Chapter 30 Monk
THIRTY
Monk
The fact that I’m not buried balls deep in Verity right now merits an award. A commendation. This level of discipline should be studied for future generations to emulate. Her shirt is still pushed up and her bra is pulled down and her naked breasts taunt me.
“Could you…” I gesture to her chest.
“Oh.” She hastily pulls the bra up and the shirt down. “Sorry.”
“I actually prefer them like that, but if you’re half naked, we ain’t talking.”
She scoots away until her back hits the headboard.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asks, her expression wary like she’s braced for me to say something that will hurt her.
“I’m not rejecting you, Vee. I want this, but first of all…”
I gesture to the small bed we are both crammed on. “I’m not fucking you on Dessi’s twin mattress.”
She snickers, dipping her head and relaxing her shoulders.
“Second of all, if we’re gonna do this, I want us to be on the same page.”
She frowns. “And by ‘this’ you mean—”
“Have a lot of sex behind everybody’s backs,” I deadpan. “Because I don’t want them folk in my business.”
“Amen to that.” She shudders. “Can you imagine how Jill would react?”
“She’d want a full report. Now how many times did she come, Monk? Only once?” I tsk, and pretend to write it down on my invisible pad. “Do. Better.”
“She has three children,” Verity says, more amusement than exasperation in her tone. “You’d think they would fully occupy her.”
“No such luck,” I say, shifting to the serious things we need to discuss, hopefully getting the most unpleasant parts out of the way. “Look, I want to put the past behind us. Like you said, we were young.”
“So young,” she whispers, eyes cast down to her lap where her fingers twist. “Finley feels like a lifetime ago.”
“I’m sure we’ve both changed…” I pause, weighing the words that could derail this conversation. “I know I have. If we do this, I wouldn’t expect to be the only one this time.”
She stares at me, the light in her eyes dimming. “You’re saying that because you think I would cheat on you.”
“I’m saying that because that’s not what this would be.
I still want you more than any woman I’ve ever met.
We have another four months or so on this film.
It’s either iron out this mess between us and move on, or walk around hard as a rock for the immediate future, but this ain’t rainbows and picket fences and soulmate shit. ”
I ignore the voice inside reminding me that is exactly what I believed Verity was. Can someone be your soulmate if you’re not theirs? Because even as I say the words, they feel like a betrayal of what I felt back then: that she was it for me.
I just wasn’t it for her.
And I’ve had to reconcile that to make it this far. To have this conversation.
“I see,” she says softly, eyes lowered. “So we’re just fucking each other and can fuck anyone else, too, is what you mean.”
Something violent whirs in my belly, an uprising I subdue.
I want this. I want her, and that gut reaction is just…
habit. I’ve done no-strings relationships, nonexclusive hookups, before.
It’s never been a problem. It’s just unfortunate that I tried to make the woman I desire most an exception.
We can have sex and that’s all and with other people, too.
“I just ask that you use protection,” I force the words out. “I mean, obviously, when we’re together, we will, too, but—”
“I’ve never had unprotected sex with any man but you.” She looks up then, her chin tilted in defiance as if she dares me to call her a liar.
“Me neither. With a woman, I mean.”
She smirks with the sly humor only those closest to her usually get to see. “I’d be fine if you’re a little bi-curious, Monk. I’m not one of those girls who’s freaked out by a man in touch with the pleasures of his prostate.”
I sputter a laugh and shake my head. “No one’s ever been near my prostate. Not even me. I’d need turn-by-turn directions to even find it.”
“Now that’s a shame.” She lifts her brows in a taunt, in a dare. “Maybe we should add pegging to the list of things we explore.”
“Fine with me,” I say, not sure that it is, but not wanting to back down.
She sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“We’ll see who blinks first.” I chuckle. “So… we agree? If we do this, it would be casual and open?”
“Yeah.” The humor in her eyes and on her face fades to nothing. “Casual and open.”
“Let’s take Thanksgiving break to make sure we should do this, and if we both still feel this way when we get back…”
We fuck.
I don’t have to say the words aloud. We both know what it would be, but it’s so different from what we were back then.
“Sounds good,” she agrees with a decisive nod.
“Great,” I say. “So when do you fly out? I assume you’re headed to Georgia for Thanksgiving with the aunties.”
“They’ve already started preparing the feast. You headed to Virginia?”
“Yeah. I’ll see my mom, brother, and sister. The nephews and nieces.”
“You’re an uncle?” She gasps. “I had no idea.”
“Shrieva and Charlie both married pretty young and got down to business in the baby department. Being fruitful and multiplying.”
“Does everyone ask when you’ll settle down and have some kids?”
“Pffft. They know better than to put expectations on me. They’ll only be disappointed.” I run my hand over the thin comforter covering Dessi’s prop bed. “I’ll have kids when I’m ready.”
“It does usually take more than just one person,” she says wryly. “I notice you didn’t say ‘settle down.’ You may fool everyone else with the cynic thing, but that happy ending you always wanted is still in there somewhere. I know you, Monk.”
“You knew me,” I remind her. “Things change.”
