Chapter 19 #2
“Damn, Lou, that’s some heavy shit. I know I told you the other night, but I’m proud of you. None of it is easy but you’re taking it head-on,” he tells me, tightening his arms around me and placing his head on my shoulder. “You deserve the world. Take it by the reins.”
“I’m finding my grip,” I assure him. “Will you keep working with me? I want to be physically stronger, too.”
“Of course. I’d like nothing more than for you to be a fire spitting dragon that bites off bad men’s heads.”
“What?” I laugh and turn my face to his.
He takes the opportunity to kiss me. Long and slow.
“It’s something Paige said. She doesn’t have princess dreams, she has dragon dreams.”
“God, she’s great. The way she fearlessly throws herself into learning something new, her determination. I love your kid.” I hope to be that headstrong and brave.
Again, he kisses me. This time, even slower, more passionate. More affectionate. It’s a kiss with a love letter hidden inside. Maybe a promise. Or a vow. A poetic thing, even as it grows in temperature.
Our tongues dance, lip to lip. I don’t notice that I move my hand between us, or that he maneuvers us to a lying position. But here we are, him atop me with his cock in my hand.
In another flash, my shirt is over my head, his mouth on my breast. He pulls at my nipple with his tongue, and I push it up to him. An offering to this man who’s only ever shown me kindness and support. And pleasure, the likes of which I had no idea.
It’s a different sort of pain that Grady gives me to get me where I want to be. There’s no cruelty in it. No transfer of power that I can’t take back at the end of the night.
“Fucking beautiful,” he mumbles as he moves lower down my body.
I stop him with my hands on his cheeks.
“I want you inside me, Grady. Now.”
“You ready for me, Lou?”
“Check for yourself,” I dare, lifting my hips so he can pull my pants over them. His fingers slide into me. He grins. “Your dick, Grady. Please.”
“Whatever you want, love,” he tells me, standing up to remove his jeans.
Love. I like it more than I would have thought. Pet names have never been a favorite of mine. Then again, the pet names I’ve been given have never been the kindest sort.
Love.
I let the word roll over in my mind, again and again, as I stare at the magnificent man in front of me.
Manly in every sense, rugged and brawny.
Moisture pools in my mouth, that familiar flutter in my tummy making itself known.
The one that says how lucky I am to have this. To have found this. Him. Grady. Mine?
I already feel like his. By choice, not by chains.
“Flip over, I want to see that ass.”
“Oh? Are you a tits and ass man, Grady?” I ask, eagerly positioning myself how he wants me.
“If they’re on you, I am.”
Good answer. I’m about to say when his hands spread my cheeks and he slides in. All words fly away. There is no more thought. Just lust and that strange unseen connection I always have with him. He’s the moon to my tide.
His fingers find my hair, fisting and pulling it tight. That sweet sting as he thrusts in and out takes over me as he whispers things I’ve only dreamed of.
“Your body was made for mine, Lou. Do you feel how well we fit? How your pussy’s afraid to let go? It doesn’t have to be, I’ll never leave. Never want another. It could never be the same. Nobody would take me as deep, hold me as close, fuck me back as good.”
On and on, he goes. The closer to the edge he takes me, the more I start to believe it isn’t real. It’s delirium. Sexual psychosis.
“It’s real, Lou.” He laughs roughly at what I must have said aloud. “It’s real, it’s also really fucking good.” He punctuates his sentiment with the hardest thrust, yet. It’s enough to bring me back into my body. Too keen at every pull of his cock on the inner walls of my body.
It is real. I think it’s also love. But what do I know about such things? Nothing. I know nothing except how much I enjoy this. Him. How much I enjoy him.
His hips roll when he reaches around to play with my clit, and I start to tip over the cliff’s edge.
He knows and does it again. I can’t see, so I conjure the image in my head.
His strong, capable body is packed with defined muscles.
I imagine the beads of sweat rolling over all that sun-kissed skin.
I dream up the look on his face as he focuses on bringing us both to crumbling orgasm.
“Fuck. Grady,” I cry desperately, my head falling into my hands on the sand. I push my hips against him in the rhythm he sets. “I’m so close. With me, come with me.”
“Whatever you want,” he repeats. He picks up pace, and I explode into so much stardust floating up to dance with its sisters in the night sky.
I see stars—the real and others. Grady grunts low and long, the sound of our stars colliding.
