34. Nichole
— ? —
Nichole
We don’t make it upstairs.
We don’t even make it off the kitchen floor for a long time.
The custody papers scatter around us like fallen leaves the second he lifts me onto the edge of the table, and I can’t bring myself to care about a single one of them.
I can only care about this: his mouth on my skin, his hands in my hair, the way he says my name like it’s the answer to a question he’s been asking his whole life.
This isn’t the storm. That was desperation, anger, the need to feel something without letting it mean anything.
This is slow, and certain, and I don’t hold a single piece of myself back.
When he touches me now I don’t try to stay somewhere safe.
When he looks at me I don’t look away. I let him see all of it - the soft places, the fear, the wanting I’ve kept at arm’s length for weeks.
“I wanted this every hour,” he says against my throat, voice already rough. “Every single hour I kept my hands to myself because I promised. Keeping that promise was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“You kept it.” I pull his face up to mine. “That’s why I’m here. Because you kept it.”
He kisses me like he’s finishing a prayer.
Soft at first, then deeper, cupping the back of my head so I can’t escape the heat of it.
My dress - thin straps, easy fabric - is already hiked up my thighs from when he set me on the table.
His hands slide under the hem, palms hot and possessive as they grip my bare hips and drag me to the very edge.
“Tell me you want this,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Not because of anything else. Just you wanting me.”
“I want you.” The words come out broken and sure. “I choose you. Right now.”
Something raw flashes in his eyes. He drops to his knees right there between my spread thighs and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the soft skin just above the line of my underwear.
“Fuck, you’re already so wet for me,” he breathes against me. “So soft… so ready. I’ve been hard since you put those papers down.” His hands tighten on my thighs, opening me wider. “Look at you. Perfect. Taste like heaven.”
He licks into me with devastating patience, slow strokes, then faster, swirling around my clit until my hips are rolling helplessly against his mouth.
One thick finger slides inside, then two, curling exactly right while he sucks gently on the swollen bud.
I fist his hair with one hand and brace the other on the table.
“Callum - oh God-”
“That’s it. Let me hear you.” He looks up at me while he works, eyes dark with lust. “Come on my tongue first. Want to feel you fall apart before I even get inside you.”
He doesn’t rush. He builds it, fingers pumping deep and slick, tongue relentless, dirty praise mixed with soft “I’ve got you” and “so beautiful” - until the pleasure snaps.
I come with a broken moan, thighs shaking around his head, papers fluttering off the table as I thrash.
He works me through every pulse, gentling only when I tug at his hair.
Then he’s standing, yanking his shirt off over his head, shoving his pants and boxers down just far enough. I shove the straps of my dress off my shoulders so the top pools at my waist, baring my breasts. He freezes for half a second, staring.
“Christ. Look at you.” His hands cup them, thumbs stroking my nipples into tight peaks. “Every time I see these I lose my mind. Perfect. Sensitive. Mine.”
He bends and takes one into his mouth, sucking hard while I fumble for him. He’s thick and heavy in my hand, already slick at the tip. He groans around my nipple when I stroke him.
“I need you inside me,” I tell him. “Now.”
“Yes.” He lines himself up, the blunt head nudging my entrance. His forehead drops to mine. “Eyes open. I want you to see me when I fill you.”
He pushes in slow, one long, perfect inch at a time, until he’s buried to the hilt and we’re both shaking. The stretch is exquisite.
“Fuck,” he chokes. “You feel… Nichole, you feel like everything. So tight. So wet. Taking me so deep.”
“Move,” I beg. “Please-”
He does. Deep, rolling thrusts that make the table creak and more papers cascade to the floor. One of my legs hooks over his hip. His mouth finds my other nipple, sucking and tugging in time with every stroke. I cling to his shoulders, nails digging in, meeting every thrust.
“Harder,” I gasp.
He gives it to me, lifting me slightly so the angle changes and every drive hits that perfect spot inside. The wet sound of us fills the kitchen. His voice stays low and filthy and loving all at once.
“That’s it… take every inch. Feel how hard I am for you? How deep? You’re soaking me, baby. Dripping down my cock. So fucking perfect.”
“Callum-”
“I love you.” He says it against my mouth between kisses. “I love you. I’m choosing you every time. You’re mine and I’m yours - say it.”
“I’m yours,” I sob, already climbing again. “You’re mine - Callum-”
He reaches between us and circles my clit with his thumb, tight exact circles that make my vision blur.
“Come with me,” he orders roughly. “I want to feel you break around me. Want to fill you while you come. Right now - do it - come for me.”
