“Good.” I kicked the door shut behind me and he pushed me up against it. His mouth molded to mine again, and I heard the thunk of the deadbolt sliding into place as he locked the door. “Take me upstairs,” I whispered between kisses. “To your bedroom.”
Cary pulled back and took a breath. He looked me in the eyes again, and all his pain and regret and relief was all over his beautiful face. The circles under his eyes spoke volumes. “I thought you were here to give me shit,” he said quietly. “You have every right to.”
“I know. But it’s different standing here… looking in your eyes.”
His expression softened, and I realized we were clinging to each other, his hands gripping my arms and mine gripping his. He felt it, too. We were holding onto each other like we’d been cast out to sea, together, clinging to our last life preserver.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Taylor,” he said, and my heart broke for him.
“I know.”
Then he took my hand and without another word, he led me upstairs to his bedroom. He switched on a lamp by the bed and turned to face me. We stood a few feet apart now, and neither of us made another move.
I looked carefully around.
“You know, I came up here, once,” I confessed. “Not long before you broke up with me. I wanted to see what was up here. I thought maybe I’d see something that explained to me who you were, or why you were the way you were.” I met his eyes again. “I didn’t find anything. It’s just a room.”
He didn’t say anything.
“It’s a nice room. Why don’t you use it?”
“I don’t know.” He took a breath and looked around. He shook his head a little. “There was a time… I could barely leave the studio downstairs. I guess I just got used to it. Even once I was venturing out more, into the yard, using the pool, telling myself I was okay… I never got back into the habit of coming up here or using the dining room, the living room. I just kept living in the studio.”
“You felt safe there,” I ventured.
“Yeah. I felt safe.”
“Because you make music there?”
“I guess so. I had control there.”
Yeah. That made sense.
I never really thought of it that way, but now… it became clear.
He was a master at music. The studio was filled with things he’d mastered. Musical instruments. The sound board in the control room.
Maybe anything beyond that space was uncharted territory. Even his own bedroom.
“You used to bring women up here?”
He hesitated, and I knew he was afraid of saying anything to make things worse. But it was just a simple question about his past, and it wasn’t a crime to have had a life before he met me. I’d never held that against him. I just wanted to know.
“Yeah,” he said.
I considered that. I was getting warm in my puffer jacket, so I slipped it off and set it on a chair. “I always wondered why you didn’t bring me up here.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and I could read his remorse all over him. “It wasn’t personal.”
“I actually thought you didn’t want me enough. That you pushed me away because you didn’t want me. But then I remembered how you told me you loved me. And I believed you.”
“It was the truth,” he said, his voice scratching.
I wandered over and stood in front of him, looking deep in his eyes. “Is it still the truth?”
“Yes.”
I held his gaze for a long moment, just letting that sink in. I could feel the truth of it warming my bones.
Then I leaned in, slowly, and brushed my lips to his. He kissed me back, just as slowly. We kissed and kissed, our lips brushing over one another’s as the heat rose between us and our bodies met.
“You make me feel like I’m whole,” he breathed, pressing his forehead to mine. His whole body was pressed to mine now. “Like I’m whole again.”
“You are whole, Cary.”
“I need you, though.”
“I need you, too.”
Then our lips collided and we didn’t speak again.
We undressed each other with a gentle, hurried desperation. Once we were naked, he laid me on the bed. He kissed me, slowly, all over my body until I was more than ready to take him. I was hungry, aching, drowning in my desire.
My cries as he swept his tongue over my pussy sounded like music