Skin Like Dawn (4 page)

“Tallie…” 

“Don’t. Just don’t.  I fucking love you, Brandon Greene.  And I’m your wife.  I’m your fucking wife.” 

“Natalie…” 

“Don’t…” And she kissed him.  Hard, long, deep.  

“Don’t,” she repeated.  “Just make love to me again…please…always make love to me…” 

“SAY SOMETHING, BRANDON,” Natalie pressed.  

Her husband was looking at her, really, really gaping.  It frightened her when his eyes got like that.  

“Brandy…” 

Scotty and Asha were staring at him too.  Waiting.  Breathlessly.  

The summer breeze was perfect.  Their backyard was perfect.  Their marriage was getting there, one step at a time.  And she loved him.  Lord, have mercy, did she love that man.  

Several minutes had passed to no avail, and Natalie plotted a new course of action. 

“Okay, baby,” she replied.  

He was still staring at her, following her every movement as she stood to her feet. 

“I’ll go and fix you another plate,” she offered.  “Scotty, would you mind going inside and grabbing my husband another beer? Make it two.  He’ll need them.” 

Scotty rose from the chair almost robotically, placing a quick hand on his shoulder before disappearing into the house. 

Natalie followed suit, carried Brandon’s half-empty plate back into the kitchen, managing to place it on the counter before her hand trembled to numbness.  

Scotty was still there, stalling, staring blankly into the refrigerator.  

Then he turned to her and muttered, “Really, Natalie…?” 

“Problem, Scotland?” 

“A pretty big one…” 

“Oh…?” 

“On his birthday?” 

“What better time?” 

“Really, Natalie…?” 

She rolled her eyes, muttered, “I can’t do this right now, I have to pee,” and ambled rapidly toward the stairs.  

In a millisecond, as though take a cue from her evasive actions, Brandon David Greene was stomping up the stairs behind her.

She ran a little faster. 

She managed to get into the bathroom and lock the door before he started banging on it ferociously.  

“Mrs. Greene,” he pressed. 

“Not now, Brandon, I’m peeing…” 

“Natalie Greene…” 

“Brandon, go away…” 

“You know I’m not going anywhere…” 

“You should really consider it…”

“We have some things to discuss…come out of the bathroom, right now…” 

But she only planted her ass right there in that spot, looking toward the door, fearful of something that she couldn’t name.  She didn’t know what the hell it was.  

Sure she’d known for a couple of days now – she should have told him sooner.  But they were back, damn it.  Brandy and Tallie.  They were one again.  Love between them was easy again – obviously enough to where they were both careless.  

But she’d just gotten used to be careless with him again.  Free. In love.  

Just a couple of weeks ago, they were in Georgia for a friend’s wedding.  It was outdoors at twilight, and her husband always had a hard time resisting her coral sundress that dipped low in the back.  

She was standing next to Asha with a glass of chardonnay in her clutches, watching him from afar in a gray jacket that she picked out exclusively for this event.  

He stood next to Scotty, speaking pointedly to a couple of girls, but she didn’t feel the least bit threatened by their interaction.  Brandon conversed animatedly to the girl standing directly in front of him, a real pathetic thing who’d almost graze his clothed bicep with the tip of her fingers, then hesitate in the same motion.  

He just had that effect on them – they all fell victim to it one way or the other.  

Her Brandon Greene was just a giant, blue-eyed, beautifully-scented magnet.  

It was a cheaply displayed attempt at flirting at its best, poorly masked.  Everyone who had eyes could see that they belonged together, no matter their physical disparity.  There was an invisible rope that tethered them together for life.  

Even the poor girl who stood before her husband could see it every time he gazed in her direction.  

Natalie Chandler Greene knew without a shadow of a doubt that he loved her.  Painfully.  Irrevocably.  

And damn, did it feel good.  

“Are you going to go over there and get him?” Asha questioned.  

Natalie sighed peaceably, setting her lips against the rim of the stemless wine glass.  

“When I’m ready,” she murmured.  “He’s perfectly fine…” 

“You’re better than me,” Asha muttered, turning her head away slightly. 

