Chapter 20 #3
She shakes her head. "Your body was inside mine, Riley.
We are naked together. There is no greater vulnerability than this.
I simply could not share it with anyone else.
I could not have shared it with you at all if I did not love you.
I just simply cannot understand having sex with someone you do not know and do not love. It does not compute in my brain."
My eyes burn. "I know. Believe me when I say that I fully understand what a precious gift you are, Cadence. What a precious gift you've given me in yourself."
This melts her. "Riley, my love. I do not think you understand that I feel that I have been given a gift as well. You are a gift to me. You have shown me a whole new world. I know joy because of you. I know what it is to love and be loved. I know the freedom of trusting you."
"Freedom?" I echo.
"Yes," she says. "Certainly. Trust is freedom.
True, real trust, like I share with you, means I am free to be absolutely and utterly myself.
I am free to show you my worst self and know that I will be accepted anyway.
I can be weak with you, when I have had to be strong for so long—because you know me and you accept me.
I am not alone. I am seen." Her eyes water, spill.
“That is a gift most precious indeed, Riley, and you have given it to me. So yes. I am free because you love me."
I blink back my own emotion. "Fuck, Cadie. You have a way of making me emotional like no one else."
She wriggles up my body, groaning and going still as she loses me. "Oh…oh, that is…oh my." she sounds unsure.
I chuckle. "What's up?"
She makes a face. "I am…um…leaking." She shakes her head. "Not important at the moment. Riley, you honor me with your emotions. I know you are not a man who displays such emotions easily. I am proud that you feel safe enough to give them to me."
Fuck, that guts me to the core. "I feel things I didn't know were in there. Things I didn't know I could feel."
"I know how that feels." She bites her lip. “I would really, really like to clean up, now."
"I've got you."
I roll so she's on her back and then pull away, get a fresh washcloth from the bathroom and wet it in warm water, bring it to her. "I, um…I've never done this part before."
She splays her thighs open, and I see my seed trickling down her seam.
This makes me feel a bizarre range of emotions—pride for some stupid reason, arousal, and above all, possessiveness.
I use as gentle a touch as I possibly can, swiping down her seam.
I know she feels awkward, allowing me to do this—I see it in her eyes, on her face.
But she lets me, watching me, blinking at me with wide eyes as I clean her folds.
When I'm done, I climb back in bed with her, pull her into my arms. "I'd like nothing more than to just stay in this bed with you for, like, at least a week."
She giggles. "I would like that as well. Although we may need snacks."
I cackle. “Yeah, snacks would be good."
She goes serious. "When I told you I was becoming hyperfixated, I was not joking, Riley." She looks up at me. "The intensity of my obsession with you is starting to worry me."
"Why would it worry you?"
"What if you get tired of me?" She bites her lip. "I am already thinking about you again. I want you again."
I boggle at her. "For real?"
She blushes. "Yes."
I laugh, pull her fully on top of me. "Sweetheart, that's the best news I've ever heard."
“Really? You…you aren't too tired?"
I flip her to her back and prowl above her. "Too tired? Babe, where you're concerned…" I slide down her body, kissing as I go. "I'll never, ever, fucking ever be too tired, or get tired of you."
She catches at me. "But I…you…won't you taste—?"
I swipe my tongue up her seam. "Yup."
"Is that not—?"
"Nope."
I look up at her. "Please consider this my formal invitation to attack me whenever you feel the desire. Use me, Cadence. Test me. See if can ever get enough of you."
"I am not sure you know what you're asking for, darling. Hyperfixation is no joke."
I grin. "I'm eager to find out, then."
She isn't fucking kidding.
Over the next seventy-two hours, we barely leave my bed. I bring food and we eat it in my bed together. Watch movies on my laptop. Sleep.
And make love…
Frantically.
I lose count of the number of times we have sex over those three days.
She is, quite literally, insatiable.
I've always had a sex drive so high that no one I've ever been with could keep up. I was always left wanting more and knowing that whoever I was with wasn’t ready for me yet. I've literally had girls tap out and go home because I’ve left them—well, never mind.
Cadence?
By the end of three days of near-constant fucking, I'm the one worn out and barely able to walk. My balls are so drained they feel empty and shriveled.
It's glorious.
