June, age 21
The moment the hotel room door shuts, Brant spins me around until my back is pressed up against it. A squeaky gasp falls out of me. His one hand is planted on the door, right beside my head, while the other trails up my body, from my thigh, to my hip, skimming over my breast, and settling along the expanse of my neck. He tugs at my bottom lip with his thumb, his eyes fixed on my mouth.
I thrust my pelvis forward, my body arcing into his.
“June…” He whispers my name on a ragged breath, his thumb sinking between my lips, then forcing my jaw open by the teeth. “I’ve missed your fucking mouth.”
All I can do is whimper as I grind against him, the ache between my legs pulsing and needy.
“I’ve missed the way you say my name, and the way you laugh,” he says, leaning in to pepper kisses along the side of my throat, then up my jawline, until his mouth is hovering a centimeter from mine. “I’ve missed the way your lips taste, especially when you’re wearing that gloss that tastes like cherry pie. I’ve missed the sounds you make when you come.”
He draws his thumb from my mouth, and before the desperate begging can spill out of me, he kisses me. My lips are his again, ever since we stood in that hallway at the Prom, and I opened a doorway to inevitable. A prelude to meant to be.
Fate, disguised in sinful wrapping paper.
But it doesn’t feel wrong anymore. His hands on my body don’t feel criminal, and his lips on mine don’t feel like a fluke.
Brant seems to melt, deflate, as he presses a soft kiss to my bottom lip, just lingering for a moment, as if he’s accepting the moment—this inevitable, meant to be, fateful moment. A moment that confirms that we were never wrong. Our love story was never wrong.
We were simply waiting for the timing to be right.
He sighs against my mouth, and it sounds like longing, like pure relief, then he tugs my bottom lip between his teeth with a groan. And when he dives back in for another taste, his hands grip my cheeks in a possessive, desperate clutch, and our mouths both open at the same time, tongues colliding. I shiver at the contact. His tongue slides over mine as we moan together, and I suck on it, reveling in the way his hips jerk against me, his erection stabbing my lower belly.
He pulls back to grip the edge of my t-shirt and yank it up over my head, until my bra-covered breasts become the new prize for his tongue. The robin’s egg blue lace is tugged down in one quick motion, as if taking the five seconds to unhook the clasp would be an eternity.
Brant sucks on my nipple as my whole body arches upward, seeking his hot tongue, and my hands hold the back of his head to my chest. As he nicks me with his teeth, one of his hands drops to his belt buckle, and he clumsily begins to unfasten it.
“I need you,” he murmurs against my cleavage, laving his tongue upward until he’s decorating my throat in future hickeys. “I need you now.”
“Take me,” I say, my hands shaking as I reach for the buttons on his shirt.
With his belt hanging loose around his hips, he takes over for me, hastily pulling apart each button, his eyes blazing into mine. The moment the last button is unhitched, I push the dress shirt off his shoulders and graze my palms over his hard chest.
He’s brawnier, more filled out. Rippled planks of muscle flex and twitch beneath my touch as my hands slide down his torso, landing at the button of his pants.
“There’s something I need to know,” he breathes out, flipping me around until my breasts are pressed against the hotel room door. I squeak in surprise as his mouth draws close to my ear and his strained breaths mingle with the sound of his zipper sliding down. “Tell me how many other men have been inside of you. I need to know, even if it kills me.”
Reaching around my body, Brant unhooks my jeans and shoves them off my hips, my underwear following. Two fingers slip inside me, hard and sudden, causing us both to moan. I’m so wet, the slippery sounds echo all around us, nearly wiping his question from my mind.
“How many, June?”
He picks up speed, fucking me hard with his fingers and nudging his erection between the back of my thighs. I feel like I might come, and it’s only been ten seconds. “Only you,” I manage to pant out. “No one else.”
He stills for a moment, slowing down. A long breath hits my ear, and his forehead falls to my shoulder briefly, like he’s trying to process my response. He’s savoring it.
Then he spins me back around, grabs me by the thighs, and hoists me up into his arms. I’m carried to the bed and dropped onto the mattress, but before I can situate myself, Brant is tugging my pants and underwear off my ankles and flipping me back over onto my stomach.
He climbs over me, covering me with his broad frame, his chest flush against my back. Taking me by the wrists, he extends my arms over my head, clasping them together with one hand as he uses the other to position his cock between my slick thighs.
Yes.
I need this.
I need him.
It’s been so long.
He doesn’t make me wait. Brant shoves into me from behind with a groan, and I cry out, squirming beneath him as his opposite hand glides up my body until he’s fisting my hair. He tugs my head to the side and captures my mouth over my shoulder in a sloppy, lust-laced kiss.
“Oh, God…” I whimper as his hips start bucking. Our tongues tangle wildly and without direction, as if we picked up a guitar and just started playing, unskilled and unprepared, yet knowing it will still make music.
