50. Claire
fifty
“I toldyou that I have two left feet.”
Nathan glances down his nose at me, saying I told you so with the tilt of his head and the slight lift of his brow. I giggle, shaking my head as I press closer to him, despite the fact that he did just squish my big toe.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this free in my entire life.
We’re pressed up close to one another on the dance floor, a sea of people surrounding us, and yet, it’s like we’re alone, out in the middle of the ocean with nothing but each other. I feel so relaxed with him. His arms are a safe space, where the pressures of everything in my life halt, because nothing can be so scary if I have Nathan to fall back on.
That thought has been a bug in my ear all night—all week, really, while we’ve been playing house. And I’m not sure what to do with it. I’ve thought about bringing it up, the stirrings of feelings I’ve never once had, let alone can put a name to. I know intrinsically that my man of few words wouldn’t have to ponder long before he found the right ones. But I’ve held back, too caught up in playing pretend because I’ve been afraid to pop the bubble.
I certainly won’t be bringing it up tonight. Not after the absolute bliss we’ve had together. I’ve seen the business side of Nathan, shaking hands with donors, supporters, and hospital staff. I’ve seen the same Nathan who appeared the other night at the shelter, the one who did the Chicken Dance and the Cha-Cha Slide, and even participated in the Limbo contest. And now, I’ve got him all to myself. Dancing.
I didn’t even have to beg. He actually had to steal me away from a twelve-year-old who asked if I would dance with him since he just rang his bell. I had to wipe my tears, of course.
No. I won’t bring talk about feelings into this night when my heart is too full of feeling them to put them into words.
“Are you having fun?” he asks. His thumbs spread over my lower back and press me closer to his chest as Frank Sinatra lulls over the speakers.
“Yes. Thank you for bringing me here, Nathan. I…”
My chin dips as I look beside us, to the gala surrounding us, filled with his people. Doctors and donors and patients. People who have been a part of his story. It’s overwhelming, that he trusted me enough with this part of his life, let alone wants me in his arms for the night.
“Thank you for trusting me to hold your hand throughout all of this. It means the world to me.”
It goes so far beyond the need. He may have needed someone here to hold his hand, but he wants me here, beside him, laughing with the last remaining people inside of his fold, and that has butterflies lifting my heart and taking off with it.
We sway like that, back and forth on the dance floor, with our feet planted firmly on the ground so that no one’s toes get stepped on, for a few dances. The lull of the music plays second fiddle to the beat of Nathan’s heart beneath my ear, to the strong hands that hold me up, to the steady breath that has somehow synced to mine.
He lifts my chin with his thumb, and I can see the depth to the pools of his eyes, the yearning in whatever waits to be said on his parted lips. I brace myself, somehow instinctively knowing that whatever it is will be important, when we’re interrupted.
“Mind if I cut in?”
It’s Dr. Marty.
Nathan clears his throat, squeezing me tightly before stepping back and extending his arm.
“She’s all yours. But just for this dance. Don’t get any ideas.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Dr. Marty salutes him with two fingers, and takes my hand in his. “Sheesh. I don’t know what you’ve done to that boy, but the only other woman I’ve seen him possessive of was his momma.”
I flush immediately. The few times Nathan has brought up his mother, he’s spoken the world of her.
“I just make him grilled cheese sandwiches and make sure he doesn’t work too late.”
“He needs that. You’re good for him, Claire. Don’t let his walls deter you. You might have to climb them on occasion, but don’t forget to make him toss you the rope.”
I ponder that, recalling all of the ropes he has already thrown me.
“When was the last time he brought a date to the gala?”
Dr. Marty’s brows lift, his expression twisting to say, I think you know the answer.
“Nathan is very reserved. Ever since his parents’ accident, and then everything with Callahan afterward, he’s never given himself time to live his own life. He has carried so much unnecessary guilt…” He shakes his head, then eyes me candidly. “You’re the first person to remind him that he has a life to live.”
I jolt at that word guilt. What does he have to feel guilty about?
“I believe that was the end of the song, doctor. May I have my lady back?”
God. Such a gentleman.
Dr. Marty sighs with a smile and pulls me in close, pressing his lips to my ear.
“Don’t let his closed doors turn you away. Keep knocking,” then pulls away and says to Nathan, “She’s all yours.”
Nathan slides his arm around me, tucking me back into his embrace. The pressure of my heart pressed to my ribcage as he says, “God, I hope she is,” and presses his temple to mine is overwhelming.
After that, I can’t take it.
The feel of him holding me tightly, squeezing my hand to the beat of the music while he peppers my temple with errant kisses. This is the man I see in secret, when the world melts away and it”s just him and me. And he”s holding me like this in public. Proud to have me in his arms. Proclaiming to others that he hopes he gets to keep me.
I tilt back in his arms, lift my chin to him, and bat my lashes. He understands without a word spoken between us.
“I have a few people I need to say goodbye to first,” he says, gritty with sand.
My, “Okay. Hurry though,” comes out pinched.
This might be the one time I’m not okay with his penchant for following the rules of the road. When we arrive, the air is so charged, I can feel it on my lips. We don’t speak a word. Just like at the gala, simply feeling these emotions is more than enough—more than either of us has allowed ourselves in the past.
Baby steps.
He takes his time. Undressing me first with his eyes, then with his strong, steady hands.
Why are they shaking tonight?