I shatter with a cry, clenching hard around him, the orgasm so intense white sparks burst behind my eyes.
He follows two strokes later, slamming deep and groaning my name like it’s being ripped out of him as he spills inside me in long, hot pulses.
We hold each other through the aftershocks, still joined, shaking, breathless, his face buried in my neck and my arms locked around him.
For a long moment the only sounds are our ragged breathing and the quiet tick of the kitchen clock.
He eases out carefully, both of us wincing at the loss, then helps me down off the table.
We sink to the floor together, tangled among the papers, giddy and wrecked.
His shirt gets bunched under my head. Moonlight slips in over the counters.
Somewhere upstairs our daughter is asleep, with no idea that the whole world just rearranged itself.
“There’s no contract,” he says eventually, voice soft and ruined. “I tore it up. It was in the box I brought to the motel. I couldn’t stand to look at it.”
“I know. I saw.”
“So what am I to you now? If not a contract. If not an arrangement.” He props himself up on one elbow, looking down at me like I’m the only solid thing in the world. “What is this?”
I take his hand and put it flat on my chest, over the ribs, where six years of grief used to live. I can feel my own heartbeat under his palm and I can feel his hand trembling against my skin.
“You’re the man who gave me back my whole life,” I say. “Twice. Once when you found the truth and tore your family apart to tell it. And once tonight, when you signed away everything you love to give me a choice you didn’t have to give me.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yes it is. You’re just not listening.” I press his hand harder against my chest. “You’re mine, Callum. Not because of a contract. Because I’m choosing you. Right now. On this kitchen floor, with paperwork stuck to my back and my hair a disaster. I’m choosing you.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh and might be a sob. In the dark it’s hard to tell. He kisses me again, slow and sweet this time, tasting of us.
“You owe me something,” I say, when I can breathe again.
“Anything.”
“Two thousand nights.” He stops breathing for a second. “That’s how many I missed. Give or take. Two thousand nights of bedtime stories and bad dreams and sneaking down for a midnight snack. Two thousand nights of being her mother, and I didn’t get one of them.”
“I can’t give those back.”
“No. But you can give me the next two thousand. And the two thousand after that.” I turn to look at him. “You can spend the rest of your life making it up to me - not with guilt, not with apologies. With mornings. With ordinary Tuesday afternoons. With being here.”
“Deal,” he says, rough and full of wonder. “Two thousand nights. Starting now.”
We’re still half-dressed - my dress straps hanging, his pants still around his thighs - when we hear tiny steps.
We freeze.
“Shit,” I whisper, laughing under my breath even as panic hits.
We scramble. I shove the straps of my dress back up my shoulders and tug the hem down as far as it will go.
Callum hikes his pants up, yanks the zipper and button closed, shoves a hand through his wrecked hair.
We sit against the lower cabinets among the sea of papers, trying (and failing) to look like two people who have definitely not just ruined each other on the kitchen floor.
My underwear is still somewhere in the wreckage.
His shirt is open. We reek of sex and happiness.
Then she’s in the kitchen doorway in her nightgown, rabbit under her arm, squinting at us in the dark.
“Why are you on the floor?”
“We dropped something,” Callum says, at the exact moment I say, “We were just talking.”
She looks from him to me and back, taking in the papers everywhere and the fact that we are sitting very close together for the first time in weeks. Her whole face breaks open into a grin.
“Are you two getting married again?”
I look at Callum. He looks at me. And we both start laughing, the helpless kind, caught red-handed by a six-year-old who sees straight through us.
“Maybe,” I tell her. “Would you like that?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “And this time I want to come. And I want a purple dress. And Rabbit has to be there too.”
“Rabbit can be the ring bearer,” Callum says, voice still a little unsteady.
“He only has one ear. Can he still be a ring bearer with one ear?”
“One ear is plenty for ring bearing,” I tell her. “It’s mostly about looking dignified, and Rabbit is very dignified.”
She nods, satisfied, and steps carefully over the scattered papers to climb into the space between us like it’s exactly where she belongs.
“I’m glad you’re not fighting anymore,” she says, settling against my side. “It was making the house feel cold.”
We put her back to bed together, the three of us climbing the stairs in a line, her hand in mine and his hand at the small of my back. We tuck her in and promise to be there in the morning, and she’s asleep before we reach the door.
In the hall, Callum catches my hand.
“Your room or mine?” he asks.
“Ours,” I say. “It was always supposed to be ours.”
And when he follows me in and closes the door behind us, it doesn’t feel like the beginning of a contract, or an arrangement, or a performance for anyone.
It feels like the beginning of a life.