He’s a very skilled multi-tasker. At the same time, his other hand is on its own mission to my breast. He cups me with a firm palm. His thumb brushes over my tender and aching nipple.
I’m already soaked from all we’ve done tonight. And so thankful that I at least put on a pair of panties before we left the bedroom.
I reach down in his pants to clutch him. “Fuck,” he groans softly and thrusts forward on instinct. My ass digs into the cabinet, and I throb for a harder entry.
Quickly, he picks me up around the waist and sets me on the sink. Breath ejects from my mouth. Frizzed hair sticks to my lips.
My robe opens completely exposing my bare skin. But it doesn’t feel any cooler. I’m burning alive underneath his heady gaze.
“Thatcher,” I say his name like I’m pleading for him. I reach for the strings to his pants to tug him closer. My legs spread and he fits between them.
“We have to be quiet,” he whispers so softly. It’s barely audible even over the water gushing into the sink.
He bends down to kiss me. Lips on lips. His hands start to roam my body with an intensity that I thought we left in the bedroom.
Apparently, it’s here. Everywhere. As long as we’re together, I’m not sure it will disappear.
He slowly trails kisses down my neck. My breasts. Stopping to take my nipple into his mouth. I fist his hair and tremble.
Fingers digging into the soft flesh of my inner thighs, he releases my nipple and stands straighter. He takes all of me in for a moment. Back in the bedroom, I’d drink up the look he’s giving me. Like he could devour each and every inch of my body.
But for some reason, here under the bright bathroom lights, I suddenly stiffen like a wooden board. Frozen up.
He notices almost immediately, his eyes jumping up and digging into mine with concern.
“Jane.”
Don’t close your robe. I command myself. My breathing comes out in a weird panicked wave. This has never happened. Not once in all the times I’ve been with a guy. And I know what’s causing it. I do.
“Jane, please talk to me,” Thatcher says, worry cinching his voice. He actually raises it above a whisper, risking it.
I take a measured breath. “So you may have noticed that I have stretch marks,” I say briskly, trying to spit this out. “And I’ve never felt the need to explain them to any of my past friends-with-benefits. They didn’t need to know why I have a freckle on my butt cheek any more than why I have stretch marks on my belly.” I keep going, barely a pause. “But you’re different. I actually care what you think of me.” Because I really, really like him. More than I’ve ever liked anyone before.
I continue quickly, “And before you say anything, I just need to get this out.” I take a deeper breath and straighten my shoulders. “When I was nineteen…” I stop there because suddenly my eyes begin to water. Pressure wells on my chest. The opening to this story is like digging up a painful insecurity I’d long ago buried.
Shitshitshit.
“Jane,” he whispers. “You don’t have to say a fucking word, if you don’t want to. I like all of you. Every part.” He frowns. “Goddammit.” He curses under his breath and then shakes his head. “I’m really fucking sorry, if I ever gave you the impression that I didn’t.”
“No.” I balk. “You haven’t. Not once. This is just a sudden, old insecurity come to wreak havoc on me. I thought I’d put it to bed. Honest. It’s me.”
He looks deeper into me and then past me and his eyes narrow into blazed pinpoints. “If it wasn’t me—” He looks murderous.
I grab at the waistband to his pants. He nears again, his palms on my thighs. “You can’t fight them,” I say into a soft smile. His willingness to slay my enemies and any foe that has ever hurt me is so very attractive.
“I can. Physically, I can.” His muscles are pulled into taut bands. I have no doubt, he could destroy most men.
“I wish you could,” I rephrase. “But they’re long gone, and others are just nameless, faceless humans sitting behind a computer.” I take a breath and continue on, ready to explain. “When I was nineteen, I gained twenty pounds really quickly. Practically overnight it felt like. And out of the blue, these showed up. I lost some of the weight, but the marks are here to stay.”
I touch my belly where the white stretch marks have been for years. Though, they started out puffy and red. My weight has always fluctuated between ten and twenty pounds, and anything I gain goes directly to my hips and belly. I’m not plus-sized or curvy in all the right places. I’m not skinny. I’m not fat. I’m an odd in-between, a size that the media hardly ever shows. In the end, I consider myself chubby.
“When I noticed them forming, I was at Princeton,” I explain to Thatcher. “Alone. My best friend was miles away, and I had barely anyone to talk to. So I went to the internet. Which—was a massive oversight. Because all I could find were women talking about how they take pride in their mommy stretch marks. They’re badges of honor. And they are . But the more and more I searched for people to make me feel better about mine, all I could find were horrible, demeaning blog posts and comments in forums. They called them permanent, everlasting reminders of a mistake . Then they continued on explaining how it should be a wake-up call to a lifestyle change.” I shake my head. “Those were the last words I should have read at the time.” All I wanted was for someone to reach out of the computer and give me a hug.
To tell me that I’m beautiful. And that I never made a mistake. That my body is mine. And it’s unique. And it happened to say you’re going to get stretch marks this month. But that’s okay. Because it loves you. You love it.
And really that’s all that matters.
And I did eventually hear all of those things.
When I went home and my mom hugged me and told them to me.
In the bathroom, Thatcher still looks like he could go into a computer and commit murder. “Please tell me you didn’t take those shitbags’ advice.”
“I almost did,” I say. “I started a diet and forced myself into a gym every day for two weeks. But I was so unhappy. I don’t like working out to lose weight. Now I only exercise when I know it’ll make me happy.”
It’s not every day. Sometimes I go for months without it. I do what feels right. It’s how I’ve learned to love myself despite what other people think.
“I admire that about you,” he says outright. I almost think I hear him wrong, or it was a slip up. That he was just thinking it in his head. But he keeps going. “You do things that make you happy. That’s hard for some people.”
“Is it hard for you?” I wonder.
He stares into me like he’s thinking about something in particular. “Sometimes.”
I’m about to ask for more details, but his hands rise back to my soft hips. “Jane.” He looks at me with a level of seriousness that steals my breath. “I love your stretch marks.”
He says as plainly and definitively as he said I love your breasts earlier.
I smile.
“I love your lips,” I tell him. “They are quite soft and kissable.”
Light reaches his eyes. “I love your freckles.”
“I love your ears.” They’re prominent when he tucks his hair behind them. They frame his face very well.
He leans in closer, our mouths a breath apart. “I love your thighs.” His hands dip down between them. His lips on mine. Our tongues caress in a frenzied, hot kiss.
I only part to breath out, “I love your throat.”
He’s a heartbeat away from a laugh.
“It’s very…” I run a finger down his Adam’s apple, sending chills down my own arms. “I love it.”
He nods like he’s taking in this fact. “Well, I love your armpits.” He lifts me up under them and sets me on the ground. We continue complimenting each other. Loving different things. Clothes are shed until I’m disrobed and bare and his pants are in a heap on the ground.
We’re breath and limbs and I’ve found myself straddling him on the bathroom floor. His shoulders rest against the glass of the closed shower door.