Chapter Twenty-Five Prue
Twenty-five
Prue
After sex, when Milo pulled me in close and his sentences began to scatter as though half of his words were being spoken in a dream, I lay awake and watched him fall asleep.
I wrote poetry that I don’t fully remember now that it’s morning. Sonnets about his eyelashes, the dip of his cupid’s bow, the scent of his skin, the texture of his hair, the overwhelmingly large size of his heart and how I wish I could live inside of it.
I imagined all the worlds in which he would stay. Not just in my bed, but in this pass-through town, forever. I script hundreds of different endings to our story. Some of them are happy, others sad, but in each of them I gave us more time.
I wondered if I’ll miss him the most when I find myself in the arms of another man someday.
If my bones will cry out for him. I tried to convince myself that I won’t.
That my body will feel as perfectly designed to fit against another man as it does with Milo.
I failed and repeated this step many times.
Deep in my soul I know that if someone were to ask me to be their wife someday, my first thoughts would be of Milo.
Not wondering if he’d be coming back, because I can’t afford that hope, but instead what he’d think of it all.
If he would like the man down on one knee.
If he would laugh at his jokes or find him handsome or think he was worth my time.
I’m terrified that I could go on to have a full life with a marriage, children, and even grandchildren, but my last breaths would be spent with the memory of Milo asleep on my chest.
And I reminded myself, over and over, how lucky I am to have found love. Even if it cannot stay. Even if I cannot follow. Even if it must come to an end.
And when I woke up this morning, one thought stuck with me: At least it won’t end today.
“C’mon, wake up,” Milo says once more, kissing my shoulder.
“I’m awake, I already told you that,” I grumble into my pillow.
“Your eyes are closed, Prue.”
“You cannot prove that.”
He laughs, poking my forehead. “Come on, Killer. Rise and shine.”
“Dad hasn’t called yet, why would I get up?”
“Actually, your dad told me to tell you that you can have today off.”
That gets me to open my eyes. I find Milo, hovering over me, sporting a crooked smirk and tousled hair. “Milo…Did you sneak out of my bed and talk to my father this morning?”
“Yep.”
“To what? Let him know the good news? Raise the flags, the king’s daughter has been deflowered!” I laugh, exasperated just the same.
“What?” He laughs. “No! Cool it, weirdo.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “I just bumped into him, that’s all.”
I sit up, nearly knocking him off the bed as I fight to cover myself with the sheet. “Bumped? Was he in here?”
“No.” He sits up, crossing his arm over my lap and resting his fist next to my hip to support his weight. “No, I went over to the main house to make sure everyone was okay.”
“All right…And?”
“What?”
“Well, was everyone okay?”
“Yeah,” he answers. “I’d have told you otherwise.”
I lean back against my headboard, eyeing him skeptically. “You’re not telling me something, though…. What else have you been up to on this early-morning adventure of yours?”
Milo reaches to pull yet another invisible pin out of the pillow behind me but I stop him before he can put it into our corkboard, grabbing his wrist in a tight hold. “We’ve got to stop doing that.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” he mumbles, pretending to toss the pin aside.
“ Milo… What is it? No more secrets.”
“I just went to check in, I swear,” he says, placing a hand on his heart.
“And you’re not hearing the good news, clearly.
We”—he smirks devilishly, his hand bunching the fabric of the sheet against my waist—“have all day”—he leans in, kissing me softly just once as he begins to pull the sheet off me—“to do whatever we’d like. ”
“Nothing on for you today?” I ask, grabbing the sheet and pulling it up over my chest.
“Nope,” he says, popping the p as he attempts to tug the sheet free from my grasp.
“You’re sure? Nik’s all set?”
“We’re waiting on a small delivery but other than that, we’re ready for Friday. I even took the liberty of booking us a band.”
I stop him from kissing me with a disingenuous glare. “Please don’t tell me—”
“I hired your dad and John, yes,” he interrupts, smirking wickedly. “I didn’t exactly make them audition…should I be worried?”
“You are such a kiss ass!”
“Yeah, well, sue me. I have a thing for his daughter,” Milo says, leaning in to kiss my neck. “Who is apparently playing hard to get right now…”
“Yes, so very hard to get.” I lean back, allowing him more room as he swirls his tongue around my pulse point.
“Good thing I like to work for it.” When he tugs on the sheet this time, I let him take it away. He tosses it onto the floor next to my bed.
“Good thing,” I say, feeling the cool morning air greet my breasts. “I do have a long list of items left to check off….”
Milo pulls me down in the bed until I’m flat on my back, then presses tender kisses to the marks he’s left on my breasts. “Oh, yeah? What’s next on my girl’s to-do list?”