With fingers knotted in my hair, his forehead crashes to mine, the look in his eyes pure possession. Primal heat. “No one else,” he rasps, mimicking my words. “Only you.”
I think he’s telling me he hasn’t been with anyone else either, but I’m too drunk on the feel of his cock sliding in and out of me to question it. I cry out with each thrust. He’s hitting such a delicious spot from this angle.
But as the tingles swell and crest, he slows to a stop. He pulls out and moves off of me. “Come here.”
Lifting up, my hair is in disarray, curtaining my eyes, and my cheeks feel hot and flushed. Brant scoots backward until he’s backed up to the far wall. My gaze settles on his rock-hard erection as he strokes it, waiting for me to shake off my haze and climb back on.
I move forward on my knees, unclasping my bra as I join him. The moment I’m within reach, Brant grabs me and pulls me onto his lap so I’m straddling him, my hands planting on his shoulders for steadiness. His cock teases me, and I rock against it.
His eyes flutter closed. “It’s always so urgent between us,” he breathes out, hissing through his teeth as my hand reaches between us to grip his cock. “So hard, so dirty. I always fuck you like it’s going to be the last time I’m ever going to fuck you.”
“Maybe I like it a little dirty,” I confess, rubbing the pad of my thumb over his wet tip. “It’s hot. You make me come so hard.”
He groans, then snatches me by the hips and lifts me up, until I’m level with the head of his cock. Then he pistons into me and I sink down, throwing my head back with a sharp cry.
Brant wraps his arms around my back and tugs me close, his face buried between my breasts. His nose tickles the chain of my necklace as he murmurs, “I want to go slow. Adore you. Fuck you for hours, like we have all the time in the world because we do…” I grip his hair, his tongue dipping out to taste me. “We do, Junebug.”
“I missed you,” I whimper. “I missed you so much.”
“I’m done missing you. I’m done sleeping alone. I’m done wishing for a future with you when you’re still here.” His head falls back against the wall as I ride him, swiveling my hips and leaning forward, our lips touching. “I…” He thrusts up. “Am…” He thrusts again. “Done.”
I kiss him hard, frenzied, full of passion and need, holding his face between my hands as I bounce in his lap, emotion fusing with lust. A potent combination. When I pull back, I ask, “You… you haven’t been with anyone else? In two years?”
“No.”
“But you’re…”
“What? A man?” He peppers kisses down my jaw and nibbles my neck, his fingers raking through my hair as our bodies slap and grind together. “And men have needs?”
I nod, tilting my head to the side to give him better access.
“I’m your man, June. And the only thing I’ve ever needed is you.” Kissing and biting his way up the side of my throat, he nips my earlobe and says, “Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he loves.”
I want to cry.
Cupping his face between my hands, I move his head back until we’re eye to eye. His pupils dilate, the browns and golds and greens of his irises swirling with faithful devotion. “I love you, Brant. I love you… over the rainbow and back again.”
A smile paints his lips as he moves in for a kiss. “I love you, Junebug. More than you’ll ever know.”
We go slow.
We go hard.
We go fast, brutal, sweet, and kind.
We make love for hours, savoring, cherishing, appreciating, until we’re sore, bruised, and satiated. We come. We cry.
We heal.
He breaks me apart and puts me back together again.
And then we fall asleep, tangled and spent, knowing that for the very first time, we don’t need to fear what comes next.
Dawn spills in between the hotel curtains, spotlighting the man sprawled beside me. He’s on his back with a knee drawn up, head tilted slightly toward me. His bottom half is only partially covered by a rumpled bedsheet, while one arm is draped over his middle and the other is propped above his head. The epitome of sexy bedhead draws my hand to his mop of hair, my fingertips dancing through the soft strands. He doesn’t even stir as I gaze down at him, coiling a curl around my index finger.
He looks so peaceful, so innocent.
For a moment, he’s just a boy again. He’s the boy who stole my heart before I was old enough to even consider giving it to anyone else. With floppy bangs, knee-weakening dimples, and a stalwart soul, he’s fighting off invisible monsters in our backyard, tucking me into bed with a lullaby, and reading me storybooks beneath our childhood treehouse.
In a lot of ways, he’ll always be that boy.
But he’s also a man—he’s the man who fought for my dreams, who never stopped waiting for me, and who made love to me all night long, cherishing every single piece of me.
I loved the boy, and I’m in love with the man.
Brant Elliott lays claim to all of my most precious memories of the past, and I know, without a doubt, he’ll claim my future as well.
Finally stirring beside me, Brant’s eyes flutter open as he stretches, a smile stealing his yawn when he registers my presence.
I continue to play with his hair, sliding in closer. “Good morning, handsome.”
“Morning.” The smile grows brighter as he wraps his arms around me and tugs me against his bare frame. “How do you still smell like lilacs after last night? You should smell like sweat and sex, and…” Nuzzling my hair, he inhales deeply. “Very bad things.”
