Chapter 49 Monk
FORTY-NINE
Monk
“I need you to relax,” Verity says, on her knees facing me on the bed, as she lubes up what she assures me is one of her modestly sized dildos.
“You tell me to relax while aiming that,” I say, nodding to the sex toy, “at me?”
“You’ll be fine.” She pats my arm as if I’m getting blood drawn. “And I promise you’ll still be straight when I’m done with you.”
She stops and tilts her head and then shrugs.
“I mean… I guess? I’ve only ever pegged bi guys. At least you know my feelings won’t change if you are queer after this,” she says with a straight face and dancing eyes. “I’ll be a safe space for you.”
“You got jokes, I see. As if I’m not nervous enough.”
“Just relax and bear down when I tell you to.”
“Did you say bear down?” I swipe a hand over my face. “Babe.”
She quietly cackles, lowering her head to my chest and shaking against me. I pinch her arm and she yelps, “Ow!”
“Stop laughing at me,” I say, but my lips fight off a smile because she’s so adorable like this.
“Sorry.” She firms her mouth and sobers. “Ready?”
“Go for it.”
“Lie down.” She presses my shoulder and gently urges my back to the bed.
My heart is racing. I’m not even thirty-five, so I’ve never had a prostate exam. I know it exists, but me and that gland, we are not well acquainted.
Yet.
“I’ve wanted to do this all day,” Verity says, surprising me by mouthing my Adam’s apple.
It’s so simple and shouldn’t feel so good, but she’s doing this thing with her tongue.
By the time she’s moved on to my ears, I’m convinced my Adam’s apple is an erogenous zone.
She pays the same homage to my neck and collarbone, dusting open-mouth kisses over my rib cage while twisting my nipples.
My body is a live wire, and by the time she takes me into her mouth, I’m already blissed out.
“Damn, that’s good, Vee,” I rasp, spreading my legs to give her more room to settle between them. I let my eyes roam down my chest and abs to meet her eyes, locked with mine, my dick in her mouth. The way she sucks the tip and pushes her tongue into the slit, but strokes the base.
“You keep doing that, I won’t last for the butt stuff,” I joke, my voice coming out husky and unsteady.
She pulls off with a pop, her eyes lighting with mischief as she reaches for the dildo again, already shiny and slick.
“Do you trust me?” she asks, and her eyes find mine, some of the humor fading.
Considering our past, what we’ve been through, what I believed—that’s a loaded question, one I’ll never take lightly. I thread my fingers into the curls at her nape, my smile coming quickly despite this new territory I’m not sure about. “You know I do.”
“Okay then.” She rubs my thigh soothingly. “I’m going to spread you a little, first with my fingers.”
“The fuck?” I sit up on reflex, but her hand presses my chest, sending me back to the bed.
“Just a little. It might feel like some pressure, but I’m just getting you—”
“How about you don’t talk me through every step. Just… do what you need to do.”
“I promise it’ll feel good,” she says, and slides one slick finger slowly in just a little.
I tense immediately and she stops.
“I need you to relax,” she says, holding my eyes with hers. “And let me in.”
I take a deep breath and force myself to relax completely, letting her push in a few centimeters more.
She takes a few minutes, working in a little deeper and then adding a second finger, scissoring them, spreading me.
After a few seconds, she takes my dick back into her mouth.
It distracts me from the pressure, the nudging at my hole, and I lose myself again in the wet heat of her mouth.
I don’t know exactly when it starts to feel better, easier, but by the time she eases the toy inside, my balls are so full, my dick is so hard, and I’m so on the edge, I barely notice.
Until I do.
“Shit!” I bow up off the bed, instinctively resisting the intrusion. “That’s… a lot, Vee.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, kissing my knee, my leg, caressing my balls. “I got you. It’s already in. I’m gonna push in just a lil’ bit more.”
More?
She breaches the first ring of muscle, and my breath stutters in my chest. It’s so much pressure.
“Now bear down,” she instructs.