We stare at each other for a few seconds, and I reassess her, sizing up this new version in front of me. I already know she tastes the same, feels as good as she ever did, but she has changed. So have I, and maybe we won’t know how much until after Thanksgiving.
“So… how’s your dad?” she asks. Her tone implies how are things with your dad. The last she knew, he and I were completely estranged.
“Eh.” I shrug with deliberate nonchalance. “We talk from time to time. It’s not perfect, but since my mom remarried, it’s gotten better.”
“Your mom remarried? Wow, that’s wonderful.”
“Yeah. Ray’s a great guy.” I snort. “I would have bet my dad would be the one to get hitched again since he had a girlfriend before the ink was dry, but he never has. He’s the same. A little older. Little fatter. More stubborn than ever.”
“Sounds like someone else I know.”
I crawl over to her, pressing our bodies together, her back to the headboard.
“You calling me old?” I whisper across the kiss-swollen fullness of her lips. “Or fat?”
“I’m calling you stubborn.” She laughs, knocking her fist against my temple. “And hardheaded.”
“If I was stubborn,” I say, lowering my head to brush our lips together, “would we be doing this?”
She opens for me, her mouth and her legs that spread so I can sink deeper into the kiss, into the softness of the mattress.
Despite our earlier caution, I’m grinding into her, seeking any friction I can to relieve the hardest hard-on I’ve had in years.
She reaches between us, gripping and pulling on me with a sure stroke through my pants, like it hasn’t been more than a decade since she held my dick in her hand.
She fumbles at my belt and my fingers shake as I help her get my pants open.
Several sounds—a loud crack of laughter, the muted sound of chatter, and, inexplicably, someone singing “Brown Eyed Girl”—float up and over Dessi and Tilda’s fire escape, freezing us both in place.
“Shit.” I press my forehead to hers. “It’d be just our luck to break this rickety bed with half the crew down there listening.”
She snickers, tipping her head back and baring the silky length of her throat. Dark amber-streaked curls halo around her face, textured and luxuriant and stark against the white sheets.
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
Now even more than then. She looks so much like the girl I knew, the one I loved, that I could almost trick my heart into believing we never left that bed in my tiny apartment off campus.
I spent so many hours memorizing that face, though, I detect the fractal changes in this one.
For a hot second, I regret not witnessing the evolution from the college student to the self-assured woman beneath me now.
A single gray hair swirls at her temple.
I could have teased her when it first appeared.
There’s the tiniest line at the corner of her lush mouth.
Not even a line. A faint echo of a thousand smiles I didn’t get to see.
A milli-crease that wasn’t there before.
“What are you looking at?” she asks.
“You.” I push the hair away from her face. “I’ve always loved your curls.”
“We can thank my mama.” Sadness tinges her smile, but it stays in place. “When I was young, she and Aunt Roz argued about me getting a relaxer. Aunt Roz said I should, that it would make managing all this hair easier. Mama wouldn’t, though.”
“And you never have?”
“I never have.” She sighs, shrugs. “When you lose someone that early, before you grow up, it’s kind of like certain things are frozen where you left them.
Mama probably would have given in eventually and let me relax my hair, but we never got there.
Keeping my hair natural feels like honoring her wishes in a way. ”
“Well, I’ve always thought it was beautiful.” I pinch her cheek, hoping to lighten the mood. “Still not too bad.”
“You’re not too bad, either,” she teases, tracing my eyebrow with her thumb.
It’s a tender gesture that makes my heart stutter, whether in confusion or something else I don’t want to analyze. This isn’t supposed to be a tender arrangement. We’re gonna fuck and that’s it. I draw back from her touch and slide off the bed, reining in my emotions and zipping my pants.
“We did say we’d wait and think about it over the break,” I remind us both. “And you’ll miss your flight if you don’t get out of here.”
“Right.” She clears her throat and stands, fluffing Dessi’s pillow and straightening the blanket covering the prop bed.
When she pushes past me and reaches the door, at the last minute, I grab her wrist and pull her back into the room, then press her smaller frame into the wall.
I dip my head and take her mouth in another kiss, promising myself it’s the last. I go deep, drinking from her like a well of fresh water.
She tastes so damn sweet—everything I remember, but spiked with something tantalizing I’ve never had before.
We both moan, our bodies rolling against each other.
I snap my head up, breaking the kiss and dropping my nose to the curve of her neck.
“You should go,” I suggest again, my breath short and panting.
“Yeah. My flight,” she mumbles. “Don’t wanna miss it.”
I step back, giving her space to leave. I adjust myself and count to twenty, waiting for this monster erection to go down. Her eyes zero in on my dick and she licks her lips like she remembers how it feels in her mouth.
“You keep looking at me like that,” I warn, “you’re missing that flight and we’re for sure breaking this bed.”
She laughs and looks a little abashed. “Understood.”
“You go first.” I gesture toward the situation in my pants. “While things settle down in here.”
“Good idea.”
“Happy Thanksgiving, Vee.”
She smiles, her eyes clear of any reservations that might stop us from doing this. “Happy Thanksgiving.”