Page 59 of Carver
“I think so.”
“We’re fucked then.” Her sister’s memory is legendary.
“Well…” She tries to force a smile. “She knows what she’s doing. Ginny’s a farm girl through and through. She wants to build a house on my parents’ land and keep farming and doing the markets with my mom. Grave is a patched in member of this club, as you said. That means that he has to be in Hart.”
“Dravin said that if someone wants out, they’re free to leave. It’s not the kind of club where once you patch in, they go looking for you if you want out and then you disappear. It’s not a prison sentence or a life sentence. Each person is part of the club and part of the family by choice.”
I hate when Bronte frowns, especially the way she’s doing now. It’s tinged with guilt, and I have no idea what or. She’s done nothing wrong. She takes on so much. She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it. Her eyes track to the table.
“I’ve never had champagne before. We could try it.”
I don’t know who gave us the bottle. Most of the gifts didn’t have a tag at all. It was an odd gift, but it was clearly meant for us, since it was in the pile and wrapped very nicely in a gold bag.
“Not that I think drinking solves any problems and I definitely am not going to get drunk just because we don’t have Ellie with us tonight. I…” Bronte bows her head, a crimson stain spreading from the lace over her collarbones, all the way up her neck. “I’ve had this fantasy about spilling something all over you and licking it off. That’s how I’d like to try the champagne.”
“Look at me, Bronte.”
Her eyes flick up, but uncertainty flickers there. Does she think that I’ll shut her down, this woman who deserves the entire world. “You don’t have to be ashamed to tell me what you’d like to try.”
“What if you think it’s weird?”
“I can think it’s weird and still want to do it with you because you want it.”
You’d think I just gift wrapped the universe and handed it to her, the way she smiles. She hops off the counter and grabs the gold gift bag with the gold foil wrapped bottle. We peeled the wrapping back just enough to see what it was, but the shape of the package definitely gives it away.
“You know, it’s kind of…wildthat we’ve never had sex in a bed,” she says breathlessly. “Most people are all adventurous and want to do it in every other place, but for us, we never have. That’s our adventure.”
“It’s a little bit terrifying.”
“Maybe a little bit weird, but it’s also so us and I love us.” She removes the bottle from the bag and carefully peels the wrap away. “It’s been the great blessing of my life to have this time with you. I didn’t want to do anything until you were ready. Waking up with you beside me has been one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I’ll never take that for granted.”
We haven’t had sex yet at least in one sense. We’ve done everything else, making each other come, exploring our bodies and testing boundaries, discovering things we never knew. It’s been fun and it’s been painful—but not the bad kind of pain. Mostly. I can deal with walking around with swollen balls and an almost permanent hard-on. My dick might have the imprint of various zippers embedded in it, but waiting until we were both ready is worth it.
“I am. Ready.” I watch her peel the rest of the wrap away. She studies the bottle for a second, then twists the wire around the cork to remove it. “Not to resume something. Not to start something. We can’t just pick up where we left off, and we’ll never be starting over.”
She uncorks the bottle. The pop of it echoes loudly in the kitchen, as if to underscore my words.
Everything about this feels like the first time. All our firsts. The first time I was invited over to her house. First time she ever asked me to touch her. The first kiss, the first time she touched me back, the first time we did all of it. She took my breath away. Every single time. Not just my breath, but my heart, my hurt, my cells. She changed me. I’m still worried about doing this right. Making it romantic, and everything she wants it to be. She deserves all of that, and I’ve always fallen so short on giving it to her.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” I ask when she pauses with the bottle in hand. She doesn’t drink or sip and she doesn’t offer it to me either. “To the bed?”
“If we end up there, fair enough. If not, I’m not going to complain.”
“What would you like me to do?” I know what I’d like, but this is about Bronte. It’s her fantasy. This is her night. Just like the night I asked her to touch herself for me, I wanted it to be all about her body, her feelings, her wants, her desires, her emotions, and her pleasure.
“Just kiss me, and then…”
“And then?”
“We’ll see where it goes.”
“The only place I’d like it to go is that you know how beautiful you are. I want that you for you every single day.”
She steps into me and sets her hand over my beating heart. It’s slamming in my chest, so eager to break free and be hers.Her partner, her lover, her friend. The one she can turn to when she can’t go anywhere else.
“I love you.” My eyes sting with unshed tears and Bronte responds to the words with a sheen of moisture gathering in her own eyes. She blinks and the tears spill down her cheeks.
“I love you, Dominic. Always.”
