Still (Grip Book 2)(72)

"Flip over," he rasps. "On your knees."

Unhesitatingly, I turn over, placing my elbows on the step above and my  knees below, my body a perfectly fuckable right angle. He doesn't tell  me what he's about to do, and the questions, the wondering adds an  erotic layer of suspense. He runs his cock through my folds over and  over and over, wetting himself with my juices, all the while stretching  me out on a rack of sensual torture. I'm mindless, catching his cadence  and pumping my hips in time with his. His fingers at my nipples and his  lips raining kisses down my back make me whimper. One finger and then  another spear my pussy, varying the rhythm from swift to languid,  surprising my flesh, keeping me on edge as I wait for him to take me  where I'm not sure he'll fit, but I can't make myself care anymore. My  pussy is convulsing around his fingers and I'm reaching behind me to  claw at his neck when I feel the first enormous probe. I tense, but his  hand at my nipple and fingers moving inside me scatter my reservations.

"Relax, baby," he says, even though passion and anticipation tighten his voice. "I got you. Tell me if we need to stop."

I won't stop him. I'm so desperate to be penetrated. I need him  thrusting into me-I can't breathe without it. I'm not sure I can endure  another second of this empty body. I'm a void waiting to be filled, and I  don't care how. Then he pushes forward in excruciatingly slow, slippery  inches. The pressure and the width of him are momentarily unbearable,  and I gasp. He goes still behind me.         

     



 

"Don't stop." I drop my forehead to the step above me.

"Are you sure?" His words singe the delicate skin of my neck.

I just nod my head and bite my lip, trusting him to make it good for me.

And oh God, he does. He slow-slides in deeper, all the while working my  nipples and thrusting into me with his fingers, stoking me like a fire,  tendrils of smoke spiraling from my core and fanning out through my  limbs.

Grip's enraptured grunts and curses in my ear, the rhythm of his body,  at first careful and then frenzied, trigger some ancient need in me, and  my flight-or-fuck instinct kicks in. I push back into him, opening  myself more, spreading my legs, giving him an all-access pass to the  inner sanctum he's been wanting.

"This is so good," he rasps in my ear, one palm at my breast, the other  between my legs. "I want to stay here, fuck your ass all night, but I'm  gonna come."

With every thrust, he abrades nerves I never knew existed, mysteries and  sensations my body tucked away and hid from me, but Grip has found  them. I'm panting, I'm screaming. My body is an outcry, and he spills  his response into me, going rigid behind me, inside of me.

Our harsh, heaving breaths punctuate the quiet as we lay in a sweaty  sprawl on the staircase. Grip eases out and gently turns my body over.  The lip of the stair digs into my spine, but I don't care. He rains  kisses over my shoulders, suckling my breasts, fingers invading my hair  and caressing my scalp.

"Thank you, Bris. God, I've missed you so much. I love you," he whispers  over my lips, sending his tongue in to taste me. "I can't stop touching  you. I thought I might lose . . ."

His voice breaks. He buries his head in my neck, and I feel his tears  mingling with the sweat sheening my body. He reaches up, looking at me  with wet eyes, and brushes away the tears I didn't realize were  streaming over my cheeks, too.

"We made it." He smiles at me, eyes tender. "I told you we could survive anything together."

He never doubted us. When I wasn't sure I could make it, when I couldn't  find my way out of the darkness entombing me, he came for me.

"Don't ever tell me not to save you," I say, tears rolling between my  naked breasts and over the gold that binds our hearts together. "You  saved me, Grip. You came for me."

He looks at me curiously, like it's something he can't believe I'm  surprised by, like he wonders if I'm still figuring it out. He bends to  lick at my tears and lifts the wild hair from my eyes, the look he rests  on me devoted and sure.

"I'll always come for you, Bristol."

He said it after eight years of waiting for me. He said it when he came  to LA after our fight. He's said it in a million ways with and without  words. He says it with his heart, and I have to believe him because when  I was at my lowest and thought all was lost, he found me in hell and  brought me home.





