Deciding Tomorrow (5 page)

“Give that back,” I playfully snap, trying to snatch my stolen utensil. My attempts are useless, so I settle my hip against the counter again, crossing my arms. “Does my idea of romance scare you?”

“Just a little.” He tosses my spoon behind him and into the sink. “In an obsessively adorable way.”

“Adorable?”

“That’s what I said,” he taunts, taking another bite of ice cream.

“Not sexy?”

“Maybe if you did it in lace underwear. You have any of those?”

Stepping closer, I eliminate some of the physical space between our bodies.
God, he smells so good.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I ask, my voice seductively low.

“I might be interested.”

Another bite disappears between his lips. My chest expands as I inhale. The longing for his mouth as well as the ice cream escalates.

“Are you going to keep taunting me with that?” I play pout.  

“What? This?” He lifts the empty utensil. “Or this?” He intentionally licks his lips, tempting me further.

“You’re mean.”

He chuckles, dips his spoon into the creamy green-and-black dessert, and then gestures the tasty sweet bite in my direction. I give him an apprehensive look, not trusting his generosity.
This feels like a trick.

He raises the spoonful higher, and the ice cream’s coolness radiates, tingling the warmth of my lips. Measuring whether he’s playing a game or not, I tentatively open my mouth, and the tiny morsel on the spoon chills my tongue.

Brent sets the utensil on the counter and then gently presses his thumb against my icy lips, drawing a line along their shape. I shiver internally, and it’s not from the ice cream.

“Are you still teasing me?” I ask against his touch.

“I’ll let you figure that out.”

His fingers slide back toward the nape of my neck as he steps in closer. One side of his mouth twitches, and a dimple plays along his cheek. I close my eyes in anticipation of feeling his lips on mine, wanting them so bad.

The game is over.

Our noses meet, and he sucks in a whisper of air. His tongue escapes, moistly grazing my skin, and then his warm lips seal to my cool ones.

The world splits in half and melts away, leaving only us.

Brent opens his mouth, sliding his tongue between my lips, as he fully presses his body into me. Heavy breaths heave through his nose as he withholds grunts and growls from deep within. Reaching around, I grab his firm ass, pulling him closer. His toned body engulfs my space. He cinches my waist and lifts me easily onto the counter. I spread my legs, anxious for more, more of him.

I’m craving, wanting, barely resisting.

We continue to kiss as my hands explore his hair, face, shoulders, and backside. Brent’s lips move fiercely with mine, trying to make up for forgotten and lost time. Their urgency is equally matched with my own every step of the way. His deft fingers make their way up and under my shirt before unsnapping my bra, freeing my breasts. Disconnecting our kiss, he lifts my clothes from my back and pulls them over my head, exposing my entire upper body.

“Too fast?” he asks, my top and undergarment in his hand.

“I don’t know.” My fingers undo the top button of his shirt.

He drops my clothes to the floor.

“Does this feel too fast?” I ask.

“Not to me.”

We measure one another as my hands make their way down his shirt until reaching the place where it’s tucked in at his waist. I release the fabric from his pants and assist him in removing the top layer down his toned arms. Grasping his collar at the back of his neck, Brent tugs the remaining undershirt over his head, revealing his chest.

The sight is beyond breathtaking.

Under the dome kitchen light, we candidly assess one another’s half-naked forms for the first time in years.

I’m amazed.

I can barely comprehend.

Last weekend, Brent and I messed around a little, but our clothes remained on, and the view was nothing like this. My apartment was dark, only illuminated by the faint trickling moonlight. Now, there’s so much to see.

Instinctually, my fingers trace the scrolling Latin letters inked on his left pectoral—
Luctor et Emergo
. My Latin is a little rusty, but the phrase is familiar to me. It means,
I struggle and emerge
.

In high school and college, Brent always had a curiosity for Latin phrases and poems. He was intrigued by the intellect of the words drafted by the poets from years ago, and he would often share them with me. I was never as interested as he was by the dead language, but some things I do remember.

