Before I Let Go, page 33
I watched her nightly routine, something I used to love doing. Watching as she wrapped her blowout and tied a brightly patterned scarf around her hair. Washing her face and all the stuff that goes into her skin care routine. All these rituals performed while she wore a lacy see-through gown revealing her breasts, the dark nipples poking through a bodice barely equipped to handle all that Yasmen. The plump-peach ass. Glimpses of her long legs through hip-high slits. All of it laid a brick between my legs by the time she climbed into bed beside me.
Between the memory of last night and this morning wood, I’m hard again, and let her know, pressing into her from behind.
“Wow,” she mumbles in a scratchy-sexy voice colored with humor. “Well, good morning to you too.”
“I wanna fuck you,” I mutter into the satiny skin of her neck, sliding my hand from her hip up to cup her naked breast. When I pluck the nipple with my thumb, her breath stutters and she rolls her hips into me.
“Well, come get it.”
Say less.
I lift up on my elbow and gently roll her onto her back. Sunlight bathes her face in amber, painting her lashes as shadows on her cheeks. Her mouth is extravagant, the bow finely sketched, the bottom lip juicy and kiss-swollen because I can’t ever stop kissing her once I start. The stubble from my jaw and chin left faint marks on her collarbone, the slope of her shoulders. I pull the sheet away, searching for more evidence that I’ve been there, claimed her last night. She wanted it hard and I gave it to her. It was by turns feral and tender, rough, right. So damn right.
“You just staring all day?” she asks, reaching up to trace my eyebrow with her thumb. “Or you doing something about it?”
I trail a finger down her chest, over her stomach, ending between her legs, parting her, rubbing her. I slip one finger in, finding her hot and slick. Give her another. She licks her lips and twists her hips, coaxing me even deeper. I brush the underside of her breast, sending my hand on a slow journey down her rib cage. Dropping my mouth to her breast, I set a rhythm of licking and sucking that has her grinding onto my hand.
“Si, it’s so good.”
I can’t stop watching her get hers. The way her pretty face goes slack and she bites her lip and sometimes, when it’s really good, a tear might slip down her cheek. Sometimes I wish I could cry as easily. That’s one release I haven’t experienced in years. Having this again when I never thought we would—yes, it feels hot and frenzied and wild.
But it also feels like a gift.
I can’t help but wonder…when will it be taken away from me?
It’s like she’s mine again and I don’t know what to do with that. Shouldn’t trust it. Do I feel like hers? Is she turned the hell out? Because I am, and I have no idea where this is going or how it ends any way other than me wrecked like I was when she left me the first time.
She’s loud when she comes. She grips my wrist, winding her hips, dropping her legs open when I brush my thumb over her in rapid strokes that push her over the edge. I’m transfixed watching her, wanting to stretch it out as long as I can, despite the urgent demand of my own body. Her laugh is husky, her chest heaving with the last of her orgasm.
“What are you looking at?” she asks.
“You.”
I pull my fingers out and paint the silky skin inside her thigh with her essence.
“Don’t look too close.” She chuckles and pulls the sheet to cover herself. “Morning light is harsh.”
“You’re as beautiful as you’ve always been.” I tug the sheet away, exposing the long, curvy, brown length of her body again.
“You do see the lumps and stretch marks, right?” She grins, and it’s the perfect mix of confidence and modesty she’s always had.
“Know what I see?” I ask, kissing between her breasts and down to her belly.
She looks at me through her lashes, cupping my head and caressing my neck. “What?”
I kiss her hip, brushing my lips over the small rings of Saturn etched into her skin by her first pregnancy. “I see Deja.”
I lick at the concentric sunburst around her belly button. “I see Kassim.”
I caress the slightly raised C-section scar stretched between her pelvic bones. “I see Henry.”
When I look up her eyes have sobered, saddened a little, but still burn hot watching me worship her.
“This body gave me my children,” I tell her, sliding down to lift her knees over my shoulders. “And it will always be beautiful to me.”
I drop my mouth to her, losing myself in her taste, her wetness on my lips and cheeks, clutching her ass to bring her closer. She’s a luxury I can’t bring myself to sip. I slurp, uncouth and uncivilized in my need for as much as I can get.
“Jesus, Si.” Her hands frame my head, urging me closer. “Baby, I already came.”
“Come again.” I chuckle, sucking her into my mouth, gripping her thighs, torn between spending the whole morning here pleasing her and pushing into her right now to satisfy myself.
When she’s limp, head scarf off and tossed across the room, I kiss my way back up her stomach and find her mouth, feeding her the taste of her own pleasure. She opens greedily, sucking my tongue into her mouth, nails digging into my ass, urging my hips between her legs, reaching between us to pull on me.
“Want you on top,” I mumble against her lips, shifting until I’m lying on the bed, pulling her up to straddle my hips.
“You just wanna watch my titties bounce.” She laughs, cupping them, pushing them together because she knows it drives me insane.
“You ain’t wrong. Now stop playing.”
She widens her legs over me, holding my eyes with hers as she guides me inside. It’s a tight, hot, slick channel. I bring my knees up to her back. She presses her palm to my chest and rolls her hips, twisting me in deeper.
