If Only (39 page)

Joe approaches me. My
insides feel hot and I’m throbbing viciously between my legs. I remain
motionless, waiting, looking up at him. He brings his finger tips to my cheek,
barely touching it, and slowly moves his soft lips to mine, pressing lightly
against them. It’s pure magic. My skin prickles all over, the sensation a
shimmer. He lingers for a moment and then he pecks the tip of my nose. “I’ve
wanted to do that all day,” he whispers.

When his mouth returns to
mine, we fall into something profound and slow, something laced with a mix of
distant familiarity and new discovery. A moan rises up from my chest, into my
throat, escaping into our kiss. Taking me by the waist, Joe lifts me and I wrap
my arms and legs around him, enveloping his body with mine. Deeply stroking
tongues, sensual swirls, we’re kissing like we have an eternity to do it. I
thrill in the feeling as I thread my fingers into his soft hair. Mingled with
the scent of his cologne is the smell of him, I feel drunk on it.

I’m vaguely aware of him
walking us to my big slouchy couch. Without breaking our connection, he lowers
me onto it and lies on top of me. For a long time we do little more than kiss,
occasionally teasing each other’s lips with playful grips of teeth and lightly
tracing tongues. With our hands, we mutually stroke each other outside of our
clothes and across exposed flesh. 

Joe eases his mouth away
from mine and rises to kneel between my thighs. “Cherries,” he says, quietly.

“What?”

“You smell of cherries.”
He’s looking at me all over and unrushed. I lay watching him as he does.

He starts to lift my too
small T-shirt, and I assist by wriggling out of it. Next he peels down my
panties and takes them off. The way his gaze is exploring my nakedness, it
feels like he’s making love to me with his eyes. Slowly, his finger tips travel
down the center of my body. “You’re perfect,” he whispers, as though he’s
seeing me for the first time.

I need him close to me, his
flesh against mine. “Take your clothes off, Joe.” I want to watch him
do
it. 

He removes his T-shirt,
revealing his torso with one swift movement. I re-familiarize myself with the
angels that cover his right arm, the curves and spikes of his tribal tattoo
down the left side and over his pec, and finally the bar through his right
nipple. I watch his hands as he unbuckles his belt, opens his button and lowers
the zipper. Sitting sideways to me, still between my legs, he takes off his
jeans and underwear.

Back on his knees, he lowers
himself down toward me, placing his hot mouth over my breast. The heat makes me
gasp, and before I resume normal breathing, he sucks my nipple between his
teeth, sending sensations all the way down to my slick folds. My throbbing
intensifies further. “I feel like I’m going to explode,” I just about manage to
say, arching unavoidably.

“You’re in trouble tonight
if you feel like that already,” he says, against my skin.

Kisses move down, unrushed
and torturously so, soft lips pressing and trailing tip of tongue; between my
breasts, across my lower ribs, swirling in my navel and so, so slowly across my
lower tummy. He stops between my thighs, making me exhale hard. I’ve been
holding my breath and I didn’t even know it. “Joe, I don’t think I can stand
this,” I sob, biting down desperately on my bottom lip, to the point it hurts,
and gripping the couch tightly within my fists.

Kindly, he doesn’t delay.
With his determined caress on my clit, intense pleasure surges right to my
center, exploding on impact, making my entire body shudder and I scream out. I
throw my hands over my face, and warm tears roll from my eyes. This is all so
beautifully devastating, and my tears are nothing but pure bliss and love.

Joe moves up over me and
guides my hands away. He gently wipes away the wetness on my face, with his
thumbs, at the same time murmuring sweet words. He slides his arms under me to
lift me.

Carrying me, Joe takes me to
my bedroom and lays me down on my bed. Picking up my book, he dismissively
drops it on my nightstand. I can’t help laughing at that. We start kissing, my
lips feel a little tender, but I don’t care. As he lowers himself onto me, the
feel of his solid cock against me re-ignites my desire. I grasp his hips and
tilt my pelvis, pressing against him. “I need you, Joe,” I plead into his
mouth. My eyelids snap open. “Shit!”

“What?” he asks.

“I don’t have condoms.”

I have no protection.

I’m not impressed.

Joe laughs. It’s a slightly frustrated
laugh of disbelief, but he’s amused nonetheless. “You stay right here and do
not move, not even an inch.” He gets up off me.

His word is final.

I do not move.

Not much, anyway.

Once he leaves, I text Sue
telling her;
Joe was here. He’s coming back.
xxx

Within seconds my cell phone
chimes and the name ‘Su,’ along with a cool picture of the two of us, flashes
up on the touch screen.

“Joe’s with you? Are you
serious?” she whispers, like we’re sharing a secret.

“Yeah,” I whisper,
unintentionally, “he just showed up after we spoke on the phone. We were
getting it on, but I have no condoms. I’ve been all over the place with my pill
the past few days, so they’re essential.”

“You were
... Oh. My.
Gosh. You call me tomorrow. Shit, I can’t believe this. No, I totally can
believe this. You call me. This is so cool. We can still stick to our pact and
have babies at the same time.”

“Um ... I don’t really know
about that, just yet.” I chuckle.

“No not now, but soon. I’ll
wait for you.” We both giggle and hang up. I know she’s not serious; we were
eleven when we made that pact. And she’s already trying.

I lie back with a grin
that’s probably too large and without a doubt too smug.

My wait isn’t long. When Joe
returns, he sits at the edge of the bed, naked once again, putting on a condom.
I admire the tattoo on his back. The nude, embracing couple in the forest tells
me the same thing as always. Love, comfort and companionship – three things I
want to give to Joe with my entire being, for as long as I exist. He waits
while I trace the design with my finger tips, and then he turns to face me.