I do, and it eases in a little more. She pushes in and out, shallow thrusts that build some kind of new heat in my belly.
“Oh,” I breathe. “Okay.”
I’m not sure if it feels good or if I’m just imagining that line of fire building from the base of my spine and fanning out over what feels like my whole body. And then the toy hits… something inside of me that lifts my hips up off the mattress.
“Holy shit!” I yell. “What was…”
She hits it again, and again, and again, as if now that she knows where to aim she’ll just target that until-now-hidden spot inside me that has my eyes crossing and my fists clenching the sheets.
“Vee…” I gasp. “Babe, you gotta… fuuuuuuuck.”
“I know.” Having found her rhythm, she takes me in her mouth again.
I writhe and twist, the tandem of her mouth on me and the toy inside nailing that spot over and over—it’s unbearable in the absolute best way. She holds me in place with a hand on my hip and my dick in her mouth.
“Vee, I’m gonna come.” I knot my hand in her hair, probably too hard. “Shit. Sorry.”
She pops off long enough to say, “You can pull. I like it.”
“Thank God,” I mumble, gripping the thick curls like they are the only thing tethering me to earth. “I can’t… babe… it’s gonna…”
She nods, giving me permission, and every cell in my body detonates.
This may be the hardest I’ve ever come in my life.
It goes on and on, leaking from the corners of her mouth and rolling over my stomach in rivulets.
My vision whites out, and pleasure lights up my whole body, stiffens my arms and legs.
Time loses all meaning and I have no idea how long it lasts, but Verity licks and sucks and caresses me through the whole thing.
When it’s over, she rests her chin on my thigh and grins at me. Smugly.
“That was… how did I not know that was possible?” I drape my arm over my eyes. “If I had gone to my grave never experiencing that, it would have been criminal.”
“Tragic even.” She giggles. “So I take it you enjoyed that.”
“Understatement.” I lift my arm and pry one eye open to stare at her in something close to wonder. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, and I enjoyed it just as much as you did.” I aim a No way in hell look at her. “Okay, maybe not quite as much, but a lot. I enjoyed it a lot, but now I’m starving.”
“Well, let’s eat. You earned it.”
In the shower, we wash each other. I can’t seem to stop touching her, and she seems to be having the same problem.
Every few minutes, our hands still on each other’s bodies, and we just kiss in the spray.
It’s so leisurely and perfect. I could never have imagined that we’d be here.
That we’d be these people again, but by some miracle we are.
Downstairs, we bring all the food she prepared into the dining room and sample a little of everything.
“This is a ton of food,” I say around a bite of chicken. “I can’t believe you cooked all this and you pegged the hell out of my prostate. Best Valentine’s Day ever.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to enjoy it. I know that sounds weird, but—”
“No, I know what you mean.” I pause chewing and take a moment to articulate what’s been in the back of my mind since we left the bedroom.
“My ideas about that part of my body were so rooted in the homophobia of culture at large, of how so much of our community—the Black community, and frankly, the church—treats queerness. I’ve never considered myself homophobic.
Truly, I don’t care who folks love or fuck, but I didn’t realize how much those ideas had made experiencing anything like that feel like a threat to my masculinity. It’s not.”
“No, it’s not.” She sets her fork down and grabs my hand. “That was what I really wanted you to see. “
“Well, after I stopped seeing stars, I did see that.”
I stand, dropping a kiss to her hair. “I’ll be right back.”
When I return, I’m surprised to see Verity filling her glass with wine. It’s rare for her to drink at all, but I guess it’s good she’s giving herself permission to loosen up after all the stress of the Dessi shoot.
I nudge her up from her chair, then settle her back down on my lap once I take her seat. I’m wearing gray sweatpants, and she’s wearing the matching Finley hoodie, the textured curls coiling softly around her head and neck.
“For you,” I tell her, placing a square black box on the table.
Her dark brows knit into a frown. “I thought we said no gifts.”