“Yas,” I grit out. “Keep doing that.”
I sit up, framing her hips with my hands, kiss her breasts. She links her ankles at the base of my spine, bracing one hand behind her on the bed and hooking her elbow at my neck. Our eyes lock as a storm of lust rolls in between us. Her expression wrenches almost like she’s in pain. Moments like these feel so good they do hurt. Hurts that it’s this perfect and that it has to end; that it’s fleeting, yet indelible. That the feel of her will be tattooed onto my skin the way I hope that mine will be on hers.
That’s how it is with us.
I come, gripping her hips, pushing up into her, flooding her with a stream of heat and bliss that leaves me spent and breathing hard. Her hair is everywhere, spilling around her shoulders, strands clinging to her cheeks. She brushes her fingers over my chest, traces the muscles in my arms.
“You just keep getting better, don’t you?” she asks, a slight smile curving her lips.
“Trying.” I laugh, running my palms down the smooth plane of her back and squeezing her ass. She caresses the stubble on my chin, traces my cheekbones.
“I’ll miss you when you’re in Charlotte.”
“Don’t remind me. At least it’s a quick trip. I’ll be back Tuesday.” I pull myself up to sit straighter, resting my shoulders against the headboard with her still straddling my lap. “You sure you can’t come with me?”
We both know she can’t. The kids have school and Kassim has basketball and she has commitments for the Skyland Association.
“You and Harvey got it.” She leans forward and kisses down my cheek, down my throat. “Give Ken and Merry my best.”
“It feels full circle in a way, right? Us expanding to Charlotte the way we wanted to years ago?”
She pulls back to watch me closely, because the expansion isn’t the only thing we’ve come back to. We’ve come back to each other. Not with rings and vows and promises. Those proved to be flimsy, but we’ve come back to this. To the heat we’ve only ever found together. To the burn of our bodies. The singe of our skin. Every time I’m in bed with her it feels like I leave pieces of myself in the sheets. That’s not what this was supposed to be, but I don’t know how to resist the deep, volatile pull that always draws us inexorably together.
“I’ll make sure to check on things at the restaurant while you’re gone,” she says.
“Don’t stress. You got enough on your plate. Anthony and Vash got it.”
A frown sketches between her brows and her smile fades, lips tightening. I link our fingers across my chest.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” She drops her eyes to our hands, shaking her head.
“Yas.”
She closes her eyes, biting her lip. “I don’t like to think of you this way with…her.”
Well, damn. Didn’t expect that. “You mean with—”
“Vashti.” She opens her eyes, but they’re clouded with emotion. “I understand I have no right to feel that way. We weren’t together. We’re divorced. I get it, but the thought of her being with you like this drives me a little crazy.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, my throat constricting.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know, but I’m sorry it hurts you.” I choke out a laugh. “If it makes you feel any better, I nearly lost my mind watching you kiss Mark on your first date.”
Her startled eyes meet mine. “How’d you see…Huh?”
“Security camera. Kitchen feed.”
She searches my face for a beat before glancing down.
“Nothing more ever happened with him. He was…” She shrugs. “I guess I just needed to feel like I was moving on since you were, but there was never any chance of more with him.”
I nod, letting that soothe my savage thoughts a little bit.
“Do you want to ask me anything about my relationship with her?” I squeeze her fingers until she looks back to me. “You can.”
“Did you love her?”
Her question is instant, as if springing from a brooding curiosity. Not if the sex was good or about how we were together or asking me to make comparisons, which I couldn’t do. No one has ever compared to Yasmen. I’m assuming no one ever will.
“No.” I can give her that. “I told her from the beginning it was my first try at dating since our divorce, and I wasn’t ready for anything that serious.”
“Could you have? Loved her, I mean.”
Maybe if I’d never had you.
I don’t say it aloud, but surely she knows she’s ruined me for everyone else.
“I don’t think so,” I settle on saying. “It wasn’t…like this. Nothing’s ever been like this.”
“No.” She shakes her head, passing her thumb across my mouth, her eyes possessive. “Nothing’s ever been like this.”
We stare at each other, soaking in the afterglow of our lovemaking, relishing the abandonment of our bodies and the stark truth of our words. We both know this has gone way beyond the casual thing I thought we could reduce it to. God, I was a fool to think anything with Yasmen could ever be tamed.
A sound downstairs shatters the silence. The door opening and footsteps in the foyer entrance.
“Crap,” Yasmen says, eyes going wide and panicked.
She scrambles off me, falling on the floor completely nude, but grabbing for the sheets. I leap from the bed, reaching for my jeans, stuffing my legs in as fast as I can. It happens so quickly. Footsteps pound up the stairs and Deja’s voice reaches us just before she does.
“Mom! It’s me,” she yells. “Lupe got sick, so I came home. I didn’t have breakfast. I’m starving.”
We were here alone and didn’t even bother closing the bedroom door. My daughter stands there, rooted to the spot, eyes like saucers, darting between me—shirtless, in jeans that are zipped, not buttoned, belt hanging loosely around my waist—and Yasmen, draped toga-style in love-mussed sheets with actual hickeys visible at the top curve of her breast and scattered along her neck and shoulders.