I lie back and reach my arms
out to him, welcoming him. I part my legs wider as he lowers down onto me. “I
so badly need you inside me, Joe,” I whisper.

“Just hearing you say that
makes me want to come,” he says, looking into my eyes, guiding the tip of his
dick to my eager entrance. 

“You’re in trouble tonight
if you feel like that already,” I say, arching a single brow, telling him the
very words he told me.

“I was in trouble the moment
you opened that damn door.”

Together, we watch as he
slowly enters me. Thrusts deliberate, our gazes remain focused down on our
joining; his thick,
veiny
shaft pressing into me,
filling me, and exiting wet with my arousal. “I may as well be losing my
virginity again,” he says, his voice low. “It’s like going from years of
fucking my fist to finally getting to feel the real tight, wet warmth of a
woman, the unknown extremes of the pleasure that is sex. Nothing comes close to
being inside you.”

Nothing comes close to
having
him
inside me. We were made for each other, in every way.

I wrap my legs around his
waist. Slipping his hands under my butt, Joe draws our pelvises together,
grinding into me unrushed and with purpose. Almost immediately, the sensations
start to build, waves of tingling heat gathering in my clit, and Joe looks at
my face the whole time. I fight to keep my eyes open, to stay with him. I don’t
want to close them and miss a second of the man I’ve been away from for too
long. As I go over, our locked stares remain.

I breathe his name as my
orgasm passes.

He starts to thrust quicker.
Our faces now nose to nose, I run fingers into his hair, anchoring him there.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words coming straight from my heart. “I’m so sorry
I left.”

He stills. “You have nothing
to be sorry for.”

“I love you, Joe. I can’t be
without you.” 

“You don’t have to be. I
love you, too. All that matters now is from here on.” He claims my mouth and
starts moving again.

I close my eyes and get lost
in the feel of him, the smell of him, and the presence of him.

Joe.

We’re lying on our sides, facing-to-face, so close I
can feel the heat radiating from Callie’s skin, without us even touching. I can
see she’s thinking. As I intend on asking her what it is, she says, “Why does
the thought of being away from you still hurt when you’re right here?” The
helpless sound of her voice hit me harder than her words. The pain I caused her
kills me, even now.

I cup her face between my
hands. “I am so sorry I hurt you.”

“I never blamed you, Joe,
not once. You don’t owe me an apology. I just know that I have to be with you.
That’s why I came back.” Shit, she just said exactly what I wanted to hear. I
wanted to be the reason for her being here.

Repositioning myself on my
back, I bring Callie with me, her cheek lain on my chest and her small body
snug at me side. “What happened? Why didn’t you come home sooner?”

“I didn’t plan on staying so
long. My intention, when I got there, was to get in touch after your baby
arrived, but it was harder than I thought it would be. I did want to and I
tried, but I couldn’t make the call.

“Unexpectedly, I started
getting photography work. It was from word of mouth to start with, and the
demand just grew. I took what I could get just to keep me from thinking, to
keep me busy. The longer I was away, the harder it got to see a way back. I
can’t quite explain it, I felt kind of stuck. I wasn’t sure where I’d fit into
your new life, or how I’d feel about the child. So I just carried on and
stayed.

“After the first year I
called Dane. I thought speaking to him would help me get clear on what I should
do and whether I was ready to call you … he told me about you and Emily.”

Fuck! I close my eyes,
exhaling hard. I had no idea about that call.

“I didn’t feel I had any
choice but to stay and move on, it was out of my hands. I made Dane promise not
to tell you we spoke. He didn’t like it at all, but we both knew it was
necessary for the sake of your son having his mom and dad together.”

This is worse than when I
found out she was living with some other fucking guy, something that wouldn’t
have happened if I didn’t get with Emily.

I open my eyes. “I’d have
waited. Damn it, I would have. If I knew you were coming back, I’d have waited
no matter how long you needed. When I heard about you starting a business and
you hadn’t made contact, I thought I’d been lying to myself that you’d return.
Those remaining months of the pregnancy, I just went through the motions, doing
and saying all the things I thought I should, not really feeling anything. The
whole time it was you on my mind.

“On the day Jack was born, I
sat outside Emily’s hospital room with my mom. I knew the second I entered, and
saw him for the first time, my life would never be the same again. Part of me
didn’t want to take that step. I wanted to walk out of the hospital and erase
the whole damn mess. I don’t know for certain what I would’ve done if my mom
wasn’t there with me, maybe I would’ve walked out.

“Then when I did go in,
Emily handed him straight to me. He felt so tiny and vulnerable. He looked so
innocent. None of us asked for what happened, but he was the only one who
didn’t get a say in anything. I fell in love with my son right then and there,
and doing right by him became the most important thing to me. I still held on
to the hope that you were coming back, and that you’d be able to accept him,
but he, in those first few moments, opened me up to a whole new world and
feelings I can’t even describe.

“Time went on, and Jack was
growing fast and developing a character. It was the most amazing time of my
life, being a dad and an uncle. At the same time, I was going crazy because you
were still gone and you hadn’t made contact. Gradually, I started to accept
that you’d made your choice.

“I was getting on well with
Emily, so much better than I’d expected. I watched her raising Jack alongside
me and, given the circumstances, I couldn’t have asked for a better mom for
him. Something between us started to change. Not love, but a fondness that
hadn’t been there at the start, or even right after Jack was born. I felt I
owed it to him to try with her. We were good for the most part, but ultimately
it didn’t feel totally right. I was kind of holding back, we both knew it. I
still loved you, and deep down it didn’t feel like we were completely done. All
those years couldn’t have been for nothing. If I didn’t believe that, or if
we’d had proper closure, I probably could’ve made it work with Emily. We only
lasted eight months.”

“Eight months?”

“You didn’t know that. Would
you have come back sooner if you had?”