I struggle against him at first, twisting my hips and pushing on him as he laughs at me.
But, eventually, Milo gives in and lets me roll him onto his back.
I straddle him, feeling the sensitive flesh of my inner thigh brush against the waistband of his sweatpants.
“I thought we could start here, ” I say, grinding down on him.
“You’re not too sore?” he asks gently, his gaze drifting back and forth between my eyes, hips, and tits as his hands hold on to my waist.
“No,” I answer, not entirely truthfully. “But that’s probably because we did it only once.”
Milo’s smirk grows wider, his expression lighting with excitement. “Is that a challenge I hear, Killer?”
I bite my lip, letting it go with a flick as Milo traces the shape of my mouth with hooded eyes. “Maybe,” I whisper coyly.
“Because if you want me to fuck you so hard you’ll feel me inside of you well into next week, I will.” He drops his hands lower, reaching to grab my ass. His fingertips dig into my skin as his eyes burn into mine. “Just say the word.”
I giggle, matching his unwavering stare and smirking back at him. Brushing my hand over the morning scruff lining his jaw, I stop to drag my thumb across his bottom lip. “ Word. ”
Thirty minutes later, I’ve ridden out the last remnants of my second orgasm and am starting to wonder how much longer I can last. Honestly, I didn’t know being on top would be such a workout.
“What…about…you?” I ask between panting breaths, fighting to keep my eyes open as one singular bead of sweat makes its way down the center of my back. “What do you need? What can I do?”
Milo grunts, lifting his hips so I fall forward, my tits pressing into his chest. “Just this,” he says, burying his fingers into my hips, dragging me against him so I take him deeper. “God, only ever this. You’re a natural, Killer.”
“I had a good teacher,” I tease as I move one hand to his face.
Milo hooks two of my fingers into his mouth and moans as he sucks them.
“Tell me what to do,” I whisper, rocking myself against him.
“I want to be…” I let the vulnerable thought die on my tongue, but Milo seems to hear it anyway. I want to be the best you’ve ever had.
“This is perfect,” he tells me adamantly. “ You are perfect.”
I learn then that it’s easier to believe kind truths under the darkness of night, when sprawled out and chasing release.
In the light of the day, when naked and visible and the urge to hide away is so much stronger, I struggle to trust him.
Milo has had so many lovers. Most, I’d bet, far more experienced than me.
How many of them has he loved? Why did I never ask before it would be too revealing?
“Hold still,” he says, firm hands stopping my hips from moving. “What’s happening here? Why do you look so sad?”
“I’m not,” I say, turning my face away. He immediately grabs my chin and turns my face back to him. “I’m just in my head, a bit.”
“Tell me,” he demands. “Tell me so I can fix it.”
“I’m thinking about…the others.”
“Ominous,” he teases gently. “The others meaning”—he tilts his head curiously, his eyes searching mine—“the other people I’ve had sex with?”
“Yes,” I answer, then sigh deeply. I shake my head before pressing the side of my face against Milo’s bare chest. “I’m wondering how I measure up,” I confess. “Which I know is silly and I know we’re just—”
“I need you to stop there,” he says, his hand firmly on the back of my head, lost inside my tendrils of curls.
“First and foremost, we, you and I, are not just anything.” He grabs hold of my hair and pulls me closer so we’re face-to-face.
“And, more than that, Prue, I’m—” He sighs, long and heavy.
“I was telling the truth when I said I’d never done anything but casual.
” My heart drops into my stomach like an anvil onto a shallow ocean’s floor.
“But this… this is entirely new for me too. I’m feeling everything you’re feeling, guaranteed. Probably more.”
“But—” I don’t even know what I was going to argue before Milo puts an end to it.
“I am here, ” he interrupts, lifting his hips so I feel him everywhere. “My thoughts are with you and only you. Only here.” He brushes the backs of his fingers down the side of my arm. “Be here with me now, Prue. It’s just us. I only want us.”
I nod silently, rocking into him. We hold eye contact as I sit up, tense my thighs around his hips, and begin riding him once more.
The intensity palpable, our fingers intertwining to hold tightly as I watch myself bring him to the edge, nothing spoken between us but whispered moans and ragged, mumbled praise.
I don’t leave his presence for a second, looking into his eyes and feeling his focus held on me.
“Tell me,” he says, the muscles in his shoulders, neck, and jaw tensing as he speaks. “Tell me what you feel like again,” he pleads through gritted teeth.
“Yours,” I whisper.
I watch from above as that one-word admission sends Milo over the edge, his eyes rolling back as his hold on me tightens and, after a groaned-out moan, his voice falls quiet once more.