“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU EAT your marshmallows like that.”
I give him an evil grin from behind the flame and then blow it out. “It’s better than the way you eat yours.”
“What are you talking about? This is how every red-blooded American eats them.”
“You completely ruin it with the graham cracker and chocolate.” Sitting on the hearth next to David, I pull my scorched marshmallow off the skewer and shove the whole thing in my mouth with an exaggerated, “Mmmmm.”
He laughs at me, chuckling, “You’re eating ash.”
“And it’s so good,” I tease before stabbing another marshmallow onto my stick.
It’s Christmas Eve, and when I woke up with a heavy ache weighing me down, I threw myself together and drove over here. The sadness I felt on Thanksgiving doesn’t even compare to this holiday, and I didn’t have to say a word to him. David knew everything I kept unspoken the moment I walked in. He sees straight through my nonexistent tears, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. It spares me the pain of having to explain the whys of my mood every time I’m feeling down.
“I’m done,” he forfeits, dropping his half-eaten S’more onto the plate that’s sitting between us and taking a draw from his beer.
“Not me. I could eat these things all day.” I shove another burnt masterpiece in my mouth before David takes my hand and sucks melted marshmallow off my thumb. “I thought you were done?”
He takes the skewer out of my hand, wraps his arms around me, and slides me off the hearth and onto the floor. A giggle falls from my sticky sweet lips as he crawls over me. With his hands braced on either side of me, I hang on to my smile as I stare into bright blue eyes. I run my fingers along day old stubble and watch as a lock of hair falls over his forehead.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, and I pull him down to kiss me, tasting the sugar on his lips.
I circle my arms around his neck, savoring the stain of his flavor on my tongue. With the fire crackling next to us, my body soaks up the heat from all around. Hand on flesh, he slips under my sweater and over my bra.
He exhales, his kisses falling down my cheek to my neck, and I bow into him.
The sound of the doorbell cleaves our bodies apart, and we both startle, sitting up in a panic. His finger presses against my lips before he takes my hands and pulls me to my feet. His eyes mirror the alarm in mine as we lock on to each other.
“Come here,” he whispers, pulling me into his bedroom. “Stay in here and don’t come out.”
I nod as I sit on the edge of his bed. He closes the door behind him, leaving me alone with horrified fear that somehow we’ve been found out. But fear turns into confusion when I hear a woman’s muffled voice. Quietly, I walk over to the bedroom door, and when I do, the voice clears.
“What are you doing here?” David questions.
“You won’t answer my calls.”
Heels click across the wooden floors.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“You don’t mean that,” she says. “We miss you. It’s been almost nine years since you’ve seen anyone. Please come over to the house. Come over and spend Christmas with us.”
“Mom . . .” His tone comes across as defeated, but for what, I have no clue.
I lean my back against the wall and continue to eavesdrop.
“You’ve never even met the kids.”
“Don’t,” he warns harshly, and my stomach flips in confusion.
“You’re their uncle. They shouldn’t be punished over a fight between you and your brother,” she tells him. “Nine years, David—”
“A fight? Is that what you all call it?”
“Don’t you think it’s time to move past this?”
“I have moved past this,” he affirms. “Those nine years you’ve been hanging on to are the same nine years I spent letting go.”
“Please . . . we’re your family.” Her words falter with sadness. “You’re my son. I love you.”
“Where was that love back then? Because if memory serves me correctly, everyone just kept their mouths shut. You all just accepted them while my world went to shit in front of my eyes . . . literally, Mom. Do you have any clue what that was like for me?”
“What were we supposed to do? They were in love, and you ran off. We didn’t hear from you for years.”
“I don’t want to rehash this.”
“How can we rehash it when we haven’t even had the chance to talk about it?”
“There’s nothing left to talk about. He took my future, and he has the wife and the kids that were supposed to be mine. It’s done, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to waltz in there and pretend what they did was okay. That I forgive them.”
Heels move along the floor again, and then come to a stop. No one says anything as I keep silent, and then, after a long pause, “I’m sorry, did I interrupt something?”
No response from David.
“Is someone here?”
My heart slams against my ribs. She must see the food setup at the fireplace. I cup my hand over my mouth as I step over against the corner of the wall and the door.
“Like I told you. I’ve let it go and moved on,” he tells her.
