ISAAC
“Happy birthday, Mum,” I say, leaning in and kissing her cheek.
“My boy, my eldest. The best present I’ve had this birthday is you coming home,” her voice trembles with emotion.
I turn her toward my dad, and he smiles at me over her shoulder. I talked to him this week. Explained what I was going to do tonight. My parents have always supported me, no matter how scared, unsure, or against it they were.
The venue for tonight is the local town hall. It’s an old building with high ceilings and ornate décor. The hall is big and up on the stage is a DJ booth with two microphones for karaoke. There are a lot of people here tonight—family, friends, and well-wishers—all to help celebrate Mum’s birthday. Toby and Shelly sit at one of the tables chatting away. I hope like fuck they can make this work. Helena and Noah are dancing, and I wonder where Via is. I would have expected her to arrive with Helena or even Toby. Aunt Pea and Uncle Con are here, too, so she’s not arriving with them.
Frowning, I reach into my inside pocket feeling for my phone and bringing it out as I head for the door leading to the gardens out back. Just as I step outside and bring the phone to my ear, I hear her—Via. She’s singing. Her voice rises above everything and everyone, or maybe they’ve all gone quiet, surprised at her tone. She’s magnificent, but then I already knew she could sing. The first few words ring out, and I place the song—Alicia Keys ‘If I Ain’t Got You.’ Everything stills around me, and all I can hear is my heart beating and her voice. “Fuck me,” I murmur, my words catching in the middle.
Cutting the call, I slip the phone back in my pocket and stiffly walk back inside. Everyone is still like they’ve been frozen in time, but as I take a quick glance around, I see the amazement on their faces and the tears in the eyes of some, especially her mum. My eyes move back to Via, and I realise she’s singing to me. There must be a hundred people in this room, but her eyes are only for me.
I had this whole thing planned. I wanted to make a grand gesture. She’s fucked up my statement in the most perfect way possible. With every word, she explains how she feels about me, and that, coupled with her voice, only makes me want to hold her—to be the man she thinks I am.
The song finishes, but her eyes don’t leave mine. Applause roars all around me, but I don’t move my eyes from her. She blinks, seeming to come out of her haze, then stepping back, she bumps into a stool, and I lose her eyes. Before she can escape completely off stage, I jump the four feet up to the platform and grab the mic.
“I can’t sing,” I state, and I watch her back as she retreats. At my words, she freezes, the tenseness in her body keeps her spine rod like. I continue talking, looking at her rather than the audience who are still silently waiting for my revelation. “I’ll never be able to bless your ears with a perfect rendition of ‘Your Guardian Angel’” by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.” My eyes move to the crowd.
“For those of you not familiar, you should listen to that song. And for Via…” I say moving my eyes back to her. “You should know my heart is in those words, that song… I swear it was written to explain how I feel about you, baby.”
She still doesn’t turn to me, so I once again look at my audience wondering what reaction I’m receiving from my family. Apart from a couple of surprised-looking faces, no one seems angry. “The thing is, I’ve loved Via forever. Not one day in my life has passed without her being on my mind, in my heart, and my reason for getting through the day.” I hear a quiet sob and look back to Via. She’s facing me now and even with the constant trail of tears, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“I’ve lived my whole life for you. I know Toby told you, and I can’t talk about it here…” I say gesturing to the room, “… but I don’t regret a single action I took. I’ll always protect you, I’ll always put you first, and I’ll always love you. You’re my forever, for always.”
Dropping the mic, I take a tentative step toward her. “I know you have a wall built up now, and it’s of my own creation, but I can promise you, Via, the pain I caused you, I’ve felt it to my bones probably ten times worse than you, and I’m sorry.”
Moving another step, I bring my hand up to her face rubbing the back of my hand down her cheek, wiping away the tears. “I’m sorry. Forgive me, baby,” I whisper. I need her to decide, it has to come from her.
Via looks up at me, her long lashes sprinkled with tears and her face blotchy from crying. Slowly she tells me her answer. Leaning into me, going up on tiptoes, she presses her soft, parted lips against mine. My heart bursts as though flames lick through my insides, and I want to cry with happiness. I yearn to pull her to me, to devour her, but I’m mindful of where we are, so reluctantly I pull away.
“I know we have a lot to talk about, but I’m all in, baby. It’s you and me, Via. Tell me you’re all in, too,” I whisper to her, our eyes locked, and our faces nearly touching.
“I’m all in, Isaac.” She gives me the sweetest four words I’ve ever heard, and my chest swells.
LIV
“Come on,” Isaac says grabbing my hand as I get out of his car. The party tonight has changed my life, but I’m scared to believe it’s real, I keep thinking I’ll wake up at any minute, home and alone. I slip my hand into his, and he squeezes it. Following him toward his front door, my mind catches up, and I stop, tugging back on his hold. “Via?”
“Is, is Shelly in there?” I hold up my other hand before he answers. “Look, I know you’re just friends, well more like family, and I like her, but this is our first night, and it needs to be just you and me tonight. My place is empty,” I explain.
“Shelly’s with Toby tonight. I made sure we’d be alone.” He smiles down at me.
I raise my eyebrow. “Thinking you were going to get lucky?” I tease.
Since he told the whole party how he felt about me, we haven’t had much time to talk, but I’m not sure we have much to clear up now. From what Toby told me coupled with Isaac’s honesty, I think I know all I need to.
Tonight we’ve danced, we’ve kissed, we’ve behaved like a normal couple and all the years, all the pain, all the misunderstandings have melted away. I know there will always be more to discuss, more to communicate and to be sure of, but not tonight… tonight I want to communicate with him in an altogether different way.
