43. Anthony
forty-three
anthony
She made me dinner. In the middle of one of my hyper-focus freak outs. She made me the food I’ve been using as a comfort for the last week and a half to get through the last days of school before winter break, and I didn’t even ask.
The best part is, she’s never once made a big deal about adjusting. She knows when to pick up my bread crumbs and when to leave them down so I can find my way back to what I was doing. She knows to tell me that she’s leaving for work if she leaves first, and tells me what time it is in case I’m in the middle of something and not paying attention. She texts me when she leaves and checks in about dinner.
She left a bucket of cheeseballs on my bed last week.
I can’t outright tell the woman that I’m in love with her—not just yet. We’re still putting our stained glass pieces back together. But I can show her how much it means when she picks up on the little quirks that everyone else in my life has dubbed annoyances and fits them right into her everyday life.
I lift her from the chair, wrapping her legs around my waist where I’m already thickening. I don’t know where I thought we were going, but when Pen realizes what’s happening and reaches between us to stroke me through my sweatpants, I make the next flat surface work. It just so happens to be her back against the office wall.
One of her hands shoves my pants to the ground while the other works around my cock to stroke me from base to tip.
“I’m not complaining, but…” she trails off when my mouth makes it to her throat. I press sloppy, open-mouthed kisses up and down the delicate skin before finding a home on her pulse, where I bite a little less than gently. “What are…why?”
I chuckle against her throat at the way that her words and her strokes are getting choppy—all because I’ve got her pants yanked down around her thighs and my thumb teasing her entrance.
“Do,” I kiss her lips, “I need,” lick my tongue against the seam, “a reason?”
Looking into her eyes that are floating at half mast, she shakes her head against the wall, mussing up her hair.
“Good.”
I slide her underwear to the side and sink my finger in, finding her already wet, but not enough for how badly I need to take her against this wall. I tug at the V-neck of her shirt until her tits are bared to me, shoved up together by the cups of her bra and the neckline of her shirt. She threads one hand through my hair and guides me to her breast—as if she even needed to ask.
While I flutter, suck, and bite, she pushes off the wall to grind against my hand. I’m in the middle of squeezing her breasts together to get my mouth on more of her when she guides the head of my cock to her clit and starts playing with herself.
“You need to come, boss?” I take her by the wrist and pin both hands up above her head, holding her to the wall with my hips.
“Yes please,” she pants.
I curse, then lathe my tongue over her tits, stopping at each to suck both nipples into wet, needy points before lining myself up at her entrance.
“Condom?” I ask, just in case.
“Uh uh,” she whines, shaking her head from side to side.
I groan as I enter her, an animalistic, barbaric, wild man sound that rattles the windows on her pretty French doors.
“How are you this good, P?” I ask, sliding in inch by wet inch.
“I was thinking the same thing.” She smiles at me, flushed and panting, then tilts her head back when I’m all the way in.
She is so gorgeous like this. Arms pinned, head tilted back, mouth wide open, eyes clenched shut. I want her like this forever. Her pleasure as my responsibility. That reminds me of how we got here in the first place.
I grip her hip in one hand for stability and hammer her home.
“Just so you know,” I grunt out, “this isn’t going to last long. I hope you’re close.”
“Touch me,” is her response, and as I move the hand binding her wrists to her clit, she tilts forward and says, “I’ll be good and keep them up.”
“ So not helping.”
My pace increases, the thud of her plump ass hitting the wall and the slapping of my hips to hers echoing.
“ Gah! Oh fuck, right there Anthony .”
She comes out of nowhere, her walls milking my own orgasm almost immediately. I slam a hand into the wall above her head to hold myself steady as I rocket off inside her. Panting, she slides down the wall until her feet are on the floor. My forehead touches hers, and when I peel my eyes open, I realize her arms are still up above her head. Gentle but firm, I snag them and place them on my shoulders. She immediately winds one hand into my hair at the back of my head. It’s a touch I’m becoming addicted to.