Natalie glared at her.  “What’s the rush, Ash?  He’s coming back with me…we’re going to the same hotel tonight…we’re sharing the same bed…we have the same last name…nobody’s coming between that…” 

Asha chuckled.  “I envy your sense of calm…you sure have grown up, Natalie Chandler…” 

“You’re about to see just how much, Asha Castille…” 

Asha perked her head to attention, muttering a “Hmm”, as Natalie sauntered in the boys’ direction.  

Brandon smiled at her as she approached, and she touched Scotty’s arm gingerly. 

“Baby girl,” he acknowledged.  

“Scotland, my darling, would you mind if I borrowed my husband for a few moments?  There are a couple of things that I wanted to discuss with him…” 

Scotty glanced in Brandon’s direction, then back down at her grinning.  “Of course you can, my sweet Tallie, you paid for him after all…”

“Thank you kindly…” 

She looked up toward her Mr. Greene, murmured, “Brandy”, and tugged him by the lapel in the direction of a bevy of willow trees beyond the manicured lawn where the guests enjoyed their libations.  

“Baby,” he called after her.

She walked so far that the sound of the guests was out of earshot.  They were completely alone, beneath dappled, faded sunlight, and she reached for his hand confidently.  

He stopped her ambling and turned her to face him.  His swift movements caused her cheeks to warm with delight.  

There they stood, chest to chest, breathing heavily, gazing at each other.  

“You were jealous,” he whispered.  The sound of the breeze barely covered his voice.  

She gazed into him, smiling sheepishly, cheeks buzzing at the audacity of her own foolishness. 

“No. I wasn’t.” 

“I saw it…I saw it in your eyes.”

“I apologize, Brandon David,” she replied with a sigh.  “I have a hard time watching the only love I’ve ever really known converse so freely with another woman in front of my eyes…” 

“That was a pretty dramatic statement.  Do you feel better, Tal?” 

She reached at his jacket and proceeded to shrug it off of his broad shoulders. 

“I will in a second…” 

“What are you doing?” 

“Nothing,” she muttered, tossing his jacket aside. 

“You’re doing something…” 

She looked up at him.  “Am I, baby?” 

“Am I really the only love you’ve ever known?” 

“More or less…” 

She managed to work his undershirt over his head, leaving him topless and ecstatically confused.  

But when she pressed her lips against his pectoral muscles, he innately flexed and inhaled deeply, slurring her name like a fool while she giggled under her breath.  

“I only want to love you, Brandy,” she whispered, kissing his exposed skin again.  “You’re mine…”

“Yes,” he muttered.  “Yes…I am.” 

“Then let me make love to you…” She coaxed him to kneel with her in a bed of wild grass.  

“Here? Now?” 

She was overwhelmed by it all – the love she had for him, the smell of his proximity, of their heat, the vibration of his groan against her face, the hum of anticipation between her thighs. 

And him.  Damn it, Brandon.  Her Brandon.  Him.  Him.  Him. 

“Yes…I want you. Now.  Let me have it.  Please.” 

With his back to the ground, she straddled him gingerly and took it, claimed it as her own.  

She’d never felt freer.  

Now, here she was, confined in their bathroom by her own person, afraid of him, afraid of what he would think, of what he would say, of how he would look at her.  

His incessant banging on the door irritated her.  

Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Why did he have to love her so fucking much?  Why did he give a damn?  

Shouldn’t he storm out, clear his head, leave her questioning their whole relationship? 

But no, there he was, her fucking husband, sitting on the other side of the door, his baby in her physical possession.  

Why shouldn’t he worry? Have questions? 

“Natalie…” 

She loved the way he said her name.  The sound of his proud, deep voice was always calm, familiar, soothing, desirable.  

But he only voiced her full name when his agitation grew too much for him to bear.  

Frequently she was his Tallie, the one he wrapped his arms around whenever he needed the strong grasp of amity, of her love.  

She didn’t answer, but she pressed her hand to the door, feeling him, yearning for him. 

“Baby…” 

He yearned for her too.  Damn it.  Resisting him was always hard.  

“Open the door, baby,” he began with a tinge of defeat.  “I don’t want to fight with you.  Baby, please.  Just open the door.  You know that I’m not going anywhere.  You know that I love you.  Natalie, please.” 

The craving for him never really went away, no matter how angry she got.  