“When did you get this?” I ask, my other hand sliding up the length of his defined arm.

His hand grazes from my collarbone to my left shoulder while his other palms the curve of my waist. “A few years ago.”

“In Sweden?”

“Denmark, but yeah, while I was over there.” He lightly draws a line down my shoulder to where a prominent scar, another mark in my history, ends near the bottom of my bicep. “What’s this from?”

“A window,” I admit.

His eyes dart to mine.

“In Florida.”

“A car?”

“At a party.”

He nods, contemplating.

“You’re still beautiful,” he whispers. He wants to say more but doesn’t. Whatever it is, he keeps it to himself. Bending down, Brent tenderly kisses the five-and-a-half-inch pink line. “Tell me about it sometime?”

“Of course.”

I weave my right hand into his midnight hair while he takes his time planting his lips down my arm to the inside of my elbow. Getting to know him once again, my fingers ease their way along his neck and over his naked shoulder, and then they start to trace the black-and-gray lines etched into his upper arm. Two gears, the size of baseballs, are connected together and appear to be in motion due to the skills of a talented tattoo artist. Unfamiliar Latin inscriptions lie inside each.

“And these?” I ask.

Brent’s lips make their way back up my arm. Lifting his head from my skin, he points to the area in question. “The top one I got in Sweden when I first got there. The other one I had added when I arrived in L.A.”

“What do they mean?”

His index finger traces the script, circling the inside of the top gear. “
Perfer et obdura. Dolor hic tibi proderit olim
. Be patient and tough. Someday, this pain will be useful to you.”

I silently choke. “Oh, Brent.”

He slides my hand to the lower gear and guides my fingers over the letters inscribed there. “
Faber est quisque fortunae suae
. Every man is the architect of his own fortune.”

I trace the shapes, the pads of my fingers memorizing the etched words. “Tell me about them sometime?”

“Of course.”

Leaning forward, I place my lips near the rotating words while his hands float up my sides and over my ribs, hovering near my naked breasts. Brent kisses the soft space above my collarbone, holding his hands strong and in place, taking things no further.

Gradually, I lift my gaze to meet his, my fingertips flirting with the skin on his upper arms. We search one another, wordless and gauging, as we let the moment settle in. Apprehension, questions, desire, and so much more are dividing and joining us.

I wait.

A beat pulses in my ears.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

I wait to understand—to find out what he’s thinking, what he wants.

Smoothing his palms down the length of my arms, he nudges forward, kissing me delicately, chastely. Careful not to touch his body to mine, Brent leans in and whispers into my ear, “God, I want you. I’m barely…” His lips nip my earlobe. “I want to take you to my bed.”

“Then, take me.”

Without any hesitation, he slides his hands under my ass and lifts me from the cool granite. I hook my legs behind his back, wrap my arms around his neck, and press our bare chests together as he carries me down the hallway to his bedroom. Nerves slightly take hold, knowing what’s to come.

Last weekend, we came so close to this moment, but it never happened. A one-night stand was all that was expected just a week ago. This is something different. It’s us in our new beginning, and that almost scares me more.
What if what we find isn’t what we need or thought? What if what we were is nothing more than a glorified memory set on a pedestal to never be reached?

It’s a risk worth taking.

Starlight glimmers through the sliding glass door of the faintly lit bedroom. Brent gently lays me down on the bed and wastes no time as he begins planting his lips across my neck and then between my breasts before landing on my navel. His mouth caresses every detail of my skin as his fingers undo the button at my waist. I thread my hands into his hair as he pulls my pants over my hips to my thighs and releases my legs from the tight-fitting denim. Without taking a breath, he reaches up the length of my legs and removes my panties.

I am completely disclosed.

Curling my hands around my middle, I watch Brent watching me.

He lets out a shaky breath. “You really are flawless.”

“Come here.”

Bending between my legs, Brent guides my feet over his shoulders and kisses the space along my inner thigh, starting at my knee and landing right on my sex. His wicked warm, wet tongue slips into me, flirting and dancing through and over my folds, causing my breath to shorten and my legs to tense. One of his hands grips my ass tightly, and the other reaches up, kneading my breast. I arch my back and moan loudly as he devours me, licks me, finds me.

