Chapter 38 #2
The centimeters between us are erased as soon as my lips touch his. He’s not expecting how deep I take the kiss, because he’s frozen in place. His hands don’t move from my face as our tongues dance together.
I, on the other hand, am not holding back. My hands roam up his arms until his heart is drumming strongly under my fingertips on his neck, and then my fingers snake up to pull at his hair. He groans, and I want to do everything in my power to get him to groan like that again.
And again.
And again.
He’s been holding back. I know he has, out of respect for me, but I’m done with this invisible line I’ve drawn between us. I want him to eviscerate it tonight.
I bite his lower lip, drawing it between my teeth. I often catch him staring at my mouth when I do the same to mine. I’ve been secretly hoping he wants to do exactly what I’m doing now.
His control snaps the minute I moan into his mouth, and he wraps my hair around his fist, pulling it back gently, kissing my jaw, my neck, my collarbone. My chest is pressed against him, heaving, matching his erratic heartbeat.
“Yes,” I whisper in a moan, holding on to his neck as if he’s my lifeline.
I don’t even know what I’m saying yes to.
To his lips over my collarbone, craftily closing after he licks my skin, or to his hands resting on the curve of my ass.
I don’t know if I’m saying yes to whatever will happen after or to whatever I want to happen.
To any of those things, yes, a million times, yes.
Until he lowers the spaghetti strap of my dress and his tongue crosses over my breast—my very stretch mark-covered breast.
I gasp, taking a step back. “Um, I’m sorry. I have to run to the bathroom.” My never-ending excuse.
“Natalie.” My name on his lips does everything it always does: grabs me tenderly, soothes all my worries. Well, most of them.
“I, um, I need to go. Sorry. Real quick. Where is the bathroom?” He points to the only open door in the narrow hallway, and I excuse myself, promptly taking my phone from where I put it on the countertop.
I hold the sink with both hands, willing my breath to calm and shaking all these irrational thoughts away. Who cares about stretch marks? I don’t, so why do I think he will? Why is it so hard for me to get out of my head and just let that man make me feel good? Exactly how I want him to.
I look at myself in the mirror, and for the first time in a long time, the reflection is not one of a sad, lonely girl, but a woman who has known both love and loss, in the biggest ways, and who knows how precious this life is.
I see life in my eyes, in my cheeks, and I want to grab it without fear.
Or maybe with fear, but doing it anyway.
I can do this.
I want to do this. I pick up my phone.
Me:
Yes, please take the girls home. Can you bring them to the shop around 10?"
Allie:
I’ll bring them in after breakfast. Enjoy your night and be safe
Me:
Love you
Allie:
Love you
The quiet knock on the door startles me, but I swing it open, nonetheless. Holden is practically frozen, his fist in the air.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and I nod. “Be honest with me. Please. Did I push too far?”
This poor man. “No. Not at all. I’m sorry I’m giving you mixed signals. I promise I’m okay.”
He swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing down. “Do you want me to take you home?” His question sounds sad, as if he would be disappointed if I said yes, but he masks it with a neutral smile.
I shake my head. Relief washes all over his body. He holds my hand, walking me to his couch, and with ease, we sit, side by side, sinking into the plush fabric. I can’t lie to myself and deny I’m disappointed he brought me here and not to his bed.
“I want to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.”
“Okay? You’re scaring me.”
“This is coming out all wrong,” he mutters.
“Holden, just tell me. Whatever it is, ask.”
“Am I doing something that’s making you uncomfortable?”
“What? No!” My eyes open wide. “Why would you even say that?”
He exhales, carrying all his worries with it, and all of them land on my chest, next to my heart. “Your body tells me one thing, but you run away from me every time I touch you. So I wanted to make sure.”
I take both his hands in mine. “This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.”
He eyes me suspiciously.
“I, um, I want to be with you. I want to have sex with you.”
“Good.” He smiles in triumph.
“But my body is, um, there’s so much that clothes hide, and I don’t want you to lose desire when you see me.”
He looks surprised, as if what I’m saying is out of the realm of possibilities, but is it?
“There’s zero chance that will happen.”
“I, um, I have scars.”
“…okay?”
“And they’re, well…I don’t heal well, so they’re raised, and they’re everywhere.
” Keloid, my doctor said, the first time one formed.
There’s nothing we can do, he added. There are injections and creams and all these protocols that supposedly help, but there’s no guarantee.
