31. Claire
thirty-one
I should have knownthere would be consequences. Life runs on a yin and yang system. The good is always eclipsed by the bad’s shadow; sometimes I wish I could be like Peter Pan and figure out how to get rid of mine.
I don’t swallow down the fear when I awake in Nathan’s bed. Instead, I ignore the distant vibrating that I know comes from the cell phone in my leggings pocket, the one that’s somewhere on the floor on the other side of his bedroom. I discarded my pants in the middle of the night because Nathan Harding is a hot box.
I was his anchor throughout the night. I read to him on and off, in the pockets of awakeness as he dozed and startled. Sometimes, he’d ask me to pick up where we left off. Others, he simply burrowed into the space beneath my breasts, and let me hold him and run my fingers through his hair. I can’t really say I slept much in the in between. I was too busy counting his breaths. Memorizing the slope of his face without his glasses, which I’d taken off after the second time he’d fallen asleep in my arms.
His hair is a disheveled mess now in the golden morning light streaming in through the uncovered accent window. His face is buried against my stomach, his warm breath tickling against the patch of skin above my thong where my T-shirt has ridden up. I take him in from this angle—using me as his safe space. He looks so young. So uninhibited by the horrors of a world that only serves to bog him down with death and diagnosis. The weight of it has no place here.
I trace my fingertips through his unruly mane, marveling at the softness. This time though, he stirs. His breath hitches, and his nose presses into my bare skin, and it takes everything in me to stifle a moan.
He starts to maneuver his body into being awake, big stretches while still holding onto me that manage to cover the entirety of this king sized bed in the process. I stifle a giggle. I can’t help it. This prim and proper man awakens like a toddler. Right down to the grunts.
“Mmm. Stop laughing at me.”
He says this straight into the exposed strip of skin, and my giggle catches in my throat.
“I can’t help it,” I say to the top of his head, still running my fingers over his hair, stealing moments for when they inevitably run out. “You’re not a morning person.”
“No.”
“Was that a pout?” My whispered question comes out as a chuckle when his lips frown against my skin.
“Yes.”
In the midst of all this, while his eyes are still glued shut in defiance, Nathan worms both of his strong arms around me and squeezes tightly. I don’t hold back my little groan of encouragement. In fact, I wiggle my leg between his, wondering for a moment if I can morph us into one being. In doing so, I notice how hard he is, right up against the inside of my thigh.
His arms around me shift so that his hand can mold around my butt, squeezing in those slow circles like he’s building up the anticipation to?—
“You aren’t wearing pants.”
It comes out breathy, raspy, like he’s just swallowed a glass of shards. My body betrays me, scooting into his touch as his fingertips trace the outline of my panties right up along the band of my thong as it disappears from my center up between my cheeks.
“I took them off while you were sleeping,” I pant. “You’re a hot box, but I didn’t want to stop touching you. It was my best option.”
Nathan lets out a noise that’s part moan, part groan, and all desperation, and tucks his nose beneath my shirt as he pushes it upward.
“Wanted to take my time with you, Claire,” he mutters, his mouth flirting with the edge of my bra while his thick finger snakes beneath the band of my thong and traces between my cheeks, slowly up to where I’m dripping. “You’re making it so hard to be patient. Making it so hard to follow the rules.”
I fist his hair in my hand, helping to guide him up and along my breast, where he tugs the cup down with his teeth and seeks out my nipple with his tongue.
We’re barely moving. His tongue skirts over my nipple, his finger toying over my thong in a delicious friction that has me panting. Breathiness fills the room in an erotic symphony set to piano while the button of his finger sneaks its way to my clit and immediately crescendos us to forte.
“Nathan…”
“Can’t wait any longer, Claire.”
I sneak my hand to the front of his pajamas, feeling the precum through the damp fabric as I wrap my fist and tug. With my other hand still laced in his hair, I pull him from my chest to kiss him. But before our lips can meet, I memorize the shape of his eyes that spell out desire, forests so densely green with golden light peeking through only for this, only for us.
He lifts his hand from my waist and cups my whole face in his palm, touching us at the nose, his lips pressed against mine as he speaks.
“Tell me to break the rules. Tell me I can have you.”