“Uh…” Her quiet little noise pops the bubble. “Sorry, but it’s kind of… I need to clean up.”
Peering down, the evidence of our orgasms is leaking out, painting down the insides of her thighs.
“ Fuck , if that doesn’t make me hard again.”
She squeaks out a shy giggle, and I carry her into my bathroom, propping her onto the counter while I wet a washcloth. The entire time I’m cleaning her and tucking her back into her leggings, she’s playing with my hair, massaging my scalp. When I’m finished, I bracket my hands on the counter beside her hips and purse my lips. She leans forward, accepting the short pecking kiss before laughing softly against my lips.
“Remind me never to make fun of your gym habits ever again,” she says, pulling back to wipe the hair from my forehead. I snag her wrist and kiss the center of her palm.
I follow her to the kitchen where we do the dinner dishes side by side. The glimpse I get of what could have been our normal makes the edges of my heart sing, because for the first time in almost two years, I’m starting to think this can be repaired. And all it would take would be one of us finally stepping out of our comfort zones. I take the first baby step.
“What would it take to get you to quit teaching and try the author thing full time?”
“Stable ground beneath my feet,” she says bluntly. “I want to know that, if I can’t handle it, if I fail, I have something to fall back on.”
“What about some one ?”
It’s the ballsiest move I’ve made, aside from moving in with the girl whose heart I tore into pieces. Pen is quiet as she finishes washing the dish in her hand, rinsing it thoroughly before handing it to me. I take it and let it rest on the drying rack.
“Just hear me out. You’re afraid of failing. I get that. I can’t take that away from you, but I can put the ground beneath your feet. What if…” I lick my lips, thinking of this proposition kind of on my feet. “What if we stay here for another year?”
She freezes, her lips parting on a small gasp.
“What?”
“You’re looking for stable ground, Pen. Let me give it to you.”
“I thought you were supposed to be moving into your place soon?” she says, doubt in the tick of her head from side to side.
“I don’t know,” I shrug. “I’ve been caught up in a few other projects. This place isn’t going anywhere. I could stick around here for a little while.”
The apples of her cheeks shade the color of her hair, pairing with her sheepish smile. Because I can’t help myself, I ask, “What about you? When is your place going to be finished?”
“Umm… Good question?” she laughs nervously, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I think the actual repairs are finished. It’s just a matter of the cosmetics. New floors, new paint, new furniture, that sort of thing. I just don’t know if I want to spend my free time during the school year playing handyman. And, like you said, I guess this place isn’t going anywhere. I could stay here a little longer…”
“Then do it. If things get hard, a mortgage is one less thing you have to worry about. You can take the repairs of your place at your own pace, and focus on writing. And if things get tough, I can be the one you fall back on. I will be here to support you through the changes.”
“But what if I fail?”
It whispers out of her in the shape of a ghost.
I toss my dish towel onto the countertop and take both of her hands in mine, tugging her to me.
“What if you don’t ?”
She blinks up at me, doubt written in the deep caves of her eyes.
“A wise wiseass once told me that it’s how we get back up that determines if we’re meant for great things. You’ve gotten back up on your own two feet without someone there to hold your hand for too long. Let me be the stability you need at home so you can go out in the world and take a risk.”
Her expression is unreadable. She gives away nothing, save for the red coloring of her face, but even then, I can’t tell which brush is painting it.
Finally, she lifts her brow, levels me with one of her deadpan gazes, and says, “A wise wiseass ?”
“ That’s what you got out of my whole heart-wrenching speech?!” I guffaw.
She smiles, a soft, curve of her lips that I want to trace with mine.
“Sorry. I deflect when people tell me nice things.”
Because I’ve been burned in the past .
I know now more than ever that I can’t start those fires anymore. I need to be the one that helps her put them out. She pulls from my grasp and finishes the dishes. I put myself on the line the same as she had when she invited me to New York. I wish there was a way to describe the way my soul collapses like a newborn star when she turns off the sink, turns to me, and says, “Sure. I’ll think about it.”