“If there’s someone in your life, I’d like to—”
“I refuse to drag her into this.”
Oh my God, David. Stop talking!
“Look,” he says. “You’re my mom, and I love you. But we’ve lost a lot of time, and for me to walk back in, as if that time didn’t change us, isn’t something I think I can do right now.”
“But it’s Christmas. And you’re finally home.”
“It may be home for you, Mom. But it’s not for me.”
Their talking subsides to make room for what I can only imagine is David consoling the heartache of his mom. As I stand frozen, tucked behind the door, I try to make sense out of the conversation they just had, but there are too many pieces missing. I hang on to my breath when I finally hear footsteps, and when they say their goodbyes and the door closes, I sigh in relief and return to the bed.
I wait for David to come get me, but he doesn’t. I go back and forth over whether I should go to him or give him time alone to deal with whatever it was they were talking about.
I crawl to the center of the bed, and after a handful of minutes pass, the door finally opens.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s fine.”
He takes a seat on the bed next to me. When his head falls into his open palms and he hunches over, resting his elbows on his knees, I scoot up behind him and slide my hand over his shoulder.
“Was that your mother?”
He nods before muttering, “Yeah.”
I run my hand down his back, feeling the tension within the muscles.
“I haven’t been completely forthcoming with you about my family,” he tells me, and when he lifts his head and turns to look at me, he continues, “I haven’t spoken to them for years. There’s pretty much no relationship there anymore.”
“Why? What happened?”
He shifts around on the bed to face me, taking one of my hands in his. “You know that I was engaged once,” he starts, and I nod. “We dated all through college. I asked her to marry me at the start of our final year. She was practically family at that point, and both of our families had grown close. Everything was set and booked. Invitations were out, and I had bought this house. A month before the wedding, I went by my parents’ loft in Norman, where my brother was living at the time while finishing his MBA. I had a key to the place too, and when I stopped by to pick up some boxes of mine that were stored in the attic, her car was there.” His hand tightens around mine. “I could hear them as soon as I walked in, but for some fucked-up reason, I needed to see it. So, I walked to his room, and there they were. My brother and the girl who wore my ring on her finger, fucking each other.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “What did you do?”
“I lost my shit on them. I threw my fist into my brother more times than I can count, ripped the ring off her fucking finger while she cried and cowered in the corner, and then I left.”
“Did she say why?”
“Some shit about how they didn’t plan it and that they loved each other. Honestly, at that point, I was so pissed, I didn’t care what their excuses were. Apparently, it had been going on for months,” he tells me. “Shit fell apart so fast, and I was a fucking wreck. I had no clue until then how much one person could destroy another.”
His eyes reveal a brokenness in him I’ve never seen before. A scar embedded so deep it frays all his edges—edges I assumed were smooth.
“What did you do?”
“She broke my heart and gave hers to Josh. It was a seamless transition on her part. I don’t think that woman has a conscience bone in her body. But like I said, she really fucked me up. It put a huge strain on my parents too, so I did the only thing I could do, I bowed out and made their lives easier when I joined the Army.”
“That’s why you enlisted?”
“I was lost,” he admits. “It was a dark time.”
“But your family . . .”
“The military was my family at that point. Still is. Even though most of us are out now and we all live far apart from each other, my combat brothers are just that—my brothers.”
And this I have come to know. I’ve never met any of his friends, but he talks about them often and keeps in close contact.
“I lost touch with everyone back home. It was easier to just leave them all behind. My mother would send me letters, but they only served as salt for my wounds, so I stopped reading them after I found out Josh married her during my first deployment. I could tell life had moved on for all of them, but I was still dealing with it.”
“And they have kids now?”
“Two. A boy and a girl. I’ve never met them. I haven’t seen or spoken to anyone aside from my mom since I’ve been back.”
“That’s a long time to go without your family.”
“Like I said, I have a family, it just isn’t them. I’ve been gone for too long, it’s just better this way, especially now that little kids are in the picture.”
I lean in and hug him, feeling every bit of the pain he’s been carrying around for so many years. It’s hard to know how to react, because I don’t have the experiences behind me to understand the true magnitude of his devastation. It’s another reminder of how much life there is between us, but he closes the gap in more ways than one when he leans back against the headboard and pulls me on top of his lap.
With my legs straddling him, he holds me close when he says, “I’ve always been too weak to admit that to anyone.”
