Chapter 34 Dominique #2
“I know, and I didn’t want to be responsible for making your life any harder than it was.”
“You haven’t. I needed to find a way to fit you into my world without losing the foundational pieces that have kept me going for the past few years. I’m sure that doesn’t make sense, but—”
“It does. You seem content.”
“I am. She wouldn’t have wanted me to grieve forever. She would have told me to look ahead, not back. I’m learning.”
“It’s not easy.”
“No.”
Kobe wet his lips and looked like he wanted to say more but didn’t. From the living room, the song changed. A melodic, moody piece of jazz filled the air, a contrast to the upbeat swing we’d been listening to.
Kobe tipped his head back with a smile. “God, I love Coltrane.” He hummed a few bars before eyeing me from under mischievous dark lashes. “Are you a dancer, Doc?”
“Not one with any skill.”
He held out his hand. “I can lead.”
Before I knew it, Kobe swept me into his arms. With one hand firmly planted on my waist, subtly guiding my steps, he clutched my other hand, tucking it against his chest, nestling it between our bodies. With our foreheads together, we swayed to the soulful cadence of the saxophone.
Kobe hummed the tune and closed his eyes, soft dimples cutting grooves into his stubbled cheeks.
From the little I heard, I suspected he had a beautiful singing voice.
I followed his steps as he moved us around the kitchen, never missing a beat, his timing exact.
Kobe Haven was a world of surprises at every turn.
At times, innocent and playful and childlike.
At others, fierce and loyal and focused.
He tipped forward and kissed the bridge of my nose, then my eyebrow. He moved his lips along its arch and peppered another kiss next to my eye. Pressing his cheek to mine, he whispered beside my ear, “Dominique?”
The intonation was its own song.
Kobe breathed, his lips wordlessly scraping the shell of my ear. I felt his nerves flutter under his skin and registered the buzzing tension rippling through his muscles.
“Dominique,” he said again, less a question, more an appeal. For what, I didn’t know.
Caged in his arms, surrounded by melodic jazz, the request that followed came out as nothing more than a breezy whisper, soft enough I almost missed it. “Will you let me love you?”
I closed my eyes, absorbing the impact of those six words, and squeezed Kobe tighter in my arms. I had yearned and feared this moment.
A lump formed in my throat, but I swallowed it down.
I had never stood a chance. From the day Kobe turned his boyish smile in my direction, sat on the living room floor and played Polly Pockets with Cosette, from the first moment the fires of injustice burned in his eyes, I knew, I knew, there was no turning back.
“I will be hard to love, Kobe.”
“Not so far.”
“I carry a lot inside me.”
“We all do.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know enough.”
We danced. I could find no more arguments. At one point, Kobe drew back to look me in the eye. He hid nothing. His heart was on display, raw and open and hopeful. “Could you ever love again?”
We came to a slow stop as I peered into the many layers of this most unexpected man. Where had he come from? Where had he been in my darkest hours? How could I go on without his fire lighting my path?
“I already do.”
And there it was. The boyish smile I adored, so unbefitting of a person this complex, like the horrors of the world never touched him, yet I knew they had and did.
Kobe kissed me with humbling intensity, wrapping me in his arms, drawing me as close as possible.
His heart was too big for halves. When he gave it, he gave it fully.
Every aspect of his life. In the passion he showed for his job.
In the devotion he exhibited toward his little brother.
It beat strongly with the love he gave willingly to me and Cosette.
It pulsed and bled for the injustices he witnessed every day.
Kobe’s heart was raw and beautiful and real, but could it really be mine?
We missed the countdown. Our newly poured drinks remained on the counter. The ice would melt, and the rum would grow warm, but they no longer mattered.
Kobe guided me upstairs, where he stripped me bare and tenderly worshiped every part of me. The care he showed left me grappling for control until I lost the fight and surrendered.
“Do you bottom?” His breath ghosted my ear as he lavished the lobe with his hot tongue.
I shivered and nodded.
Kobe moved down my body, planting a path of kisses across my clavicle, burying his nose in my chest hair, dipping his tongue in my navel. His hot mouth crested the rise and fall of my abdomen as my lungs gasped and hiccupped and forgot how to function.
He took me into his mouth, slowly and steadily sucking me down his throat. I soared, my thoughts scattering, hips arching off the bed.
I focused on the moment and the man between my legs who had taken the wheel and seemed determined to steer me out of the path of self-destruction. The pit of sorrow and regret and anger grew smaller every day as he drew me from its gaping maw, bathing me in sunlight and hope and happiness.
A small part of my brain protested. I couldn’t leave her behind. I had promised. On my knees, I had promised.
Except… the draw to Kobe was inescapable.
For one blissful night, I would pretend that a future was possible.
Pretend that I could be the type of person to wake up in the morning, and the day after that, and the one after that, next week, next month, next year, and Kobe would still be there.
Still loving me. The nightmare would end, and the sun would shine, and we would walk through the greenest of fields with Cosette, making wishes on dandelions, and living a peaceful life.
We would become a family, a slightly broken, forever scarred family.
Kobe brought me to the edge before drawing back, over and over. When I couldn’t take it anymore, he climbed my body and claimed my mouth. Reaching inside the bedside table, he found condoms and lube.
He prepped me tenderly, carefully, lovingly.
He entered me watchfully and with enough force to ground me in the moment like he saw the storms in the distance, forever casting doubt, threatening to drown me in rain.
He was right there. Above me. Inside me. Around me.
Whispering, “Let me love you, Dominique.” His voice cracked with emotion as he thrust deep into my body. “I don’t know how to stop. It consumes me. Overwhelms me. It devastates me. I love you,” he said against my mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
It was a prayer, a plea, a pledge.
A promise.
Even when I closed the gap and kissed him, he kept saying it. With fervor. With passion. With heart and soul and all that he was. “I love you.”
I ached for this man. Deep in my bones. In my cells.
Kobe made love to me like no one ever had.
Unrushed, beautiful love.
When it ended, he wrapped me in his arms and trembled. He stroked my sweat-dampened hair. He kissed my forehead.
I clung but didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“I overwhelm you.” The darkness blanketed the confession. I sensed his agony but didn’t understand. “I come on too strong. It’s a flaw. I fall hard and fast. If you can’t… If you want me to back down, I can stop—”
“No.” I lifted my head from his shoulder and searched his eyes in the shadows. Troubled, wary eyes. Eyes that viewed the world in shades of gray, never believing what he saw until he uncovered the truth.
“Don’t ever stop, Kobe.” I touched his face, brushed his cheek with my thumb. “I have fallen for you, too. Don’t doubt me. It’s scary. Loving you comes with a lot of other emotions I’m still trying to process.”
“I know.”
“My life ended two and a half years ago, and I didn’t think I would ever find happiness again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.”
“Have you? With me?”
“Yes, but it’s terrifying.”
I closed my eyes and burrowed into Kobe’s warm embrace. As I fell asleep, I wondered what this new year would have in store for me.
For us.