He laughs and shakes his head. “You are impressively weird.”
Oops, I’ve said my fantasy out loud.
“But you’ll do it, right?”
“When’s your birthday?”
“July.”
“Yeah, okay, but my birthday is in August and I have a different fantasy I want us to try out.”
I’m so excited I squirm. “Oh my gosh! Tell me! Please don’t say French maid. I’ll do it, but it’s so cliché, monsieur.”
“No, hear me out.” He talks while he rolls his hips against me. I’m going to orgasm in five milliseconds. I yank my pajama shorts down and my panties go with them. His boxer briefs disappear next. When he brushes across my bare, sensitive skin, I emit a delicate exhale.
“Tell me,” I urge him.
“I’ll be in all black, a tuxedo or a suit.”
His hand is dragging down to rub circles against my thigh. I can hardly listen.
“You’ll be in white.”
“Uh huh.”
My eyes flutter closed as his thumb brushes me right where I need it to. In a few seconds my toes will curl and I will dig my fingers into his shoulders to show him just how much I like what he’s doing.
“Cake.”
“I’m not following.”
“Rings.”
His words distract me from my impending orgasm. I jerk away from him and take hold of his wrist, hitting pause on this little lovefest. It’s torture, but I need my wits about me for the next few seconds.
“That sounds like a wedding!” I exclaim.
“What?”
“This scenario you’re describing!”
“Ohhhhh…” He laughs like he feels bad for me. “You thought I meant…yeah, I could see how—”
I narrow my eyes. “Ha ha haa.”
He’s smiling, so damn pleased with himself.
“I just like how you look in white,” he says, tearing open the condom wrapper. “And to be fair, most of your days involve some form of cake.”
I’m kissing his mouth between every word just to get him to shuddup. This isn’t a proposal, obviously. We’ve only been dating a few weeks, and I refuse to tell our future children that their father proposed to me when we were naked and tumbling around in the sheets.
We’re still laughing and teasing when he pushes into me all at once, and then I’m so, so full and happy. The two sensations almost overwhelm me.
He holds some of his weight up so he can kiss my cheek and neck. I tilt my head to give him easier access, and I remember the papers I found downstairs in his photo box.
“I wanted you so bad. I knew we couldn’t be together, but…I just wanted to know I wasn’t suffering alone. I wanted to hear your unfiltered thoughts. Was I even on your radar back then?”
He pulls back to cradle my cheeks and his blue eyes dart back and forth between mine. He looks deeply concerned.
“You want to know if I saw you the day you ran in after school in your loose-fitting uniform? You could barely look me in the eye when I thanked you for the tour of that apartment, and you tripped over your words. Or what about the day I moved in? You made me lemonade. I still remember your flip-flops.”
“Beau.”
“How about when we went to visit my mom? You were wearing those damn jean shorts—I nearly drove straight to the state penitentiary. Or what about when I taught you how to dance in your kitchen and you were crying, but you didn’t want me to see? You were so earnest and young, yet I couldn’t help you. I couldn’t beat Preston up, and I couldn’t make him see how beautiful you were—worse, I didn’t want him to see.”
Laughter and tears bubble out of me. “I was so in love with you that day you drove off. How dare you break my teenage heart?”
I’m teasing, and yet it seems some small part of me still demands atonement. With every soft touch, he taps into a long-buried time capsule of forgotten angst. Feelings don’t have an expiration date. Movies make it seem like years of aching are all erased the moment love becomes requited, but it’s not always that easy to hit refresh, because realistically, I don’t want to leave behind the painful moments that formed the basis of this fierce love. It’s the reason it feels so good to be lying here underneath him. It’s why I’ll never take for granted the things in life that can be washed away without notice.
He smiles, but senses a sincerity in my playful question.
“Lauren?”
His hard eyes stay fixed on me until I meet his gaze.
“I love you.”
A tear slips down my cheek and he kisses it away.
“Forgive me,” he begs tenderly.
His hips roll gently, and his movements are just as pleading as his words.
“Forgive me.”
I nod and bury my face against his neck.
He sinks deep inside of me and stays there, kissing my cheeks and chin and neck. When he speaks, his whisper tickles the shell of my ear. “Tell me you love me too.”
A delirious, blissful laugh spills out of me. “Of course I love you, Beau. You were my first kiss.”
“And your last?” he asks teasingly.
I smile. “And my last.”