27. Elizabeth
Twenty-Seven
Elizabeth
I can hardly wait to get back to Kellen’s house after our ride. I feel like I’m on fire in the best possible way. My muscles are shouting, my heart is racing. “I feel like I can do anything,” I tell him, gripping the interior of the car as he rubs my thigh at a traffic light.
“You can do anything,” he says, grinning. “That’s what I like about you.”
I snort. “If that were true I would have moved out a long time ago.” My stomach clenches at the thought of leaving Todd years earlier than I had, of perhaps getting all that time with Kellen instead of standing alone in my living room crying because I felt overwhelmed caring for Jake with no one to talk to about it.
“Well I’m glad you’re here now,” he says, turning into the neighborhood that already feels comfortable, like home. Most of the time, I can almost pretend I never left Morningside. Up the hill from my parents, across the street from the man who makes me smile.
Kellen pulls all the way into his garage, muttering something about his nephew leaving a grease spot from where his Bronco had been parked.
All thoughts leak out of my head when Kellen pulls open my car door and tugs me into his arms. He kisses me, moaning softly as he pulls me in tight against his body.
“Oh,” I say when he pulls back, because what else is there to say as my nerves tingle and my heart flutters.
“I’ve been staring at you in those leggings all day.
I have to touch you,” he says, backing us up the steps into his kitchen.
I nod enthusiastically, diving back into his arms to kiss him in return, trying to drum up the confidence that let me shove off on the bicycle even though I was nervous. Even though I hadn’t done it in awhile.
Instead of stopping in the kitchen to make out as we had a few other times this week, Kellen backs us down the hall toward his room.
This is what I’ve been thinking of for weeks.
Since the day I moved in and saw him, if I’m being honest. He backs right up to the edge of his bed and sinks down onto it, pulling me with him.
“You’ll tell me if something is uncomfortable? ”
“This feels amazing,” I tell him, nestling in between his spread thighs, loving the feel of his chest beneath mine, both of us wearing thin workout clothes that reveal the firm expanse of him.
The last time, we were both so nervous. Today it feels thrilling, familiar and simultaneously brand new.
Kellen slides his hands down inside my waistband, his fingers teasing and stroking, petting and driving me wild.
I reciprocate, sneaking my own hands up inside his shirt.
He moans into my kiss as my fingers explore the planes of his stomach.
I feel chest hairs that weren’t there the last time I touched his abdomen.
I feel the long muscles that were. His breath quickens as my hand creeps lower and I finally rub my palm over his hard length, pulsing beneath his sweats. “Kellen,” I breathe. “You’re so hard.”
“I’m hard for you, Beth. Jesus, look at you.” He starts to lift my shirt. I raise up from his chest to let him, and then I lose my nerve.
“I…don’t know if I’m ready for you to see,” I tell him, sitting up on the bed.
I cross my arms protectively around my middle.
It’s daylight. I feel exposed. “I’m a bit mangled,” I mutter, trying to garble the word hysterectomy.
I don’t need to go into detail about the subsequent surgeries I had to have after my pelvic floor collapsed following my emergency cesarean when it seemed like I might bleed to death delivering Jake.
Somehow I don’t think Kellen would find that very sexy.
But he sits up and cradles me in his arms. “Elizabeth.” He nibbles my ear lobe as he continues to caress and kiss me.
“You think I’m expecting the same teenage girl I kissed in high school?
” I shrug. “I want you, Beth. I want you as a woman, as a mature, brave fighter.”
He meets my eye and lifts his brows as his hands gently grasp the hem of my shirt, as if he’s seeking permission.
I bite my lip and nod as Kellen lifts my shirt and I sit there in my bra, my stomach on display.
The dimpled, scarred mess of it. Kellen dips his head and traces his tongue along the vertical scar beneath my navel.
“Beautiful,” he whispers. “This body gave life, Beth.” He licks and kisses my stomach and my hips start churning in his bed. I fall back against the pillows and he continues to stroke and lick. “Your cells self-engineered a way to repair the damage,” he mutters.
This gets a laugh from me. “You’re such a nerd,” I say, my fingers in his hair.
And then I gasp as he tugs down my leggings.
“Oh,” I moan. Kellen takes his time, his long fingers tickling trails of sparks down my calves as he slides off first the leggings and then the new panties I wore, despite their being the wrong choice for a bike ride.
“What’s this,” he says, his mouth hooking into a grin as he holds up the black lace boy shorts he tugged off my quivering body. I bite my lip. “What’s this?” I feel his fingers trace my tattoo.
“That’s my ivy,” I tell him, reaching down to trace it dreamily.
“You got a tattoo?”
I nod. “I wanted something just for me. A secret.”
