Mel didn’t remember the drive back to Brant’s place. They’d been able to escape the press long enough to make sure Maria was comfortable in her room and resting. Gloria ran interference for them.

Even Maria had heard of the great Gloria Shaffer, and seeing her suddenly appear in her room was the perfect wake-up after surgery. Mel was pretty sure they were going to have to reassure the girl that it had, indeed, happened, for some time to come.

Mel spent the entire time with her fingers on the ring on her left hand. When the girl fell asleep, they slipped out. Gloria promised she’d be back to see Maria as the girl healed. The reporter crew got exclusives on Kenneth, Melissa, and Brant, and clearly more financially important to him, an exclusive on the hottest sex-symbol in America announcing that she was not only gay, but intended to marry. He agreed to let the story with Maria disappear. Maybe it wasn’t the most effective solution—the stories were out there on the internet and couldn’t be called back. But it was a start. Eventually the furor would die down and the ‘jungle girl’ would escape back into obscurity.

Brant and Mel were both quiet on the drive home, but it suited her mood well. She felt as small as could be, all the horrible, hateful things she’d said and thought, the terrible way she’d been acting, ran back through her mind like replaying the worst parts of her life again and again. And he wanted to marry her.

She should have trusted him.

“Before you agree to marry me,” Brant broke the spell as they pulled into the driveway, “I should warn you…I lost my job today.”

Mel looked over to him. Brant. She tried the word ‘husband’ silently in her head. It was frightening how comfortable that word sounded.

“Me, too.” She looked down at the ring and then looked up at the mansion looming in front of them. She giggled suddenly. “But I’m pretty confident we’ll be okay for a little while.”

“Till we get our feet back under us?” Brant pulled up to the door.

Suddenly everything became real.

Too real.

Mel tried to choke down the fear that came up like a trapped rabbit. She sat in the car, unable to reach for the handle. Brant stared at her, confused. He got out and walked around to her side and opened her door for her.

Mel still couldn’t move. Brant knelt next to the car.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes as she stared at the beautiful ring on her finger. “I am so sorry. For…everything. I never gave you a chance to explain. I don’t deserve you. Us. I’m…” she shuddered as she let out a long breath. “…broken.”

“You’re not broken.” Brant’s hand took hers and lifted it. She followed him with her eyes as he stood and indicated for her to rise. She kept her eyes down and followed him inside. “Alice is off today,” Brant said as he gently pulled her through the door. “The troubled grandson is less troubled, so she’s back in general. But she’s off today.”

Mel watched him close the door behind them. Since when did Brant babble? Was he nervous? Yet he wasn’t the one who’d left. He wasn’t the one who nearly broke them up. She looked at the ring on her finger. She barely breathed, terrified that she’d look up and meet his eyes. And see…something…there she wasn’t ready for.

“Brant.” She took his hand. This time it was she who did the towing as she walked him to the couch and sat him down. With a sigh, she opened the jewelry box she’d been carrying in her pocket, pulled the ring off her finger, and placed it in the box. It felt colder without the weight on her finger. Hands shaking, she handed the box to him.

He moved to protest, but she laid a finger across his lips. “Please don’t…not now…”

Then, taking a deep breath, Mel found the courage that had led her from one jungle to the next.

Was there anything more awkward then the act of unbuttoning a shirt? Yet, as the first button popped free, Brant’s eyes darkened and he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, with such a look of keen anticipation on his face that she forgot to be nervous at all. The shirt was tossed to the floor. The bra followed. Her fingers lingered on her scars a moment, momentarily breaking the spell, but she pressed on, stepping out of shoes…jeans…underwear…until she stood before him: uncovered, vulnerable, and defenseless.

“I know you’ve seen me before,” she said. She was vaguely surprised at how clear and strong her voice sounded. Her throat was dry and her breath kept catching. She held out her arms. She wasn’t being seductive, not being a conquest or seductress. It wasn’t even particularly sexual.

She was simply being herself.

So, Mel exposed herself to him—completely. Scars, bumps, bruises, imperfections all. She took a deep breath. “I want you to know me, Brant. I’m flawed and sometimes I’m an idiot and sometimes I get a little crazy. I’m not perfect, I’m not going to be. I need to know…” She swallowed hard, the words sticking in her throat. She wasn’t really sure what exactly she needed to know that it was here. It had all seemed so clear a moment ago.

She began to feel cold, foolish. His hand on her hip brought her attention back. He pushed her back and she caught her breath, but it was only so he could get off the couch. Once more, he knelt before her.

Wordless, he opened the box, took out the ring, and replaced it on her finger.

Then went about convincing her in the only way a gentleman could.

Mel’s breath caught in her throat. Her fingers tangled in his hair as he began his assault at her knee and worked his way up her inner thigh, kissing and licking and nibbling as he went. By the time he reached the heated space between her legs, she was breathing heavily and holding his head tight against her.