I didn’t do any of them because at the time, it sounded a little ridiculous for me to worry about anything other than how I was going to survive raising two kids alone.
“Do they hurt?” he asks, curiously but without judgment.
“Not really. They’re just…ugly.” Plain and simple.
“I doubt it. Nothing about you could be.”
I scoff, not answering. He says that because he hasn’t seen them. His head bobs up and down as if he’s considering something, and without hesitation, he jolts up, offering me his hand. “Come with me.”
Okay. I let him lead me somewhere, through the hallway to a door all the way in the back. The walls in here are all green, in my favorite shade, making me feel even more at ease.
“Do you trust me?” he asks, turning to face me.
I don’t have to think about an answer before giving him an irrevocable, “Yes.”
He turns the doorknob painfully slow, the lights turning on as soon as we step in…
into his bedroom. But he doesn’t stop. We pass through the neatly organized room lacking color, a complete opposite of the rest of his house.
There’s no time to snoop, because suddenly, we’re in his bathroom, in front of a giant mirror.
Holden places me in front of him as he stands tall and broad, occupying most of the space. He’s so handsome, it hurts. But he’s not looking at himself in the mirror; he’s looking at me.
“Do you know what I see every time I look at you??” he asks, startling me.
“Holden, what are you doing?”
“Answer, Beauty.”
“Mmm, no.”
“What do you see right now? Who do you see?” he asks, holding me by my hips.
I blink but eventually answer. “A woman with red hair and pretty blue eyes.” I love my eyes, so it’s so easy for me to say that quickly.
“Your hard-to-name-colored eyes. Did you know it took me nights to realize sometimes, they’re green, and sometimes, they’re blue, but sometimes they’re gray, too? They’re like a rare gem. Beautiful, just like you.”
I blink again, unable to form words.
“But I also see resilience, kindness, and heart. I see full cheeks and wrinkles around your eyes from smiling so much. I see plump lips I’ve wanted to kiss since the day I met you. They remind me how hard it is to keep my distance when all I want to do is spend my days attached to them.”
I feel every single word.
I feel beautiful beneath his gaze. I feel worthy. I feel powerful.
He slides his fingers under the spaghetti straps of my dress. “May I?”
I nod, not knowing what he’s asking for, but one hundred percent letting him do whatever he wants.
He slides the straps over my arms, carefully slipping them down and allowing my dress to drag over my breasts. My hips hold the dress in place, but it doesn’t matter, because I feel more exposed than if I were completely naked under Holden’s gaze.
He traces the top of my breasts with his knuckles, carefully going over my stretch marks before holding them, pulling a hiss from my lips.
“You have the most perfect breasts, and I knew it even before looking at them, but now, my god, woman, all I want to do is taste them.”
Wetness pools between my thighs, and this man has barely touched me.
He tries to pull the dress down, but it needs a little more tugging than just letting it drop. “Sorry. Thick belly and thighs.”
“Don’t apologize for the temple that is your body. It was your children’s first home, and every single curve is beyond perfect.”
Well, okay then.
I shake my hips, helping him along the way until it comes off completely, falling to the floor and gathering at my feet. I’m left wearing a lace thong and my heels.
Holden’s eyes roam my almost naked body before meeting mine in the mirror. There’s raw and pure desire behind his gaze, and I feel like I’m burning up at the thought of what he wants to do with me.
His fingertips explore my chest, not stopping to give attention to my pebbled nipples, instead going straight to the emergency C-section scar on my belly.
A surgery that came so quickly, they didn’t have much time.
A scar that travels from mid torso almost to my pelvis, raised in an inch-thick scar, reminding me every day of everything I went through.
He slides his index finger down it, as if he were whispering to the scar before he speaks out loud. “Each scar, each mark, traces a roadmap to the events that have led to the woman you are today, and that’s beautiful.”
He kisses my shoulder as his fingers explore smaller scars and stretch marks given to me by life and children. “This belly brought life into the world, and if the scars are there as a reminder, it’s of how incredible you are.”
I’m standing here in disbelief as he continues. “You are so beautiful, and these are too.”
“Holden,” I almost whimper.
“They’re sexy.” He kisses my back, sliding his fingers to my underwear. “They’re perfect, just like you.” He wiggles the lingerie down my thick thighs, helping me step out of them.