We find a rhythm, then. I eventually have to go back to work, which sucks. But Cadence has to figure out her life and she says she needs time alone to do so, which means she encourages me to go back to work and leave her to think.
Which I do. And I discover aspects of joy in life that I didn't know existed. I see things that are beautiful and I FaceTime her just to share them. I have a spare moment or two and I call her just to talk. To hear her voice.
Within a week and a half, I come to the not exactly shocking conclusion that she is my best friend, even more so than my boys. I mean, it's different, but still. I get Fee and Bear, now. How they choose their women over the crew more often than not.
It's less than two weeks to Christmas—a holiday I've never had a lot of time or patience for.
Growing up, it was never a big deal. It's not like Mom ever put forth the effort to make it special.
If we got gifts at all, it was shitty stuff—one year, I got a GI Joe, but a dollar-store knock-off version that broke that same day.
So yeah, Christmas has always been whatever for me.
But I realize that to Cadence, Christmas is vitally important.
Her parents, she tells me, always made Christmas special, even in Africa where they didn't have the stuff to make it look like Christmas as we’d know it. To her, Christmas is the most important season of the year.
And fuck me if I know how to do that for her.
I figure a nice date downtown is a good place to start.
I find her on the phone when I come home from work, discussing with her folks the logistics of getting her stuff shipped up her. She greets me with a bright smile. "Hold on, please, Mother.” She mutes the phone and kisses me, soft and sweet. "I missed you."
I pinch her chin playfully. “I’m gonna shower real quick. And then we're going on a date."
Her eyes go wide, big and bright. "A…date?"
I laugh at how eager and excited she sounds. "Yeah. I realized today that I'm a terrible, horrible, awful, shitty boyfriend. We've been together for almost a month, not including the time we spent together when we met, and I’ve never even taken you on a real date."
She shoots to her feet, vibrating with excitement. "A date! With my boyfriend!" She unmutes the phone. "Mother, I am afraid I must end the call. I am going on a date.”
I hear her mom laughing happily on the other end, and wait as she says her goodbyes and ends the call.
"What should I wear?"
"Somethin' warm. I figured we'd walk around downtown. It's all lit up with Christmas lights. Looks pretty and, like, festive or whatever."
She's about to pop with excitement, bouncing on her feet and clapping her hands. "Is there a Santa Claus?"
I laugh, and kiss her. "Yes, there is."
"Caroling?" Her voice is up an entire octave.
I frown. "I, uhhhh…maybe?" I blink, thinking. “Yeah, come to think of it, I think there’s a whole choir thing that happens.”
"I have always wanted to go caroling. We were always in Africa during Christmas growing up, and then I was in college or working or overseas, so I have never gotten to do any of the usual Christmas things.”
An idea forms—a crazy, wild, utterly batshit idea forms. I don't show it on my face, though. I kiss her again. "Get dressed in warm clothes. I'll be showered and changed in a few minutes, and we'll go, yeah?"
She hops up and down, clapping, laughing. "YES! I am so, so, SO excited!"
It's that easy to make her happy? Jesus, I'm lucky.
I shower in record time, not wanting to make her wait any longer than necessary.
I do shoot off one quick text first, though.
By the time I'm dressed in flannel-lined jeans, a thermal long-sleeve shirt, and my thick Carhartt jacket, she's ready to go, similarly clad—Noelle and Ember took her to the mall earlier in the week so she could get some better winter clothing.
I'm only a few blocks from downtown, so we cram winter hats on our heads, put on gloves, and walk.
It's after six, and dark, so the glow of downtown Three Rivers at night in Christmas is visible as we approach, a soft, warm sepia staining of the skyline.
A gentle snowfall starts as we reach Main Street near the north end of town, the sky filling with small, hard, swirling flakes.
The roads are freshly plowed, the sidewalks shoveled and salted.
Most businesses are dark and shuttered, but a few are still open.
The downtown development authority hires a company every year to drape the entirety of Main Street in white Christmas lights, decking the streetlights with holly and mistletoe.
As Cadence and I make the left turn onto Main Street, I hear Cadence's breath catch. She turns to face me, hands over her mouth, eyes wide. "It is glorious! Just like a Hallmark movie!"
I chuckle. "C'mon, let's head downtown, see what's what."