“Oh, Beth,” he says, his eyes darkening as he shucks his shirt and crawls back onto the bed. “You turn me on so much.”
And then I gasp as he dips his silver head between my legs, spreads my thighs apart, and licks my center.
“Kellen!” I feel my arousal seep out at his actions, slick and hot.
And then I lose my ability to see or speak as he nudges my clit with his nose, slides his tongue inside my body, parts my folds with his gentle fingers.
My hips are bucking up toward his mouth, and my nerve endings are exploding, sending fireworks throughout my entire body.
“Oh, god, oh yes. Please, Kellen,” I mutter, begging him for what I do not know.
But god, does he deliver it. He sucks and bites, presses and rubs until I forget to be worried that 50 year old women don’t do things like this. “Kellen, I’m going to come,” I sputter.
“Please do, Beth. Come on my tongue. I want to watch you.” With one final pinch of my clit and lap of his tongue, I fall over the cliff.
I scream and bunch the sheets in my fists, writhing and churning and coming long and hard.
Before I can catch my breath, he’s on top of me again, nestled between my thighs now, kissing my jaw.
“That was so sexy, Elizabeth,” he says, thrusting his hips against mine to demonstrate exactly how turned on he is from making me come like that.
We kiss, and I can taste myself on his mouth.
My hands are everywhere on his body, nails scraping along his shoulder blades.
I’m not sure if I’m ready to have him inside me, but I’m also not sure I can bear to go another second without him in there.
Until my phone rings.
“Leave it,” he growls, pinning my arms above my head in a move that would turn me on if it weren’t my special ring tone for Jake. The phone rings and rings in the pocket of my leggings, even though I put it on do not disturb. I have my settings tweaked so that Jake can always reach me.
“If he’s calling from Lisa’s house, it means something’s wrong,” I say. Kellen’s body stiffens, but he releases my arms as I roll out from under him. I can tell by his face that he’s disappointed, but my son comes first for me. Always. I’m disappointed that he would make me feel bad for it.
“Jake,” I say, stabbing at the screen to pick up the call. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Lisa bought generic soft pretzels for lunch,” he screams. I can hear him pacing. “There is nothing here I can eat. We were supposed to have soft pretzels.”
I sigh. “Did you ask her for any other options? What is Dhruv having for lunch?”
We go back and forth for a few minutes about Lisa’s lack of the proper brand of every food until I ask him to put her on the phone.
Lisa is horrified to learn he has called me in the middle of my date.
“Liz, I swear to you, Ashish is three minutes away with the right brand of both pretzel and cereal. Please go back to what you were doing and let me handle this. I’ve got you. ”
“Is Jake aware that the food is coming?”
“Elizabeth, I’ve got this,” she insists. I can hear my son freaking out in the background. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel a tear slip down my cheek. I want to believe that she can get him calmed down, but he sounds so upset.
“I’m here, Jake,” I hear Ashish’s voice bursting into the house. “I’ve got your lunch, dude.”
And then, like a light switch, my son stops shouting. Lisa says, “he’s already got the pretzel in the microwave, Liz.” I nod, but she can’t see. We hang up with her assurances that she will make Jake talk to her before calling me again.
When I look up, I see that Kellen has put his shirt back on. He drapes a blanket over my shoulders and I know our romp in the sheets is over.
“Talk to me,” he says, leaning back against the headboard.
“I’m so sorry,” I start. I feel all the arguments I’ve had for 15 years coming up to haunt me. “I know he’s too old to be upset about his lunch, but he’s got a disability. His brain goes into fight or flight mode when things aren’t as he expects them to be and he just—“
“Elizabeth, I know.” Kellen bites his cheek and squints. “But why couldn’t Lisa handle it and let you have an afternoon away for once?”
I stiffen. “I don’t get to be off from being Jake’s mom,” I tell him. “I’m all that he’s got.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not true, Beth. He’s got Lisa. And he’s got me. I’m not going to judge him for getting upset.”
“Well it seems like you are, Kellen.” I stand up, pulling the blanket tight and stooping to gather my things.
“I’m upset because you don’t get to ever be off,” he says. “You don’t get to prioritize anything but Jake. It makes me angry.”
“Well,” I start, considering his words. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say.”
“You’ve been on your own against the world for too long,” Kellen says, crossing his arms now. “I don’t know how to help.”
“Well I don’t need your help,” I spit at him, even though it’s not true. I need his help and I need his affection and I need his friendship, and all of those realizations make me upset.
“Maybe I need to be needed,” he counters, and the truth of our dual troubles rings in the air. We stare at one another for while. I step back into the leggings. I can’t find the panties. I tug on my shirt and tuck my hair behind my ears.
“I’m going to go home and take a shower,” I tell him. He nods, and when he doesn’t spring up to stop me, I sigh and walk home alone.