I really do lose my motherfucking mind when he fucks me.
A while later, after Grady went inside for a washcloth and another blanket, I lie against his skin and stare at the darkened sky. Holding up our entwined hands, I study the difference between us. His rough to my soft.
“It’s hard for me,” I say, beginning a conversation that should have happened before now. Before it was too late for my battered heart. “It’s hard for me to trust this. To trust the things I feel. My heart has betrayed me before.”
In the worst way possible, it convinced me what I had with Pierre at the beginning was true. That it was love. He told me it was us against the world and I thought he was being romantic. Not that he meant to isolate me from as much of life as possible. How fucking stupid was I?
“It’s hard for me, too,” he says. “After what Brenda did, trust doesn’t come easy.
I’ve forgiven her for that, and myself for any role I may have played in pushing her toward that.
Besides my parents, she was who I trusted most with my daughter, with my heart.
It’s a hard lesson to learn and a harder one to get past.”
“I’m not her Grady,” I say. “I’d never do that to you. Or Paige.”
“And I’m not him,” he says, nuzzling the crook of my neck. “Things we both know and also don’t.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” I say.
Trust in another person is a leap of faith. Always. The question isn’t, can we trust again; it’s, will we allow ourselves to chance getting hurt again. Honestly, that may be easier for me to get past than him. He has a daughter to think about, a family. I only have myself.
“We’ve got time to figure it all out,” he says, pressing a kiss to the sensitive spot just under my ear.
We’ve got time…we do, I try to convince myself while I push out the doubt that creeps in.
My habit of second-guessing. Or is it my conditioning?
Some of both, perhaps. There’s time for that, too.
It may never leave, completely, and maybe that’s a good thing.
I should hold on to some of my wariness of others, in order to not fall for it again.
The worst traits I learned from my time with Pierre will fade, though. They already have so much.
“You spend a lot of time in that pretty head of yours. You grow quiet, and I know you’re reliving things I wish you’d never had to experience in the first place. I’ll say it again. I’ll say it as often as you need, for as long as you need. I’ll be your safety. I’ll be there if you need me.”
“What if I want to save myself?”
“You already have,” he says, turning my head with a gentle palm to look at him. “You already have, Lou.”
“I have, haven’t I?”
“You have,” he says, pressing another kiss atop the last one. “We’ve spent time on the past, but not much on the future. What are your dreams? What do you see for yourself when you close your eyes at night?”
“A quieter life,” I say. “No more big city living, no more jet setting, no more working until I’m fatigued. I’ve conquered my dreams with my career, and now, I want to be selective with it. Curate the jobs I take. Maybe take up photography to keep myself busy in between.”
“No more big city living?” He rises up to his elbow to stare down at me. The same hope in my eyes is reflected in his.
“No.” I shake my head. “In fact, I’ve inquired about buying land here in Stowaway.”
“You did? When?”
“My second night in New York,” I say, my lips trying to twitch into a smile at the excitement he tries to hide. “I was bored in my hotel room, couldn’t sleep. I browsed real estate around here and found the perfect piece of land.”
“Where is it?”
Raising my arm from my side, I point to the thirteen acres of vacant land on the other side of Irma’s house. The forest of sea-lined trees that I’ve stared into for months, now, the forest I’ve wandered while pondering my life choices. The forest that has felt like a shield at my back.
“Old man Riley’s property?” His eyes widen with surprise.
“Who is Riley?”
“An ancient thing that never dies,” he tells me, and I suppress my laughter. “He was called old when I was born. He’s got to be damn near a hundred and ten. He’s had offers, I’ve heard, he’s always refused.”
“He didn’t refuse mine.”
“No?”
“No. There’s still time for him to, I suppose.
But I have no reason to believe he will.
” I offered full price, pending a feasibility study.
Which my realtor seems to think will go fine.
I’m paying her plenty to figure it all out for me, anyway.
“As long as it’s buildable land, it should be mine in a month or so. ”
“It’s buildable,” he reassures me.
“Then, I hope to build. Probably not until the spring. I hear it’s not easy building in the rainy season.”
“No, but we make do.” His smile is now wide, hopeful and happy.
“We do?” I ask, no longer talking about property and home building. “You don’t think it’s weird or presumptuous?”
“No.” He presses a kiss to my cheek, then my lips. “Not weird. Perfect and right.”