Grasping his ebony hair with one hand and clawing his back with the other, I pant heavily as the euphoric sensation builds within. Brent slows his tongue, kisses my mound one last time, and then crawls over my needy body.

“I want to see you,” he says, softly circling the pad of his thumb over my nipple. “Watch you.”

I nod my head, understanding what he wants, and reach down, hastily unfastening the button to his pants. His fingers tangle in my hair as he takes my mouth with his. I move my hands more feverishly, pushing down his clothing just below his knees. Pulling his lips from mine, Brent removes his pants and boxers from his legs and then joins me again, hovering.

He hesitates.

I open my mouth to speak at the same time that he reaches to the side of his bed. He pulls open a drawer and takes a condom in his hand. Apology is written across his features.

“I’m clean, but I just can’t without it…not like we used to.” His hand drifts between my breasts and continues lower until landing on the space just below my navel. “I can’t do that to you, or go through all of it again if something were to happen.”

“I can’t either.” I touch my forefinger to his mouth. “I’m clean, too, just so you know.”

A glimmer of light crosses his features, and his dimple dances. He kisses me quickly before sitting back and prepping himself. Coming back to me, Brent presses his hard-on against the space between my legs, and I seal my lids in anticipation of feeling him inside me once again. I brace myself for him, for us.

“Open your eyes,” he whispers.

I do as requested and gaze deeply into the eyes of the only man who has ever really known me—the
real
me, the person I try to shove away into a realm for no one else to know or see. It’s possible that person is meant only for him.

Brent reaches down and slowly guides himself into me as I hold my breath while gripping his shoulders.

I’m watching him watch me.

The feel of him all over me and inside me is so overwhelming.

It’s happiness, sadness, completeness…everything all at once.

“There you are,” he quietly says.

“You’re here, too.”

His hands entwine with my own, and we look into one another just like we used to—but not. It’s different. Pain, longing, regret, and loss are all around the edges, but who we are resonates from the fiery hollow within.

I see it.

He beams. He sees it, too.

Never wavering his focus, Brent rocks into me, holding my hands at either side of my head, as I open myself completely, allowing him to bury himself and everything he needs to deep within me. Our unspoken history wails in every movement. Agony hangs in the air, haunting. I take it. The longing, the distance, and the sorrow—they are mine to share with him as well. Every thrust is a release of those moments of grief and hurt from our past.

He licks his lips. “I missed this.”

“I really missed you.”

His lips join mine, kissing me deeply with layers of emotion. I suck on his tongue as he powers into me over and over and over again, faster and harder, freeing the once impenetrable sentiments into the air.

“Brent,” I cry out.

“Ruby,” he growls. “What do you do to me?”

I hook my legs behind his back, pulling him into me as profoundly as possible, and I let out a guttural moan with…

Every.

Intentional.

Heated.

Thrust!

The fire inside me burns and explodes into an uncontrollable fury of pleasure. I fall apart in every way. My body is pulsing, beating, as I completely let go while watching the wonderment in Brent’s eyes. We’re stripping away layers of doubt and remorse. He’s filling the pit of vacancy with him, this moment, us.

Brent slams into me a final time, burying the last bit of shadowing torment.

He’s digging his way back into me, breathing me in, taking everything that I am.

He’s doing it, and I love it.

SIX

Under the warmth of the duvet, wrapped in Brent’s arms, I relax completely in these strange yet familiar surroundings. It’s been a long day full of many discoveries, emotions, and travel. Back in Chicago, the place where my internal clock ticks, it’s almost three o’clock in the morning. The man next to me is nearly asleep, breathing steady into the darkness. I haven’t felt this content in many years.

“If I haven’t told you already,” Brent says softly against my cheek, “I’m really glad you came out.”

I nuzzle further into his chest. “I couldn’t imagine not seeing you again.”