donor if a deceased one isn’t available—it eliminates the problem of rejection.”
He does smile this time. Softer than usual, no dimple, but understanding etched into all the sharp lines of his face. “And then no one would ever have to give a piece of themselves away.”
“Yes,” I whisper. “The possibilities are just so ... vast.”
“Vast,” he nods, repeating.
“Vast.” I smile.
Beckett raises a brow. “You look alive.”
I narrow my eyes. “Have I looked like a corpse the entire time you’ve known me?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You’ve looked beautiful.”
My chin tips up. “What about when I had bile in my hair?”
“Even then.” He grins, offering me a shrug. “You just seem ... bright. Like the possibility excites you instead of shackling you. It doesn’t weigh you down like surgery does sometimes.”
“You sound like Rav.”
His grin turns wry. “Is he looking for an assistant? Come Sunday, I might be out of a job.”
“You won’t be.”
“I think”—Beckett scrubs his face, before looking at me, his smile resigned now—“that it would be okay if I was.”
I blink, pulling my head back. “You don’t want to play anymore?”
“Nah, it’s not that.” He rubs the back of his head before running a hand through his hair, sending waves tumbling every which way. He picks up one of my hands, stretching out each of my fingers in turn. “I can’t really imagine doing anything else with my life, honestly. I loved it, and I think I’d be able to love it again, in time. But I just...” He brings my palm to his mouth, and his next words whisper against my skin. “I think for the first time, I realize I’ll still be worth something if I’m not playing and providing. I can figure out the rest. Learning and all that.”
I debate telling him he’s worthy—that he’s always been worthy—but I’m not sure he needs the sermon.
He’s been looking at me all day like he needs to touch me, and I think I need that, too.
“Kiss me,” I whisper.
His hands are around the back of my neck, tipping my head to meet his, and his mouth is on mine.
Beckett likes to spend a lot of time on me before sex. He’s not particularly picky about how he does it—whether it’s with his fingers, his tongue, or his hands on my hips, moving me against him before he’s even inside me.
Tonight, I think we spend time on each other.
It’s different—for your hands to rove over the valleys and ridges of someone and know you love them. It’s quieter, at least for me, because there’s no brain telling me he’s just my friend—this man biting into my neck, whose hands palm my chest, whose fingers roll my nipples between them before they’re replaced by his tongue, and they slide down my stomach, stopping at my scar, where they pause with a reverence I couldn’t quite understand before, when they reach the centre of me, moving in these circles before sliding inside.
It’s different when I kiss down his neck, nails digging into his shoulders, tongue tracing the lines of his abdomen before I take him in my mouth and he groans, hips rising to meet me.
It’s certainly different when he finds himself between my legs, one hand splayed against my stomach, the other wrapped around my thigh, eyes cutting up to me when he says, “Come for me.”
I do.
And it’s not quite like anything I’ve ever experienced in my life.
My back arches with a moan, one hand finding his shoulder, the other tangling in his hair.
“Louder.”
I am.
“Can you give me one more?”
I can.
“Good girl.” He says it when his teeth scrape the inside of my thigh before he moves up the bed to hover over me.
My lips part with tiny pants, and I stare up at him, eyes wide.
He looks down at me, one wave of chocolate hair tumbling over his forehead.
“I have an IUD and I was just tested—” I start as he says, “I just had my physical.”
I blink, nodding at him.
“Just you and me then? You’re sure?” he asks.
I nod again softly.
His eyes flash. A groan catches in his throat when he grips himself and his shoulders roll back when he pushes into me slowly.
I inhale as he does, inch by inch, and I’m all full of him, nothing really empty at all because everything about Beckett is larger than life—all the parts of his body, his brain, his heart, his laugh.
He’s effervescent. It’s a bit how I feel right now—body stretching to accommodate him before giving way to all the wonderful things he does to it. He’s just right. The pressure of him inside me, a bit like a supernova that might implode and take all my lines with it.
I think, though, that it was meant to be this way. Just me and him.
A muscle in his jaw ticks and he exhales, hands coming up on either side of me to fist the pillow before he buries his face in my neck and starts to move.
“I love you,” I whisper, and it’s so quiet I’m not even sure he’ll be able to hear me, but I think my heart might hold my blood hostage if I don’t say it.
He stills, the ridges of muscle that make up him pull taut. I can see them, the cords straining from his neck, down across his shoulders, to the curve of his arms. Beckett pulls his head back slowly, lips leaving my neck, and he hovers over me, eyes impossibly dark and cheekbones sharp enough to carve another piece of me away.
But that doesn’t bother me. It’s all his anyway.
“Say that again,” he breathes.
“I love you.”
“Again,” he asks, voice rough.
“I—” He rolls his hips upwards before my lips are done moving.
I moan the next word, head tipping back as I arch into him. “Love—”
Again, hips flex. His hand releases the pillow, finding my chin and bringing my eyes back down to meet his.
“You.”
He swallows the last word as he moves, and I think the whole idea of it—my love for him—finds its way to his heart.
His lips leave mine, trailing across my jaw, over the curve of my neck, until he presses his mouth to my ear.
I can hardly hear anything over my own heart, but I do hear the words he whispers to me.
“I love you, too.”