His hands ran up the backs of her legs, caressing, touching, probing. His lips and tongue delved into her, his entire body pressed against her, carrying her when her knees buckled and threatened to give out.

In shy wonder, she let him lay her down on the carpet in the middle of the living room. His hands took the place of his lips as he reached for her one nipple and then ran his mouth over the ruin of the left breast. He was gentle then rough. His hand never stopped exploring her; he treated her as though she was fragile and then picked her up and tossed her onto the couch as though she weighed nothing.

She lay caught between arousal and on the edge of tears. This was acceptance. Love. He was showering all of it on her. There were no words, and if she thought she’d loved him before she discovered her heart had no boundaries after all.

Then he tore off his shirt and arousal came to the fore.

Never had a man looked so beautiful. Brant stripped out of his clothing, and flung the remains across the room. She laughed as he dove back to her like a starving man who had just been presented with a banquet. His lips were everywhere, touching, caressing. She writhed under him, crying out softly with each kiss.

His breath came fast in her ear. The smell of him was clean, masculine, intoxicating. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist as he poised himself above her for a long moment. She looked into his eyes to see why he hesitated.

He smiled at her and, as he pressed between her folds, he lowered his head to her neck and whispered harshly in her ear, “You’re beautiful.” He buried into her in a single thrust.

They came together in crests of release, in passion reignited. When her orgasm hit her, she curled into him and held him with every muscle of her being. When he came he held her, kissing her, caressing her, crying out his release and his love for her. So intense that it set hers off again.

When they’d caught their breath, he stood and held out his hand. From her position where she lay on the couch, his hand wasn’t the only thing she could grab and she said so.

“Come on…” he growled, but he smiled as he did so. She reached for her clothing but he wouldn’t allow her, swatting her hands away and finally chasing her naked to the kitchen where they found meat and cheese and a bottle of wine.

They ate naked. They talked and laughed and kissed and came back to the living room and made love on the couch, on the floor. He refused to allow her to dress, nor did he attempt to. She teased him about being a nudist at heart. For a moment, the look he gave her as he answered, “You, my sweet, should never wear clothes at all,” left her absolutely breathless.

Then she concentrated on him, because turnabout was fair play. Not that it was a hardship. That lean, sparse frame with tight muscles speaking of a regimen at the gym, the straight wide back and narrow waist, the tight buns, the penis that rose and fell like a lust-indicator…all of it was intoxicating.

After a time, she forgot she was naked. The scars were nothing more or less than nipples or hair or skin. For the first time, she understood that he wasn’t being polite when he said it; he wasn’t denying anything for her sake. The scars were as beautiful as the rest of her. As beautiful as her freckles, the mole on her side. It was just… her. And through him she saw that beauty.

Hours passed. Eventually they wore each other out and lay together on the floor of the living room, in a nest made of blankets taken from unused beds, cushions raided from every room, crumbling pillow forts and a few random pizza boxes, they held on to each other as though they would be swept away if they let go.

Mel reached over for her jeans and assured him that it wasn’t to wear, just to get something out of the pocket.

“Someone came by while I was waiting for you to finish with Maria,” she said, and fished out a thick business card. She handed it to him. “Said we should think about a new project. Something about going where we’re needed. He talked about ‘matching funds’.”

Brant took the card. BERTREM HASTINGS, M.D. He smiled and lay it down on the table behind him.

“No,” he said finally. “I’m rich; we’re doing nothing ever again.” He nibbled her nape. “Just curl up here and make love and raid the kitchen naked. That’s all we do from now on.”

Mel laughed, tumbling on top of him, and found some places of her own to nibble. “Is that so, Doctor? I think you’ll get bored awfully fast.”

“Then I’ll figure out where you’re ticklish…” he threatened, and she squealed.

When she’d caught her breath, made him swear never to do that again, and got him to confess he’d lied about never doing that again, she leaned into him and lay her head on his shoulder. “I really am sorry I didn’t believe you,” she whispered.

He pulled his head back and looked at her quizzically. “Still? What are you looking for, a spanking?”

Mel gasped. “NO!” she said, laughing, and leaned against him, thinking about it. After a moment, she kissed his hand. “Maybe for your birthday,” she whispered quietly.

He chuckled. “Maybe for yours.”

“Maybe.”

“BRANT! FOR BLOODY SAKE!”

Mel shot to her feet as heat flushed her face and entire body.

The woman at the door was facing away—resolutely facing away, determined to NOT look inside the room.

“Hello, Mother!” Brant said as Mel began a headlong flight down the hallway. She beat Brant to the door of the bedroom by a good fifty feet but, then again, Brant was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

 

THE END

Forever Together