“Dad?” Deja’s voice squeaks up an octave. “Mom? Oh, my God.”
“Day,” I say, surprised at the evenness of my own tone. “Close the door.”
“But, you—”
“Go wait for us downstairs.” I give her a look that won’t tolerate back talk, nodding to the door. “Close.”
She scowls, outrage or some intense emotion on her face before she slams the door behind her.
I walk over to Yas, cupping her face, tipping her chin up with my thumb. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” She drops her head to my chest and releases a long breath. “Did you see her face? This is bad.”
“Get dressed.” I grab my T-shirt from the floor and pull it over my head. “I’ll go talk to her.”
“But—”
“Babe.” I dip to bring our eyes level. “We aren’t doing anything wrong. This isn’t how we wanted her to find out, but it is what it is. We’ll talk to her. I would have liked more time before we had this conversation, but if we’re together, this was inevitable.”
We’re together.
Her head lifts at my words and something melts in her eyes.
I drop a quick kiss on her lips and slap her butt, hoping to ease some of the tension. “Come down when you’re ready.”
When I enter the kitchen, Deja’s foraging in the pantry. Gripping a box of cereal, she glances over her shoulder. We stare at each other for long seconds until it feels like the moment will snap if one of us doesn’t speak.
“You hungry?” I ask, nodding to the box of cereal.
“Lupe was sick,” she explains again in a rush instead of answering my question. “So I walked on home early. It’s just a couple of blocks. I didn’t call because…”
Because she hadn’t expected to come home and find her divorced parents in bed together.
“All right.” I walk farther into the kitchen, the hardwood floor cold beneath my bare feet. “Pancakes?”
Apparently taking her cue from the unnatural calm I found from God knows where, she answers.
“With blueberries?” She puts the cereal back on the shelf and takes out pancake mix instead.
“If we have ’em.” I open the fridge, check the crisper, and spot a container half full of blueberries. “You’re in luck.”
She sets the mix on the counter and reaches up to grab a clear glass bowl. In silence I assemble the ingredients, feeling her eyes on me, but taking time to gather my thoughts while she perches on the stool at the island, setting her elbows on the granite surface.
“I’m sorry you found out this way,” I tell her, glancing up from the ingredients I’m stirring in the bowl. “About your mom and me. We would have told you eventually.”
“When?” she demands, brows snapped together. “And why? Why is this even happening? How long has it been going on? Are you planning to—”
“Let me be very clear about something, Deja Marie.” I push the bowl aside and face her, arms folded across my chest. “Your mother and I don’t owe you explanations, but I’ll answer some of your questions because I love you and want to be as open with you as possible.”
“But, Daddy—”
“This is grown folks’ business. This is our business. We didn’t tell you because we don’t have to.” I pause to let that sink in before going on. “And we know you and your brother have experienced a lot of transition. We didn’t want to confuse you unnecessarily when this between your mom and me is…”
I let the sentence trail off because what is this Yas and I are doing? I think about her constantly. I want to be with her all the time. I think she feels the same way. It’s as good as, no, better than old times, but without the words that sealed everything in emotion. In commitment. I knew, though, as soon as Deja walked in and discovered us that I wasn’t willing to give it up. I won’t give Yasmen up. I’m willing to endure the indignity of having this damn conversation with my fourteen-year-old to keep Yas for as long as this lasts.
“Are you guys getting married again?”
“That’s not what this is.” I can’t risk that.
“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head. “Why would you even want her after what she did? After what she said?”
“What she said?” I key in on the word. “When?”
“I heard her, Daddy.” Fury fires her eyes, so much like Yasmen’s. Her lips thin with youthful disdain. “In Henry’s room she asked for the divorce. She said she couldn’t do it anymore. You begged her not to do it, but she did. She did all of this to us.”
Tears streak her face and rage mottles her clear complexion, pinkening the tip of her nose and tightening her eyes at the corners.
“She doesn’t deserve you! It’s all her fault! Everything is her fault.”
A gasp from the kitchen door draws our attention. Yasmen stands there, devastation all over her face.
Chapter Forty
Yasmen
It’s all her fault.
Every demon I’ve been trying to exorcize screams at me in the voice of my daughter. I’m horrified that she overheard me in one of my weakest moments on one of my worst days. What’s really the use of forgiving myself if the people I love most never will? But looking at my daughter, her face contorted by rage and hurt, I recognize her anger laid out like a rug covering her pain. I used to do that, too, and I know a fight won’t fix that hurt. I want peace for her even more than I want it for myself.
“Deja,” I say, willing my voice not to tremble. “I’m sorry you overheard that. We didn’t intend for you to.”
“No, you wanted everyone to think it was Daddy,” she spits back. “When he still loved you. He wanted to keep our family together. But it was you, Mom.”
“It didn’t matter who initiated it.” Josiah’s words come soft, but firm. “We weren’t working, so we were getting a divorce. That’s all you needed to know.”
“You were protecting her,” she says.
He frowns. “No, I—”
“Yes, he was,” I say, looking at him and letting all the love I still haven’t voiced again flood my eyes. “He didn’t want you to blame me.”