Epilogue





"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -



 –  "Hope" is the thing with feathers , Emily Dickinson





"Why do I let her talk me into this shit?" I mumble, staring at the  instructions I thought were in English, but may as well be Greek.

"Shit!"

I turn horrified eyes on my eighteen-month-old daughter's cherubic face. She's triumphant because she said a word.

A really bad one.

I squat down to the floor where she's playing with the Sesame Street app on her iPad.

"We don't say that word, Nina," I tell her gently, running a hand over  the dark coils of hair springing with life and health. Bristol takes  such pride in finally figuring out how to do our daughter's hair. Jade,  of all people, who wore cornrows to the prom, helped her, Jade and  YouTube-and my mama, and Shon. Apparently, it takes a village to do  Nina's hair.

"Shit!" Nina says again, her delighted eyes startlingly silver against the copper of her skin.

"No, baby." My panic rises. The kid can't say "dog," but manages to say "shit" twice in ten seconds. "Bad word."

"Shit!"

"Dammit," I say under my breath. "Bristol's gonna kill me."

"Dammit," Nina parrots absently, her attention already back on Sesame Street.

This is bad. I'm devising how to make this not my fault when my cell  phone rings. Splitting a look between the directions I won't understand  without Rosetta Stone and the toddler I'm corrupting, I glance at the  screen.

"Mrs. O'Malley, hi." Pleased to hear from her, I slide my back down the  newly painted wall to sit on the floor. "Happy belated birthday. I hope  you got the flowers we sent."         

     



 

"Yes." The one word comes over the line faintly but carries her distress. "I . . . thank you. It was sweet."

"Is everything okay?" I frown, wondering what could have the usually upbeat owner of our place in New York upset.

"No, I . . ." Her voice collapses, and her pain reaches across the miles. "He's gone, Marlon. Oh, God. Patrick's gone."

For long seconds, her tears, the sound of her grief, shreds me. I'm at a  loss, searching for the right words to say, but if Bristol goes first,  there won't be any right words. The whole world will be inadequate if I  lose her. I won't insult Mrs. O'Malley with my platitudes. I respect her  devastation, letting her weep for a few seconds until she can speak  again.

"It was peaceful," she finally says, her voice still not strong, but clearer. "I knew it would happen soon, but I wasn't ready."

How can you ever be ready to lose the love of your life? The question,  even theoretically, accelerates my breath and pricks my heart in  sympathy for her and in resignation that one day, we'll all taste this  pain. Death is the most inevitable thing in this life.

"It was the strangest thing," she continues, fine with me not speaking. "I went to visit him last week, and he said my name."

A fresh bout of tears floods the line before she continues.

"He said my name in that way only he ever said it." Her voice sounds  wistful, younger even. "Esther. That was it, but he looked right in my  eyes and he knew me, Marlon. I know he did. It was really our last  moment together. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"Mrs. O'Malley," I finally say. "I'm so sorry. I . . . is there anything we can do?"

For the space of a heartbeat, she's silent, and then her voice comes strong, like I'm used to hearing it.

"Yes. Yes, there is," she says. "Keep sending me pictures of that  beautiful little girl. We never had children, you know, and . . ." Her  words fade into a trail of memories, a path of regrets.

"Of course," I reply immediately. "We'll bring her to see you when we're back in New York."

"Yes, do that." She pauses before saying more. "And the apartment is yours if you want it."

Even as my heart contracts for her loss, I can't deny my excitement.  Bristol and I have leased that apartment for years, hoping one day it  would be ours. We've made love under the vivid city skyline in that  greenhouse, and Bristol made her first pot of edible collard greens  there.

It's where I proposed and where Nina was conceived.

"I . . . yes. We want it, of course."

"I'll send all the paperwork to your firm."

"Sounds great. They'll take care of it."

"And one more thing, Marlon."