“We also said we’d keep it low key, but you cooked enough for an army, and I bought a gift.” I shrug and reach as if to take the box back. “If you don’t want it—”
“Attt att attt!” She pops my hand lightly and snatches the gift. “Ain’t nobody said nothing ’bout not wanting.”
Kicking her legs back and forth, toes brushing the floor, she darts a quick look at me from under her lashes. “What is it?”
“Vee, if you don’t open that damn box!”
She giggles and cracks the lid open to reveal a pair of diamond letter V earrings nestled on a bed of black velvet.
“Monk!” Her wide eyes meet mine. “They’re beautiful.”
She slips the diamonds into the small holes in her ears.
“Thank you. I love them,” she says, a wide grin spreading over her face. “I have a gift for you, too.”
“What happened to no gifts?” I shake my head, an involuntary smile twitching on my lips. “Now see if I hadn’t gotten you a gift, I would’ve been the loser boyfriend.”
The word boyfriend kind of lands in the room between us. We’re together, but neither of us has labeled it that way. We don’t comment on it, but share a smile that says everything.
She rushes across the room and digs in her oversized purse, returning with a small gift bag.
“I didn’t even have time to really wrap it,” she says, handing the bag over. “But I hope you like it.”
I feel through the layers of tissue paper and pull out a piece of pottery, flat and oblong-shaped.
“It’s a dish, like for your keys or… whatever. I made it myself.” She touches the diamond earring and shakes her head, looking a little sheepish. “It’s not much, but—”
“You made this yourself?” I stroke the smooth surface with my thumb, tracing the green, gold, and amber colors she swirled into the design.
“Yeah, actually a few weeks ago. I haven’t done much pottery since shooting started.” She chuckles and blows out a breath. “I haven’t kept up with much of anything since shooting started, now that I think of it, but this was pretty simple.”
“I love it.” I turn it over in my hands and stare at the numbers engraved on the bottom, and my heart bangs against my ribs as the date computes. “November… wait. That’s when we had our first date.”
She stills, bites her lip, and nods. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember.”
“How could I forget?” I draw her close and hold her for a few seconds, one hand clutching the pottery and the other cupping her face. “Thank you, Vee.”
She tips up on her toes and kisses me, our mouths brushing together in something that is tender and sweet, but feels so fragile it makes me want to keep holding her in case the universe gets any ideas about tearing us apart again.
“You overlooked part of your gift,” I mumble into the curve of her neck.
She reaches up to touch the diamond in her ear. “What else?”
I walk over to the couch and grab the box with its bed of velvet, which I move aside to display a folded sheet of paper. Removing the paper, she reads, gasps. Her eyes stretch and snap to mine.
“Monk, is this…”
“It is.” I take the paper from her trembling fingers. “I’m negative. Tested. Cleared. If you want to get tested and stop using condoms, we can. I want that.”
“Why would you…” She shakes her head, a dazed look to her eyes. “Why did you do this?”
“Because I only want you and I want nothing between us.” I cup her jaw, run my thumb over the fullness of her lips. “I only want to be with you. I trust you.”
“You… you…” She can’t seem to form words, her mouth opening and closing a few times. Tears gather at the corners of her eyes, fragile and crystalline, rolling unchecked over her cheeks. “You trust me again… after… you trust me?”
“With my life.” I press my lips to her temple. “With my love.”
She goes still, the only movement the slight tremor over her body as she cries softly into the bend of my neck and shoulder.
“I love you, too,” she whispers.
I didn’t know there was a part of me held back, but as soon as she says the words, something opens up inside of me and my heart is in her hands.
I’m laid out and vulnerable. The moment is so transparent I feel like I can see every one of her fears, her dreams, her worries, and I, in turn, want to show her all mine.
It’s something old that is new again, but it’s also something we’ve never had before. Matured. Seasoned. Steady.
I know steady is the last word she would use because she lives in constant vigilance that her moods will swing from one extreme to the other, but tonight, right now, we are together, and our love is in perfect balance.