I clasp his face and force his eyes on me. “There was nothing bad about last night,” I say, crinkling my nose.
“Fine,” he grins. “Naughty things. Dirty things.” Two fingers trail down my middle, landing at the juncture between my thighs. “Things that are making you blush right now.”
My breathing unsteadies. “It’s warm in here. It’s August.”
“I recognize that color in your cheeks, Junebug…” he rasps near my ear, curling his fingers inside of me. “That’s all me.”
I arch my spine with a little whimper, grinding against his hand. “We—we should probably talk, don’t you think?” He pumps in and out of me, slow at first. Languidly delicious. “Discuss things?”
Brant’s right leg wraps around both of mine, trapping me to him as his fingers continue to ravage me. He buries his face into the crook of my neck, sweeping my hair back until he’s nibbling down my throat and collarbone. “Ask me anything.”
His fingers quicken their pace. “Why… why are you really in New York?”
“You.” He nicks my shoulder with his teeth.
“Do Mom and Dad know?”
“Yes.”
I feel his erection pressing into my abdomen as he continues to finger me, his own breaths unraveling. A gasp laces my words. “A-Are they okay with that?”
“Tentatively.”
My hips meet his thrusting fingers as I feel the pressure building. “Only one-word answers?”
“It’s really hard to string sentences together when you’re about to come on my fingers, June.”
The logical part of my brain says to put all orgasms on hold until we’ve had a proper discussion, but my body overturns rational thought, so I continue to ride his hand until I shatter blissfully, wildly, and collapse against his chest as two strong arms hold me as I come down.
Brant’s lips tickle my ear while he peppers me with kisses, and I can feel him smiling. My chest deflates with a long, satisfied breath. “Where were we?” I murmur.
“I’m not sure where you were, but I was right here… wishing I could be wherever you were.” When he pulls back, a flash of teeth lights up his face.
It takes my breath away.
I nearly choke because I can’t even remember the last time I saw Brant smile like this. Untethered from grief, and perfectly present.
I return his smile with my own as joyous tears shimmer back at him, knowing it’s been a long time since I’ve smiled like this, too.
It’s been years.
And I’ve been happy, yes—I’ve been happy pursuing a lifelong dream, making new friends, dancing and working; experiencing my first foray into independence.
I’ve been happy.
But I haven’t been truly happy… there has always been a hole. An absence.
True happiness is a puzzle. It’s a jigsaw puzzle we’re all carefully putting together, searching for those pieces that link and connect—that allow us to move on to the next part of the puzzle. Some puzzles remain incomplete, and I think that’s because many people don’t know what makes them truly happy. Or… they’re unwilling to take the time to find those other missing pieces first. They just want to squeeze the last piece into a space it won’t fit.
Those other pieces are integral, though.
They are the stepping stones for the finished puzzle.
And as I lie here beside the man I love, watching his organic, soul-deep smile put light back into his eyes, I’m thankful we both took the time to find those pieces.
I reach out and graze the pads of my fingertips down his stubbled jaw, sighing with gratitude. “You’re smiling.”
“I am,” he confirms.
“You look truly happy.”
“I am.”
Licking my lips, I wonder, “Are Mom and Dad happy, too? About us?”
A little wrinkle mars his brow as his eyes glitter gold and green. “I think they’re done being unhappy.” His knuckles graze along my cheekbone as he bites his lower lip with consideration. “I think it’s going to be a long, sometimes painful road. I don’t think it will be easy or quick. But… I think they’re ready to move forward. To start healing. I think your dad is ready to make up silly rhymes again, and wear his ridiculous slippers. And maybe he’s not there yet, but he gave me his blessing to move to New York, knowing what that would mean, and…” His eyes slant, gaze skimming over my face. “I think he’ll get there… and we’re all going to feel pretty damn remarkable one day. And when that day comes, every unremarkable minute will have been worth it.”
I sniffle through a wave of tears, nodding my head. “True happiness is worth every sad, unremarkable minute,” I tell him, my smile lingering. “It’s been worth every night sleeping alone, every tear spilled without you here to wipe it away, every rainbow I’ve watched paint the sky, only for it to fade like it was never even there, all while I begged for it to come back. While I ached for one last glimpse.” Pressing a tender kiss to his mouth, I finish, “It’s been worth the wait, just to see you smile like that.”
He smooths back my hair with both hands, pressing his forehead to mine. “I would’ve waited forever, Junebug… but I’m really glad we didn’t have to wait that long.”
“You mean it?” I whisper.
“Of course, I mean it.”
I kiss him again—hard, messy, and painfully beautiful.
Just like us.
Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he loves, for there is nothing he’s not capable of.
Noble to some,
A fool to many.
But to that woman?
He
is
everything.