Isaac stops at my words and hooks me under my armpits, lifting me up and turning, pinning me to the wall next to the door. Holding me up like this means our heads are level, and as he stares directly into my eyes, his lips moan against mine. “Tonight, tomorrow, the rest of my life… I’m already lucky.”
“I love your soft talk, baby, I do.” Pushing our mouths even closer, I’m touching my lips to his, so every word I utter he feels. “But right now, I want more than soft, I want hard,” I tell him smiling.
I wait a beat feeling his breath on my mouth, the movement of his chest against my own.
“Fuck, yeah,” he murmurs, and suddenly throwing me up in the air, his hands pull away from my armpits, and he places them under my arse drawing me back tight to him. He nuzzles my throat kissing and biting. “Fuck, yeah, I’ll give you hard.” The desire ramps up and his mouth is on mine, plundering, loving, owning me. I can feel the brickwork of the wall scratching my back and digging into my shoulder blades, but the sting only adds to the desire I already feel.
His tongue sweeps inside and connects with mine—the touch is like an electric spark which shoots straight between my legs. One of his hands travel from my arse, up my side, and he grips the back of my neck, pulling me closer, fusing our mouths together as though I’m his life force. I feel him move as we kiss, and my back is pulled away from the wall. I take a split second to wonder how he’s navigating us while kissing me, but I just don’t care enough to think the answer through. Absently I hear a click, and we’re moving again. Then there’s the slam of a door, and after a few more steps we start rising. I drag my lips from his. “Where are we going?” I pant out.
I feel his lips near my ear. “You wanted hard… I’m doing as I’m told, baby.”
A salacious smile spreads across my face.
I bounce as Isaac drops me on what I assume is his bed. He kneels between my legs and stares down at me.
“You okay?” I whisper.
He blinks, and his mouth curves in a delicious smile. “I’m perfect.”
I look down his body and back up to meet his eyes. “Yes. Yes, you are,” I tell him.
At my words, fire ignites in his eyes, and he pulls his top off. I let my gaze eat up the planes of his chest and the cut of his abdomen. Stretching my fingertips, I scrape my nails down his naked upper half. He hisses as I make contact, and that reaction zings through me. With a groan, I drag my hand away and move to my dress which has buttons all the way down the front. Slowly, teasingly, I undo each button. Isaac watches, his eyes glued to my hands moving down my body. Once I finish, I take my hands away and place them palm down on the bed each side of my body. I may have unbuttoned my dress, but I want Isaac to be the one to pull it off, to unveil me. Before we left the party, I used the bathroom. I made a small adjustment to my clothing… for him.
A muscle in Isaac’s jaw pulses as his stare moves the length of me. “What are you waiting for?” I taunt.
His eyes flick up to mine, and he grins, devilishly. “Trying not to rip your clothes and take you so hard that I can’t have you again for three days. It’s been a while for me, Via.”
“Me, too,” I confess, the tone changing.
“You were my last,” he admits, and I feel like crying. Strangely, whenever I’d imagined Isaac over the last year, he’d never been alone. Now I know he was, now I know he was waiting for me.
“I love you,” the words spill out before I have a chance to stop them.
His look changes, his hand closes in on my face, and his thumb tenderly caresses my mouth.
“You’re my forever, for always.” Leaning down, he touches my mouth. “For always, Via.”
I can’t stop the tear that springs free, but Isaac kisses it away. Slowly, he clutches either side of my dress in his hands and pulls it open revealing my naked body underneath.
“You stripped bare for me?” he questions without tearing himself from staring at my body.
“I did, just before we left the party, I wanted to do something for you.”
Isaac grabs my hand and places it over his jeans and his bulging dick. “You do something to me naked or not, Via. You always have.” His voice is raspy, and I tug at the buttons of his jeans. He moves away from me, and I whimper at the loss of contact. Isaac smirks down at me and finishes unbuttoning his jeans, pulling them off and revealing his naked form. I swallow and lean up onto my elbows divesting myself of my dress one arm at a time. I lay back down completely naked matching my man.
“I’m on the pill,” I tell him, wanting to feel his skin against mine in every way.
“I’m clean,” he replies.
“I trust you,” I admit, a rawness in my tone.
Isaac closes his eyes for a moment like my words have saved him.
“I love you,” he breathes out.
“I know.” And I do. Finally, I really do.
He places his open palm at my throat and looks down at our connection. Then dragging his hand down my body, he shows attention to every inch of my skin that he can reach before finding his way between my legs. Slipping his fingers inside me, I gasp. He claims my mouth again as his fingers stroke me until I can feel my climax just out of reach.
“Isaac, I need to feel you,” I cry out as my muscles lock tight.
He grins, his eyes hooded and just like that, his fingers pull out, and in one motion his dick fills me.
“Ahhh,” I moan, biting down on my bottom lip.
Every part of us is touching, he’s melded to me. As he kisses me again, his tongue ravaging my mouth, he moves his length in and out of me, slowly, exquisitely, possessing me, loving me. He doesn’t give me hard and soft, fast and slow. He doesn’t fuck me, no… he makes love to me. Isaac James shows me why it’ll always be me for him. As we crest the wave of our orgasms together, he proves his words that I’m his forever, for always.
Isaac shifts us, so he’s lying on the bed, and he pulls me on top of him. He swipes the sticky, damp hair from my cheek and kisses me softly on the forehead.
“You gave it all up for me,” I say softly.
“I’d give up my life for you, Via. You have to know that by now.”
“I do,” I tell him honestly. “I believe in you, I always will.”
His eyes watch me, looking for something. Then he smiles. It’s beautifully breathtaking, and my heart aches—in such a good way—as it swells, more than I thought possible, with my love for him.
“I believe in us,” he replies. And I know, from here on out, we’ll be okay.