By the time his coat and mine are hung up in the hall closet, I’m desperately aching between lunging to wrap myself around him, and falling to my knees at how pretty our stuff looks hanging up together.
He lifts me effortlessly. My pussy presses up against the cool metal of his belt buckle and all bets are off. I moan into his kisses, tilt my head as he sucks and licks along the column of my throat. I’m tugging his dress shirt free from his pants while he unhooks my bra, and it takes me a second to register that when he sits down, we aren’t in his bed.
I’m astride his lap in the window seat of the study, his already mussed hair and unfocused eyes framed by the starry night outside his window.
“I was too impatient to take you to bed.”
I could come from those words alone. From the way his chin is tipped back in submission, the way desperation is written into the pinch of his brows and the shake of his hand as one grips my waist and the other strokes down the side of my head.
I nod, whining as he shifts beneath me to rub his hard length against me. Through hot, passionate kisses, his pants and boxer briefs make it around his ankles, but my thong only gets pushed to the side as he pinches my clit and the slips two fingers inside me.
“Oh, baby, you’re soaked.”
His fingers fuck me fast and hard, but the desperation on his tongue might taste sweeter than this impending orgasm.
Might.
“I’ve been like this all night,” I pant, grinding and bouncing on his fingers, using his shoulders as leverage. “You were so good, Nathan. So good. Oh fuck!”
I cry out as he adds a third finger and presses on my clit at the same time, a quick orgasm rushing over me. He barely lets me come down before he’s pressing his fingers to my lips. I lick myself off his fingers while he takes my nipple between his teeth, then laves it with his tongue.
“Me?” he gasps, licking a trail to my other breast. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you tonight, Claire. I don’t know what I did to deserve you being in the same room as me, let alone being there for me.”
I pause his ministrations, cupping his cheeks in both hands to guide his drunk gaze back to me. He presses the bridge of his glasses up to see me better.
“You deserve the world, Nathan. I’m just glad I get to be the one holding your hand while you open your eyes and realize it.”
We’re silent and still for moments on end. I think I see tears forming in his eyes, but it’s that moment he chooses to grunt, to grip my hip and lift me until the head of his cock is teasing my opening. I fall back in his embrace, only his big hand splayed over my back keeping me from hitting the floor, because Nathan with nothing between us?
Oh, I could die this way.
“Damnit.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard this man curse, but with his cock seated fully inside me, he hangs his head, squeezes me to him, and presses his lips to mine.
“I’m so sorry. The condoms are upstairs.”
If someone has to think straight between the two of us, it for sure isn’t going to be me. No, I’m clearly the irresponsible party in this relationship, because I tilt my hips.
“We should use protection,” he grunts, stilling my motion.
“We should….” I nod, staring over his shoulder at the midnight sky behind him. But then, he bucks up into me, instinctually, and I bite my lip. “But I need to feel you so bad, baby.”
He grips my hips, then swallows, steeling his gaze like he’s trying to keep his head on straight. Trying to line up his words.
“I…” he pauses. Swallows. Squeezes my waist tightly enough in both hands that I stop and pay rapt attention. “I don’t want kids.”
He chokes it out, like those words are rusty nails scratching up his throat. I think back to watching him sway on the dance floor with the kiddos from the banquet tonight, wondering if that was a future he envisioned, but all of a sudden, that image vanishes.
“Nathan, I don’t want kids either. I’m on the pill.”
Time halts for a fraction. It’s a conversation that can wait for another time, because those two admissions together create an all-consuming inferno. The thought that we could be on the same page with our futures? That has my chest constricting in a way I didn’t know it could.
“I’m clean.”
“Me too,” I nod rapidly, clenching on him.
“I couldn’t tell you the last woman I was with, but there hasn’t been another since you, Claire.”
I press my forehead to his, nuzzling his nose with mine as I whine, “No one but you, Nathan. Only you.”
I run my hand up his bare chest—still partially constrained by his opened button-down, and honestly? This is making everything hotter.
The fire consumes us. I start grinding back and forth as Nathan thrusts up into me, our pants matching, breaths seeming to coincide like our heartbeats are in sync. We can’t get enough of each other. Hands are frantic and everywhere, my thighs squeeze him like I can’t get closer. And all the while, it’s our eyes that remain a constant. I can’t take mine off of his. Behind the fogged lenses is a window straight to his soul.
The need I’ve felt, the magnetic pull like our souls have been searching for one another all along, the twin flames that have been dormant for way too long, all come to a head.
It’s his eyes that I’m staring into as he pulls off his glasses and presses our foreheads together.
It’s his eyes that I’m struggling to watch as my walls begin to clench.
Too soon, too soon, too soon.
And yet, somehow, I know that this is only the beginning.
It’s his eyes that spawn wide open as he warns me on a low grunt, “Going to come in you, Claire,” and I hold on tightly to him, pleading, “Please, Nathan. I’m yours, make me yours.”
We explode in tandem, and I wonder briefly if a galaxy was born of our ecstasy. It might have, since the intensity of this orgasm sent me spinning into the stratosphere.
It takes us ages to come down, but eventually, we do have to deal with the consequences of sex without a condom. I’m still shaking as he pulls out, but he steadies me with his soft lips and soft hands and a new softness in his eyes that, as he cradles me in his arms and carries me up the stairs, screams that he isn’t going to let me go.