All too often she fought with herself, plainly hearing the sound of his voice, crumbling beneath it, wanting to tell her conscience to fuck off, leave him high and dry in his charming misery, look the other way. 

But her heart turned the knob for him, and he stood there weakly, leaning against the wall, glaring at her.  

She poked her lip out like an errant child, who could no longer put up the front that they were stronger than their parents’ smarter advances, and she crumbled into tears reaching out to him with uncharacteristic desperation.  

He murmured her name, covering her in his arms, as she sobbed softly into his chest, dampening his shirt with her big tears.  

“I ruined your birthday,” she admitted through violent hiccups.  “I did it.  I’m selfish.  I ruined your birthday.”

He chuckled, but didn’t respond.  He only squeezed her tighter.  

“And you’re laughing at me.  Damn it, Brandy.  I fucked everything up and you’re laughing at me.” 

“No,” he began plainly, pressing his lips into her temple gently.  “I’m laughing because it’s my birthday.  And I’m holding you.  I remember a time where I felt sick.  I felt sick because there were a couple of birthdays that I experienced without you.  There were a couple of years where we didn’t speak at all.  And each birthday I’d think about the first night we met.  And I’d think about how beautiful I thought you were.  And how desperate I was to know you, to get closer to you.  We went an entire two years without communicating with each other, Tallie.  How crazy is that? As close as we were.  All because I thought you didn’t love me.  All because I thought you could do better.  And here we are, on my birthday, and you tell me that you’re having my child.  And, god damnit, baby, I’m terrified.  And you were wrong…you were so wrong to say it in front of Asha and Scotty.  But here we are, completely fucked for an interval…but I’m holding you.  And it’s my birthday.  And you’re mine.  You’re my fucking wife.  We survived an entire year of marriage, baby.  You and me.  This is the best birthday I could ever ask for.” 

She chuckled at the audacity of it, and looked up at him.  “Damn you, Greene…” 

And she kissed him.  

Moments later, in a whirlwind of the longevity of them, they impetuously made love on the bathroom floor for an hour or two.  

When they came downstairs, Scotty was standing in the kitchen with the house phone in his grasp.  

“It’s Helen,” he said plainly.  “And she wants to speak to Brandon…” 

A PLAN

“MS. CHANDLER, WHAT A PLEASANT SURPRISE,” he answered all broad-voiced and arrogant. 

He looked down at Natalie and she only rolled her eyes.  Surely his wife detected his unapologetic, facetious tone.  She started to walk away from him, and he slapped her on the butt a couple of times, chuckling to himself when she squealed from the quick sharp pain. 

“Don’t be smart with me, Boy,” she replied, huffing loudly into the receiver.  “My daughter tells me that it’s your birthday…”

“Your daughter would be correct…”

“How old are you now, Boy?” 

“A very healthy twenty-eight…” 

“And my dear Natalie is only twenty-four…”

“Helen, is this your way of wishing me a ‘Happy Birthday’…?” 

“Well, if you’d give me a chance I would,” she replied.  “Happy Birthday, Brandon Greene…”

“I thank you kindly, Helen…”

“Did Nattie bake you that chocolate cake like I told her to?” 

“Yes, she did,” he replied.  “And it was delicious…” 

Her mother loved him – this had become apparent to him.  Through the thick, arbitrary levels of her bitter derision laid a softer woman, much like Natalie, who, at all costs, resisted every attempt at exhibiting affection toward men. 

Brandon, through his thin veil of frustration, understood, and dealt with it the best he could.  

“Good, good,” she replied.  After a short pause of reflection, she continued with, “she told me you liked chocolate…cake…”

“Yes, I do,” he answered.  He glanced out the bay window and saw Natalie laughing at one of Scotty’s jokes, heaving over Asha’s shoulder when the hilarity became too much.  

“Tallie knows me well.” 

“She better,” the mother snorted.  “You’re the only thing she talks about lately…” 

“Hmph.” 

“Now, for the real reason I’m calling…” 

“I’m all ears, Helen.” 

“Is Natalie near you?” 

“Nope,” he replied.  “She’s outside enjoying my birthday for me.”

“Very well, I’ll make it quick…”

Brandon braced himself for the impending foolish statement that would follow.  In spite of her well-hidden love for him, Helen Chandler’s snarky remarks still stung a little from time to time.