“Please, Nathan, I want you?—”
The curtain falls. His finger against my clit, his length wrapped in my hand, the squeeze of his hair in my fingers, as my cell phone finally finagles its way out of my pocket and onto the hardwood of his bedroom floor.
This time, it’s ringing. His breath against my skin transforms from needy to a remorseful sigh. My head falls, because I know what awaits me on the other side of that call. I want so badly to give in. To steal one kiss, one taste of him, to be greedy and selfish for once in my life.
But I know where it leads. And I cannot stand the thought of having him just to have to walk right out his door. No matter how much it hurts, it will be easier this way.
“It’s probably my parents,” I say, as if the mood hadn’t already been absolutely killed.
He nods, and when I think he’s going to pull away, he tugs me closer. Skims the side of my face with the tip of his nose. Tattoos me with intention. It is somehow more intimate than any of the places his hands have been.
He sits up in the same moment that I fling my upper body off the coast of his massive bed and find my phone rattling around on the floor.
“Hi Mom,” I answer, after I’ve lofted back onto the bed and positioned myself so that I’m laying with my back to Nathan.
“Claire, where the hell have you been?! We’ve been trying to get ahold of you since last night!”
“I stayed with a friend. Sorry I forgot to text.”
“That isn’t the only thing you forgot. Your sister and brother needed rides this morning, Claire! What a wake up call to find Michael dressed and ready for soccer with no one to take him. He was almost late to the game! And Zoey…”
She continues on like that, but I’m done listening.
There is no, We were worried sick when you never came home. It’s simply a matter of what I didn’t do, and how a minor inconvenience upset my parents’ easy Saturday morning.
I let her do it, though. I let her use me as a verbal punching bag, let her get out all of her frustrations until she’s probably blue in the face over Michael potentially not starting a game—God forbid. And as she does, I grant myself a moment to turn over.
Nathan has given me space, but he hasn’t left. He’s sitting up against the headboard, glasses on, still slightly sleep drunk. He has the book from last night open to the page where I stopped, but I can tell he isn’t reading. He isn’t eavesdropping either. He’s simply looking at me with a mixture of grace and concern laced in his tired eyes. When my smile crinkles into sadness, his hand slides across the bed, and I don’t hesitate to slide mine in.
I finish the call in short answers, promising I’ll be home soon, knowing that it will come with a reprimanding.
Honestly though, what can they do? Take away the car, the phone, or the other devices I pay for? Tell me I can’t go out and see friends anymore? That would be the joke of the century.
I hang up, and sigh. Nathan squeezes my hand, and we come to a silent agreement to steal one more moment to ourselves.
It strikes me then, how much of my soul I’d give to see him like this more often. The man who I’m just now learning hates mornings, and wakes with wild and crazy hair, a sweet juxtaposition to the austereness I see in a professional setting. The one who holds on to me even in sleep, and wants me so badly that he sounds desperate when he asks for it.
I want so badly to follow him into his kitchen and make us breakfast, to steal kisses while omelets sizzle on the stovetop. To have him lift me onto his countertop, and maybe carry me into his shower.
But then, the ghost of his words, about how I make it so hard to follow the rules, reminds me of all that we have on the line in the first place.
His new role in administration. My first step out into the real world. We shouldn’t be doing this at all. His Tell me to break the rules was answered for us by the ringing of my phone instead of our impulsiveness. Maybe this was the kick in the teeth we both needed.
We get ready separately, but as my hand closes on the front door, Nathan spins me around, backs me gently to it, and captures my lips in his.
His body has always screamed aggressive and possessive, but his lips upon mine are reverent, a kiss that is equal parts gratitude and regretat letting me go, like he knows this has to be the last time.
His big hands cup my cheeks, and I hold onto his forearms for a moment before tilting my head in an attempt to deepen the kiss. My fingers slide up into his hair from the back, but the moment my tongue slips out to touch his, he grunts, and pulls away.
His glasses are a little foggy, which doesn’t make any of this easier, to see how desperately he wants to hold on, too.
“Thank you, Claire.”
He is a man of few words. Not one for big speeches. And maybe, in the end, it’s better for both of us that we part without fanfare.