“There’s nothing weak about you.”
He pulls me down to him and our lips ghost against each other’s, a touch so soft it could make you cry. His breath becomes mine, and I sigh in the wake of his gentle touch, “I love you so much.”
He then presses his mouth to mine, and I taste his need as his tongue caresses mine. His hands slide under my top and over my breasts, palming me with just the right amount of pressure. I lose myself in an instant, wanting more of everything he has to offer when he touches me like this.
My lips drag along the roughness of his jaw and down the curve of his neck as he unhooks my bra.
“Lift your arms,” he murmurs in a low gruff, and when I do, he slips off my sweater and bra.
Over the past month, David and I have been intimate countless times, enough that my insecurities have mostly dissipated. So, when he rolls my nipples between his fingers, I slump my body down to his, moaning in delicious pleasure.
I gather the hem of his shirt in my hands and peel it off him, exposing the carved muscle along his stomach and broad shoulders. He leans forward and lays me down on my back. His mouth drops over my nipple, his tongue lapping over it while he sucks gently on me.
I open my legs, needy for his touch, and when he settles himself between my thighs, he’s already hard. Pushing against him, I sway my hips up while his fingers work quickly at the waist of my pants. He pulls them, along with my panties, down my legs and then cups me in his hand.
Staring down at me, he takes a finger and drags my arousal for him over my most delicate parts. But it isn’t enough as I reach down between our bodies to unzip his pants and take him in my hand. He so hot to the touch, soft and hard all at the same time, and I wrap my fingers around him. I stroke him the way he likes as he slips a finger inside of me.
My head rolls back, and he kisses my neck while we continue to pleasure each other. We take our time, in no rush for this to end any time soon.
“God, you’re so warm,” he breathes into my skin,
I love how he talks to me when we’re together like this, making me feel like a woman.
He drags his finger out, sliding it through my folds before pushing back inside me. “Yes,” I moan, and he does it again and again until I can’t remain still, and I start to move my hips in sync with his hand. Everything melts and blurs with the attention he’s giving me, that I don’t even notice when he slips the condom on.
With him up on his knees between my legs, he pushes my thighs open as he sinks himself inside me. My hands grip his arms as he goes deep, and he moans, “Fuck, I love how your tiny body feels wrapped around me.”
He takes his time, sliding out, inch by inch, a pleasure so intense it borders on torture. I lift my head and look down between us, watching as he pumps slowly in and out of me. It’s a sight so erotic that it ignites a rush of warmth through my core.
David groans in delight, and when I look up at him, he smiles, “You like watching me inside of you?”
I blush. “Yes.”
“Open wider.” He slips his thumb in his mouth and then drops it to my clit. My hips buck when he starts rubbing me in soft circles. He sits between my legs as he continues to make love to me and touch me so tenderly. “Do you like this?”
Unable to speak as he drives me higher, I nod. He slips his other hand through mine, holding it securely in his, whispering I love yous as my body falters. He keeps his thumb moving, and as time fades between us, electricity ignites beneath skin and bone, and I’m thrown off kilter. The moment my hand trembles in his, he lays his body on top of mine while he continues to rub my clit.
“I want to make you come, babe. I want you to feel how good it can be.”
I close my eyes and pleasure builds. Patiently, he takes his time, never letting up as he circles his thumb over and over and over again. My knees clench and quiver against his hips. Heat starts to build low in my belly, a new, delightfully exquisite tightness that I want to grab on to and run from at the same time with the way he’s making my body feel for the very first time.
When all sensations peak, and the air becomes too thick to breathe, my back arches off the bed in utter abandon. I throw my head up into the crook of his neck, releasing a loud whimper when I lose control over my body. A sizzle of pure euphoria rips through my softest parts, firing through my system, sending me to a place I’ve never been before. A place I’m not sure I ever want to come back from.
Locking my body to his, I feel him swell and throb inside me. He moans as he loses himself with me, thrusting deeply as my muscles pulse around him, and for the first time, I’m finally able to reach this level of intimacy with him. Sparks of light flash from above, falling in glittering shimmers over us, burning our souls as we cling desperately to each other. My body has never ached so beautifully, and I know without a doubt that I want nothing else in this world except to belong wholly to him.
“Don’t ever leave me.”
“I’ll never,” he promises.